Rewards

Although encounters involve risk, they also hold the promise of rewards. Every successful encounter (combat or noncombat) brings experience, measured in experience points (XP). As you adventure, you also earn your pay, treasure, and perhaps rewards of reputation, status, or other intangibles.

Experience is your constant reward. You get this for accomplishing most anything. It's a way to give the campaign a constant motion. As you survive battle after battle, your own abilities improve and you rise to ever greater challenges.

You can get action points as well as a reward for good behavior in playing: helping everyone have fun.

Your wage is a less frequent reward. You get this for fulfilling missions and satisfying clients. You can expect to earn some pay just for embarking on a mission. As you accumulate wealth, you might become interested in building your own orbital platform, mercenary group, or doomsday device.

Stipends, kickbacks, prizes and treasures are a rare reward. You obtain these by your cunning and dumb luck, and serve much the same purpose as your wages, only generally are much greater and more tempting.

You may find even greater rewards. The galaxy is a big place.

Experience Points

Experience points are a measure of your learning and growth. When you complete an encounter or a mission, the DM awards you experience points (XP). The amount of XP depends on the difficulty of the encounter or mission, your level, and how much assistance you had in the completing.

A 1st-level character starts with 0 XP. You accumulate XP from each encounter, mission, and adventure, always adding to your XP total. You never lose XP, and your total never resets to 0. I hear they print your XP total on your tombstone, but they don't have those in the future, so it's a wash.

As you accumulate XP, you gain levels. The amount of XP you need for each level varies. See the Level Advancement Table for all you need to know about level advancement in a stylish table.

Action Points

Your character starts with 1 action point. No more than once per encounter, you can spend an action point to take an extra action (See Combat, Chapter 9).

You may receive action points for various reasons, as small side rewards, but after you take an extended rest, you lose any action points you had accumulated and start over with 1.

Wages

At the beginning, you will not be terribly sought-after as a troubleshooter. Eventually you will be able to take on more dangerous or difficult jobs and earn more pay. Generally, your commander gets some commissioned at the onset of a job, and uses this to cover your expenses. You don't get paid until the completion of a job, and then (usually) only from your commander. Other payment falls under a different heading.

Other Payments

Money can be exchanged for most anything. Sometimes a client will see paying you directly in some way as a means to get a deal on the job. Sometimes employers will have built-in incentives for good work, or pay by-the-head for accomplishments. No matter the reason or source, you might find other sources of income than your regular wages will find their way to you.

Treasures

The galaxy is full of nooks and crannies where unfathomably precious arts or technologies have been lost to disuse, decay, or faded memory and might come bubbling to the planet surface or tinkle their way through fate and into your grubby mitts. What you do with these is up to you, and you may have to have an eye for value in the first place to even recognize a treasure as precious. Maybe you're a collector. Maybe the voices in your head insist you must hoard twine. There's nothing like looking if you want to find something.

Intangible Rewards

Intangible rewards include noble titles, social or government honors, favors, and reputation. Such rewards appear most often as mission accomplishments; recognition for a job well done or a favor given. If you save the cask of Selan Kur the Immortal from being lost in an enemy raid, the Brotherhood of the Khalai will accord you special honor, and most any Protoss would regard you more warmly.

Most of the time, your intangible reward is more work from the same employer, or better work through your commander.

You can't buy anything with intangible rewards, but there are some things money can't buy. Your reputation is of crucial importance to the story.