Honestly a bit painful
Reputation ranks
Ranks only ever go up; points can drop but your rank stays.
About reputation ranksDon't go in E6E expecting E2E2. It's an absolutely different experience, maybe explained by the version gap.
Unlike E2E where you can safely ignore 50% of the magic mods early on and focus on the tech first in order to obtain a mass storage network as soon as possible, E6E forces you (but you don't know that yet, since the questbook does not give any real practical advice on how to grind the materials) to batch craft copious amounts of magic items.
If mods like Eidolon or Ars Nouveau are your thing, maybe the modpack is for you but you won't get away with "a little magic" in this one. I completely gave up after around 30 hours of gameplay when I realized the amount of grind that was still between me and real automation.
I really wanted to like you E6E ;(