Elite: Dangerous PvE - Mobius

I'm stuck at 96% Master combat rank for two days because most every NPC above Novice seemed to have fled the Galaxy or destroyed by Thargoids

Seriously. How hard is it to spawn higher ranking NPCs? This has been a known problem since beta.

As if grinding wasn't tedious enough. Anyone else have noticed this?

Yup and the ship that spawn in RES are linked to the problem too. So basically not just combat rank but most profit from bounty hunting in PVE has been brought to a halt too.

i just had my first RES session where everybody was Deadly or Elite.

it took me 3 logout/logins before it happened, they were still only Sidewinder --> Cobra range and the numbers were pitiful, but happen it did.

my progress bar moved up 1% too which was nice. so even killing small ships will eventually get you there.

Moved my progress by 3%, yesterday, mostly in a dream high intensity RES that kept spawning Elite big ships (about a third of them with escorts). It was such a stream of them that at times Victoria and I couldn't keep up and some despawned before we could take care of them. We both made between 2.5 and 3m in that instance.

So it can be even better than in 1.2. You just have to get the right instance (and keep it!).

Was this possibly fixed with 1.3.03? I will have to check out a RES again. Would have been nice to build up a nest egg while RES and CG were broken, but if combat is fixed then that will be my go to again.

I was going to ask about this. I don't think it's been fixed in 1.3.03 yet. Playing around in my eagle taxi the last couple days I've killed over 120 pirates at RES and my progress bar did not move 1%. Most were mostly harmless, with a smattering of other ranks up to master, and I'm at master. So I'm assuming that I have to fight master and above to rank up, and maybe if I logged out and in again I could find a spawn with higher ranked opponents. I'll have to try that.

Worst part, I forgot I had 4 million cr in Eprire bounties and lost them fooling around in my taxi.

I think I'll go back to trading for now, and then go get my Vulture before trying combat for real again.

Yes, Roger, you have to kill ships ranking at your level or above to progress.

It's becoming harder and harder for me to find Elite ships to kill to work on my ranking... is there anything that has been working for others?

Boxcar, I got a spawn today at the high intensity RES at Cleve that was mostly Elite, Dangerous, and Expert ships. But, they were vipers, cobras, eagles, etc. The previous few spawns were rookies.