Courier Mission - Ranking

[Mechanist]

Greetings Commanders!

I'm currently grinding for the naval ascension missions in the Empire, doing mostly mercenary missions, donations and sometimes courier missions.
I noticed that sometimes when doing a courier mission the faction who wants me to deliver stuff is associated with the Empire but the faction at the destination who receives the stuff is not associated with the Empire.

Does it have any influence in the general progression?
Should I better stick to Empire -> Empire courier missions?

[Loriath]

You are building Rep with the Empire faction. Its a good thing even if the recipient is not Empire faction. You get more if its Empire -> Empire, but even Empire -> or -> Empire builds rep.

I am doing this as well, and once I have a mission for an Empire Faction, if there is another mission to the same station/outpost, I will grab that too. Its not all about Rep. Credits are just as important, after all, what good is Baron rank if you can't afford the Clipper?

[LionOfNarnia]

To quote a snippet from my ongoing discussion on this subject with support - which has now been escalated to the QA team...

- Reputation has no influence on your rank. Many players try to improve their reputation with factions allied to the Empire and Federal powers and if you're trying to rank up, it's a waste of time. Doesn't affect rank whatsoever.
- How much money you earn determines how quickly you rank up. A hundred missions earning 1k a piece will only progress you a fraction of one mission earning 1 million.
- To that end, combat missions are the single fastest way of ranking up.

[Rimsplitter]

The money factor is a very interesting insight. I've seen replies about ranking from FD posted on the official ED forums and they never mentioned the money. They just said that combat missions are #1 because navies are looking for combat pilots. But knowing about the money being an issue makes it easier to understand why ranking sometimes seems to hit a plateau. I'm currently working an area where the combat missions only pay 10 to 200K whereas my last haunt was paying up to 400K so I can see why the grind has slowed down. Thanks for that.

[Rodgeirr]

To quote a snippet from my ongoing discussion on this subject with support - which has now been escalated to the QA team...

- Reputation has no influence on your rank. Many players try to improve their reputation with factions allied to the Empire and Federal powers and if you're trying to rank up, it's a waste of time. Doesn't affect rank whatsoever.
- How much money you earn determines how quickly you rank up. A hundred missions earning 1k a piece will only progress you a fraction of one mission earning 1 million.
- To that end, combat missions are the single fastest way of ranking up.

I am going to call BS on "combat missions" being the single fastest way of ranking up. They told me that too, and after testing it I realized they gave me a bogus answer.

I spent a week in a CZ pulling every single mission I could for CZ's (loading and reloading bulletin boards, doing like 6 at once) and blowing up ships for combat bonds for the Federation and I didn't see jack SQUAT. I eventually say FU to the entire mess and flip everyone the bird and fly back to Exbeur and immediately start doing charity missions.

After one night of that I became a Post Commander.

If you are dedicated and have lots of money, the easiest and quickest way to rank up is to do charity missions... a LOT of charity missions. Support isn't going to tell you this, because it's easy, takes no effort and it is FAST. Intended or not, this is the way to go. I have the sneaking suspicion they're saying combat simply because it will take a while. I've gotten three promotions in one night doing Charity. Trust me it works.

[UnmarkedBoxcar]

I believe Julissa has mentioned in another thread that depending on which support ticket gets answered/referenced from the FD forums, there are several different FD answers as to what will help you rank up more quickly. It would appear, as Julissa also noted, that FD is doing its best to keep people in the dark about how ascending the rank ladder actually works.

[UnmarkedBoxcar]

Frontier actively doesn't want us to know how the ranking is weighted. They have given out multiple different answers to different support queries by different people and requesting information on the forum often ends up with Alexsej (sp?) coming in and being an arse and trolling people as a mod. Because, y'know, that seems to be what he does best.

Personally, I agree that they borked ranking somewhat, certainly made it hellaciously grindy with the later updates. Definitely not fun if you're focused on the rank.

From this thread.

[Julissa Silver]

I believe Julissa has mentioned in another thread that depending on which support ticket gets answered/referenced from the FD forums, there are several different FD answers as to what will help you rank up more quickly. It would appear, as Julissa also noted, that FD is doing its best to keep people in the dark about how ascending the rank ladder actually works.

Sadly, this has been the result of my own investigations through the FD forums and poking support. Lots of 'official' information, and all of it contradictory. The only things we do know "for sure" are that there is a hidden value that applies specifically to the naval rank of each faction, and that the reputation you have with minor and major factions *DO NOT MATTER* when considering ranking up. Doing missions for minor factions improves this hidden naval rep value but the precise return per mission, or how types of mission affect that hidden rep, can only be hinted at by circumstantial and uncorroborated evidence.

Basically, "do missions" is the right answer, but precise what missions is up in the air. There are other things, as mentioned in this thread, that are apparently supposed to aid this naval rank value, such as trade and combat zone bonds, but such rewards are impossible to evaluate and I haven't seen a single report of someone getting rank missions after doing such activities, so either they don't contribute at all (or very, VERY little) or they're simply bugged (as some people suspect).

I wish I could be of more help, but we can only offer conjecture and base anything we say on observed patterns that could be affected so many sorts of bias or hidden modifiers as to be barely useful except in the very broadest sense. "Generally accepted wisdom" is charity missions are still the way to go, with the notional evidence points to people having done those and received more rank missions in a shorter time.

[CMDR_Bostrom]

Are there any reports of 1.4 nerfing the ability to 'buy' ranks by doing charity missions? I was in the middle of ranking up to Knight when the servers went down and now I have a full day of work to get through before jumping back in.

Personally, I'm only looking to rank up to Baron for the Clipper and then take a break but I think if you've worked hard trading, you should be able to donate as much as you want and receive the recognition that comes with being a great philanthropist.

[JohnLuke]

Sadly, this has been the result of my own investigations through the FD forums and poking support. Lots of 'official' information, and all of it contradictory. The only things we do know "for sure" are that there is a hidden value that applies specifically to the naval rank of each faction, and that the reputation you have with minor and major factions *DO NOT MATTER* when considering ranking up. Doing missions for minor factions improves this hidden naval rep value but the precise return per mission, or how types of mission affect that hidden rep, can only be hinted at by circumstantial and uncorroborated evidence.

Basically, "do missions" is the right answer, but precise what missions is up in the air. There are other things, as mentioned in this thread, that are apparently supposed to aid this naval rank value, such as trade and combat zone bonds, but such rewards are impossible to evaluate and I haven't seen a single report of someone getting rank missions after doing such activities, so either they don't contribute at all (or very, VERY little) or they're simply bugged (as some people suspect).

I wish I could be of more help, but we can only offer conjecture and base anything we say on observed patterns that could be affected so many sorts of bias or hidden modifiers as to be barely useful except in the very broadest sense. "Generally accepted wisdom" is charity missions are still the way to go, with the notional evidence points to people having done those and received more rank missions in a shorter time.

Thank you for the info. I wish there was clearer direction from FD as to how to trigger naval rank progression missions. Or... they could just say that it's random. Anything other than misleading information would be great.

I appreciate your time in researching the topic and posting this!