Newcomer / Intro What are you up to?

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

At my rate that should be around Xmas… 2025

I must admit, the merc. elite discipline does seem slow - maybe just my perception. The thing is, it felt quicker to go from Elite to Elite I than it did from Deadeye to Elite. And now it feels like it's gone slow again as the road to Elite II is creeping along. I need a few more stuck CZ's

I never take anything less than high now: the payout is much too small in mediums and lows. And it does feel that CZ's are the only thing that progresses that rank.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

I must admit, the merc. elite discipline does seem slow - maybe just my perception. The thing is, it felt quicker to go from Elite to Elite I than it did from Deadeye to Elite. And now it feels like it's gone slow again as the road to Elite II is creeping along. I need a few more stuck CZ's

I never take anything less than high now: the payout is much too small in mediums and lows. And it does feel that CZ's are the only thing that progresses that rank.

Remember when I said I couldn't gain any rank at all on foot?

It's because anything you shoot while you're in an SRV or Ship doesn't count anymore. That goes towards your combat rank, not your merc rank. That's why my progress was so slow, because I was told you could take people out with your ships rockets and SRV for quick gains.

That doesn't work anymore. I'm almost at Soldier rank now in just two days since I figured that out.

 

[]M[]

I must admit, the merc. elite discipline does seem slow - maybe just my perception. The thing is, it felt quicker to go from Elite to Elite I than it did from Deadeye to Elite. And now it feels like it's gone slow again as the road to Elite II is creeping along. I need a few more stuck CZ's

I never take anything less than high now: the payout is much too small in mediums and lows. And it does feel that CZ's are the only thing that progresses that rank.

Oh i have to admit it's really about not having "grinded" applied myself to it with proper effort

...tbh, having played (and still sometimes playing) quite a bit of arena FPS in the form of UT-ONS, Elite was all about everything else for me, led by Exploration (if you'll excuse the pun^) - still ship combat was always of interest and i did get around to it eventually, though any real rank up really happened after an old UT friend & his cousin joined and we went happy pirate hunting 'til we could afford carriers

When Odyssey dropped i went into Exobiology for the rest of the year and only really got going with the settlements & suits in 2022 - my squadmates have also been elsewhere quite a bit of the time, but more recenlty i've found more friends to play with online and that makes the whole CZ thing much more appealing, as a multiplayer/sociable activity... so mebbe it will actually be this Xmas after all, if i keep heading out to CZ's rather than a local pub on Friday nights - not toooo much of a challenge tbh, as long as there's still beer in the fridge

 

[aRJay]

Oh, for a CZ on the light side of a planet for once...

Yes but think of all the mats you'll have wasted on NV gear.

This message brought to you by the Every Silver Lining has an even Bigger Cloud organisation.
Motto even if you always look on the dark side of life people will still call you an optimist

 

[aRJay]

I must admit, the merc. elite discipline does seem slow - maybe just my perception. The thing is, it felt quicker to go from Elite to Elite I than it did from Deadeye to Elite. And now it feels like it's gone slow again as the road to Elite II is creeping along. I need a few more stuck CZ's

I never take anything less than high now: the payout is much too small in mediums and lows. And it does feel that CZ's are the only thing that progresses that rank.

Elite to Elite 1 should take as long as Defenceless to Elite.

Note I am not sure how many ranks above Defenceless Deadeye is.

 

[CMDR Timber McWolf]

Yes but think of all the mats you'll have wasted on NV gear.

Mats for NV are never wasted, in my opinion. Where there is light, there always is shadow so dark that NV comes in handy.

 

[CMDR Timber McWolf]

Elite to Elite 1 should take as long as Defenceless to Elite.

Note I am not sure how many ranks above Defenceless Deadeye is.

Well, according to the Wiki, it takes a little less.
You need a total profit of 1,550,000,000Cr to reach Elite.
To reach Elite 1, you need a total profit of 2,605,000,000Cr.
The net amount you need to get from Elite to Elite 1 therefore is 1.055.000.000Cr.

Looks like someone did a little twist with those numbers, dontchathink?

Oh, and the next rank needs a net profit of 1.398.000.000Cr. Something's afoot, there...

 

[Fnord Velkor]

Well, according to the Wiki, it takes a little less.
You need a total profit of 1,550,000,000Cr to reach Elite.
To reach Elite 1, you need a total profit of 2,605,000,000Cr.
The net amount you need to get from Elite to Elite 1 therefore is 1.055.000.000Cr.

Looks like someone did a little twist with those numbers, dontchathink?

Oh, and the next rank needs a net profit of 1.398.000.000Cr. Something's afoot, there...

You could always ask @Ian Doncaster if he can crunch anything from the numbers I suppose.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Just tried my first HIGH on foot combat zone. I will not be doing that again until I get some serious modding done.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

You could always ask @Ian Doncaster if he can crunch anything from the numbers I suppose.

What it tells me is that it probably isn't directly related to credits gained - after all, the space combat rank isn't. You can probably get rank entirely from settlement murders which won't directly pay at all, for example.

Elite 1 taking more than Elite would fit with the space combat mechanism of kills counting more if they're of a higher rank, which you can only benefit from first time through ... taking less just suggests that whoever was counting the Elite->Elite 1 segment was doing it in a less "financially optimal" way to whoever was doing Defenceless->Elite.

There was also quite a bit of weirdness early in Odyssey where kills counted differently - and generally a lot less - compared with how they now do, which might be messing with the numbers if the Defenceless->Elite segment included a lot of kills from before that was fixed.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

And with that, I claw my way into the top 1000 players at number 996.

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

Just tried my first HIGH on foot combat zone. I will not be doing that again until I get some serious modding done.

They are almost a different game to the lows and mediums. Don't stand still. Lateral and strafing are good skills to learn as well as duck and cover.

Keep at it! It does get easier.

 

[CMDR Timber McWolf]

the space combat rank isn't.

Indeed. Mine has kept creeping up from just evading interdictions...

 

[Fnord Velkor]

Indeed. Mine has kept creeping up from just evading interdictions...

No, that has no effect at all on "space combat rank". Progress in that is determined by points for kills, but each kill is weighted depending on the relative rank of the vanquished:

So when you are "Harmless" you get 3 points for vanquishing an "Elite" opponent and gaining points per kill becomes less lucrative as your rank increases. You can see from the table that if you are "Deadly" rank then you might not bother with the lowest ranked opponents as it is a waste of the cost of ammunition.

 

[CMDR Timber McWolf]

No, that has no effect at all on "space combat rank". Progress in that is determined by points for kills, but each kill is weighted depending on the relative rank of the vanquished:

View attachment 372182

So when you are "Harmless" you get 3 points for vanquishing an "Elite" opponent and gaining points per kill becomes less lucrative as your rank increases. You can see from the table that if you are "Deadly" rank then you might not bother with the lowest ranked opponents as it is a waste of the cost of ammunition.

I think you explained this once before... Quite some time ago, though, before the split of live and museum...
I understand this system. It's simple enough.
But still, I had this odd, very slow increase of the combat rank progress bar - maybe 1% every three months. And all I did was evading interdictions from assasins during transport missions, sometimes 20 to 30 in one session, spread over 5 different assassins and the occasional pirate.
This was during my time in the museum, could it be that a little bug had snuck into the systems there?

 

[Fnord Velkor]

.....
This was during my time in the museum, could it be that a little bug had snuck into the systems there?

news to me ... ¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[CMDR Timber McWolf]

news to me ... ¯\(ツ)/¯

I have no clue how many newcomers stayed on 3.8 when the split happened. And if I had to guess, I would suspect that I was the only one who opted not to fight while staing in inhabited space. Which leads us to why this might be completely unheard of, as I didn't complain about it. Heck, right until our little discussion, I didn't even think about it.

I think it really is Anthrenus Museorum, a tiny beetle, that has befallen the museum, nudging forward the combat progress bar ever so slightly...

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

I think you explained this once before... Quite some time ago, though, before the split of live and museum...
I understand this system. It's simple enough.
But still, I had this odd, very slow increase of the combat rank progress bar - maybe 1% every three months. And all I did was evading interdictions from assasins during transport missions, sometimes 20 to 30 in one session, spread over 5 different assassins and the occasional pirate.
This was during my time in the museum, could it be that a little bug had snuck into the systems there?

I experienced the same growth in mostly harmless combat rank in Horizons 4.0 live on my 3rd commander account who is a trader. Evading interdiction is all I could put it down to.
Killing Guardian Sentinels who getting materials for the FSD booster added a bit too.

 

[CMDR Timber McWolf]

I experienced the same growth in mostly harmless combat rank in Horizons 4.0 live on my 3rd commander account who is a trader. Evading interdiction is all I could put it down to.
Killing Guardian Sentinels who getting materials for the FSD booster added a bit too.

I know for sure that I didn't kill anyone during that time period - my ships and skills simply weren't up to that task. But my evading skills proved to be good enough and quickly got better - the Elusive Imp, a Python, got her name from evading each and every interdiction - if those assassins wanted a chance to take a look at what they were chasing, they had to follow me to the stations.

 

[TR]

Nothing like a spot of SRV yoga.