Hi,
I bought the game in Beta; and I have been enjoying it ever since. I have recently decided to try and move up with the Empire.
A couple of us in this thread have been trying to work out how to get Empire ranks. From 11 pages of observations, it seems to be the case that you jump around aimlessly in Empire space; you must pack some combat stabilizers, non-lethal weapons and some personal weapons, because the missions are 10 minutes long and these are all that they demand. Unfortunately, these commodities are rare, so always having them on hand is the only way to do the missions.
Most of us have been able to achieve the rank of Outsider. One or two have achieved the rank of Serf. None have reported anything higher than that. I am personally an Outsider myself.
I think this aimless jumping around needs to be changed. I understand that achieving the rank of Baron for an Imperial Clipper should not be easy, but 22 million credits is no cake-walk either, especially after the rare goods nerf. It is, after all, the Imperial Navy.
I just want them to be far clearer than they are now.
GalNet could be of great use here: headlines could tell you where to go. A headline like 'Empire military resources stretched thin in Cemeiss war, ex-soldier says'. Logically, the player will then know to get to Cemeiss, as the Imperial recruiters there are going to take whatever they've got, so long as they can prove themselves useful via combat - which would mean that ranks would be offered as reward for those 'sorties' missions, where you kill x pirates/bounty hunters/smugglers/traders/civilians/authority and get a rank up instead of money.
Alternatively, the first rank (which should be hard IMO; keep it as it is because it looks like the Empire is desperate enough to recruit rookie pilots in dictatorships. Getting in should be the hardest bit) would give access to the navy system near Achenar and Cemeiss (forgot the name) - where proper rank missions could be attained. They get harder as you rank up, and these would be unlike regular bulletin board missions, they would have a functionally infinite timer, and they'd tell you to do something worthy of a rank-up. Perhaps you need to cash in a certain amount of bounty vouchers or perhaps you need to get a certain number of kills. Open to suggestions.
To conclude, I think that the current way of achieving rank within both the Federation and the Empire is not difficult, but rather luck-based, and this is much more the case with the Empire, where it seems that you're more likely to run into a Shiny Charizard at the bulletin board than one of these missions. I would like it if it was far more clear what needed to be done. They should still be difficult and take a while, but the rank should go to who's the best pilot, not who can visit the most bulletin boards per hour.
I bought the game in Beta; and I have been enjoying it ever since. I have recently decided to try and move up with the Empire.
A couple of us in this thread have been trying to work out how to get Empire ranks. From 11 pages of observations, it seems to be the case that you jump around aimlessly in Empire space; you must pack some combat stabilizers, non-lethal weapons and some personal weapons, because the missions are 10 minutes long and these are all that they demand. Unfortunately, these commodities are rare, so always having them on hand is the only way to do the missions.
Most of us have been able to achieve the rank of Outsider. One or two have achieved the rank of Serf. None have reported anything higher than that. I am personally an Outsider myself.
I think this aimless jumping around needs to be changed. I understand that achieving the rank of Baron for an Imperial Clipper should not be easy, but 22 million credits is no cake-walk either, especially after the rare goods nerf. It is, after all, the Imperial Navy.
I just want them to be far clearer than they are now.
GalNet could be of great use here: headlines could tell you where to go. A headline like 'Empire military resources stretched thin in Cemeiss war, ex-soldier says'. Logically, the player will then know to get to Cemeiss, as the Imperial recruiters there are going to take whatever they've got, so long as they can prove themselves useful via combat - which would mean that ranks would be offered as reward for those 'sorties' missions, where you kill x pirates/bounty hunters/smugglers/traders/civilians/authority and get a rank up instead of money.
Alternatively, the first rank (which should be hard IMO; keep it as it is because it looks like the Empire is desperate enough to recruit rookie pilots in dictatorships. Getting in should be the hardest bit) would give access to the navy system near Achenar and Cemeiss (forgot the name) - where proper rank missions could be attained. They get harder as you rank up, and these would be unlike regular bulletin board missions, they would have a functionally infinite timer, and they'd tell you to do something worthy of a rank-up. Perhaps you need to cash in a certain amount of bounty vouchers or perhaps you need to get a certain number of kills. Open to suggestions.
To conclude, I think that the current way of achieving rank within both the Federation and the Empire is not difficult, but rather luck-based, and this is much more the case with the Empire, where it seems that you're more likely to run into a Shiny Charizard at the bulletin board than one of these missions. I would like it if it was far more clear what needed to be done. They should still be difficult and take a while, but the rank should go to who's the best pilot, not who can visit the most bulletin boards per hour.
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
