Anyone care to explain how they got to rank of baron? Im getting nothing at all

[lonewarrior]

So im now entering the 3rd week of trying to get to Baron in the empire and having zero luck


I have just spent the entire weekened, probably a good 30+ hours to get to Baron and not a single mission has appeared to rank up

The advice I get is to get reputation with minor factions in empire systems, well that's exactly what ive been doing

Im now ALLIED with the empire, and every station belonging to them is friendly to me

Will getting INDERPENDANT stations in empire systems help at all? As I don't seem to be able to get a friendly status with any of them, only the ones actually controlled by the empire

There were some factions belonging to the empire that were neutral and ive done missions for them and become friendly, there are now no more factions to become friendly with as far as I can tell

3 weeks ago I got Master rank, after that......nothing


about a week ago I managed to find a single mission that was bugged, and I had to do it a couple of times and even though I completed it, I didn't rank up at all

This weekend has been a grind doing hundreds of reputation missions for at least 10 systems and still.....I get nothing at all


Not a single mission for rank progression has popped up, so would someone who actually got this rank explain to me what they were doing when these missions appeared?

Because obviously this is getting rather pointless now because nothing seems to make them appear at all

 

[GJ51]

I found it tuff to get to Baron, but finally did. Since then, I haven't been able to get any more Empire rank progression. Same here, i'm allied and respected ally everywhere I go. Occasionally take a few missions at a single station to see if I can trigger another progression mission, but no luck so far.

Who knows what's going on? Maybe they've just been turned off or I need to do missions I don't normally do. I already reached Station Commander with the Feds, so I don't know if the fed rank stuff is dead as well. Thought I'd like to get to Earl with the Empire, but my main goal was to just be able to try a Clipper, so now that I can do that, Rank progress isn't as high a priority for me any more.

Good luck

 

[Troa Barton]

For me i found a trade route between 2 empire systems. Traded as normally between bounty hunting and running anaconda kill missions. Nothing really special to it. Go to a nav and get kills in front of the empire security. There is a lull for a bit, just keep doing the same. Dont shoot anyone that you want to like you and always check the board.
For reference, Anaconda pilot, cheif petty officer in fed, Baron in Empire.
The trick really is not to care.. Just situate yourself only in Empire Space if you want to care a little bit more.

 

[Moriarte]

There is a bug, which shows that you're allied with every single empire faction if you're made it to being allied with the empire. You can see this clearly when turning in mission for a random empire faction, and when you do, you will see the mission accomplished sheet showing neutral instead of allied. What you have to do, basically is pick two-three empire factions and push them from neutral to friendly. Then the ascension mission will pop up. Pay attention to your status as reported in the mission sheet, not on the map, or wherever else. I noticed that ascension missions come about soon after I crossed friendly status. They didn't show up after I pushed to allied from friendly. So, work on making friendly and if no mission shows up move to other factions and make them friendly. Took me 20 missions or so to get from knight to baron. Did it within one evening.

Best of luck.

EDIT: And yes, clipper is totally worth the money.

 

[Wicz]

As Moriarte says, spread the love around. Use plenty of different stations controlled by different factions.

It took me 4-5 hours over 2.5 days to go from nobody to Baron and buy my clipper, which I traded in 5 days later for a Python.

I'll revisit the Clipper once 1.1 goes live though

 

[lonewarrior]

There is a bug, which shows that you're allied with every single empire faction if you're made it to being allied with the empire. You can see this clearly when turning in mission for a random empire faction, and when you do, you will see the mission accomplished sheet showing neutral instead of allied. What you have to do, basically is pick two-three empire factions and push them from neutral to friendly. Then the ascension mission will pop up. Pay attention to your status as reported in the mission sheet, not on the map, or wherever else. I noticed that ascension missions come about soon after I crossed friendly status. They didn't show up after I pushed to allied from friendly. So, work on making friendly and if no mission shows up move to other factions and make them friendly. Took me 20 missions or so to get from knight to baron. Did it within one evening.

Best of luck.

EDIT: And yes, clipper is totally worth the money.

That does sound like something that might work

Are we talking about actual empire factions

Like I see

Faction 1: empire on the first station: friendly

Faction 2: empire on second station: friendly

Faction 3: independent on third station: neutral

Do I actually need to work for the empire factions or do the independent ones contribute?

Yeah the main reason I want the clipper is the wiki says it can do 400 on speed, where as every player in a python that Interdicts me I can outrun so easily I feel I'd rather have a faster ship and be able to escape if I cant win

 

[Mysteron]

Greetings my Imperial friends. Yes missions should eventually lead to a rank progression mission. But perhaps a more effective and slightly faster way to achieve this is to find a nice Imperial system with resource ex sites. Enter the rings and destroy as many pirates as possible and cash in you bounty vouchers at the nearest Imperial station and faction. This is the voice of Mysteron...

 

[777Driver]

Just gained rank with the Fed and Empire very quick, two day's. All I did was perform the handout missions, nothing else. As soon as I saw a mission asking to deliver 2 slaves to be freed I would grab it, multiple missions in one go. I had to smuggle them back into the stations by shutting down sub systems and running silent. After every two or three runs I would get a mission to increase rank.

 

[Moriarte]

Yes, of course, empire factions only.

Ah, so I guessed right about the clipper! The Clipper with A6 thrusters (16 mil) is just bonkers, mate. Not only it does 440 m/s (on par with cobra/viper), but it actually outruns both of them, since you can consistently run at 420-440 with 4 pips in engines, which no other ship in the game can do. After flying cobra extensively, I can also tell that Clipper is better at braking and can handle high speed turns much better than the Cobra. So, accumulate some cash. Made myself a battle version for 50 mil. Not too happy about the shields, but that is a function of skill more than anything else..

Oh, one more thing, don't pick next ascension mission until you completed the current one.

 

[Surly_Badger]

My cousin is the Imperial Grand Auditor's brother-in-law.

 

[lonewarrior]

Greetings my Imperial friends. Yes missions should eventually lead to a rank progression mission. But perhaps a more effective and slightly faster way to achieve this is to find a nice Imperial system with resource ex sites. Enter the rings and destroy as many pirates as possible and cash in you bounty vouchers at the nearest Imperial station and faction. This is the voice of Mysteron...

I only ever seem to see imperial defence ships in the rings but I'll take a look anyway

 

[KillingTime]

It only took me 2 evenings I think to do it. Just worked a few stations doing all the missions I could for them.

The clipper is very fast but not that great apart from that. Oh it sounds cool and looks pretty I guess and it can hold a bit of cargo but the range is pitiful so you'll need to carry a fuel scoop

 

[Goilveig]

There is a bug, which shows that you're allied with every single empire faction if you're made it to being allied with the empire. You can see this clearly when turning in mission for a random empire faction, and when you do, you will see the mission accomplished sheet showing neutral instead of allied.

This is not a bug. There are two different reputations you have with each faction:
1. The base reputation with just that minor faction, without calculating the influence from the major faction. You see this on the mission screen.
2. The effective reputation with the minor faction - it's the base reputation plus the reputation from the major faction. This is what you see in the galaxy map and on the right hand panel. This determines how the faction treats you.

Anyhow, having gotten to Earl, I think reputation and rank progression are not as related as people think. I hit overall Empire reputation cap early on (around Knight) and I've gotten rank progression missions from factions I never did anything at all for (their base rank was neutral) There may be a minimum reputation required, but from my experience, the main requirement is just enough missions. Each rank took progressively more missions to unlock - Count to Earl was at least 80 and possibly up to 100 missions.

From what I can tell, unlocking progression missions is just a matter of enough normal missions. I don't know if it's pure quantity, or quality of missions (i.e. does a mission paying 200k advance you faster than one paying 20k? I dunno). Reputation seems to be almost a non-factor in progression, except insofar as doing missions also builds reputation.

Other things that build rep (trading, bounty hunting) do not seem to have any impact on rank advancement.

 

[iankemp]

Ok, my way to Baron: I first started at Codorain, but the faction there was criminal with missions against other empire factions, so i dind't raised the empire status, but the sub-faction. Then found some tipps to work for "Empire League" at Cartu, Priva and Velliep. I make the whole ranks with bounty hunter missions from there and worked escpecially for Empire League, even after hit "allied" with them. You keep raising the status for the empire. And there is some extra leveling, when police ships notice, that you kill pirates, if you need to kill a anaconda in an empire system, then wait for the police ships, but be carefull not to shoot them I'm getting Federation recruit rank mission only because i killed pirate lords in front of federation police ships, without any federation mission. After a patch its harder now to find bounty kill missions, they are fewer than before, definitely. But hopping between the stations in Cartu, Priva and Velliep and you'll find bounty missions.

 

[Jack Schmit]

I'm not even sure how I got Baron rank to be honest, I just grabbed any missions that looked like they would pay off in rep/credits that I could handle and kept doing them. I didn't have to kill anybody, and I don't think I did anything illegal, I may have smuggled without knowing it was a crime.... but if so nobody caught me

 

[Moriarte]

This is not a bug

An oversight, I'd say then. The information in the right hand panel should show that I am allied to the empire, yet neutral to the individual faction. What is the point of confusing people like the OP (or myself at one point) and showing that he is allied with the empire and allied to the individual empire faction, when in reality he is neutral to the individual faction? All on the same page, no less. Has to be more clear.

1. The base reputation with just that minor faction, without calculating the influence from the major faction. You see this on the mission screen.
2. The effective reputation with the minor faction - it's the base reputation plus the reputation from the major faction. This is what you see in the galaxy map and on the right hand panel. This determines how the faction treats you.

It isn't "effective" reputation. It's just designed that way so the station can greet you: hello, ally. Placeholder. Which creates a wrong impression on top of being just that.

 

[Goilveig]

An oversight, I'd say then. The information in the right hand panel should show that I am allied to the empire, yet neutral to the individual faction. What is the point of confusing people like the OP (or myself at one point) and showing that he is allied with the empire and allied to the individual empire faction, when in reality he is neutral to the individual faction? All on the same page, no less. Has to be more clear.

It isn't "effective" reputation. It's just designed that way so the station can greet you: hello, ally. Placeholder. Which creates a wrong impression on top of being just that.

No, you get all the bonuses of being allied (lower fuel costs, fewer scans, instant ship & bounty ID, police response to you being attacked, or less likelihood of friendly-fire aggro in 1.1) based on this effective reputation. It's by far the more important of the two because it's what the game uses to calculate how all the faction's NPCs respond to you.

You also need to know this total effective reputation separately from knowing the reputation from the major and minor factions (unless they start sharing actual numerical reputation values) - for example, if you are Allied with the major faction but Unfriendly with the minor, your effective reputation could be Allied, Friendly, or maybe even Neutral depending on how far into allied / unfriendly you actually are.

The base reputation is important, but only insofar as you need to know if you should do more missions or move to another minor faction.

 

[GJ51]

It only took me 2 evenings I think to do it. Just worked a few stations doing all the missions I could for them.

The clipper is very fast but not that great apart from that. Oh it sounds cool and looks pretty I guess and it can hold a bit of cargo but the range is pitiful so you'll need to carry a fuel scoop

Very true. I really liked the way it handled and thought it might prove to be the smart way to go when the 1.1 changes get introduced. As fast as it is and as nice as it handles, I kept getting bummed by the small fuel tank and the fact that it requires a large pad. There were many trips I took where I had to stop and research to make sure the next jump would be to a star that could be refueled from. Overall jump range and the small tank were factors in going back to the Python.

The hardpoints are also a bit unusual, but I was able to find a good load out that worked.

Just one man's opinion, no intent to offend those who love it. Flames not required. It's a fine ship and I may come back to it depending on how bad they nerf the Python.

 

[Yokai]

To OP: purple link in my sig block below. Many have gone through what you've been going through.

 

[Goilveig]

To OP: purple link in my sig block below. Many have gone through what you've been going through.

It's a great guide but I think one of your premises is wrong. Having gone up the entire Empire progression, I don't think reputation is the primary trigger for advancement missions. From my experience, the primary trigger is number of missions done for the faction, although I couldn't tell if there is also a reputation threshold required. I was reputation capped very early on in my rank progression and I still needed to do an ever-increasing number of missions to get rank missions to spawn; I could take a few weeks off and bounty hunt and not a single advancement mission until I went back to mission running.

If we ever get the option to have multiple saves I'll try going up the entire federation ladder while keeping my overall fed rep at Unfriendly. I've heard anecdotally it's possible. I'm also going to keep careful notes on both the number of missions done and the value of each mission (where such a thing can be calculated) to see if there are patterns there. I suppose I could do that on my current character but I don't really want any federation ranks.



By the way, my testing plan is going to be this. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, I'd appreciate it:

1. Test high reputation / low mission count. Become allied with Federation via trading, take zero missions unless offered a rank advancement.
2. Test high mission count / low reputation. Do a large number of missions but keep the reputation with the Federation Unfriendly via mission dropping, attacking civilian targets, etc. Move around a lot so I don't build any significant reputation with any minor faction.

I believe these two scenarios should conclusively determine whether it is reputation, mission count, or both that governs advancement.