Update on my journey to clipper

kaaldesh · Feb 17, 2015

38 hours played in last 3 days (I know, sad)
Making every faction I can find Allied with me.
Hundreds of "missions" for these factions - increasing rep.
Millions of credits earned trading where possible -increasing rep.
One 3hr and 4min USS mission timer where the required targets did not spawn in the entire 3hr and 4min... failed mission. -decreasing rep. For three hours I sought USS and the game 'rolled the dice' to see if the targets I needed would appear. Yep, someone coded that jewel into this game. That's how we get targets... the game 'rolls the dice' to see if the required target might just luckily appear. 400 billion star systems majestically realized in this game and someone put that mechanic into it.

One single solitary "ascension" mission popped to take me from Knight to Lord. 38 hours, 1 mission. 1.
Approximately 78 "Imperial Summons" missions spawned under "Available but unobtainable" missions since... I... Already... Have... The... Permit... They're still there btw.

The people behind the graphics, ship controls, and audio in this game are phenomenal talents. They are why I keep playing.

Lol I just want the ship... it's not even a very good ship... but at this point I just want it out of spite.

Surly_Badger · Feb 17, 2015

If it was easy, would you value getting it?

Goilveig · Feb 17, 2015

You can ignore trading or anything else that gives you reputation apart from missions (e.g. ignore bounty hunting, etc.).

From my experience and that of others (such as those who have ranked up while being Unfriendly or Hostile) reputation isn't a factor; mission count is. Just keep doing tons of missions. It does take a long time.

Stressfest · Feb 17, 2015

Clippers a great ship but if thats what you need to do.. i'll keep on space truckin' in the Cobra.

kaaldesh · Feb 17, 2015

Goilveig said:
You can ignore trading or anything else that gives you reputation apart from missions (e.g. ignore bounty hunting, etc.).

From my experience and that of others (such as those who have ranked up while being Unfriendly or Hostile) reputation isn't a factor; mission count is. Just keep doing tons of missions. It does take a long time.

Thanks, that's helpful.

Webferret · Feb 17, 2015

Yerp, know your pain.

I was Empire Lord rank for since a week after live(I re-rolled at live with some friends that started playing, instead of rolling my Beta Cmdr) and have submitted a few tickets over it since I am seeing 3-4 Imperial Summons missions under Unavailable (Cause I have already done them!!!.....4 at a time listed...Like, come on FD!!) Still no reply on those tickets (Maybe by Q4 2015)

But finally something worked after weeks (about 200 hours of playing - Slight OCD issue and working from home doesn't help with ED looking at me on my Desktop hehe) of getting more Empire factions to Ally than I care for, it finally popped for me and I got Baron. I don't mind a good work for your ranks system in game, but to go from nothing to Lord in a week and then takes weeks to get one more mission is rather dumb!

Anyways, I do hope you get lucky, I am now killing Empire AI etc with their own ship and loving it

kaaldesh · Feb 17, 2015

Surly_Badger said:
If it was easy, would you value getting it?

Ya, that's probably why FD decided not to have my targets spawn in those 3hr 4 min... would have been too easy to kill the targets if they actually appeared in the game. Much more rewarding and valuable on a personal level knowing I didn't get the easy mode there.

Goilveig · Feb 17, 2015

kaaldesh said:
Ya, that's probably why FD decided not to have my targets spawn in those 3hr 4 min... would have been too easy to kill the targets if they actually appeared in the game. Much more rewarding and valuable on a personal level knowing I didn't get the easy mode there.

What targets were these, out of curiosity?

kaaldesh · Feb 17, 2015

Smugglers. Needed just two smugglers.

(Answer to Goilveig's question)

Goilveig · Feb 17, 2015

kaaldesh said:
Smugglers. Need just two smugglers.

Ah, yeah they are pretty hard to find outside of anarchies. You can sometimes find them by cargo scanning 'clean' trader-type NPCs and seeing if they are carrying anything prohibited.

In anarchies they are practically everywhere.

-Jumper- · Feb 17, 2015

I tried for the clipper. I really, really did. I could never get ranking missions to pop after the first 2. Maybe they fixed it in a patch. I don't know. I just pushed on and got a python but I really did try for than darn clipper.

kaaldesh · Feb 17, 2015

Goilveig said:
Ah, yeah they are pretty hard to find outside of anarchies. You can sometimes find them by cargo scanning 'clean' trader-type NPCs and seeing if they are carrying anything prohibited.

In anarchies they are practically everywhere.

I did the cargo scan. That's how I found the one. He was clean, but noticed he was carrying illegal goods, shot him and got credit for the one. I did not know about the anarchy system though. Sadly, this mission was required to take place in the Empire system anyway. Thanks for tip though!

Putok · Feb 17, 2015

Goilveig said:
You can ignore trading or anything else that gives you reputation apart from missions (e.g. ignore bounty hunting, etc.).

From my experience and that of others (such as those who have ranked up while being Unfriendly or Hostile) reputation isn't a factor; mission count is. Just keep doing tons of missions. It does take a long time.[/QUtOTE]This aligns with my experience.

I just hit Baron tonight, and the ascension mission came right after turning in to a faction I was already fully allied with.

Clipper is glorious. Are there any other ships that have unique boost sounds?

GJ51 · Feb 17, 2015

I was stuck on Baron for the last month or so then finally gave it another go a couple days ago and made Viscount. Encouraged, I decided to forge ahead and try to get to Earl to with my Station Commander rank. I've been cranking out missions for the last 2 days to no avail. I'm beginning to think there might be a timer involved now that keeps you from moving too fast.

I've also noticed that getting the blue up arrow next to the major faction Empire section is so inconsistent. Do one mission you think doesn't mean much and the blue arrow pops up. Do another that you're sure will add to your rep and it disappears. Go figure. Seems to work pretty logically for the minor factions.

These were getting pretty boring grinding them out in my Python, so I switched to an Adder to make it more fun and less risk. After driving big iron for a long time, it's a real blast driving the Adder. It's really agile. And - yes - I'd really like to see someone capture a video of my Adder going though the letterbox rotated 90 degrees and passing through the narrow trough avoiding and blowing past an L9 on its' way in. Quite a rush.

I don't think i'll be trying that in the Python any time soon.

I did try the Clipper for a while, and it is a nice ship. It's fast and agile, but the small fuel tank and the inability to land at outposts pushed me back into the Python. When i get an extra 100 Mil or so, I'll probably get another one for the garage. It is fun to drive.

Masoboshi · Feb 17, 2015

To get the Clipper, just do missions. Money doesn't matter, even these "need food" are better than nothing. Fly around, do not take all missions from just one or two stations. Side effect: You will make lot of friends during that. I picked up transport missions where I could find them, in a 2 med gimballed burst Cobra (for that one "kill a general" mission), which went fine. However, it took a full week of 1-2 hrs daily to get the baron rank.

And now I have the Clipper, which I can't dock without scraping along the letterbox ;-)

kaaldesh · Feb 17, 2015

Grats to those who got the Clipper! Guess I'll just keep pluggin away. Though I do avoid the USS and the illegal goods missions. Cannot risk losing rep.

Putok · Feb 17, 2015

kaaldesh said:
Grats to those who got the Clipper! Guess I'll just keep pluggin away. Though I do avoid the USS and the illegal goods missions. Cannot risk losing rep.

Good call on those missions, I think.

I found the region in and around Achenar to be an ideal area for working on rank.

Starlanced · Feb 17, 2015

I have the clipper (yup, sound is amazing) here are my suggestions, do the turn in slave missions for random sub-factions ailed with the empire, these seemed to make things pop, and I know it sounds weird but I lost rep and then regained it when the mission for baron finally popped up, I heard this happen to others. It also seemed to help if I kept swapping around to sub-factions. I wasn't even allied with the empire when I got the baron mission, I was at some point but lost rep and regained some back.

Jerakeen · Feb 17, 2015

I worked on getting promoted to Baron in order to get the Clipper but I'm still only neutral with the Empire. They seem to be a lot more picky with their friends than the Federation.

The Clipper is a lovely ship to fly and with the large cargo hold makes a fine armed trader. A T7 with teeth. The downsides are the very small fuel tank and the ludicrous cost of repairs.

The fuel tank issue is easily dealt with by fitting an A3 scoop which will refill the tank from half empty in a couple of circuits of a suitable star. I got into the habit of spending 20 seconds or so scooping every star I could which leaves you enough to cope with a couple of unscoopable ones. If I hit a third I replot my route to find a good one or if I'm in a system with a station I'll land to refill.

The repair costs however are what made me sell up and go back to a Cobra. I hit one USS which turned out to have 3 wanted NPCs in it, all of which immediately turned on me. One was particularly nasty and while I was killing another he took my shields down and attached a limpet to me. I killed him and the third one ran away but after all that I was down to 50%. When I got back to the station I was hit with a 500k repair bill which pretty much wiped out the profit on the rares I was carrying.

I persevered with the Clipper for a while but when it became clear that the only result of taking it anywhere even remotely dangerous would be a slow bankruptcy I reluctantly gave it up and went back to a fully kitted out Cobra and 30 million in the bank which was a shame because the Clipper has the best cockpit I've seen in the game so far. The visibility is wonderful with that huge canopy.

I'll get another one but not until I have a couple of hundred million in the bank so that I can afford to kit it out fully and enjoy taking it out.

sahib · Feb 17, 2015

I know it can be a pain in the a** to get the rank, so a little pointer - go to Cartu system and do missions for the empire factions there. Ignore all assassination contracts etc and focus exclusively on courier and hauling missions. You'll be travelling between three or four nearby systems and getting new missions at all stations you're visiting. Took me 4 days to get to Baron that way.

Just don't give up, you'll get there eventually and the Clipper is definitely worth the work