Newcomer / Intro Federation ranking. Please help

[GærneGribben]

I need help ranking up with the federation. I just started playing again after quite some time and I decided that I want the Corvette. However... I can't seem to figure out how to increase my rank at an acceptable rate. I do 10 trading missions and get 1%. I take a skimmer mission, but there are no skimmers at the target base. There are no pirate hunting missions, few if any assassination missions, and for the ones that I find I have to wait for 45 minutes before the target arrive in whatever system they are supposed to be in.

I have looked for a solution online, but all the stuff I find is outdated. Please help!
And yes! I am      at google.

 

[Kiwirat]

First up, make sure you are working in a federation aligned system, pick on a station reasonably close to the star that is federation aligned. You should then only accept missions for federation aligned factions at a station or stations. E.g. in you right panel under Status/system status tab only do missions for those minor factions that carry the federation symbol in their name. Do not accept missions for any other factions. Also if you see donation missions under the federation faction symbol accept those, they are each worth between 2-4% increase. If you keep working for several federation minir factions within a system or several neighbouring systems you will soon become cordial or friendly with them and the missions values and frequencies will increase. If you keep doing this each mission completed should see you increase 1-2% each mission, and taking multiple missions will see you get there quite quickly.
Good luck

 

[Kyr One]

Even though I'm new, I just spent a lot of time and money grinding Federation Rank up to Rear Admiral. (so I could get a Corvette myself), so I may be able to help a bit.

First: the skimmer mission malfunction is apparently a separate issue, experienced by many people. (Reference https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/254302-No-Skimmers-at-destroy-skimmers-mission-location , et al.)

Second: ensure that the clans you do missions for are in fact Federation clans, and have the seal showing, like this:

Third: After you complete missions for Federation clans, in the status screen on the right, under Reputation you should see your Rank bar progress:

Fourth: if you are willing to travel out to the CEOS system, you can usually grab several data delivery missions at once to the nearby Sothis system (more if you log back and forth between Open and Solo). It doesn't even require any cargo space. I think the game will let you stack up about 20 missions or so, and then the trip to Sothis takes about 2 minutes, and you can cash in all those missions at once. (If you only take missions to the Sothis Mining station, you won't have to make two stops.) Then you can pick up many more data delivery missions back to CEOS. Rinse. Repeat.

Fifth: If you really feel like being lazy, and you have some serious bank, and you're willing to travel to 17 Draconis, (once you've established a minimum rep) you can just sit there and do donation missions all day. Rear Admiral took me about 3 days and 250 million credits. But again, only two of the four clans there are Federation affiliated; don't bother with the other two.

Sixth: Once your rank bar says 100%, now you want to look for missions that say the exact words "Federal Navy" somewhere in the title. (If at 17 Draconis, you'll have to leave that station to get that type of mission offered; 17 Draconis almost never offers them. I recommend Tun with 5 Federation clans, to increase the likelihood one of them offers you a Federal Navy mission. If you don't see one on Open, check Solo.) After you complete that mission, then you will be awarded a higher rank.

You don't need to do the rank-up Federal Navy mission right exactly when your rank bar reaches 100%; any additional Federation missions will carry over onto the rank bar of your new rank. But do make sure it's 100%+ and not 99.6% rounded up to 100 when you go looking for a Federal Navy mission.

Finally, you may get messages saying that you have achieved a higher rank than your Rank bar says. This happened to me and many other people and is (supposedly) a known issue (although it's not listed on the known issues list.) Just ignore those messages.

 

[GærneGribben]

250 million? Jesus Christ!!! I've never had that much! But thanks for the help! Now I know where to start

 

[goemon]

I need help ranking up with the federation. I just started playing again after quite some time and I decided that I want the Corvette. However... I can't seem to figure out how to increase my rank at an acceptable rate.

adjust your idea of "acceptable rate". i got the rank for a corvette after 9 month or so into the game. was a nice way to do it ("ran any mission whenever you want doing it, and if you are in federal space, it might increase your rank").

with my second account, i started rank grinding - and decided after the courier that there is no ship worth it (beside a courier). FDL/python/anaconda are simply good enough.

 

[Kyr One]

250 million? Jesus Christ!!! I've never had that much

(After you establish at least cordial rep) CEOS and Sothis Mining are also great for making serious space bucks. Many multi-million credit missions are offered for long-haul (~400 LY) trips or even short hauls if you can smuggle successfully. In my Asp Explorer outfitted with 96 tons of cargo space, by cherry-picking at least 2X reward to cargo ratios, I can make 25+ million in about an hour.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

"acceptable rate" for most sane players is at odds with FD's insane barriers to progression. Rank atm is based on how many missions you complete regardless of what they, how expensive they are or how difficult they are thus your rate is artificially nerfed based on missions/hr. To give you some idea just how borked it is I reckon you could easily buy and equip a Python at say 80M cr than you could to rank up Empire Imperial Navy for a Clipper at 35M cr.

The only way to rank up at an "acceptable rate" imho is to not play the game as its designed but to exploit the mission system.

I would stick heed Goemon's advice above and not rank grind but instead go straight for FDL or Python until FD see sense.
goemon

Deadly

 

[GærneGribben]

I wish one could rank up by turning in bounty. I am going to try to grind... If it takes too long i'll stop, and probable lose my will to play this game much further. Time will show Thanks for all the help anyway!

 

[GærneGribben]

I am now in 17 DRACONIS and this is actually quite effective! Although it is somewhat disheartening to watch my hard earned credits evaporate!

 

[Kyr One]

I wish one could rank up by turning in bounty.

IINM, when the Federation clans there are in a state of Civil War, the only missions offered are bounty missions. Dozens of them. But I've only seen that station in that state once.

If you read up on the deeper game mechanics, a clan can be brought to a state of Civil War by player actions... but I don't care that much.

 

[Ashnak]

250 million? Jesus Christ!!! I've never had that much! But thanks for the help! Now I know where to start

Nobody ever said corruption was cheap. Especially at the higher ranks.

But seriously - that sounds about like the money you'll need for Rear Admiral, i.e. access to a Corvette. CPO is much cheaper and will give you access to the FAS.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

If you want effective I can tell you now one of the best methods is to sit in a war or civil war system and just do charity missions, leave the game running in the background and just check-in every 15mins to see if new ones have appeared whilst you go do something else. If you do some research you can preload your cargo with likely charity mission materials ready and waiting to donate. If there are no missions then no big deal come back later you haven't wasted your time.

So lets just recap that quickly the most effective way is to NOT play the game, but to EXPLOIT the mission system less you consume a ton of time for little progress.

What FD should do imho is :
1. keep the mission reward system for those that want the slower safer pace but tweek the progression reward according to the difficulty or value of a mission to some extent. So a Massacre 80 ships mission gives you much more rank reward than deliver data to a station mission.
2. Give the player other ways to earn rank progression e.g. CZ combat bonds in support of a Navy or supporting expansion oppourtunities
3. When you get a permit for the home systems then imho you should get much better opportunities for rank progression with the home system faction(s)

The problem is as the player you are artificially starved and restricted atm by how much rank progression you can earn, its like a Snakes & Ladders design choice where you'll know you'll get there eventually and skill, thought and smart play is just completely ignored. The only thing you can say to justify it is FD has plans for Naval rank in the future, they don't know how to handle it and panicked when they saw players advancing too quickly.

 

[D.G.Cerberus]

I am now in 17 DRACONIS and this is actually quite effective! Although it is somewhat disheartening to watch my hard earned credits evaporate!

I just looked back at my notes...admittedly pre-2.1.....but I made millions taking missions from Draconis (long hauls/ smuggling IIRC) which whilst also counting towards rank increase, also paid for all the donation missions.

That said, the donation missions now are totally different to before, when they were in the tens of thousands or even less - most donation missions I am offered these days are for over 500K Credits and often 1m cr.....I have no idea whether or not this increase in donation in any way translates to addition percentage rank points.

One final thing - You can absolutely heed Goemon's advice and stick with FDL, Python, Anaconda......but here is some of my ship evolution...
1) I DID grind rank for the FAS, and loved it as a "bigger Vulture"........however I recently sold it to help fund a cost neutral FDL and wish I had done it ages ago
2) I also DID grind rank for a Courier and then a Clipper....neither of which will ever leave my shipyard
3) Finally having had a 'Conda for ages, I took the plunge and finished off the Fed grind (having got the FAS I didn't grind at all but carried on doing missions and "found" myself after a while @ Post Captain, so the only grind was the last bit to RADM........and then I got my Corvette. Which I love. And whilst most will think me crazy, I use it for cargo missions in a lucrative and extremely short jump set of systems, never more than a couple of jumps and often just the one. The additional cargo capacity over the 'conda means I can take 4 or more multi-million missions at once, and being well armed to boot means I no longer fear the Elite Anacondas which occasionally crop up. They are easy now with the Corvette's better handling I find, plus I don't have an issue with the Elite FDLs which also occasionally crop up. Finally, I have never been interdicted by an NPC pirate Corvette or Cutter....which means nothing can mass-lock me either.

In short.....the 'Conda is a great ship, and in most ways superior to the 'Vette.....however I don't regret changing one bit. I will however, when I can spare the cash, buy another 'Conda for long range exploration/ Mining/ Surface prospecting over and above my AspX..

 

[racer1]

As others have said two current best ways are:

Stacking data delivery missions and choose a location that only spawns missions to one other location e.g. Ceos/Sothis.
Doing charity missions - note the value of the charity mission does not seem to affect the rank progression so always take the cheap ones when you see them.

I'm ok with it taking a long time to rank up. But the whole process does not seem to be logical to me e.g. rank of mission does not seem to affect reward/progression in a meaningful way.

Some people will always min/max and I have spells where I target ranking up and want the optimum approach. But the whole system of mode switching and lack of missions needs to be looked at. I'm not even saying it necessarily needs to be faster, although a lot of people would like that lol, but it needs to be more logical and mode switching is really not good game play.

 

[Kyr One]

That said, the donation missions now are totally different to before, when they were in the tens of thousands or even less - most donation missions I am offered these days are for over 500K Credits and often 1m cr.....I have no idea whether or not this increase in donation in any way translates to addition percentage rank points.

Well, I can tell you they do not. 25,000 or 1,000,000 cr donations advance rank exactly the same amount. After the first 100 million, I quit doing any over 450,000. Not doing 575K's, 750K's and 1M's cut my donation rate significantly, but only affected about 10% of the available donations.

Some people will always min/max and I have spells where I target ranking up and want the optimum approach. But the whole system of mode switching and lack of missions needs to be looked at. I'm not even saying it necessarily needs to be faster, although a lot of people would like that lol, but it needs to be more logical and mode switching is really not good game play.

I'm still pretty new; I've only been playing for about two months. I'm facing people that have been playing this game since the 1980's, so of course I want to progress as fast as possible to be able to compete evenly, exploit or no exploit. (It's not like I'm using an aimbot or automated mission completion bot, though. I'm sure my click finger will develop arthritis decades earlier than it should, now.)

The mission system is definitely too flat and too easily exploited. It's obviously the result of spending 99% of the time developing fantastic scenery and 1% developing gameplay; almost an afterthought. It's an arcade game with MORPG on the side. I don't think it can be "fixed." To truly make the immersion extend beyond visuals and dogfights to activities with some depth and feeling to them, the whole thing would have to be re-worked from scratch, imo.

Also imo, there should be no Solo play. Perhaps a solo training ground with a small set of systems to familiarize players with basic game operation, but not connected to the real galaxy everyone plays in. Eliminating exploit logging would be just the tip of the benefits of PvE removal. I mean, it's a dangerous galaxy out there, with lots of elite adversaries: deal with it.

 

[D.G.Cerberus]

Well, I can tell you they do not. 25,000 or 1,000,000 cr donations advance rank exactly the same amount. After the first 100 million, I quit doing any over 450,000. Not doing 575K's, 750K's and 1M's cut my donation rate significantly, but only affected about 10% of the available donations.

Good to know! Thanks for the clarification.
I've stopped doing all of them now unless I feel it will benefit a local Rep increase. I have done the grind for the ships I want and IF at some point in the future I find myself eligible for a Cutter then MAYBE I'll get one.
Presumably I will be wealthy enough to outfit it by then too!

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

Well, I can tell you they do not. 25,000 or 1,000,000 cr donations advance rank exactly the same amount. After the first 100 million, I quit doing any over 450,000. Not doing 575K's, 750K's and 1M's cut my donation rate significantly, but only affected about 10% of the available donations.

...and it doesn't stop there you can take a mission to say Donate 8 units of reactive armour and one for 72 units and they both reward you the same! Now you could say "well don't take anything but the 8 unit type missions then", but you can't because that would make the rank progression even longer since (and this is where the gameplay is cruel) the frequency of such missions is too rare and unpredictable.

I would dearly love someone from FD to explain the sense in all this, you have the foundation and framework for a really good game let down by these stupid mechanics seriously who ever thought that would be a good idea?

 

[GærneGribben]

I am now at post commander + 30%, but there are no longer any courier missions in CEOS/SOTHIS... And there are also no more charity missions in 17 DRACONIS due to there being a civil war atm. Anyone got some other good spots for fed ranking?

 

[OutLord]

I am now at post commander + 30%, but there are no longer any courier missions in CEOS/SOTHIS... And there are also no more charity missions in 17 DRACONIS due to there being a civil war atm. Anyone got some other good spots for fed ranking?

I was where you are at 4 days ago. I've been doing Massacre missions in civil war systems and the faction is loyal to Federation. In that time I've earned over 300 million in credits, gone from competent 30% to Master 50%. from post commander 30% to 90%

 

[D.G.Cerberus]

I am now at post commander + 30%, but there are no longer any courier missions in CEOS/SOTHIS... And there are also no more charity missions in 17 DRACONIS due to there being a civil war atm. Anyone got some other good spots for fed ranking?

Try Tun.....used to be good for charity missions at least - not been back there since 2.1 though.....