Newcomer / Intro Is there a better way/place to raise Fed Rank?

[YourSwordisMine]

I've been in Tun, at Tun's Wart and I just made Cadet. I'm Friendly with all of the Federation aligned factions in the system. Mostly I've been picking up all the missions I can between one or two systems, flying out and delivering everything at once. Rarely does a Donate mission appear... The problem now is that the system seems to be at war with itself, so most of the missions now are kill missions.


Is there a better place to be doing this? Or a better way? Any help is appreciated, thanks.

 

[Chris Simon]

If you want source and delivery missions (the easiest ones with ++rep) any system in Boom is as good as any other, once you're friendly/allied with the local faction.
It's all closely tied to system states, so the old grind guides don't work, anymore.

 

[The Lawful]

IMHO the best system for Fed rank grind used to be Ceos/Sothis. That's very far out downsouth, but if you're serious about Fed rank grind, it's worth the travel. I finally went down there to grind for the FAS which requires a Fed rank of Chief Petty Officer, after endless visits to Tun and Taribes. The advantage of Ceos is that there is only one system (Sothis) nearby, so all the (data transfer) missions have a target in the next system and vice versa.

Therefore, you can do a convenient roundtrip, starting at New Dawn port, stacking as many data transfer missions as you can get (relog helps to get even more until the limit is reached which is about 20), then jump to Sothis Mining, sell everything you can there, collect new missions, fly to Newholm station, sell the rest, collect new missions for New Dawn, jump to Ceos and proceed as long as you wish. I would take only data transfer missions, as these require no cargo space. I managed to grind up from Petty Officer to Chief Petty officer in about 2-3 hours that way. At this stage, ranking up is extremely grindy IMHO, it takes 100+ missions for the next step. There also used to be rather lucrative long-haul missions if you're into making money, but I was into rank grinding first hand.

Now for the sad part, and that's why I would not go down to Ceos right now. The reason is that some geniuses recently UA bombed Ceos (by selling Unknown Artifacts to the New Dawn blackmarket, causing a lockdown) and are currently trying to bring down Sothis as well. Operations are underway to remedy this by bringing in meta-alloys, but currently it is not clear if and when this may succeed. It may well be worth watching the current state of the issue via the forums though, there might also be alternative systems you could go to, but currently, I know of none. HTH anyway [noob]

 

[Chris Simon]

Now for the sad part, and that's why I would not go down to Ceos right now. The reason is that some geniuses recently UA bombed Ceos (by selling Unknown Artifacts to the New Dawn blackmarket, causing a lockdown) and are currently trying to bring down Sothis as well. Operations are underway to remedy this by bringing in meta-alloys, but currently it is not clear if and when this may succeed. It may well be worth watching the current state of the issue via the forums though, there might also be alternative systems you could go to, but currently, I know of none. HTH anyway [noob]

Maybe they wanted to save you all from that boring grind.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

I've been in Tun, at Tun's Wart and I just made Cadet. I'm Friendly with all of the Federation aligned factions in the system. Mostly I've been picking up all the missions I can between one or two systems, flying out and delivering everything at once. Rarely does a Donate mission appear... The problem now is that the system seems to be at war with itself, so most of the missions now are kill missions.


Is there a better place to be doing this? Or a better way? Any help is appreciated, thanks.

Kill missions can be good for rank if you can stack enough of them and you have the means to complete them quickly. Personally I didn't like Tun's Wart since your data delivery missions there aren't focused on 1 or 2 stations they are spread all over meaning you have to fly a lot to complete them. Sothis/Ceos whilst profitable is now much less attractive for ranking as there are too few Fed aligned minor factions which means less missions to take even if mode switching.

Its not true to say one system is as good as any other IF you factor in the time to complete the missions. What you want is two systems with few stations or settlements but lots of Fed factions outside the bubble. This then gives you lots of missions, short flight times and focused destinations.... I'm not sure such a place exists atm you'll need to go exploring or stick with the devil you know.

If you can push the 17 Draconis minor factions into a civil war that would be a potential hub for Fed ranking as you would get a glut of high value kill missions along side donation missions.

 

[The Lawful]

If you can push the 17 Draconis minor factions into a civil war that would be a potential hub for Fed ranking as you would get a glut of high value kill missions along side donation missions.

Never been there, but at least EDDB claims 17 Draconis currently is in Civil War state (https://eddb.io/system/22849). That could be the way to go. Nothing guaranteed, though, and CZ missions can be hard without the proper hardware [noob]

 

[Codger]

Here's how I did it, using Tun's. My method was 'fairly' fast. Not super fast by any means. But it worked well and I got what I wanted

[video=youtube;hS4AttJhcLI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS4AttJhcLI[/video]

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

Here's how I did it, using Tun's. My method was 'fairly' fast. Not super fast by any means. But it worked well and I got what I wanted

That is the Tun's Wart method though which the OP is trying to improve on [rolleyes], myself too as it happens hence the interest. What is the super fast method I wonder? I'm not sure it exists now post v2.1 but my money would be on 17 Draconis atm for a pilot that can handle CZ combat and has a little cash to spare.

It must have taken ages doing data delivery missions around Tun's not to mention you as the pilot being tied up flying station to station... seriously how long did it take in your estimation?

 

[YourSwordisMine]

Thanks everyone.

I tried a few other places, but none allow for the sheer bulk that Tun can. I'll be at Tun then until I get my Assault ship.

 

[Codger]

It must have taken ages doing data delivery missions around Tun's not to mention you as the pilot being tied up flying station to station... seriously how long did it take in your estimation?

I'm not really sure. I was Ensign when 2.1 hit already, so I did from there to Rear Admiral at Tun recently. It took many, many hours overall, but I didn't do it all at one time. I had to take breaks to do other stuff. So I didn't keep track, really. I'd do those missions until I couldn't stand to do another, and then come back later for more. Fortunately, I kinda like delivery missions, so I didn't mind it as much as some might.

Anyway, it got me where I wanted to go in the end.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

I'd do those missions until I couldn't stand to do another, and then come back later for more.

This is the problem many players face, ty for your honesty. I'm going to approach it like I did with Imperial rank and look for the right opportunity and conditions to accelerate the rank increase rather than jump into it to quickly.

How far do you think 500M cr will buy Fed rank via donations?

 

[Codger]

Donations are weird now. You get the same rep for a 25,000 credit one as a 1,000,000 credit one. It's about the same as doing one delivery mission.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

So I "put my money where my mouth is" and made the trip to 17 Draconis in a combat loadout Cutter and a ton of credits this is the result:

-80M cr sunk into Fed minor faction donations (Medical emergency) all below 500k cr
+40M cr recovered from CZ civil war missions in the system
+20M cr recovered from long distance missions back to the bubble (one way)
net loss of 20M cr or there abouts

jumped in rank from Midshipman to 80% Lieutenant, that is almost 6 ranks!

points to note :
- Cutter was in hindsight not the best choice an AspX or ideally an Anaconda (combat loadout) would have been better.
- Even though your rep grows past 100% in the background whilst you do a Navy Rankup mission, you cannot stack Navy missions and get the Navy rank upgrade even if you have 100% for the next level. You must take a new Navy mission.

---- Update 26/08/16 ----
So after 2.5days of normal gameplay I finally got the Fed rank of Rear Admiral (from Cadet) and the Corvette [hehe] that's as fast as I could do it. Cost was about 250M cr in donations and although I got lazy I could have recovered about 100M of that had I taken more time to do long distance mission trading and or CZ missions. I'll probably go finish off my Empire rank now and the last two Fed ranks with high value missions to bring my credits back up again.

That imho is the fast way, tbh the smarter way would be to stop buying donations at around the Post Commander rank since they give you very little reward/mission after this and it becomes really noticeable and expensive leading up to Rear Admiral. Only do that if you have a lot of spare credits or the means to earn it back at a decent rate.

If you want the rank earlier in your career as a pilot then obviously you won't have the funds to do it quickly I'd say you are better off doing your Empire Imperial Navy rank first earning credits as you do it... or simply look for an opportunity that I haven't seen it might be that Sothis/Ceos becomes more viable in the future for ranking as an example.

 

[CmdrKull]

I saw that there are some changes, or possibly that there will be some changes, to Navy Ascension. I uninstalled Elite to enforce a little break so I can't quickly check, but if they're in now, how deep are the changes? I have I think Count rank and 120% of the next rank earned, I wanted to find a good mission to stack to hopefully push me all the way up in one go via rank Ascension mission stacking. Is that going to be a dead end when I log back in? I really don't want to go back to surface mission stacking. It burned me out.

 

[Codger]

Surface mission stacking is over, that's for sure. Now it's more about just doing a lot of missions. That's what I do in my video, posted above. Find a place with lots of Federation aligned factions and do missions for them.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

I think you have to weigh up what is 'best' for you, in my case I was impatient and arguably wasteful but I did my research and completed it quickly a sprint grind if you like. Now I can reap the benefit of chilling out and doing what I want at a slower pace. I think where you will burn out is grinding a less efficient path, I can imagine some poor sods spending weeks or months of gameplay delivering missions to get their rank up.

btw you cannot stack Rank ascension missions for rank upgrades you need to get a new mission at each level otherwise they just payout the credits not the rank reward.

In my opinion what you need to look for is systems with major faction aligned missions that you can quickly deliver in bulk. What you want to avoid is missions that send you here there and everywhere unless you want to roleplay a truck driver and are prepared to take it slow and steady. That might be the right approach for some players its not about right or wrong but you need to decide and not get caught in the grind trap.