Rank grind to Corvette almost done.

[Schmack]

Bribes are the fastest ime.
I just buy my rank.

This

And I don't understand the squeamishness about 1M Cr donations. With the cutter I can earn 10m from a short round trip, and in that trip I also get a lot of rep because of mission completion. Donating a million to get there faster seems financially savvy to me, but I get the "don't want to bypass the gameplay" angle. I just see the financial angle like people who don't want to pay a student loan so they don't go to school - the earnings differential more than makes up for the up front costs.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

This

And I don't understand the squeamishness about 1M Cr donations. With the cutter I can earn 10m from a short round trip, and in that trip I also get a lot of rep because of mission completion. Donating a million to get there faster seems financially savvy to me, but I get the "don't want to bypass the gameplay" angle. I just see the financial angle like people who don't want to pay a student loan so they don't go to school - the earnings differential more than makes up for the up front costs.

Exactly.
Pretty much anything you can do earns money so you really can play it your own way.
I clear a rank per afternoon of playing easily, so long as I find enough donations.

 

[DukeIronHand]

Not my experience at all.
I just finished Duke about a week ago.
Marquis took no longer than Baron, maybe 8-10 hrs playing time tops, with sparse boards.
I'm at Ensign too and the rate seems no different.

Oh it is. Just google the numbers.
And clearly I am "play time challenged" if folks here can grind out big ship unlocks in "2 weeks" or "a month."

Always amazed at the number of Cmdr's here making "billions an hour!" doing things in-game.

 

[Narase]

I made my last 50% with a Dolphin
Take passenger -> place passenger, take next one -> place passenger, take next one -> ...
Every time I finished a mission I took the next one at the same station and so I went a little around near Sol. Got my last 50% in 6h, was really suprised it went so fast in the end...

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Oh it is. Just google the numbers.
And clearly I am "play time challenged" if folks here can grind out big ship unlocks in "2 weeks" or "a month."

Always amazed at the number of Cmdr's here making "billions an hour!" doing things in-game.

I don't have to Google anything.
I have the Cutter already and will have the Corvette soon too.
If you don't believe me it's your loss.
I make a rank every few hours, every time I play.
The rate is consistent and I'm doing the same things.

I suppose the multiple million Cr donations make a difference, and they are more common as your rank and rep increases.

 

[DukeIronHand]

I don't have to Google anything.
I have the Cutter already and will have the Corvette soon too.
If you don't believe me it's your loss.
I make a rank every few hours, every time I play.
The rate is consistent and I'm doing the same things.

I suppose the multiple million Cr donations make a difference, and they are more common as your rank and rep increases.

Since I have seen the numbers...yea. I'll believe what I want.

 

[[DOOK] Droogie]

Since I have seen the numbers...yea. I'll believe what I want.

I can say, from my experience this week, it wasn't that bad. From Post Commander to Post Captain, I gained around 7% of a rank after turning in 20 data missions. From Post Captain to Rear Admiral, I gained around 6% turning in a full load.

 

[DukeIronHand]

I can say, from my experience this week, it wasn't that bad. From Post Commander to Post Captain, I gained around 7% of a rank after turning in 20 data missions. From Post Captain to Rear Admiral, I gained around 6% turning in a full load.

That's pretty darn good. Perhaps (perhaps!) I may give it a go with the new "many missions" board.
If you don't mind me asking what system(s)?

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

That's pretty darn good. Perhaps (perhaps!) I may give it a go with the new "many missions" board.
If you don't mind me asking what system(s)?

But, you have the numbers...

 

[rrobes]

Not my experience at all.
I just finished Duke about a week ago.
Marquis took no longer than Baron, maybe 8-10 hrs playing time tops, with sparse boards.
I'm at Ensign too and the rate seems no different.

It's the same progression for everybody, nobody can change the numbers, except for FD.

Your "experience" may be different because if you're concentrating on rank advance, which can be done. Some players don't like to play that way or just won't buy into a "fast track" mode by doing mono-culture.

If you enjoy it, blaze your own trail.

 

[Stealthie]

That's pretty darn good. Perhaps (perhaps!) I may give it a go with the new "many missions" board.
If you don't mind me asking what system(s)?

If you're looking for fed' rank, Rhea works.

They might've nerfed the payments but the basic mechanic of filling a ship with economy cabins and then stacking passenger missions still works.
There's something like 3 systems in the locale and you can pick up and drop off passengers at all of 'em, and they're mostly Fed' factions.

Even if you're not earning megabucks from it, if you can stack 20 missions at a time, they're all paying around Cr1m a pop, so you're not exactly going to be out of pocket.
And, if you're lucky, a few of those factions will still be offering donation missions as well.

It's a bit more enjoyable than Sothis/Ceos, at least.
Just don't pick up any criminals.

 

[Surprised Brony]

Oh, I spent a ton on donations last night. I've got my Corvette now. Working on engineering it.

If you engineer it for combat, please let me know how you end up deciding to do your shields. Can't get mine to recharge nearly as fast as my Cutter's class 8 standard shield generator even with Bi-weave. Q.Q

 

[Stealthie]

If you engineer it for combat, please let me know how you end up deciding to do your shields. Can't get mine to recharge nearly as fast as my Cutter's class 8 standard shield generator even with Bi-weave. Q.Q

Have you, perhaps, applied a G5 mod to the PDist which has made a significant dent in the power that's available to Systems?

As a rule of thumb, I never apply anything more than a G3 mod' to the PDist cos they all seem a bit too "extreme" in one way or another.

 

[V'larr]

I just unlocked the Corvette the other day.

I was doing 50% of Post Commander rank per-day at Gliese 868 & the neighboring system (I forget the exact name, LP-numbers.) The other system is a bit of a dud but it's at least a focused place to hand in missions collected in Gliese 868. (Gliese 868 is a system I've known for years, in the heart of the bubble, used to have massive supplies of low-cost palladium.)

No board-flipping involved (well, I tried it a couple times in the LP-numbers system), no exploits, plenty donation missions to pick up now and then.

I also wasted a LOT of time going to "Fast Fed Rank" hotspots, like Ceos/Sothis, Tun, Niu Hsing, Ochosi, you name it, *all* of which were total duds for me. The only way I see places like that working out is if you REALLY love to board-flip. If I can save you the time: don't bother.

Focus instead on a system with lots of minor factions of the affiliation you desire, with stations within 2500 ls or so of the main star, that preferably has most missions go to a nearby system. The days of searching the fringes of the human bubble for hidden pairs are over.

 

[Saltyseadog]

I ranked up to rear admiral a couple of months ago and bought my Corvette. Never went near Sothis or any of the so called fast track places, just found a nearby set of systems with a majority of Federation factions etc and got myself accepted. Cannot understand the "don't want to pay big donations" attitude types. I would say that at least a third of mine was made by donations and sourcing materials but what I also noticed was that the bigger the donation then I would get offered 2-5+mcr passenger jobs in return. I also never noticed any extension of jobs etc for the various ranks. I am a pensioner and did 2-3hrs on a morning and the same again on an evening at just a regular rate. From novice to RA each rank took me approx 2-2.5days and I completed it in around 5 weeks if I remember correctly.