Newcomer / Intro Am I doing something wrong (Rank progression)

Busdriver101 · Mar 27, 2015

Solved : You need enough cargo space to hold the amount of stuff they want you to find. If you don't the mission will be under "available but unobtainable" . Also there is a bug where you can accept two rank missions, DO NOT take two.

Ok so I have been doing empire missions for at least 5 hours, and collected a lot of bounties. I've changed stations and increased rep with many minor factions.

I still have yet to unlock the first rank progression mission. Either this is bad mechanics or I'm bugged out, because 5 hours for the first rank is just ridiculous

Evyl Minkey · Mar 27, 2015

It doesn't seem that long to me. How long do you think it should take?

Busdriver101 · Mar 27, 2015

The time it takes to increase rep should scale upwards as you progress so, 1-2 hours first rank, and increase from there. Depending on how fast you complete missions that is. Maybe when I was in college I could put that much time down but I would like my clipper sometime this year

The Chef · Mar 27, 2015

Depends, you can call it bugged/broken, i just call it bad luck. I had the same when i wanted to join the Empire. It took me hours of doing jobs for minor factions to finaly get my first rank progression within the Empire. I just assumed it took longer because i was also friendly with the Feds, wich might delay things with the Empire.

Busdriver101 · Mar 28, 2015

The Chef said:
Depends, you can call it bugged/broken, i just call it bad luck. I had the same when i wanted to join the Empire. It took me hours of doing jobs for minor factions to finaly get my first rank progression within the Empire. I just assumed it took longer because i was also friendly with the Feds, wich might delay things with the Empire.

Is it confirmed that being allied with feds will cause it to progress slower?

Draxxen · Mar 28, 2015

I am also grinding Empire rank to get my Clipper, but it is a really slow progress. But I do progress: at the moment I am Squire. This is Day 2.
I seemed to drop down to neutral with Federation as soon as I started doing rank progression in Empire. Not sure if that is caused by this or something else I am not aware of..

Are you taking the specific missions that give rank progression instead of credits? Also, somebody said that the charity missions for rank progression give more points per mission, although I cannot say I have noticed.

Busdriver101 · Mar 28, 2015

Draxxen said:
I am also grinding Empire rank to get my Clipper, but it is a really slow progress. But I do progress: at the moment I am Squire. This is Day 2.
I seemed to drop down to neutral with Federation as soon as I started doing rank progression in Empire. Not sure if that is caused by this or something else I am not aware of..

Are you taking the specific missions that give rank progression instead of credits? Also, somebody said that the charity missions for rank progression give more points per mission, although I cannot say I have noticed.

I'm doing missions for any empire ran minor faction, and the naval opportunity missions always say available but unobtainable

Draxxen · Mar 28, 2015

Busdriver101 said:
I'm doing missions for any empire ran minor faction, and the naval opportunity missions always say available but unobtainable

Weird..
How is your local rep? are you friends with these stations? I do trading on the side and have built rep that way as well. I am greeted as a respected ally when I hail the stations.

andyraptor · Mar 28, 2015

that means you've completed a naval progression mission and it's waiting to reset... show us your status in the right hand panel... default .. key 4

if you're adamant that what u say is the full truth ... fill and submit a ticket

EDIT

to get progression ... you will be far better off getting friendly and allied with 2 or 3 factions (including the major controlling faction) at 4 -5 stations (Empire Aligned) than sitting down at the local RES site pew pewing and waiting for something to happen

Busdriver101 · Mar 31, 2015

Allied with them according to the right panel, and I have never completed a naval mission for any faction

Universal Evil · Mar 31, 2015

The naval mission is for the impire itself (or federation navy if in Fed space) NOT the minor factions of the station you're currently in...
Back when I wanted my clipper it took me 3 days of ca. 6-7 hours of doing missions for the minor factions in 3 or 4 systems/stations and the only time I had "Navy-missions not available" was after I already had picked up the "permit-mission" to some system where I didn't go anyway... all the other Navy-missions were available so it should be for you too unless it's a cargo mission and you don't have enough free cargo space in your ship....

Some of the Navy-mission(those you earn you rank progression) you need to transfer some cargo others you need to go shoot some pirates or traders at least that's what I got for my missions could be different now since we've had at least 2 major upgrades since I did those missions but I doubt it... And I also only became friendly with the impire(still am) while doing the mission to get permission to buy my Imp.Clipper whitch I still have btw....

Busdriver101 · Mar 31, 2015

Universal Evil said:
The naval mission is for the impire itself (or federation navy if in Fed space) NOT the minor factions of the station you're currently in...
Back when I wanted my clipper it took me 3 days of ca. 6-7 hours of doing missions for the minor factions in 3 or 4 systems/stations and the only time I had "Navy-missions not available" was after I already had picked up the "permit-mission" to some system where I didn't go anyway... all the other Navy-missions were available so it should be for you too unless it's a cargo mission and you don't have enough free cargo space in your ship....

Some of the Navy-mission(those you earn you rank progression) you need to transfer some cargo others you need to go shoot some pirates or traders at least that's what I got for my missions could be different now since we've had at least 2 major upgrades since I did those missions but I doubt it... And I also only became friendly with the impire(still am) while doing the mission to get permission to buy my Imp.Clipper whitch I still have btw....

So not having enough cargo space will make the mission say available but unobtainable? because I fly a vulture with no cargo rack, that may be the cause

Universal Evil · Mar 31, 2015

Yeah if you read in the mission that they want you to deliver some goods to another station in another system where you need Cargospace you will find it under available but unobtainable categori section like the ones I got which say I get a "permit to some system" where you otherwise cannot jump to
The reward like the new RANKs those are also a "mission" to pick up but you don't need to do anything you just get the rank should be under "the available missions" unless it's a mission you have already done so it's a dublicate mission that will give you the same Permit as the one you've already received but it will disappear again at some point(mine did)...

You can still read what the mission is about even if you cannot accept it... I also got some delivery missions where I didn't need cargospace because it was just some DATA I needed to deliver, I took every mission I could find even did a couple of dublicates(two of the same mission) but it didn't help in rank progression only make me able to pick up the same System-permit tvice.... So you should be able to get the rank of Byron(like me) in 18-20 hours of doing missions only for the empire...
However I heard that if you like me are allied to the FED and have the highest rank with them it could take longer to earn ranks with the Empire but back when I got my rank(Byron) I didn't new that and I also don't think that 20 hours of play is too much of an effort to put into the game to become Byron... I don't know if it will take longer for me to get the last 2-3 ranks within the empire now if I tried it, but right now I'm far away from empire earning points with the 3'rd major faction The Alliance, but I don't think I can get any Ranks with them.... ?

Busdriver101 · Mar 31, 2015

Thank you for telling me I needed a cargo rack to get these. I thought I could get the mission then change into a cargo rack to complete it but they don't give you the mission until you can hold the amount they want!

Ancipital · Mar 31, 2015

OK, here's a guide on the quirks of the rep system including why your Naval Ascension mission isn't popping:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=102810

Here are specifics on Empire rank (CONTAINS SPOILERS):

http://www.fenris.co.uk/elite/empire-ranks/

..and here's an oldish random comment from the wiki:

"all ranks can be gotten within 20ly of Jimara, and when you get need combat stims, Sochs has them, which is a bit farther I think, but it also has the Lord rank which asks for combat stims, which are sold in the same location. Cannot confirm anything above Lord rank, but I just went from Outsider to Lord in 1 hour upon arrival in Jimara. I already was friendly with Empire and was Allied with a minor faction allied with them. Also, Jimara currently has a civil war going on, Empire vs Independant, which is why I even went there. Intense conflict zones, at the time of writing this. "

(Don't bank on the war still happening

)

Hope that helps.

I finally got around to starting Empire missions myself- and I've been doing it in a Vulture with only 8T of cargo space.. so far, so good.

Anarky · Mar 31, 2015

Ancipital said:
OK, here's a guide on the quirks of the rep system including why your Naval Ascension mission isn't popping:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=102810

Here are specifics on Empire rank (CONTAINS SPOILERS):

http://www.fenris.co.uk/elite/empire-ranks/

The specific missions for ranking I found inaccurate. I got different missions as I ranked up.

Yokai's guide is good but does not cover what happens when you hit Allied with the major faction (Empire in OP's case). When this happens all the minor factions will appear allied. However, you can still rank up with them apparently. It's just the ranking up is basically invisible as everyone looks allied! So keep a list of all the minor factions you're leveling up with now (Imperial or Fed), then once you hit allied you need to go to systems with new factions and run missions for them.

Finally, there also seems to be a big element of RNG. I ran missions and did trading for 2 weeks and got nothing, then got hit by all the rank up missions to Knight, and now there's been nothing again for 2 weeks. I've honestly given up on ranking as it seems a total mess. I've skipped the Clipper and went straight to Python. The money from Lugh helped though.

Good luck if you stick with it