Fastest way to Combat Elite?

I've been going pretty strong for the last month just playing the game. Dozens of solo wing assassinations, shy of a dozen hours doing BHs and a few CZs, but I've gained maybe 4%.

So I'm coming to you! What should I do? Been 'deadly' for about 3 years now.
 
Go to a CNB with an egineered laser Corvette or Anaconda and just lay waste to all wanted ships Dangerous level and above. There will be plenty. It's better to focus on ships you can take down quickly instead of the tanky-hulled ones.

With the lasers you won't need to waste time re-arming or synthing, and if you use a good bi-weave shield you can go from kill to kill with no downtime.
 
Just remember that killing NPC's that are below your combat rank gives you less (or no, as in zero) XP. Kills above your rank give you more XP, the bigger the difference between ranks.
That's why it's faster to gain rank at the beginning and getting from Deadly to Elite takes longest.
 
The difficulty of the opponent doesn't matter, only their rank. Like superfluid said, thargoid scouts are a good one as they pop fast under AX multicannon turrets and count as elite opponents.
Compromised nav beacons tend to spawn the same ranked ships as haz-res sites, but they're in smaller ships. An elite sidewinder is worth just as much as taking down a conda, provided you can hit the thing.
 
Combat Elite is all about killing and high ranking targets.

A Corvette was my weapon of choice back when I did the combat rank (just when engineers came about).

It takes dedication, the last rank to elite is equal to all the kills you accomplished for all the previous ranks.

Don’t try to drive yourself too hard, a trading Corvette with full armaments and shields (with internals for cargo) can carry heavy loads and still take on NPCs. You can advance both trade and combat status concurrently.

Enjoy the ride.
 
Go to a CNB with an engineered laser Corvette..

Exactly what I'm doing. Two huge efficient thermal vent beams, the rest long range phasing pulses. All gimballed.
I also have a 16t cargo bay and 1a collector limpets. They make good use of the time while charging my shields.
Fun times..
X.
 
Go to a CNB with an egineered laser Corvette or Anaconda and just lay waste to all wanted ships Dangerous level and above. There will be plenty. It's better to focus on ships you can take down quickly instead of the tanky-hulled ones.

With the lasers you won't need to waste time re-arming or synthing, and if you use a good bi-weave shield you can go from kill to kill with no downtime.

+1 to this.. it helps if your Huge Beams are fixed rather than gimballed (allows you to stay on target when chaff is released)

link to my current build
 
Last edited:
If you're taking out elite condas in an eagle you will not be rewarded anything for your efforts, so go for a quantity killer and swat elite sidewinders / scouts with a highly engineered cutter / vette, its zero skill but the quickest way, you can relog CNB / HAZ Res etc as required to find the wings of peasant elite ships to kill with pretty much one shot and they spawn continuously.

its then just a matter of time...

maybe one day Frontier will reward skill in this department but until then ^^ IIRC you need to kill ~2500 ships (based on average levels) to go from deadly to elite.
 
There's a really useful table here for how much XP you get for the different ranks.

And as people have already said, the fastest way is to go hunting Thargoid Scouts in the Pleiades as they all count as Elite ranked
 
I've been going pretty strong for the last month just playing the game. Dozens of solo wing assassinations, shy of a dozen hours doing BHs and a few CZs, but I've gained maybe 4%.

So I'm coming to you! What should I do? Been 'deadly' for about 3 years now.

This ⬇

Go to a CNB with an egineered laser Corvette or Anaconda and just lay waste to all wanted ships Dangerous level and above. There will be plenty. It's better to focus on ships you can take down quickly instead of the tanky-hulled ones.

With the lasers you won't need to waste time re-arming or synthing, and if you use a good bi-weave shield you can go from kill to kill with no downtime.

Though I'd suggest the following twist:

Pimp out a Mamba, or a FDL, engineer it to the highest levels you can be faffed to grind out, ideally everything at least G4, G5 would be better. DD's HRP's MRP's, high DPS armament, BI-Weaves or prisi's, etc. Though the 'conda or 'vette is not a bad suggestion. Just lacks agility & speed, IMHO. I'd also suggest balancing your damage types. Multi ammo is easy to synth, the smart rounds is also worth considering.

In a perfect world, pick a CNB where there is ISF, repair & rearm available nearby. If possible fit a KWS, with a fast scan. Again, be patient. You'll probably see an increase of around 2-8% at a time, depending on RNG. In a nutshell, CNB - more rank gain, less bounty pay. CZ - bit more balanced. HRZ - Less rank gain, more pay.

Drop into selected CNB, shoot lots of 'wanted' targets, ideally of high rank. Be patient. If there are not many high ranking targets, take out some of the small ones to force re-spawning. Gl, CMDR. o7 :)
 
At the moment, I'm in a similar position. I recently got to Deadly and have discovered that Going on a Thargoid scout Killing Spree is the quickest way to rank up. For every 1% of Deadly rating, you need to kill 16 scouts but only if you have no active crewman. If you have them in a fighter, then it's 32 scouts per 1%. I didn't realise that crewman drain your progress until I tried killing scouts in my Krait Phantom, as opposed to my Krait MK II.

It takes me about half an hour to increase by 1% as I'm restricting myself to NHSS-4 in Astrope but I have gone from 3% Deadly to 18% Deadly in about 2 weeks. I'm just hoping to keep the pressure up but it does mean at the moment I still have 1312 Scouts left to Kill. I'm going to have to do something else for a little while otherwise I'm going to burn out.
 
The fastest way is killing Thargoid Scouts with an AX equipped Krait in the systems around Maia (NHSS threats 2, 3 and 4). Watch YouTube bids on how to do it.

Next quickest way is using an FDL in a High Resource Extraction site. Equip it with long range pulse lasers and make it as fast as possible. When you get to the RES, log or jump in and out until you get an only or mainly small ship spawn. With help from the cops, you can double the kill rate that you'd get in a CNB. You only have to tag each pirate to get credited with the kill. You need a busy High RES, like LTT 15574 or Brani.
 
The fastest way is killing Thargoid Scouts with an AX equipped Krait in the systems around Maia (NHSS threats 2, 3 and 4). Watch YouTube bids on how to do it.

Next quickest way is using an FDL in a High Resource Extraction site. Equip it with long range pulse lasers and make it as fast as possible. When you get to the RES, log or jump in and out until you get an only or mainly small ship spawn. With help from the cops, you can double the kill rate that you'd get in a CNB. You only have to tag each pirate to get credited with the kill. You need a busy High RES, like LTT 15574 or Brani.
I don't think your FdL method beats a fully modded Corvette in HazRes or CNB in speed though.
Long range pulses have an abysmal time-to-kill compared to a Vette with huge beams and a corrosive utility weapon.
 
Back
Top Bottom