Federation Fast Ranking Help
- Thread starter Vurosia
- Start date
Depends on how far you are willing to travel, as well as how much you are willing to spend.
If that isn't relevant to you, as in, you will spend as much money as possible and travel as far as possible, I would suggest going to 17 Draconis.
Have not tried those myself, but I do know 17 Draconis only has donation missions.
Here's how I did it, it worked just fine. Maybe not the fastest possible way, but sufficient. I used Tun, with some strategies to try to make it a little faster. It's still not "fast" though. Ranking just isn't fast these days.
Got me the Corvette. That's what I was after
[video=youtube;hS4AttJhcLI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS4AttJhcLI[/video]
Got me the Corvette. That's what I was after
[video=youtube;hS4AttJhcLI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS4AttJhcLI[/video]
I ranked up to Rear Admiral in Sothis. Take all the data carry missions back and forth. You can make quite a bit of money and rank up as well.
How long did it take you to rank up in Sothis?
I went to 17 Draconis a few weeks ago to get from Ensign to Lieutenant and the only missions they have there are credit donation missions. Unlike Fehu however (which is the Imperial equivalent) there are none of the commodity donation missions that cost minimal credits but simply take time, which means that trying to rank up at 17 Draconis will cost you quite a bit of credits. I initially wanted to limit myself to the less expensive donation missions (200k or less) but found that it was taking too long so I went as high as the 500-750k donation range to speed things up. The issue here is that the more expensive donation missions are rather wasteful however as they were giving me around 1% rank advancement for 500-750k while I could use 3-4 of the 25k to 200k donations to reach 1% which means that paying 500k and up can give you as little as half the progress per credit. The total cost to go from Ensign to Lieutenant was around 15-20 million credits which is quite a bit more than I was expecting. I was basing my expectations on spending around 5-10 million because that is what it cost to go from Baron to Viscount at Fehu, but that was done roughly half with credit donations and half with commodity donations and the commodity donations require time but very little credits. I could have probably done it cheaper by waiting for only the lower cost donation missions but going as high as 750k or so still took me around 3-4 hours of waiting for the donation missions to refresh. Since each rank is around 3X as difficult to progress, going to the next rank with donation missions can be expected to cost around 50 million from Lieutenant to Lt. Commander, and so on. If you did only the lower-cost missions you could probably do this at around 2/3 the cost, say around 30-35 million. Scaling this up to 3X the cost for each subsequent rank this means it would cost me something like 1250 million credits to go from Lieutenant to Rear Admiral using the donation missions from 17 Draconis and probably take upwards of 300 hours waiting for the mission boards to refresh (and this is assuming you avoid the higher-cost donation missions and limit yourself to around 200k donations or less). This cost was dramatically lower prior to 2.1 when the donation missions were far cheaper, meaning that anyone who didn't grind the Federal/Imperial rank prior to 2.1 is now faced with an impossibly difficult grind unless they're willing to spend literally billions of credits on donation missions. This is when I realized that the Federal/Imperial rank grinds are well outside of my price range in terms of what I'm willing to spend. Even once you get the rank, there's the cost of purchasing and outfitting a Corvette or Cutter which is upwards of 750 million credits. That puts the total cost of a Corvette/Cutter at around 2 billion credits including the cost of paying for donation misisons to grind the rank and the cost of outfitting the ship itself.
I'll stick with my Python, thanks.
Last edited:
I just left Sothis and Ceos.
Missions are slow to spawn, and after 3-4 gaming sessions there, I got from Lieutenant 50% to a staggering....
Lieutenant 61%.
I returned the the bubble and found a funky system that has 4 federation factions, most in fighting amongst themselves.
Plenty to do, gain a further 15% in 1 session. Lol
Forgot the name though.
Missions are slow to spawn, and after 3-4 gaming sessions there, I got from Lieutenant 50% to a staggering....
Lieutenant 61%.
I returned the the bubble and found a funky system that has 4 federation factions, most in fighting amongst themselves.
Plenty to do, gain a further 15% in 1 session. Lol
Forgot the name though.
![BigBANGtheory [VR]](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/71/71385.jpg?1644873788){kind=avatar}
As someone that has done both navy ranks post v2.1 and owns both a well equipped Corvette and Cutter I can agree that yes it is a PITA but its not as bad you've calculated. Opportunities to make large sums of credits and significant rank come and go so what you need is knowledge on what those conditions might be and either go actively seek them out or just jump on them when you find them. The fastest way today is probably not the same it was last week and almost certainly not before v2.1
At this point in time churning through a high volume of missions per hour whilst earning credits at the same time is the best and fastest way. Go to Sothis and take a look at what is going on, go to 17 Draconis and see, look around other systems for oppourtunites and or conditions that might change prompting you to go back. Above all you have to decide when and where is good because things change and those that have done it already did it their way and that might not be your way or the fastest way. This is the gameplay ED offers you....
My advice is above all to go explore a bit and start building up knowledge of systems and game mechanics relating to ranking cos it will save you a ton of time and effort in the long run.
Lookin to rank up in the Federation myself and I think that's probably the best advice.
And even if not grinding the rank, no matter what you're currently doing, always check the message boards every time you dock and do all the cheap-ish Fed/Imp donation missions you chance upon. All that constant little progress accumulates over time and on the day you decide to push for ranks, you'll be glad you did.
Tell me about it.... I was thinking of running BH missions to reduce the time it's locked down for
You can run a BUNCH of data delivery missions between Ceos and Sothis but there is only a single FED faction there so, many of your missions will be for factions that are not federation aligned unless you want to spend a lot of time logging. I find that I make a boatload of credit by cherry-picking long-range cargo delivery missions (trying to get a bunch to the same station or system) while running data back-and-forth, then running the deliveries back to the bubble.
Haller City @ Barnard's Star has 4 or 5 FED factions. Harder to get allied (more factions to satisfy) but more FED missions, many of them to the same systems and stations, even from differing factions. I am even running cargoes simultaneously for factions that are at war with each other. I regularly fill my cargo hold with 360+ ton cargo and data delivery missions to 3 stations in the Ep Indi system (1 jump), one of the stations is Mansfield so I pick up as much "Indi Bourbon" as they will sell me each lap and I am increasing rank in all factions as I go round and round. There were donations missions but when I hit Lieutenant a couple of days ago they dried up for me. Lots more "steal this" and "massacre that" missions now. Anyone should be able to get the same results, at least up to the point that I have, I switch back and forth between this and Ceos/Sothis, running rares on the way out so I am not dead-heading earns a million or so more and raises REP. In addition, these cargo delivery missions also drop various, rare engineer materials in your inventory, stuff I keep seeing other users complaining about how difficult they are to procure. I wish there was a way for me to sell all these exquisite focus crystals and modular terminals and micro-weave cooling hoses, oh my!
I tried Ceos/Sothis/Bubble in a Python but for me, just not enough legs and not enough tonnage, was taking 38-40 jumps to make the bubble deliveries, the Anaconda can hold (stripped) well over 400 tons and still jump (w/level 2 FSD mod) well over 20 LY laden making it more like 26-28 jumps to the bubble. HUGE difference in time & effort plus: 10-15 million credits per lap in a Python vs. 30-60 million (depending on mission stacks) in the Anaconda. Also, in a Python as soon as you start accumulating those engineer mats your cargo cap takes a HUGE hit, bad enough even in the Anaconda that I keep throwing the stuffs over the side or selling them at the CM. In my completely A-rated Annie I can carry a little over 360 tons cargo and earn roughly 40-50 million per lap.
Last edited:
@jetson
I did the Barnard's Star thing as well (someone suggested in another thread, maybe you?)... It was similar to Tun, with missions that sent me all over. Just did some more Sothis/Ceos and it did seem a bit faster (only going 3 places!) For me, I guess I'm just going to move between the 3 (Sothis, Tun, Barnard) moving to the next when the boredom takes hold.
Don't worry Crazy, I'm fully earning it, I assure you.
I did the Barnard's Star thing as well (someone suggested in another thread, maybe you?)... It was similar to Tun, with missions that sent me all over. Just did some more Sothis/Ceos and it did seem a bit faster (only going 3 places!) For me, I guess I'm just going to move between the 3 (Sothis, Tun, Barnard) moving to the next when the boredom takes hold.
Don't worry Crazy, I'm fully earning it, I assure you.
Never thought of it that way. Good call!
Or he's just asking for advice on how to rank up not what ship he wants. This does my head in, at the end of the day credits, ships etc are relevant only to YOU, not any body else. If you have 800billion and every ship, how does anyone else know?? They don't, it doesn't affect anybody else playing the game depending on what ship or credits you have