My Coronation Ceremony...

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
TheWonko said:
I get that, and I know we're not "King of the Empire", or whatever. However, as Deejayeff145 points out, obtaining the top of the rank structure is just anti-climactic.
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Here is what I have suspected since ages: at some point FD plans to replace the current system with a 'handcrafted mission chain' system. The 'mission DLC leak' would be one way. It would explain why there is no alliance ranking. It would be easy to copy&paste the current system with ranks for the alliance, but this way even veteran players will have at least one campaign left to do when it is released.

In any case, the current system is nonsense. Not much more to say on that front.
 

War Eagle

War Eagle
Lightspeed said:
You make it seem so exciting:sleep:

Joking aside, "King" may be a placeholder for something to come. What if Base Building really is a thing? Might we need to earn rank to build bases? King of a base?

Too many unknowns at present, of course.
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That's what I was thinking, a future benefit for being King.
 

Florenus

Florenus
TheWonko said:
I get that, and I know we're not "King of the Empire", or whatever. However, as Deejayeff145 points out, obtaining the top of the rank structure is just anti-climactic.
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Actually, what I wrote wasn't aimed at what you posted exactly, but rather at what was in some other posts here and there.
And I understand your point of view.

That said, I never thought there was something wrong with how this works. I never expected those ranks to mean anything - after all players in Elite are never supposed to be too important - those rank names are blown over to sound significant, but it's just a honey to sweeten bitter truth that you're doing dirty work for them. Naval officers probably look down on you even if you're a King, and laugh at thousands of Princes that fly around doing courier work (It must be good joke for them). Being one, you couldn't get audience anywhere in the Empire, even station Manager might wave you off. Only advantage is that you can show the email you got and buy yourself an Imperial ship.
Same thing with Federal ranks ofc "Hey, look there Bob, another Admiral.".

I treat those as spam mail and never, ever let anyone know what rank I was given.
 

MoonRacer

MoonRacer
I have to agree, that ranks (even lower ranks) in Federation and Empire are a bit senseless, and (again) a missed chance for good game play. The rank system in itself is fine, and the rewards (permits and ships) are ok too.
There was a post several weeks ago where somebody suggested new names for the ranks. This would be a step toward a system which makes more sense. Why giving out officer /noble ranks? Much more sense were ranks along the line 'Federal/Imperial Agent'. I am sure native english speakers will find good rank names, and this is exactly what a player does! If you play the missions you are an agent, not an officer or a noble.

Also there should be more non substantial rewards, the ships and permits are fine, but there could be more, things of small consequence, like Decals for example. Decals would defeat secrecy, but on the other hand, not everybody needs to mount them.

Regarding the 'Email' you receive: For the higher ranks the message should at least be signed by an important person. Not just one line.

The problem is, that many things in ED are well thought out but sloppily executed and half baked...
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
ED sorely lacks the military career path that was in FE2 which built alongside the ranks.

In a nutshell, here's the differences:
  • in FE2, you had to run specific navy missions to gain rank. In ED you just do anything.
  • in FE2, available activities was directly related to your rank... unranked people only had access to delivery missions, while the highest ranks had access to all mission types including surveillance and bombing. In ED... this does not exist.
  • In FE2 opposed rank had negative effects on access to missions. So.. a federal captain probably wouldn't get offered any imperial missions if you had no imperial rank. Rank is inconsequential in ED
  • More the non delivery missions... but imperial missions directly target federal actors, and vice versa. In ED, it's just whatever the mission boards offer up. (1)
  • medals were awarded in FE2 for achievements, usually firsts. Nothing like this is in ED, though this is just cosmetic in nature really, though a nice touch still.

The only thing common is being awarded permits through rank... and the only thing ED has that FE2 doesn't is ship unlocks... but sadly these two points are all the rank system is in ED.

(1) a dedicated military career path which targets non aligned factions with effects could very easily fix the absence of negative states in the BGS.

You could also tie in mutually exclusive weapon unlocks for the superpowers, unique mission templates and other activities in to this.
 

M0rty

M
140395

King of the Void!
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
TheWonko said:
Just attained the rank of King for the Empire.

Here's what I earned:

View attachment 135530

Wow! When I got the rank of "Mostly Harmless", I got an animated email.

King? Right.

First off, if you want to grind rank, here is the basic strategy (this isn't original material; it's fairly well-known):
  1. Go to Ngalinn system and pick up courier missions bound for Mainani.
    • Hickam Survey is the only station in Ngalinn system.
  2. Once at Mainani, pick up courier missions for Ngalinn.
    • Mies Van Der Rohe's Claim is the only station in Mainani system.
  3. At first, select Reputation over credits for missions to ramp up reward values quickly.
    • Once allied, mission values are beween 32k - 56k.
  4. Go back and forth between these two places running courier missions until you obtain the rank you wish.
Here are the things you want to know:
  1. You will obtain rank pretty quickly.
    • It took me about 4 hours to go from Outsider to Squire (100%). Expect one rank per 1 - 2 hours
  2. You will make a lot of credits, and it's not a bad rate per hour, either - although better rates are definitely out there.
    • In that same 4 hour period, I made about 35M credits
  3. Consider avoiding missions to Aitvas - they give more credits and also engineering mats, but don't seem to impact reputation as much (YMMV)
  4. Make sure your ship meets the following guidelines:
    • The ship needs to be able to land on S and M pads
    • The ship needs up to 72t of cargo space for Navy supply missions
    • The ship needs to be combat-ready. Some Navy missions are strike contracts
  5. You are out in the middle of nowhere.
    • Miles Van Der Rohe's Claim offers Refuel service, but no Repair service
    • Hickam Survey offers both Refuel and Repair services
    • Neither stations offer Restock services
    • The closest station that offers full services is Mobius Enterprise in Bayah system
  6. Avoid interdictions, which shouldn't be difficult since they're all PvE.
    • When I was in my Vulture, I would submit most of the time and fight.
    • Every ship was an Anaconda
    • My rank is Competent, and I fought everything from Competent through Deadly.
My ship was an Asp Explorer, although I brought a Vulture along for strike missions and to kill pirates when I was bored.

I don't know exactly how much time I spent, but here's what I gained:
  • Approximately 120M credits.
  • Imperial Courier (11.8M credit value)
  • Imperial Clipper (74.7M credit value)
  • Imperial rank of King
So, a little over 200M in credits, in all.

To Frontier Dev:

There are so many things I love about this game. However, there are some things that are profoundly disappointing.

Why would you create this type of grind and have absolutely no in-game content to reflect these achievements? I mean, we do get some ships unlocked, but if that's the only benefit, might as well just call the ranks "Rank 1, Rank 2, Rank 3, etc." instead of actual titles.

This is such a wonderful opportunity for immersion that you guys totally missed. Here are some suggestions I have which I believe would be improvements:
  1. Allow us to put rank decals on our ships
  2. Have stations and official pilots great us by rank or by the formal protocols: "Your Grace", etc.
  3. Make a big deal out of the email we get rather than just a one sentence Congratulations
  4. Exclusive diplomatic, courier, supply and combat missions which actually impact the game
  5. To get the rank after reaching 100%, the missions could be very story-intensive - and more than yet another courier message
I'm sure there are tons of ideas out there that would be better than these, but if you happen to look at these forums at all, please take this into consideration.

Fly safe, commanders! o7
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I'm currently attempting to gain Imperial rank, and then I read stuff like this and it makes me want to go do something else. 😕

At least, back in the day, it was kind of fun grinding rank with surface-scan missions 'cos, if you were playing in Open, there'd be a bunch of you all interdicting each other to scan each other and it was like an SRV club-meet on the planet surface.
 

War Eagle

War Eagle
Ranks are part of the game, for now they may only get you Ship unlocks but they also get you permits to systems as well- could be good mining in those?
But I think they will incorporate something for the top ranks eventually...
So going to finish both to top levels.
 
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