Question on Naval ranks and missions

[Darth Wayner]

Hi all, I have a pretty detail-oriented question on navy ranks and missions.

I'm working on Imperial rank to unlock my Cutter. I know there's plenty of guides for running courier missions but I'm not interested...I've always liked the space trucker aspect of the game so I found a great station that offers those lucrative $50M credit missions to bring commodities.

I've maxed out my rep to allied with every faction at the station. When choosing my reward (cash, eng materials, rep, influence, etc) is the reputation option buying me anything toward Naval Rank? Obviously it's not getting me anything toward faction rep since I'm maxed. I've been taking the rep rewards, but I read somewhere that the reward type doesn't matter for naval rank, that each mission counts as a fixed contribution to rank. There's not any way that I can test this myself (that I know of) since i don't think each mission offers the same amount of rep. Does anyone know if this is true?

If so, I cringe to think of the amount of credits I've missed out on by always choosing the rep reward.

 

[aRJay]

I am fairly sure that it reputation rewards count to both faction and superpower with the more pluses the better.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

I read somewhere that the reward type doesn't matter for naval rank, that each mission counts as a fixed contribution to rank.

Whatever you read was completely wrong; the Reputation rewards you have been choosing indeed increase your Navy rank! Also as with all other rewards, the Reputation rewards for missions from a faction with whom you are already allied are worth much more; it is best to continue completing those rather than ingratiating yourself with a new minor faction.

 

[Darth Wayner]

Also as with all other rewards, the Reputation rewards for missions from a faction with whom you are already allied are worth much more; it is best to continue completing those rather than ingratiating yourself with a new minor faction.

OMG! That's good to know, thanks! At first I actually tried moving from station to station thinking that once I had hit Allied with a faction that I would get diminished returns (I assumed that navy rank was somehow calculated based on the NUMBER of factions you were allied with). It took me a while to figure out that wasn't the case, but definitely nice to know that sticking with one station will help me more.

 

[aRJay]

While you won’t get as much reputation per activity while ranking up other factions having a larger pool of factions you are allied with improves you chances of getting high reputation missions for activities you find acceptable just because you have more choices.

Also swapping between factions is often a good way to encourage the ranking missions to show up when you reach that level.

 

[metatheurgist]

My god this discussion reminds me of the bad old days when no one knew how it worked. How can such misinformation still be around. I can still remember the time I maxed rank with 20 or so factions just to disprove that dumb theory. What was all that for!

 

[Aleks Zuno]

My god this discussion reminds me of the bad old days when no one knew how it worked. How can such misinformation still be around. I can still remember the time I maxed rank with 20 or so factions just to disprove that dumb theory. What was all that for!

Thank you for testing things!

For @Darth Wayner, the main way I know that allied faction missions give higher Reputation rewards is via Wing missions and their Reputation effects on Commanders who are sharing the reward, where one shared mission started by an allied Commander can boost Reputation immensely for others! Elite allied Reputation rewards are around two-and-a-bit missions to leap another Commander from neutral to allied, and a nicely-layered set of 20 wing Massacre¹ missions can give full allied with an entire starport, should that be chosen over Engineering rewards.

1. Mind that the wing Massacre credits reward is lower per-kill; it breaks even if shared with two others, and only beats solo missions if shared with three others.