False - military missions are the missions of progression effectively and general missions for major power affiliated factions contribute to progression. The military system in ED is more akin to an Auxiliary/Paramilitary/Mercenary/National-guard type force rather than the professional military some seem to be looking for. There is Power Play which is a close equivalent to being part of a professional/organised/official military force..
Anyone is free to post actual documentation/posts from the developers to prove otherwise, but the whole "auxiliary/paramilitary" explanation is one of the longest running and weakest explanations as to why there is no gameplay or functionality to the Imperial/Federaton ranks. It is modeled after Frontier: Elite II which not only had explicit ranks, but specific missions which had to be accomplished in order to be promoted to a higher rank, and once you achieved a certain rank with one faction you couldn't pursue a military career in the other.
The Frontier: Elite II manual: said:
MILITARY RANK
Both the Federation and the Empire give military ranks for services
rendered although these are known as titles in the Empire. An individual
can gradually progress up the ranks even from purely mercenary missions,
receiving promotions after sustained loyal service. Usually these ranks
are mutually exclusive as each of the superpowers does not tolerate its
officers working for the other power (though work for the independant
worlds is usually allowed).
FEDERAL RANKS IMPERIAL TITLES
None Lieutenant Outsider Viscount
Private Lieutenant Commander Serf Count
Corporal Captain Master Earl
Sergeant Commodore Sir Marquis
Sergeant Major Rear Admiral Squire Duke
Major Admiral Lord Prince
Colonel Baron
From the entire manual, which can be found here.
http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/docs.php?id=679 Reading through this manual shows all kinds of great features Elite II had that Elite: Dangerous for whatever reason does not have, including special military missions and perks like weaponry, fuel and drives only available to military members.
As far as I can find, the "auxiliary" explanation was thought up by fans on the board trying to come up with a reason that there was no mission system, why you could be in more than one military force at a time, why you could automatically gain rank without trying, all under the premise that as some kind of freelancer mercenary unbeholden to anything but the Pilot's Federation. And it's been repeated so long and so often that new players see it and accept it as fact.
The thing is this explanation, intended to deflect criticism of Frontier for the lack of mechanics behind the ranking explanation, does the opposite. By repeating it and clinging to it, you are actually saying that Frontier implemented the current system
by design. You are saying that a group of people sat down in a meeting and tossed around ideas, and the system we got was the result. And if this system, where rank means nothing, can be earned by accident, with no faction exclusivity or special missions or any gameplay other than acting as a gatekeeper for a few ship types... For this to have been planed and written in design documents and their coders were told to build it that what while ignoring all the logical problems and gameplay issues as well as forgetting previous game mechanics is insane.
Or, is it more likely that FD
wanted to implement a similar military rank system like in Frontier: Elite II, with military missions and perks and the gameplay possibilities, and came up with the different ranks labels and a point system but didn't have the time or inclination to code the mechanics required behind the scenes to make them work?
