Finally hit Duke in Empire, and got up to Ensign in Federation.
Interestingly, it took one upgrade in rank to "activate" the progression bars, which were previously broken and not updating for me and many others.
I found that long-range smuggling is the best way to progress now, and it's quite good. It appears you can still "stack" missions as you could before, but even once that is removed, long range smuggling is still #1 for ranking...and the extra money is nice.
edit: I should probably add I am Tycoon in trading. Trade rank, and local faction rank will play a large role in what is made available to you.
So with these new long-range missions, either you get the very low quantity goods that will have you fail on mission scan (these missions will be 2-5m on average for ~4ish on average cargo, rare)... but also long-range smuggling missions also have 40-100 cargo, common, missions. You wont be making 50-100m a trip, but you can make ~ 10m an hour with 5ish smuggling missions, while also ranking up pretty fast. I would not recommend doing this purely for the money, but if you're trying to rank up in fed/empire, I highly recommend this method over donations.
Did about 75 donation missions, and then only 10 smuggling missions to get from Marquis to Duke. This is pretty major... getting from Earl to Marquis was like 500 donation missions... a massive...boring... grind, but definitely the quickest and best choice prior to 1.5/Horizons.
If you are trying to combine smuggling with ranking up, just take long range missions for empire/fed factions, none of the other factions. There are plenty of missions to choose from, you can probably get filled up with 1-3 updates. Right now you can do the whole solo-private-open game, but that is poised to be removed from updating bulletin boards. Even once that is removed, you will need 1-2 updates and still be all set anyway. I never even took any of the surface missions, just port-port.
For smuggling for the Federation, Sothis and some of the surrounding areas with stations is good.
For smuggling for the Empire, Fehu is good.
One major change is if you have a high-cargo ship, you can take 5-10 of the "safe," non-illegal missions, filling your hull up, still making 5-10 million an hour and getting lots of rank on delivery. Really nice. I was just using an Asp to do it, but after this last trip I was going to grab my Conda... but I wound up getting an imperial ascension after finishing.
I really appreciate getting these new mission updates Frontier. Makes ranking up way more enjoyable!
... now I am off to get my new Cutter
Interestingly, it took one upgrade in rank to "activate" the progression bars, which were previously broken and not updating for me and many others.
I found that long-range smuggling is the best way to progress now, and it's quite good. It appears you can still "stack" missions as you could before, but even once that is removed, long range smuggling is still #1 for ranking...and the extra money is nice.
edit: I should probably add I am Tycoon in trading. Trade rank, and local faction rank will play a large role in what is made available to you.
So with these new long-range missions, either you get the very low quantity goods that will have you fail on mission scan (these missions will be 2-5m on average for ~4ish on average cargo, rare)... but also long-range smuggling missions also have 40-100 cargo, common, missions. You wont be making 50-100m a trip, but you can make ~ 10m an hour with 5ish smuggling missions, while also ranking up pretty fast. I would not recommend doing this purely for the money, but if you're trying to rank up in fed/empire, I highly recommend this method over donations.
Did about 75 donation missions, and then only 10 smuggling missions to get from Marquis to Duke. This is pretty major... getting from Earl to Marquis was like 500 donation missions... a massive...boring... grind, but definitely the quickest and best choice prior to 1.5/Horizons.
If you are trying to combine smuggling with ranking up, just take long range missions for empire/fed factions, none of the other factions. There are plenty of missions to choose from, you can probably get filled up with 1-3 updates. Right now you can do the whole solo-private-open game, but that is poised to be removed from updating bulletin boards. Even once that is removed, you will need 1-2 updates and still be all set anyway. I never even took any of the surface missions, just port-port.
For smuggling for the Federation, Sothis and some of the surrounding areas with stations is good.
For smuggling for the Empire, Fehu is good.
One major change is if you have a high-cargo ship, you can take 5-10 of the "safe," non-illegal missions, filling your hull up, still making 5-10 million an hour and getting lots of rank on delivery. Really nice. I was just using an Asp to do it, but after this last trip I was going to grab my Conda... but I wound up getting an imperial ascension after finishing.
I really appreciate getting these new mission updates Frontier. Makes ranking up way more enjoyable!
... now I am off to get my new Cutter
Last edited:
