Tips on gaining mercenary rank?

ive been killing civies in the anarchy zones and watching the progress bar move up slowly

all civi kills ...

before and after pics ...

Elite Dangerous Screenshot 2021.06.12 - 20.15.44.111.png
Elite Dangerous Screenshot 2021.06.18 - 11.38.07.42.png
 
I’m not convinced the rank system is working properly at all.

I dropped 24M of exploration data on Wednesday that pushed my Elite rank up by 7% -grumble, grumble, Elite should be the max rank, grumble, grumble - yesterday I dropped nearly 30M and it only went up 2%. All according to INARA as we can’t see in game anymore.

I'd second this, had been eyeballing and checking inara and the credits / percentage didn't seem consistent.

Combat rank had also been showing different progress between panels 3 and 4, but that's likely a UI bug.
 
Just going to join in here and say I've massacred thousands now and only made it on to mostly defenceless. CZs seem to rank faster but even then seems slow at low level. The way this scales seems very off.
 

Deleted member 182079

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ive been killing civies in the anarchy zones and watching the progress bar move up slowly

all civi kills ...

before and after pics ...

View attachment 241823View attachment 241824
The clue could be in these shots possibly - "Combat Rank: Mostly Harmless"

I'm triple Elite and Merc rank progress has been glacial. Wouldn't surprise me if (ship) combat rank is taken into account, because why not :rolleyes:

(could be the same for exploration also)
 
I wonder if the reason it goes up faster in CZs is just because settlements don't tend to have as many people to kill and those that are there are considerably lower-ranked.

Like - if a settlement has 20-odd people in it and only four of them are guards, then it doesn't really matter if I wipe out the rest - they're only single-chevron combat rank.
In a CZ, however, if I ambush a dropship as it's landing and pop an EMP on the ground directly under the landing party right as they touch down, then follow it up with a rocket or two, that's six high-ranked kills right there for that single engagement which is more killin' than you'll do wiping out every guard at some settlements.
 

Deleted member 182079

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If you're harmless level though, you should still rank up quicker the first couple of ranks before things slow down even if your enemies are on similar level.

I've been wondering for a while whether the low credit payouts for missions are caused by my low merc ranks also (presumably exo is being ignored as there are no relevant missions in the game).
 
I've found that Frontline/Conflict zones advance merc rank really quickly, but doing On-Foot missions or bounty hunting/murder doesn't seem to do much at all except for reputation and influence.
 
The clue could be in these shots possibly - "Combat Rank: Mostly Harmless"

I'm triple Elite and Merc rank progress has been glacial. Wouldn't surprise me if (ship) combat rank is taken into account, because why not :rolleyes:

(could be the same for exploration also)

combat rank is progressed with on foot killing activities like merc
killing in CZ's and killing civvies all count toward both ranks ... but, combat rank is a much much much slower progression while merc rank progressed really fast
i do not think the rank of combat effects the merc rank progression though






Elite Dangerous Screenshot 2021.06.23 - 00.20.35.81.jpg
 

Deleted member 182079

D
combat rank is progressed with on foot killing activities like merc
killing in CZ's and killing civvies all count toward both ranks ... but, combat rank is a much much much slower progression while merc rank progressed really fast
i do not think the rank of combat effects the merc rank progression though






View attachment 244208
What I'm suggesting is that the lower your combat rank is, the faster your Merc rank increases. I'm looking at the Inara signatures of other posters who say it's slow for them, they're Elite combat just like me. Could explain it at least even if it makes little sense.
 
LoL, can the Mercenary rank progression be tied to Combat rank progression? That will be hilarious and frustrating bug. Unfortunately it is hard to be verified.

The fastest way would be if we have two commanders, one combat elite and one combat novice with zero progress on mercenary rank - 10 kills will show the difference.

From my prospective mercenary rank is very slow. I am still soldier and it looks like only high CZ pushes my Mercenary rank a bit.
 
LoL, can the Mercenary rank progression be tied to Combat rank progression? That will be hilarious and frustrating bug. Unfortunately it is hard to be verified.

The fastest way would be if we have two commanders one combat elite and one combat novice with zero progress on mercenary rank - 10 kills will show the difference.

From my prospective mercenary rank is very slow. I am still soldier and it looks like only high CZ pushes my Mercenary rank a bit.

i dont think 10 kill will show on the progress bar

just have both commanders do a full CZ or 2 CZ's

but, their bonds need to be similar too ... i turn in on average an 8 million credit bond

and have pics of before and after the CZ's for comparison
progress pics need to be of the CODEX screen not the ship panel

i can post 2 CZ's progress with bonds if you want
 
LoL, can the Mercenary rank progression be tied to Combat rank progression? That will be hilarious and frustrating bug. Unfortunately it is hard to be verified.

The fastest way would be if we have two commanders, one combat elite and one combat novice with zero progress on mercenary rank - 10 kills will show the difference.

From my prospective mercenary rank is very slow. I am still soldier and it looks like only high CZ pushes my Mercenary rank a bit.

I’ve not noticed any significant difference between accounts, Dangerous and Competent, not that I’ve run any direct comparisons.

Anecdotally, my higher rank CMDR reached Mostly Defenceless quicker, but that could be due to a variety of factors.
 
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yes, the game works very different for everyone

i have decent to excellent fps ... many commanders have 0~20 fps
many commanders encounter missions bugs one after another ... i do not
and even with ranks there is different experience ... idk???

im not sure why some of us have much different experiences with the game ... is it soley in the pc each commander is using ??

is it rng, hehehe :alien:
Is it possible that they have added xp for successfully completing the mission and that assassinations are higher threat level and so get more XP?
 
Is it possible that they have added xp for successfully completing the mission and that assassinations are higher threat level and so get more XP?

i wasnt doing missions when i was killing anarchists and progressed roughly 3/4 through warrior with no CZ combat

most of the assassinations ive done have not been threat level 5 ... ive seen and done more lower threat level assassinations than high threat level
 
I'm curious if anyone has tested different ranks of suits/weapons in relation to how fast mercenary rank progresses. I ask because I got my first rank up doing a high CZ in a G1 suit but since then, I've done 13 more high CZ's in higher ranked suits and have not gotten above Mostly Defenseless.
 
I've killed so many while farming OP...yet my rank progressed only when I went to high CZ .
Different people have vastly different experiences, so my assumption is that it's bugged right now. I'm in your camp, doing missions and killing people outside of CZs barely generates any progress, only High CZs made anything happen in that regard (and there the registration seems to only work half of the time as well).
 
OK I know this thread is a bit old but I can confirm it’d not broken anymore. It is quite clear that it’s combat zones that move this, and maybe criminals as well if you scan them. Killing civies or failing to scan crims will not get you anywhere at all. Think about what a mercenary is; you get paid to do combat.
 
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