A-Team needs some help....

[Loriath]

We have two situations in the A-Team and need some advice.

Situation one:

A member in the A-Team (we will call him Dawg, mind you this is just to protect his privacy) is in dire need of ranking up in the Empire. Currently he is a Marquis and really needs to get to Duke as fast of Possible.
What is his best option?
Where and What?
Would it be better to be winged?
Should he sell his large collections of ships and just drown his sorrow in beer?



Situation two:

A Member in the A-Team (Lets call him Lori, again to protect his identity) is currently 8% Post Commander and is about 45% Tycoon on his way to Elite. He really wants to get admiral to unlock the Corvette. He is well aware of how to rank quickly in Fed space (Tun loaded with food, meds, progenitor cells and reactive armour and Lots and lots of cash) and can do it over a weekend without issue. He also has the means to make Elite over the weekend at 794 tonnes & min. 4200 credits per tonne every 13:45 seconds.

Given we are three weeks away from 2.1 and changes that everyone is speculation will make ranking harder, should he:
A. Go for the Elite this weekend
B. Go for the Admiral Rank

We need your Help. Give us your feedback, and help the A-Team

And keep the snarky comments to yourself Tor

We may have a third situation, but until another member (whom we will call Kharma) manages to come back from a beer run to London over the weekend, we will leave it until later.

[Dudley]

Who are these people... can we help them??

[charlie2alpha]

I put the same questions to myself just a while back, at the time I believed the 2.1 patch would come sooner. My choice is B. go with the Admiral rank ASAP, I suggest the same to anyone who needs to rank up in either the Federation or the Empire, we don't know how the mission changes will affect ranking and I believe it's better with the devil you know rather than with the unknown.

As for where to rank up for the Empire, HIP 10716 is my choice, Horizons is required and it's like Cubeo, accumulate ground assault missions but it's easier than Cubeo, all you need is a cheap ship armed with some dumbfire missiles.

[Walter]

:shock: Who are these people... can we help them??

Complete strangers. If only we knew their real names . . .

[TorTorden]

I don't think FD are touching the pilot rankings, only the major faction ranking.

And from what I hear it was mostly just the local factions that get more tiers, to make getting allied with the local factions (not the empire\fed rank) more of a "get".
And after 2.1 pilot rank requirements for missions goes away, so we are left only with main\local rep.


In other words I think it's best to get duke and admiral now, if you choose between that or pilot rank.

Does this make any sense at all, I apologize, currently sober so who knows what's going on with my brain.

[Loriath]

I don't think FD are touching the pilot rankings, only the major faction ranking.
And from what I hear it was mostly just the local factions that get more tiers, to make getting allied with the local factions (not the empire\fed rank) more of a "get".
And after 2.1 pilot rank requirements for missions goes away, so we are left only with main\local rep.
In other words I think it's best to get duke and admiral now, if you choose between that or pilot rank.

My concern is that the rep grind for Fed/Imp will become harder. That is why I asked for others ideas on it.

:shock: Who are these people... can we help them??

Dammit Dawg, didn't you get the memo??

Complete strangers. If only we knew their real names . . .

See how well I hid their Identities?

I put the same questions to myself just a while back, at the time I believed the 2.1 patch would come sooner. My choice is B. go with the Admiral rank ASAP, I suggest the same to anyone who needs to rank up in either the Federation or the Empire, we don't know how the mission changes will affect ranking and I believe it's better with the devil you know rather than with the unknown.

As for where to rank up for the Empire, HIP 10716 is my choice, Horizons is required and it's like Cubeo, accumulate ground assault missions but it's easier than Cubeo, all you need is a cheap ship armed with some dumbfire missiles.

My thoughts as well, thanks for helping me confirm it. And I will pass it along to the person whom I have identified as "Dawg"...

[TorTorden]

I shall henceforth park my cutter at a "practically" safe distance from the base in question.
Where I will partake in pina colladas served by the more pleasant looking of my "surplus stock" from my trading endeavors ...

[Cometborne]

I recently finished the grind to King and am currently in the grind to Admiral, some tips:

Empire: HIP 10716, doing ground assault missions out of the surface base of Morgan Depot. Escape pod farming is also lucrative if you work around the bugs, see my comments in the recent thread about Empire ranking here in the forum.

Federation: Tun is actually second best in my experience, and showing up with a ship full of stuff is exactly the wrong thing to do, as the missions for the foods/meds seem to dry up if you have the goods. If you are doing this as a team, having others stand by with T9s full of stuff is an option.

As your friend is already at Post Commander, Exbeur (permit locked, LT required) is a better choice as it has two stations, an outpost, and two planetary bases where you can get missions. There are quite a few charity missions available in both Bush High and Engle Dock, both the credit and food/weapon kind. Supplies are near, Bonitou and/or Bast for most foods, Alrai for high-tech stuff. Stay away from progenitor cells, those are only available in Morus, and that means 200,000 Ls in SC. If you are doing this as a group exercise, have one wing member pick up a T9 full of the stuff, and then transfer them to the mission guy as needed.

What is also good for rank gains are the "secret data delivery" missions, i.e. data courier missions that fail if the ship is scanned. I gained about 15% at Post Captain in an about an hour this morning by doing about half a dozen of them. They are on quite short timers, so you cannot stack too many, but they are typically to systems about 10-15 Ly away, so they can be done quickly. The money reward does not really matter, I got 3% for a mission that only paid 5k, while a 13k mission gave 1%. The receiver is more important, the 3% mission was to a fed-aligned faction.

Oh, and my gut feeling is that doing the rank grind now before the missions are "improved" in 2.1 is the better choice. I fear that the missions will get seriously nerfed with 2.1, and that is why I am getting the grind out of the way now, and will do the fun stuff once I am done with the grind.

[JohnLuke]

I recently finished the grind to King and am currently in the grind to Admiral, some tips:

<snipped>>

Fantastic tips, Cometborne!

[JustSomeGuy]

I recently finished the grind to King and am currently in the grind to Admiral, some tips:

<snipped>>

Fantastic tips, Cometborne!

I agree, thanks for sharing!