Fastest way to increases ranks ?

[haab]

Yo, now I am Combat Ace first and the ranking goes up real slow with kiling Xenon M1 and M2. is there a faster way to let em grow ? Or is killing xenon M1/M2 the fastest ?

[CBJ]

Killing large ships is the quickest. Note that the higher your rank, the slower it will get.

[pjknibbs]

Clearing Khaak sectors is probably the quickest way, but it's still slow and you need some SERIOUS firepower to have any chance of taking down the M2s in there.

[eug1404]

Clearing Khaak sectors is probably the quickest way, but it's still slow and you need some SERIOUS firepower to have any chance of taking down the M2s in there.

*READS* Take a fully PSGed Paranid Oddysseus(M2) into a khaak sector and hack at the cap shhips, it's still not easy though....

[terrabyte]

• Clearing Khaak sectors is probably the quickest way, but it's still slow and you need some SERIOUS firepower to have any chance of taking down the M2s in there.

  *READS* Take a fully PSGed Paranid Oddysseus(M2) into a khaak sector and hack at the cap shhips, it's still not easy though....

  
  Would'nt be fun if it was too easy

[lokiel]

Why take an Odysseus when you can have more fun in a Perseus with 3xBPSGs and a Strafe drive?
It's cheaper and MUCH more fun.

[haab]

thnx :/ I get it.. it's gonna take real long...
Upto my current rank I did it with a teladi osprey 2x BPSG Front GHEPT left and right and 2xBPSG in the back. Both M1 and M2 die real quick Xenon or Khaak. 2 passes and their goners.... I'll keep the Osprey and jump from foe to foe sector for the next three days.. I want me ranks..And I'll get em

[Lutzie]

Why take an Odysseus when you can have more fun in a Perseus with 3xBPSGs and a Strafe drive?
It's cheaper and MUCH more fun.

And nigh on impossible to survive. You can do this against the Xenon, but not the Khaak. The Gamma Kyons will tear you apart.

[pjknibbs]

Why take an Odysseus when you can have more fun in a Perseus with 3xBPSGs and a Strafe drive?
It's cheaper and MUCH more fun.

Lutzie is right here. You won't get within 3km of a Khaak M2 flying a Perseus, and since constantly dying isn't that much fun, I have to assume you've never actually tried it!

[Darthstard]

Im with you on this haab, ive been clearing khaak sectors of capitals with same ship/config, there is a tactic for there m1's and you can build ranks with a steady progress, im also Ca1st, and it does take longer each rank. Until I can afford more firepower, I cant find a faster way, yet. Ive tried the same in khaak with a boron ray, have to say the osprey is a better bet with bpsgs etc.

[xenon_pimp]

Killing large ships is the quickest. Note that the higher your rank, the slower it will get.

Clearing Khaak sectors is probably the quickest way, but it's still slow and you need some SERIOUS firepower to have any chance of taking down the M2s in there.

I disagree with both of you. I find that M3's are worth maybe 1/10 or so as much as a capital ship, and far easier to both find and kill. Just park yourself about 4 km outside the Xenon shipyard in 472 in an M2 with PPC's and watch TV. You'll wanna check on your empire from time to time to deal with Khaak invasions, but I found I couldn't beat the rate of increase I got this way even when I went into the Khaak sectors and beat up M2's. To ensure a steady flow of L's, stir up the hornets nest at the Xenon station to the southwest and get the L's from there to come fight your M2. Once those are gone, which might take a couple hours of fighting, you can park outside the shipyard and it will make reinforcements to replace those lost by the station at a rate you can sleep through virtually. If you don't stir up the L's at the station, you will end up killing mostly M's and N's, and combat rank won't progress nearly as quickly. It's clearly the L's that cause the major combat rank advance.

[Some Strange Man]

I found, at least in 1.3, that killing Stations gave a higher combat rating rise than killing ships.

[CheeseAndBaconBurger]

Park your M2 destroyer in front of the North gate in Black hole sun, youle get a constant stream of Zenon L's go booom, also you can make millions having some ships collect the goodies that all the dead zenon leave behind ( I made millions from missiles like this). Using a Khaak M3 in black hole sun is prety good way of ranking too.

[The_Vamp]

Why take an Odysseus when you can have more fun in a Perseus with 3xBPSGs and a Strafe drive?
It's cheaper and MUCH more fun.

Lutzie is right here. You won't get within 3km of a Khaak M2 flying a Perseus, and since constantly dying isn't that much fun, I have to assume you've never actually tried it!

While the thought of a Perseus in Khaak space is humorous to me, this note and others are right on the mark. You will be dying a whole bunch. Now if you has said you were using a Pegasus, I might have believed the whole staying alive not killing anything having fun sort of thing, but a Perseus? Either you have a crack pipe in your hand or a crack in your head....
The Vamp!

[The_Vamp]

Park your M2 destroyer in front of the North gate in Black hole sun, youle get a constant stream of Zenon L's go booom, also you can make millions having some ships collect the goodies that all the dead zenon leave behind ( I made millions from missiles like this). Using a Khaak M3 in black hole sun is prety good way of ranking too.

This might actually work! Too bad the Xenons are extinct in my empire!!!!!! Oh that's right they keep respawing dont they?! Since I ranted and raved about this elsewhere I will spare you folks. Nevertheless this actually sounds like a good idea!

[The_Vamp]

Killing large ships is the quickest. Note that the higher your rank, the slower it will get.

Clearing Khaak sectors is probably the quickest way, but it's still slow and you need some SERIOUS firepower to have any chance of taking down the M2s in there.

I disagree with both of you. I find that M3's are worth maybe 1/10 or so as much as a capital ship, and far easier to both find and kill. Just park yourself about 4 km outside the Xenon shipyard in 472 in an M2 with PPC's and watch TV. You'll wanna check on your empire from time to time to deal with Khaak invasions, but I found I couldn't beat the rate of increase I got this way even when I went into the Khaak sectors and beat up M2's. To ensure a steady flow of L's, stir up the hornets nest at the Xenon station to the southwest and get the L's from there to come fight your M2. Once those are gone, which might take a couple hours of fighting, you can park outside the shipyard and it will make reinforcements to replace those lost by the station at a rate you can sleep through virtually. If you don't stir up the L's at the station, you will end up killing mostly M's and N's, and combat rank won't progress nearly as quickly. It's clearly the L's that cause the major combat rank advance.

Sorry I disagree with you. In 1.4 the M2s respawn as well from the space station so you are going to get at some point more than just Ls to deal with (oh and they dont appear one at a time). Poof and you have at least a dozen Js and Ks (more if you have other sectors that Xenons are extinct in).
The Vamp!

[Silver-Hawk]

Try sitting in a Khaak M3 filled out with Kyons outside a gate from which the Xenon are migrating en mass. (Only fighters tho ) And go to town. Most ships take seconds so it is easy to down a few at a time. I got most of the way through the Ace grades with this method. A bit slow higher up tho..

S-H

[UnknownUser]

Sorry I disagree with you. In 1.4 the M2s respawn as well from the space station so you are going to get at some point more than just Ls to deal with (oh and they dont appear one at a time). Poof and you have at least a dozen Js and Ks (more if you have other sectors that Xenons are extinct in).
The Vamp!

The cap ships dont respawn while you're in the sector. I use this technique and a variation on it in thyns abys (where I have at least 60 xenon ships in a diagonal red band at any one time cos of previous exterminations) and in TA I encounter caps. On the SY's doorstep I dont. Jump out and straight back in after youve been there for a while and you'll see a small dense cloud of caps around the SY that have been allowed to respawn while you're gone.[/quote]

[johnstrt]

Killing M3s is fine and dandy, and every little helps, but you need an awful lot to crack the higher ranks. In another thread a while back, someone asked about numbers, and I gave the kills I'd got listed when I made X-treme:

M1: 954
M2: 333
M3: 2435
M4: 2178
M5: 18056
M6: 3
TS: 493
Stations: 56
Drones: 109
Spacesuits: 9 (whoops)
Lasertowers: 5
Asteroids: 1
Unknown obj.s: 8 (don't remember killing any UFOs, so I'm not sure what these are).
Khaak clusters: 1

Now I don't know how the maths work on this, but on this basis, if 10 M3s are indeed equivalent to one M1/M2 (and it's probably not far off that), it's going to take about 13000 Xenon L's, on top of 20,000 Ms and Ns to climb to the top (and that's not counting the stations etc.). I believe AofA1 is somewhere round the halfway mark, so say 16000 fighters, if you're only aiming to go that far.

If you're going to do this by camping outside a Xenon station and waiting for spawns, well, don't forget to take some cocoa.

[haab]

Owkay.... Killing M1 and M2 is not the fastest way to increase ranks. Killing small ships increases rank faster.
Tested last night in X472.
I killed all the big ship in the sector, 2x m1 and 6x m2. It took 10 minutes and gave me 1% increase. 1% !!!!!!
The anihillation of the remaining m3,m4,m5 took me 15 minutes and 3% rank increase....
So.... better kill small ships it raises rank faster. (in time not in numbers)
I am still the same rank as in my initialpost (Ca1st) got to the 72% mark now....
Men this is gonna take time..
Lucky I already have a wife,job,house,car,pjoeter etc...