RANKS: Imperial Navy Ranks - Ships - Permits - #00017
Ranking up in the Empire is not only about flying fancy looking ships
In Elite Dangerous, you are not limited to one major political faction, one career or one lifestyle.
It's therefore a good idea to know about Imperial Navy Rank and its benefits, even if you don't plan to go the 'bask in the glory' way.
Benefits: Ships
Looking at the table below, you can see the ships being unlocked after reaching a certain Federation rank. It is well worth the 'grind', be it for the sheer beauty and joy of flying the Imperial Clipper or for the long-range-high-cargo-capacity Imperial Cutter.
Benefits: Systems
Less impressive on first sight, but important for 'Empire' role play or access to some player group's backyard. By reaching a certain Imperial rank, you get access to previously locked systems.
Table: Elite Dangerous Imperial Navy Ranks. Unlocked Ships. System Permits.
How to rank up in the Imperial Navy
Basically, everything you do that earns you money in connection with an empire aligned minor faction ranks you up in some way. Same with missions of any kind for an empire aligned minor faction.
For a maxmimum in progress regarding Imperial Rank, you should concentrate on missions with as many plus symbols as possible regarding REP (reputation), offered to you by an imperial minor faction.
If you wish to rank up faster, there are several ways to improve 'throughput' in reputation:
- Sell high value mined commodities like Low Temperature Diamonds, Painite or Void Opals at a station controlled by an empire aligned minor faction
- Sell cartography data at an empire aligned station
- Do missions for empire aligned minor factions
The last suggestion is the most time effective: Fly to a system with as many EMPIRE aligned minor factions you can find. If you have several places to choose from, use the one system that has the most 'boom' state minor factions.
This provides you with lots of high reputation missions to choose from. Choose missions which are not high in time consumption but high in 'plus count' regarding REP. Boom delivery with +++++ REP is your lottery win.
If you can't find missions with high REP plus count, try to find missions from several factions all going to the same place.
Pro Tip: Doing RESCUE missions from stations in distress not only is a wonderful fast track for ranking up with the Empire, it provides a lot of income, too.