best way to grind comabt rank?

[1Nf@MOu$( Mr.Thorp )]

is it really just blasting everything at a haz rez? ive been doing this a few weeks now, and OMG the tedium.. its so slow. better ways to do this?

[Matok1971]

3 tips for combat rank:
1) Fight Thargoids
2) Do NOT use the NPC Crew. They will reduce the exp you get to 1/3 of the total. Plus the longer you keep the in your crew roster, the will get paid every time you earn credits.
3) Fight Thargoids

[D a R i U z Z]

Originally posted by Matok1971:

3 tips for combat rank:
1) Fight Thargoids
2) Do NOT use the NPC Crew. They will reduce the exp you get to 1/3 of the total. Plus the longer you keep the in your crew roster, the will get paid every time you earn credits.
3) Fight Thargoids

WTF npc crew reduces xp?

[funkynutz]

Don't bother shooting anything with a combat rank below yours. Kill everything else.

Originally posted by D a R i U z Z:

WTF npc crew reduces xp?

Yep, and credits earned.

[D a R i U z Z]

the game discloses the credit cut by the xp is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up.

[✠ Sigmar ✠]

"ive been doing this a few weeks now, and OMG the tedium.. "

You just summarized the whole game in one and a half sentences. Yes, this is the way. Have fun.

[Sam Willet]

Originally posted by 1Nf@MOu$( Mr.Thorp ):

is it really just blasting everything at a haz rez? ive been doing this a few weeks now, and OMG the tedium.. its so slow. better ways to do this?

Fastest way to gain combat rank is shooting high level enemies on foot.

Second fastest way is shooting pilots of much higher rank than you with zero assistance (no help from the cops, no help from your NPC pilot). Best place to do this is compromised Nav beacons where you only attack Deadly and Elite pilots.

Fighting thargoids is the worst way to gain combat rank.

[Oddball]

Aren't squad kills shared as well toward combat rank?

[♥ Beepy ♥]

Originally posted by 1Nf@MOu$( Mr.Thorp ):

is it really just blasting everything at a haz rez? ive been doing this a few weeks now, and OMG the tedium.. its so slow. better ways to do this?

Depends on what your rank is, the higher you get, the ships that are ranked lower than you give you little to no XP.

Say you're Deadly Ranked... Elite ships only give you 1.25xp and Deadly ships give you 1xp. Dangerous, Master and Expert only give you 0.75, 0.50 and 0.25xp respectively.

It is much faster finding a criminal faction-owned base on a planet and killing all their personnel, jump to supercruise and immediately drop-out, land rinse and repeat. Plus that will boost both your Mercenary Rank and your Combat rank. OR find a ground conflict and farm those up.

It takes approximately 2,225 experience points to go from Deadly to Elite Combat ranking. This equals 1,780 Elite kills, or approximately 2,400 kills based on a more average distribution of ships

[Holeypaladin]

There's a trick to getting combat rank quickly in ground combat zones, but it requires you to wage war against a criminal faction that has presence in multiple systems, like (the most famous example being) the Diamond Frogs.

This requires you to pick up "Raid: exterminate criminal faction members" missions from any system where said criminal faction is present, and then going to any GCZ and shooting them up. These kills will contribute towards your Combat rank, but only if they count towards the mission objective. If you don't have a mission to kill criminal faction members, they will only count towards your Mercenary rank.

However, any on-foot kills that don't take place in a GCZ will always contribute towards Combat rank. So you can repeatedly raid criminal factions on foot to gain Combat rank... it just won't be as fast as completing three "Exterminate criminal faction members" missions in a single GCZ.

[Hootman]

Originally posted by D a R i U z Z:

the game discloses the credit cut by the xp is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up.

Why should you get experience for combat that another person (NPC) is doing? In reality, if you are launching a fighter and he's doing all the killing (if you don't fire a shot) he should get all of it, no?

C'mon man!

[Oddball]

Originally posted by Hootman:

Originally posted by D a R i U z Z:

the game discloses the credit cut by the xp is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up.

Why should you get experience for combat that another person (NPC) is doing? In reality, if you are launching a fighter and he's doing all the killing (if you don't fire a shot) he should get all of it, no?

C'mon man!

On principle yes you're correct. But in actuality the game treats a launched fighter using a NPC pilot as just another weapon system from your ship (fighter bay is an installed module just like any other weapon), and in such all kills by any of the ship's weapon systems is a kill by the ship-> ship owner. (Nevermind that NPC pilot skills are tracked separately lol)