Joining the alliance military.

Post by **Vice** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 5:34 pm

Which sector coordinates were you at when you completed the missions? Some players have been completing missions in Talison or Cerulean thinking they are getting rank credit, but the war zones are above those systems.

Wasp89 · Post by **Wasp89** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 5:51 pm

We were in the Talison war zone for most of them, but also in the Cerulean war zone a few days ago. I don't remember the exact coordinates, but we took the war zone gate from Talison to the war zone sector containing the carrier and the station. In the Talison war zone, the only other nearby object (from what I can see...haven't explored there much) is a star. In the Cerulean war zone, I seem to recall there being two carriers, one of which is in an asteroid field.

So yes, I was in the right area.

azpatriot · Post by **azpatriot** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:56 pm

Today I was playing SP at the same location and poof again after 5 missions my rank snapped up. It seems to loose count of some of the missions then springs up all at once. I have seen no increased rank while playing online though regardless of the number of missions. Yesterday Bravehart and I were on twice and between the two times we must have flew 50 missions.

With this pilot I originally flew about 15 to 20 missions that would not count because they were civi missions, but since have flown 222 missions and have only seen the rank change while fling SP and not online. Hope this helps to nail it down Vice.

Daedalao · Post by **Daedalao** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 10:07 pm

I'm okay with not getting my military rank. I'm a mercenary after all. Can't just go giving military ranks to anyone who shows up on board a carrier grabbing fuel and shooting bugs.

Knight Rider · Post by **Knight Rider** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 10:37 pm

Any tips when first signing up with the Navy? I joined up in Argate, and flew what I thought was an easy mission against 4 fighters until I had party crashers showing up.

This party was for 4 and I ended with 10.

Blackthorne · Post by **Blackthorne** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 10:45 pm

The nice thing about the navy missions is that they don't send you out there alone (teamwork is essential - it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at). You usually face 7 bogies and a capital ship. But from my experience additional ships rarely if ever jump in.

The not-so-nice part is that there are a lot of vonari bombers out there, which are built like the proverbial brick sh*thouses. I switched to an excalibur missile pack and hit&run tactics after a few sorties. You should also adjust your jump point manually, since you end up on top of an irate vonari capital ship and will attract a lot of attention (=missiles) that way.

Get a class 7+ shield and a class 5 shield battery, and then try your luck. Who knows, you might end up liking it out there.

-Blackthorne

[Edited on 9-2-2009 by Blackthorne]

Knight Rider · Post by **Knight Rider** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:24 pm

It probably was about 7 bogies. When I saw the party crashers show up, I boogied out of there. Thanks for the tips. I guess, I better get back to my carrier before they send the shore patrol after me.

Wasp89 · Post by **Wasp89** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:16 am

Okay, so on a hunch I decided to try a few military missions in SP to see if I could increase my rank. I was promoted to LT JG after my first successful mission.

It *seems* that missions in MP will not allow you to progress through your ranks. You still get credited for those missions, but you will not be promoted until you do at least one more mission in SP.

So I'm going to try to test this: If I am right, then I should already be pretty close to another promotion as I have, as I have said, probably close to 80 missions under my belt. I am going to complete another ~20-30 mission in SP, and if my rank increases then I know that the problem is that you there is a bug in MP that prevents promotion. It might even be localized to one sector (Talison war zone)... I guess that would warrant consideration too. If it takes (exactly) 50 more missions to be promoted, then it means my figures have been completely off and there is no problem at all... though I seriously doubt that I could be off by 30 missions (which would mean that 50 of the 117 missions I have completed were civilian contracts instead of only <20). I have a paper that I must complete tonight and a test tomorrow night, so it may be Wednesday before I can get to it, but I will try.

Will keep you informed...

-Wasp

[Edited on 2-10-2009 by Wasp89]

[Edited on 2-10-2009 by Wasp89]

verbosity · Post by **verbosity** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:18 am

your next promotion should happen at around 100 military contracts

Wasp89 · Post by **Wasp89** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:19 am

Originally posted by verbosity
your next promotion should happen at around 100 military contracts

Correct, and if what I think is happening is actually happening, then I am only 20 military contracts away from the 100 mark (as I believe that I have already completed ~80 missions).

[Edited on 2-10-2009 by Wasp89]

Wasp89 · Post by **Wasp89** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 5:42 am

Ah... scratch that. I am an LT JG, and it appears that one is promoted to an LT after 50 combat missions. That messes everything up, because if my hypothesis is correct, I should already be an LT. Ah well, I'll give it a shot anyways as it can't hurt.

Wasp89 · Post by **Wasp89** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 6:41 pm

Well, I took a half hour off of my studies today and devoted it to getting myself promoted to Lieutenant. It took exactly 25 missions in SP to get from LT JG to LT, so I don't know what went wrong. Ah well, I'm not going to worry about it. I have an Evoch now, so I'm happy ^_^

Time to see about completing that beacon quest. Oh, but Organic Chemistry first...

BraveHart · Post by **BraveHart** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:19 pm

Congrats on playing hooky....err, on your promotion

Blackthorne · Post by **Blackthorne** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 1:53 am

No ranks are not based on location changing like reputations are, they retain their value. Here's a breakdown on the tiers:
0-5 Trainee
6-24 Ensign
25-49 Lt. JG
50-99 Lt.
100-149 Lt. Commander
150-249 Commander
250+ Captain

I hate to drag this issue up again, but after a disheartening experience in MP I once again need clarification on this...

In my first game, I managed to get a promotion to Ensign after doing a few carrier-based missions from the Erato system.

A new Pilot (Gunny) tried the same in MP today, with several versions of the game (1.18, then 1.22). No increase in rank, despite 10 successful missions from that carrier.

I tried to replicate this from a fresh start in SP, where my rank also didn't increase.

Do the carrier missions outside the warzones no longer contribute to the military missions total?

I'll now start a new game and will obtain only missions in the warzones and see if that works. I'll report back and keep savegames at hand if necessary.

-Blackthorne

Post by **Vice** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 4:36 am

Correct, that was actually where the problem was that caused the bug earlier. It was being incorrectly bound to dock type rather than territory. So under the new system, you must accept contracts in a war zone in order to receive military service credit to increase your rank. Missions from a carrier in a peaceful zone will no longer count toward that credit. However, now you can also accept missions from stations in war zones for the same credit, which you couldn't do before.

Storm · Post by **Storm** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 5:05 am

Vice,

In version 1.008, apparantly a player's profile could get "stuck"due to that earlier bug ... military contracts (ones that were meant to contribute to promotion) would not count, and players would not see military promotions when they were expected. If a player emailed you his or her profile, you could process it so that the player could get a valid promotion (if one was due).

My question: For a profile that was * initially created * under 1.008, and then run under 1.018, 1.020, 1.022 (test), that problem is "completely fixed"? I realize that some work under earlier versions (military contracts in the war zones) might be "lost" due to that earlier bug (unless you process the file... thats ok, I will live with it), but is the nature of the bug such that it will persist... UNLESS you process that file? Or, will a profile created under 1.008 (etc) start to "work normally" under 1.022, once a player re-commences taking contracts in the war zones?

IE is there something that needs to be done externally to "fix" a profile that was intially created under 1.008, when the player took his first military contracts from Erato, for example.

[Edited on 2-14-2009 by Storm]

Post by **Vice** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 5:18 am

Nothing needs to be done for an old profile to use the new system. It has been integrated to work with older profiles, all they need to do now is complete missions in a war zone to build military rank credit.

Storm · Post by **Storm** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 6:33 am

Okay thanks... I was kind of worried there, as I thought that "I might be stuck at Ensign". I wasn't really keeping track of how many missions I had done though.

I did 4 more missions and reached LT JG.