I don't know frankly, but my understanding is that you can do both to climb the rankings. It's not just badges, ranks and other things contribute. But once you're triple Elite there's no room to raise those. So that leaves badges (and other stuff I reckon). I sent Artie a PM to see if he could shed any light on how it works. I'll post if anything comes up.

Artie got back to me and gave me this link

https://inara.cz/board/1/378509/#378509

The first time I clicked it it said I must be logged in to participate in this discussion, and upper right showed commander guest. I then clicked my Inara page to see why I wasn't logged in. But I was, so I clicked the link again and it worked. Here's what it says

"Judging from the frequent questions like: "Commander XYZ has a better score than me, although his medals are worse! What's wrong!?" it was apparent that the rankings mechanics are not clear enough and sometimes even demotivating. The rankings and medals are both using the game stats but weren't directly related to each other, and it was the primary source of the confusion. There was made a change that rankings and medals are now more related. It still uses the same game stats, but the connection is more apparent. To describe it simply - ranking up your medals and progressing in these will directly affect your rankings score, so you will always have a clear idea of what to do to increase your ranking score (aside from the regular Pilot's federation ranks, of course). The only exception is the Xeno-hunter medal - as there are no lifetime values in the game stats, it's hard to objectively use such values and thus it has no effect on the rankings (at least for now, let's see if Odyssey will change something). The change favors generalists, commanders doing everything than specialists focusing on a single activity. But I believe it's just fair.
Another frequently suggested feature was adding rankings for the squadron members. So it's here - you can find it under Roster > Squadron rankings on your squadron page.
There was also another bunch of minor improvements and fixes made with this update, as usual. Namely a few new roles, an option to add an image to your fleet carrier, an option to remove ship images, fix for rescue/transport missions not being correctly counted to Thargoid war stats sometimes, and so on..."

The answer to how many logbooks it takes to get the writer's badge is three, I can confirm.

Interestingly, I now have exactly the same number of points as Artie, the creator of Inara.

Our conversation has expanded a bit and he told me the badges themselves add nothing to your score, but the totals associated with them do, if that fine point makes sense.

Doing the Robigo->Sothis passenger grind for Credits and maybe it will help me toward the CAPTAIN badge...but I have a long way to go.

Kind of amazing that with all the mining and tradiing, I am still rather far from those badges!


3799/5000 refined minerals

40,009/100,000 commodities traded

2735/5000 Passengers

It could be worse, you could be me. I'm like 1,359 mined and 8,300 commodities. Pathetic

I have like 125/5000 combat bonds. 60/1000 Thargoids.

The only ones I'm anywhere near bumping are

The Hunter -- need about 650 more kills for level 2

The Traveller -- need another 59,000 light years for level 2. Secondary (jumps) is already hit.

The Captain -- I stand at 5,142/10,000, with the VIP secondary already met. If burning stations would return I could get this one pretty quick. But I never see these anymore

Nothing else is within reach, both because my totals are low and I don't do it much


Last night I hopped on and flew for a couple hours. Spent my time running Elite level assassinations in the FDL and Elite passenger missions in one of the Kraits taking all the Rep+++++ rewards to bump Federation rank, and did so, reaching Lt Commander.

#%&*$#. You guys are up early today!

Didn’t do much this weekend. Traded some gold in the markets. Racked up about 75 million or so then the systems I was running got satiated. Went back to CNB hunting afterwards.


Not so early if I factor in the 2 hr time difference. Still not used to no longer living east coast, I reckon.

I start work at 6-6:30 am since the commute is short (Bedroom to basement). Idea is I can stop early...but gee, that never seems to happen. At least I have enough hours in the bank that I can go out and make the first shot at Snow removal. About 5-6" on the ground now with another foot or 2 expected by tomorrow. Divide and conquer....maybe. I just hope the frigging Snowblower doesn't crash and burn.

My alarm goes off at 6:15 eastern. I'm at work already lol.

So I decided I would run those assassinations, reasoning I would be bumping combat rank (glacially) and superpower rank at the same time. Elite level missions give good rewards, either good pay, G5 mats or high Rep on most of them. I'm based in UGP 145 at the mo, an Ocellus called Barnwell station. These assassinations were right next door, a jump of just 3 light years. My first one was a Deadly Vette, and he dropped some fine mats. He also jumped once when I was giving him the business and I had to hunt him down again. Manual scooping in the FDL is frustrating for me, so I flew back to Barnwell, turned in the mission and made some changes to Eagle Weslake.

With the system so close I didn't need the scoop or the GFSDB, so I removed those and replaced them with a class 4 HD HRP and an interdictor, and swapped one class 1 HRP for a collector limpet controller. Swapped another class 2 HRP for a cargo rack. So now I had 4 limpets and the collector controller to scoop the mats. When I first got in the game I removed the composite armor, replacing it with stock alloy and engineering if for HD and deep plate. Shields never go down on this thing, so I liked the idea of making it lighter and faster. It's a change I've been meaning to make for a while, so finally got that done

But the targets in these Elite assassinations are no joke, so for the moment I added the big HRP to keep integrity at a respectable level, at least for these, just in case. Here's the ship I flew last night

FDL Eagle Weslake Assassination Trim

The interdictor really isn't needed. In all assassinations I've flown, the target interdicts me, not the other way around. But I added it in case I came across any wanted cargo ships while prosecuting these missions. A couple T-9s would help boost stocks on some precious mats, but in my experience, the FSDI isn't really needed to complete these missions.

Yeah lately almost all the Assassinations I have taken have been Vettes. Often I will stack Assassinations in the same system and often the second one will drop in while I am fighting the first. ODDLY they seem to beat up on each other so it actually HELPS me.

Since I am usually in MY Vette, AI don't really give me that much of a problem though taking on 3-4 maneuverable ships at a time in a Massacre scenario can be tougher than 2 Vettes.

If my FDL has a weakness it's having just the two medium beams, and these high-level targets have some serious shielding. If a human was in that Vette I would struggle to strip it. But against the NPCs it just takes patience.

I wanted to stack missions, but never got two at the same time on the boards, so I just flew them in singles. The Rep+++++ was boosting my Fed rank about 4% per mission. Lt Commander is rung 9, and Count is too, on the Imp side, so those are now level. Still a long way to go. If anyone ever notices a burning station please report it here.

My boards had a lot of the 'Urgent Kill Order' missions on them. Anyone done one of these? Seems you have to make a ground assault just to learn where your target is.

I steer clear of them. Usually when I am doing Assassinations, it is because I want something QUICK.. No time to interact with planetary data links.

I used to do some of those DATALINK SCAN missions because they used to be more lucrative than other Combat style missions. They were novel for awhile but since you ALWAYS got wanted for knocking out Skimmers and gun emplacements while doing the mission, a side trip to a factor was always needed in addition to the mission itself....and I stopped doing them.

'Bout what I expected, thanks Rec.

I've never killed a skimmer. Zero lifetime total

Hopped on today for a bit. I had left my Courier where the Fed rank-up mission had taken me, and on the way back to Barnwell I stopped off at a high RES and got another 22 kills and bumped rank another point.

I then whistled for my last three ships still in Dvorsi, the Orca, the Phantom and I think the DBS. Decided to run a long-range sightseeing mission. I could take just about any of the ships, but chose the Orca, because I want to fly it in style. This one's only about 3,000 light years each way, but it will pay well, give me another five MEF and add some light years to my total distance travelled. Configured for this run it jumps 52 and cruises at 14% heat. Cool style.

Just crossed 192,000. And over 50,000 of that was in that Colonia trip I took last Spring. That's a quarter of all the distance I've flown. Seems bush-league. What's everyone else done?

According to EDSM, 153,216 in 3441 jumps. Dunno if that counts FC jumps, tho. I kinda doubt it.

Thanks Bo, does the codex agree with those figures?

I’ll check when home from work. Curious to know if any of sites track FC mileage.

You're at work? Inara shows you in-game.

What a great job!

I would also like to see FC distance tracked somewhere. A commander who uses it continually to travel around the galaxy could really rack up the mileage. I guess fuel puts a bit of a leash on, but if you're dedicated to FC use I bet it's not too hard to work out a system to keep the tanks full?

Oh wait, it says online on Inara. I always thought that was showing players in game, but maybe it's just logged in to Inara at the time?

I see said the blind man

Right now I am on a break again, but since launch I logged almost 400000ly traveled, in >11000 jumps, visiting >10000 different systems, according to EDSM ~7000 first discoveries, earning me ~15.9 billion in exploration data (most of that from the last trip selling the data with LYR bonus) .

Thanks WC, those are some big totals. Roughly double mine. I passed 195,000 on the way home last night, still about 1,200 to go.

Panzer must have some good numbers, he's been across the galaxy a couple times hasn't he?

The long-range sightseeing mission I am flying wasn't on the best vector. I saw before taking it that the route was pretty much straight down the Colonia highway, with a slight uphill component. I knew that meant that virgin systems would be few and far between. I did find one completely virgin system about 1,800 light years from Sol, but that's been it. Every other system I've dropped in has been visited before.