Rapid Rank III

[alienfodder]

Not during the contract phase - I was stockpiling cash for a final blowout on Syndicate Capital. I'll adjust my mission parameters.

[alienfodder]

Just claimed this award ;D
Cadar Zealot blockaded Thulun when solar war kicked off - after (the only) 2 decent contracts on both Cadar worlds had been done.
Blockading was primarily to bring ships in to defeat (then loot & destroy).
Fast skill gain meant survival wasn't difficult.
Landed with 8 weeks left & 76 rep - tough decision on which goods to trade to ensure promotion affordability without exceeding time.

I accidentally left the palace without claiming the award after the time limit - thought I'd blown it - but went straight back in and got it.

Hardest award so far, but next is hard difficulty and more achievements!

[slayernz]

Congrats, Alienfodder!!!

Good luck in Hard ...

[fallen]

alienfodder - great work! Achievement is sweet when the challenge is high. Good luck on the next one.

[Cory Trese]

Nice!

[absimiliard]

Congrats! I'm very glad to hear you finally got it after all those tries.

I really think RRIII might be the hardest award of them all. (only because Dark Nemesis gets easier once you're used to playing on impossible)

-abs

[alienfodder]

Thanks guys.
Really only posted the tale in case it helps someone else - I now believe Zealot gives best chance.

I'm halfway to getting Exemplary Contractor now - had a minor panic where I surrendered (thought I hit acknowledge) but just had to serve some time.

[slayernz]

Hey Abs ... each time I got Dark Nemesis, I achieved it after only a few turns with the wanted flags. Pretty much I got the wanted flags, killed a couple more things around the faction that I chose to dislike, then I flew off and got the achievement recorded. Of course in each case, I continued to go and pound them afterwards (in most cases, they remained majorly negative), but the point is that the achievement actually came early.

Just took the time to validate this.

At 364.17AE, I gained a Wanted flag with Rychart (I already had one for blowing Thulun from here to there and back again).

At 364.46AE, I got the Dark Nemesis achievement.

[mobydick]

Been trying to get this...
Took me about 8 - 10 tries to get the RRII...

[Feuerleitsystem]

Tried different strategies using the traits of captains, factions and ships to (hopefully) best advantage:
- Javat Smuggler with Fidei Defensor/Picky Beggar doing exploring & record trade. Might be possible, made it to rank 8 and with hindsight left out some potential. But trading with faction consumes too much time.
- Rychart Spy with Danti Cautela/Aeternum Vale, hoping for Rycharts affection for spy wars... but even when involved, too many surveillances (not speaking of surveillance missions) fail in the opening game. Even with spending all xp in tactics, and even when successful you are very vulnerable with all the records and no pilot/stealth skills.
- Steel Song MO Serpent Tooth/Picky Beggar, doing capture or destroy missions hoping to combine fame bonuses from Death Warrant + Assassination Conflict. Even with the surveillance trait a hard gamble in early game, and you can't do many missions in a row. So a lot of time wasted with travelling. And sometimes unlucky targets turned out to be own faction or allied or escaped, surveillance beforehand time consuming and rarely successful.
- Cadar Zealot Serpent Tooth, hoping for an immediate Solar War against anybody. In fact, during my say 10 attempts as Cadar the only thing they managed were Trade Embargos or Alliances during the first 2-3 years.
- DeValtos Zealot/MO Serpent Tooth, doing delivery missions only with denying military ranks as long as possible in order to keep the mission radius small.


...finally it was the last strategy (DV Zealot), which offered me an early solar war of DeValtos against Steel Song after I completed my 9th mission at fame ~25 (around 58AE). Me being fuelling in Syndicate Core and Xeen Prime being only an heartbeat away.

[martyparty]

I'd been trying to get Rapid Rank 3 for *ages* with all the different suggestions on the forum on how to get it, and finally managed it with 95 reputation at 62.42AE. I did it with a Zealot for De Valtos, flying Danti Cautela with no ship upgrades, doing missions between the two De Valtos worlds. In all, I had 2 bounty "kill" missions, 2 surveillances (1 of which was at the very end and I couldn't finish), and the rest were delivery missions. The first bounty paid very well, which helped a lot, but mostly what pushed me over the line was buying & selling as many records as possible, right from the start.
For the most part, the faction conflicts weren't the type I could benefit from, until a Spy Battle towards the end helped with a few points during my unfinished surveillance, and the last lot of records buy/sell.

By my reckoning, this award is too hard!

[Cory Trese]

There is always a "most difficult" Award and I have heard several different ideas about which one in ST is the hardest. RR3 is definitely in the running for that award. Thanks!

[martyparty]

Unfortunately that only took care of the award on the phone. Now I have to do it on BlueStacks as well! *ugh*

[Cory Trese]

Dec 27, 2012 1:35:03 GMT -5 martyparty said:

Unfortunately that only took care of the award on the phone. Now I have to do it on BlueStacks as well! *ugh*

Thanks. Very cool. How do you like the BlueStacks?

[travail]

I found RR 3 a challenge too- from my perspective, it requires a number of things to fall exactly right. The success formula I found was a Javat smuggler, with the Aperio Caliga ship (built in water fuel tank, so could travel farther between fillups!). The combination of increasing tactics with first missions delivering, while waiting for a propitious solar war to blockade the heck out of something, and then building explorer to scour the jungles of Tucanae Javat for quick cash to finance the promotions. I will freely admit it took at least 8 tries before things worked out just right to make it happen.