Ranking and Exp-ing (notes towards a manual).

1. Table and Tips

Ranking Table

Rank	Title	No. of Missons	% per mission
01	Flunkey	n/a	n/a
02	Minion	8	12.500
03	Acolyte	23	4.348
04	Bookie	46	2.174
05	Collector	83	1.205
06	Accountant	133	0.752
07	Cleaner	201	0.498
08	Made Man	288	0.347
09	Chief	397	0.252
10	Kingpin	530	0.189
11	Nephew/Niece	690	0.145
12	Son/Daughter	878	0.114
13	Godfather/Godmother	1295	0.071

Tips
The first and MOST important thing to remember is that 1 mission failed is worth the same as 3 mission suceeded, this means that a few failed missions can set you back a days ranking. If you are in any doubt that you might not be able to do the mission then DO NOT TAKE IT. I learned this the hard way... many times over....
Missions are stackable, for example if you have 20 kill 3 x YSD missions and you then kill 3 YSDs you complete all 20 missions!
Be wary of kill missions for cloaking NPCs, these can be very hard to find. I once had 20 odd missions to kill 3 Gorefanglings, I had 5000 APs and though it'll be no problem.... 5000 APs later and I had killed 1... I went down an entire rank. that was not a good day.
Explosives explode suprising I know if you take ANY damage, even damage through a wormhole.. so be wary all you people who have large ships and low Man... if you have too many tons of explosives they can even destroy your ship!

2. Missions defined

Assasination
Assasination missions come in two forms, numbered and co-ordinates. simple put you will be required to kill a specific NPC or a certain number of NPCs. Assaination missions stack very well, particularly for NPCs that are easily found.

For cloaking or rare NPCs make sure that you know where the NPCs are,
either they are in a den, like pirates.
they are stacked with co-ord missions of the same NPC type.
or you have seen where they are, just knowing where they spawn is no good as you might end up trawling through miles of nebula/energy looking for them.

Co-ords in dens can sometimes be a drag on APs, some dens are very Maze like, for example Dainfa in URC, as you'll be flying through alot of energy to find these NPCs you will quickly run out of APs.

Package
Simply deliver the packages from one SB/Planet to another, packages also stack nicely if you have a large capacity. Just make sure you can get there in time and in AP.

Explosive
These are similar to packages except they explode is you take damage and a worth alot more cred/ton. The biggest problem is worm hole damages. Explosive damage increases per ton you carry... if you carry too many and they explode you may be facing a pod ride home.

VIP
VIPs come in two forms, deliver and exp, when carrying a VIP you can ONLY carry fuel and robots... nothing else. you can only carry one at a time and they are worth alot of credits. These are very good for fighter who have low space.
The deliver work the same as packages, but with the exp missions you are required to gain a certain amount of exp AND return to the SB/planet where you accepted the mission from, so make sure you have APs spare for the return, and remember you CANNOT carry drugs when carrying a VIP.

3. Mission Tactics

Assasination
Den stacking is the quickest way to rank through the early levels. Throughout Pardus there are three types of dens:
The most common are Space Dragon Dens, these contain YSDs, ESDs and one Space Dragon Queen Watch out for this red dragon.. they make Experienced Pirates look like maggots.
Pirate Dens are also common, these contain ISPs, ESPs and one Famous Space Pirate These make Space Dragon Queens look like maggots, and they cloak.. the general rule for youn pilots is if you meet one you WILL die. For this reason be very careful when flying through Pirate Dens
The Least common are Blue crystal dens.

Dens near you.
Lavebe - whole sector Space Dragon Den
PU7 - In the south, a Space Dragon Den
Veliace - In the North-East corner, a small Space Dragon Den (doesn't contain a queen)
WI 4-329 - around the wormhole to Miola, a Pirate Den
GT 3-328 - the south is a large Pirate Den
(for more Den check the online Maps)

The best tactic for Den stacking is to fly from a sector about 4 or 5 sectors away from the Den This depends on how many APs it'll take you to get to the Den.. remeber once there you still need APs to kill the NPCs and visit every SB/Planet inbetween collecting all the numbered kill mission you can, with this technique you should be able to complete about 20-40 mission per run, depending on mission availablity.

In the UNRC, near OPC trade space the best run is PU7 to Lavebe via Let, inbetween these you can visit about 7 SBs/Planets and once done you can then reverse the run, both dens have plenty of YSDs and ESDs.

Package & Explosives
For delivery missions the tactic is basic. Pick two point that you can fly between, and collect all the packages you can that are to be delivered to all the SBs/Planets on your route.

In the UNRC, the best Package run near us is Miola to Let via Sobien and back again, with an IP drive it took me about 2000 APs a run... so with a smaller drive it'll take more, but whilst ranking to Made-Man I was still able to do 20 - 30 missions a day, which starts to get hard to do with assasination missions at that point.

4. 1-13 Ranking Guide
1-3
Stick to YSD, maggot and bio kill missions, with a few package and wormhole cleaning missions.
YSD are easily found in the dens and in energy in most sectors, Maggots are everywhere around ore and there will be a couple bio scavengers in each sector floating around, so stacking kill missions can gain rank very quickly.

4-5
At this point you should be confident enough to start planning your run and stacking as many missions as you can find, if you can kill ESD then runs between the Lavebe and PU7 Dragon dens will earn you the most ranks.
Space worms and Space Worm Albinos are rare but can be found easily in nebula and ore respectivly. Avoid gorefanglings unless you know where to find them.

5-8
At this point more difficult missions will be appearing, but you can still stick to Dragons dens, and if you can kill ESPs stacking the pirate missions will also let you rank quickly.
Explosion missions are easy if you have a Man of around 30, less that than and taking them can be a little risky.

If you are a trader then package runs are also very good at these levels.

8-10
At this point you're going to have to make a choice, run package missions or get a hawk class fighter or battleship and some good skills. The npc's get tougher to kill and tougher to find in the numbers required by the missions and you will notice your package missions getting larger.

10-13
Again, you'll have to decide if you want to take the less-risk route, package missions, although they will take up more hull space as you progress and you will be able to do far less at a time, or you will want to get a good fighter/battleship with HA of at least 60.

For kill rankers at these levels, many of the NPC's are highly contested and quickly killed when spotted, such as Medusas, which is why you'll want to get targeted missions (i.e. mission tells you the coords of the NPC). Also, even if you just get 'Kill 1 Medusa' missions, you can keep checking planets and starbases in hopes of finding a targeted faction or neutral mission on the boards, that will give you coordinates of the NPC you're looking for.

5. Ships for Ranking

to follow

6. Union ships and equipment

to follow