This guide instructs how ranking up in federal navy is done by data courier missions in between 2 systems. The systems are very close to each other (12.48Ly) and got a total of 3 stations to visit for missions. Since all 3 stations will be missions destinations and now there is a cap of 20 maximum carried active missions, logging of to mainmenu and switching gaming modes to gather more missions has become obsolete.
The main work is done by travelling in between said 3 stations with rarely NPC interdiction as aprichiated variety. In both sytems NIU HSING and COL 285 SECTOR YF-M C8-8 are 2 federal alligned factions which provide federal ranking progression while doing their missions.

The 2 Systems NIU HSING and COL 285 SECTOR YF-M C8-8 have a distance to travel of 12.84Ly. So a lot of ships and outfits can be choosen from with one exception: in order to do as much as possible missions, the ship can't be a large landing pad one. Small or medium is good to land on outposts.

As mentioned above there can be interdiction by NPC's. I have Horizons and i like the new system of engineers with looting ship wreckages for components and a bonus bounty too. It's recommended to have a combat capable ship but a shieldless cargo hauler is fine too under constraints. Interdictions are rare but offer diversity and fun while doing these missions. Multipurpose ships are credit printers since they can carry more internals then regular fighter ships but do have the capability of having a fight with winning chance which trading ships don't really offer.
Both systems are undiscovered by default. They can be scanned by advanced discovery scanner or the scan data can be 'download' for free via scanning the Navbeacon.

Recommended Equipment Courier only:

• Shield Generator
  
• Cargo Rack
  
• Docking Computer
  
• Chaff Launcher

To run off NPC-Interdictors a ship's speed of at least 280m/s is needed.

Links to the outfitter in NIU HSING and COL 285 SECTOR YF-M C8-8:

Gorbatko Terminal @Niu Hsing[eddb.io]
Cabrera's Claim @Niu Hsing surface[eddb.io]

Links for outfitter fanpages:
https://coriolis.io/ 2.1.05
https://coriolis.edcd.io/ 2.2.03 ready and engineer mods aplyable! fanmade version
http://www.edshipyard.com 2.2.03 ready and engineer mods aplyable!

Courier missions are missions where one Commander accept a mission and travel to a destination. Nothing more and nothing less. Courier missions benefit from the the pilot role of trading. The higher the trader rank is the better courier missions are accessible. A specific rank to progress with courier missions in federal navy isn't needed but of course the higher the rank the better the payout. Any courier missions reward count into trade rank progress.

Courier missions can have 3 diffrent kinds of events while accomplish them:

• Offer to complete missions in shorter time, chance to get interdicted to fail the offer.
  Former completion still remains on fail the
  'in time offer' but grants a bonus reward while accomplish it. Happens repeatly. Bonus
  reward may up to double the missions reward.
  
• Offer to kill named individuals who will spawn and interdict. Grants a bonus reward for killing the named NPC. Former completion remains if the named NPC is not killed. Happens not that often. Chance to claim a bounty along the bonus reward.

We only want to travel in between the 1 outpost and 2 surface stations in NIU HSING and COL 285 SECTOR YF-M C8-8.
While being in NIU HSING we take the missions to the surface station Lebedev Installation in COL 285 SECTOR YF-M C8-8.

• Like these from NIU HSING to the destination COL 285 SECTOR YF-M C8-8:

• And like these from COL 285 SECTOR YF-M C8-8 with destination NIU HSING:

Beginning the tour in Gorbatko Terminal; NIU HSING, accepting missions from bulletin board. Supercruising to surface Cabrera's Claim; NIU HSING 1 A and taking missions there.
Frameshifting to COL 285 SECTOR YF-M C8-8, delivering missions to Lebedev Installation on COL 285 SECTOR YF-M C8-8 4 and taking missions to NIU HSING. Logging of to main menu and into another game mode can provide new missions ie: Solo -> Private -> Open
Destinations can be chosen from Navtap.


As one progress in local reputation, trade rank or come with a decent cargo space or the state of the local factions change there will be also be cargo delivery missions aviable. if i got some free cargo space to fill i'll take them as well.

Since ranking up in federal Navy requires a lot of federal aligned missions to be done this is also a very good source of engineer components. These missions can have additionel rewards of materials and commodities. Said components can be only aviable to gather via missions. Which kind of components are rewarded may be random but they are already listed in the missions discription in bulletin board before accepting the mission.
Furthermore missions can not be redeemed if the mission reward commodities have no free cargo space to be put in to.

Once rank progress line shows up 100% on federation paragraph on status in systemtap, a promotion mission can be there on missions board. The promotion mission usually show up but expect not at once. Sometimes a relog or visiting another mission board help.
The promotion mission to the next federal navy rank got the words "ascension opportunity..." in their title. Achieved system permits have also a reputation for not showing up once achieved, they show up in permits tap once a relog or zoning is done.


Commander Chaos 567 reported me to have achieved Rear Admiral(12) from Petty Officer(4) doing this 9h playtime and have a total reward earned of 70 million Credits.

Going into options and keybindings to set throttle to 100%, 75%, 50% and 0%. Aligning them like

• F4 to 100%
  
• F3 to 75%
  
• F2 to 50%
  
• F1 to 0%

Supercruising to a station or outpost with 100%; reducing to 75% at 0:08 seconds will safely reduce the supercruise speed to 0:06 until dropoff is aviable.
Supercruising to a surface destination is a little more tricky since the same speed to stations and ouposts will cruise the ship way to fast for an atmosphere and cause ship damage. Supercruising to a surface like to a station reducing from 100% to 75% at 0:08 but at 0,30ls distance to 50%. Aligning the ship to surface destination in 90° straight from above. While allready at 50% speed reducing even more to 0% just seconds before dropping out of orbital-cruise.

HUD-Color:
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=624850220

Screenshots:
made by me
Pictures:
Assets of edassets.org and compiled by me

This Guide was inspired by CMDR Chaos567 after he had a lot of fun with my other Guide doing imperial ranking:


http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=695377738