Unlocking the Imperial Cutter and Federal Corvette in Elite Dangerous

(This document is a work in progress)

This same method works for Imperial and Federal rank. You can even combine the two.

Before Trailblazers and Colonisation, players would head to Ngalinn and take courier missions back and forth to nearby Mainani. Now, in 2025, this no longer works. (For the record, neither

Why did Ngalinn work in the first place? Because it was on the very edge of the bubble, and the only nearby system which could be used as a mission destination was Mainani.

So why doesn't it work any more? Because all nearby systems have been colonised, and Ngalinn courier missions can lead to any of them.

That's the bad news. The good news is that there is still a method to gain rank reliably.

First, you will an unshielded Type-8, with at least 392 tons of cargo space. Mine has 400, and includes a size 2 FSD booster to give me a little extra range, but this isn't important.

Next, you need to dock at any station (large or small) with Imperial factions. Open the mission board and select all the factions aligned with the imperials, so you can only see their missions.

Optional: open the Support category, and accept every donation mission for credits. Take all you can see, and complete them. Each is worth about 1-2% rank.

Next, open the Transportation category. Filter by Reputation, and look for missions to deliver either 122, 147 or 196 tons of goods which have the 5* reputation reward. Most destinations will be over 100 light years away, some might be closer. Don't take on more missions than you can fit in your hold right now - e.g. 3 x 122, or 2 x 196.

Load up the goods from the Depot, and go to the galaxy map to plot the nearest delivery. Lift off and fly there, keeping an eye on fuel. (Anything up to about 160 ly should be fine in the T8)

When you get there, hand in the mission, filter the mission board on any Imperial factions, and (optionally) take and complete any donation missions. Then search for enough transportation missions to top up your cargo hold.

Important: don't take any missions if you can't fit the whole lot in your hold. You don't want to come back to collect more goods.

The idea is to fly station to station, picking up and completing missions without having to waste time returning for more cargo.

If you end up at a station with no imperial factions, fly on to the next mission destination. If you have no missions, and there are none on offer, retrace your steps to a station where you managed to get a lot of donation or delivery missions in the past.

The plus side to this method is that you won't be mindlessly grinding back and forth. You'll be visiting new systems, new stations and new areas of the bubble.