Ranks

Ranks

Rank	Name	Nr. of ships	Guild dues	Commission (per ship)	SPF
0	Pilot	1	10%	n.a.	n.a.
1	Runner	2 - 9	15%	900	300
2	Courier	10 - 19	15%	800	300
3	Merchant	20 - 49	20%	700	300
4	Trader	50 - 99	20%	700	300
5	Trade baron(ess)	100 - 499	25%	600	300
6	Broker	500 - 999	25%	500	300
7	Mogul	1,000 - 9,999	30%	400	250
8	Captain	10,000 - 19,999	30%	300	unknown
9	Director	20,000 - ? plus flagship	30%	200	unknown
10	Guild leader	?	?	100 (assume)	?

Ship pricing formulas are as follows:

• Standard purchase formula: Price = SPF * (Ships Owned) * (Ships Owned)
• Discounted purchase formula: Price = SPF * .75 * (Ships Owned) * (Ships Owned)
• Standard sale formula: Price = SPF * .75 * (Ships Owned - 1) * (Ships Owned - 1)
• Bonus sale formula: Price = 1.2 * SPF * (Ships Owned) * (Ships Owned)

SPF is Ship Purchase Factor and is based on your current rank.

At some moment, when you are Trade Broker, prices of ships are leveled to round figures (upwards). So a ship costs - considering what's above - 2,346,280 credits, you pay 2.4 million.

I believe this is when a ship price reaches over 1 million

Limitations:

• Players with less than 5 ships (Runner) of their own can't recruit
• Players with less than 5 ships can't receive ships as gifts (message: player too inexperienced)
• You can only give ships to a maximum of 1 rank above you or all ranks below you (except for what is mentioned above)
• You can keep subordinates up to 5 ranks below your own
• You can't choose a superior more than 3 ranks above your own
• Players with equal ranks (at least up to the rank of Captain) can't choose each other as superior/subordinate (perhaps it will be possible at the rank of Director)

Other information

More information can be found at the page Terms Used.

Upgrades

Some general information

• Upgrades become available based on the number of personal ships you own.
• The general rule is that with every six (6) ships you buy, an upgrade "unlocks" - it can take a while however to get the upgrade offer and it might be necessary to have some buy/sell activity to trigger the upgrade
• Each upgrade improves the fleet efficiency by 50 credits/ship (as far as we know now)
• The initial cost is the cost of the upgrade at the minimum number of ships (see below).
• If you choose to purchase the upgrade later its cost will be: number of personal ships x multiplier, so the initial costs are only when you buy the upgrade at the minimal required amount of personal ships

Overview of upgrades

The following upgrades are available:

No. Ships	Upgrade	Initial Cost	Multiplier	Eff. bonus (total)
3	Repair Bot	300	100	1,050
9	Cargo Pods	28,800	3,200	1,100
15	Recalibrate Engines	108,000	7,200	1,150
21	Scanner Upgrade	268,800	12,800	1,200
27	VR Rigs	540,000	20,000	1,250
33	Plasma cooled refrigeration system	957,000	29,000	1,300
39	Merchant grade navigation system	1,528,800	39,200	1,350
45	Install an Ops module	2,349,000	52,200	1,400
51	Engine upgrade	3,304,800	64,800	1,450
57	Cloaking device	4,560,000	80,000	1,500
63	Second engine upgrade	6,098,400	96,800	1,550
69	Low-power thrusters	7,948,800	115,200	1,600
75	SUV's	10,140,000	135,200	1,650
81	Hire task master/fleet manager	12,700,800	156,800	1,700
87	Automated inventory module	15,660,000	180.000	1,750
93	Modern repair bots	19,046,400	204,800	1,800
99	Armor plating	22,888,800	231,200	1,850
105	Light-weight armor plating	27,216,000	259,200	1,900
111	Navigational maps	32,056,800	288,800	1,950
117	Course-plotting system	37,440,000	320,000	2,000
123	Newfangled VR rigs	?	320,000	2,050
129	Gravity well sling shot	?	?	2,100
135	Experimental fleet of many tiny ships	?	355,000	2,150
141	Replace the rest of your fleet with smaller, nible ships	?	390,000	2,200
147	Shrink ray	?	?	2,250
153	Superconductor magnet sweep	?	460,800	1,300
159	Newer cloaking technology	?	500,000	2,350
165	Modern scanning system	?	540,600 (?)	2,400
171	Metallic metal armor	?	583,200	2,450
176	Engines converted to run on soleinium	?	627,200	2,500

Remarks

• From amount of ships needed 111 (Navigational maps), there is no cross-reference yet, so the amount of ships needed and price can be other than mentioned (up to 111 ships, the list is 100% accurate)
• The fleet efficiency can be improved further by:
  • Buying colonies (each colony gives 100 credits/ship extra to a maximum of 300 credits/ship)
  • Alliances: when on Broker level or higher, one can form alliances and create space ports, at four (4) space ports the fleet efficiency improves with 100 credits/ship
  • Permanent raise of efficiency by the Mysterious Vessel: each raise is 100 credits/ship, not known how many times this is possible (based on regular TE it can be maximized by 200 credits/ship)