Every CMDR in the galaxy is a licensed member of the Pilots Federation — that membership is what makes you a Commander. The PF certifies your skill across six fields — Combat, Trade, Exploration, CQC, Mercenary and Exobiologist — each its own ladder running from a beginner rank up to Elite, and then on through the prestige grades Elite I–V. Reach Elite in any qualifying field and you are handed the keys to Shinrarta Dezhra, the pilots-only home system. Running parallel — but entirely separate — are the two superpower navy ladders, Federal and Imperial, which gate restricted ships, permits and engineer invites; those are covered in Superpower Rank. Pilot ranks and navy ranks are distinct systems, and neither has anything to do with ARX or Powerplay merits. This page maps the six pilot tracks: the named tiers, how you climb each one, and what each unlocks.
Combat, Trade, Exploration, CQC, Mercenary, Exobiologist — earned by doing the work, permanent once gained.
The Federal and Imperial ladders gate hulls, permits and engineers — a distinct system, covered in Superpower Rank.
Elite in five of the six pilot fields auto-grants the Founders World permit. CQC Elite is the one exception.
The Pilots Federation is the supra-national body that licenses every independent pilot in the galaxy — including you. It was formed in 2805, after private ownership of small starships surged and independent pilots needed a way to share trade-route intelligence and pool their defence against piracy. It grew into the body that issues pilot licences, brokers trusted information, and runs a mutual-protection scheme for its members.
It enforces a zero-tolerance line on dishonourable conduct among members — transgressors get an automated Pilots-Federation bounty placed on them. The title CMDR ("Commander") is bestowed by the PF on every licensed pilot; that is precisely why every player character is a Commander from the moment they start.
Critically, the PF is politically neutral — it sits above the Federation, the Empire and the Alliance rather than inside any of them. That neutrality is why a single commander can hold rank with all three superpowers at once without contradiction.
The history flavours the present. From 3100 the PF issued "wings" badges marked with a pilot's rating; the most coveted was the Elite badge, first awarded to CMDR Peter Jameson. The Jameson lineage is the reason the starport at Shinrarta Dezhra is named Jameson Memorial — the spiritual home every commander earns their way back to.
The PF is the licensing authority, not a faction you pledge to. You do not join it, leave it, or pick a side within it — you are simply certified by it, and the ranks below are that certification.
Membership is automatic and it carries three concrete benefits — plus one disclaimer that clears up the single most common source of new-commander confusion.
Your skill across the six fields is tracked and graded. This is the heart of the page — the six ladders below — and the only PF benefit you actively grow.
The PF underwrites the ship-insurance scheme: a destroyed ship is rebought at a fraction of hull cost rather than lost outright. This is the in-fiction reason death is not permanent — the mutual-protection scheme, expressed mechanically.
New commanders begin inside PF-administered starter systems — the Pilots' Federation District. It is where "where do I begin" gets answered, before you ever pick a career.
Four separate progression systems get mixed up constantly. They are unrelated:
Say it once, plainly: ARX buys paint jobs and bobbleheads, nothing else. No rank grants ARX and no ARX grants rank. Powerplay merits buy power-specific modules and standing within a Power — also nothing to do with the PF ladders. Keep the four lanes separate and the rest of the game's progression stops being confusing.
Each field runs the same shape: eight named tiers from a beginner rank up to Elite, then five prestige grades — Elite I, II, III, IV, V — above it. The names differ per field; the structure is identical.
| Tier | Combat | Trade | Exploration | CQC | Mercenary | Exobiologist |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Harmless | Penniless | Aimless | Helpless | Defenceless | Directionless |
| 02 | Mostly Harmless | Mostly Penniless | Mostly Aimless | Mostly Helpless | Mostly Defenceless | Mostly Directionless |
| 03 | Novice | Peddler | Scout | Amateur | Rookie | Compiler |
| 04 | Competent | Dealer | Surveyor | Semi-Professional | Soldier | Collector |
| 05 | Expert | Merchant | Trailblazer | Professional | Gunslinger | Cataloguer |
| 06 | Master | Broker | Pathfinder | Champion | Warrior | Taxonomist |
| 07 | Dangerous | Entrepreneur | Ranger | Hero | Gladiator | Ecologist |
| 08 | Deadly | Tycoon | Pioneer | Gladiator | Deadeye | Geneticist |
| 09 | Elite | Elite | Elite | Elite | Elite | Elite |
All six fields then continue Elite → Elite I → Elite II → Elite III → Elite IV → Elite V — five prestige grades above the base Elite, identical across every track.
Frontier does not publish the exact progress-bar value awarded per kill, per credit of profit, or per data sale. This page describes direction and relative effort only — treat any specific "X kills to Elite" figure you see elsewhere as a community estimate, not a hard number.
The kill ladder. Climbed by destroying ships, and read by every combat mission board in the bubble.
How to fly it: Combat playbook — bounty hunting, RES and CZ tactics. Where the fights are: Combat Zones and PvE Combat Venues. Which hull: combat ships by class. Note that Thargoid (AX) kills feed the Combat rank — see the Anti-Xeno playbook and AX hulls.
The profit ladder — and the one most commanders hit Elite on first.
How to fly it: Trading playbook — commodity loops and station economics. Mining sales count toward Trade rank, and passenger mission payouts feed it too. Highest-cargo hulls: trading ships by class. Community Goals can deliver large rank chunks, and the wider economy is the Background Simulation.
The cartography ladder. Climbed by selling what you find in the black.
Exobiology data sells into the same exploration economy, but Exobiologist is its own separate rank — see the next section. Selling biology data does not raise your Exploration rank, and selling system data does not raise your Exobiologist rank.
How to fly it: Exploration playbook — FSS/DSS workflow, route planning and exobiology basics. Long-range hulls: exploration ships by class. As a deep-space base of operations: Fleet Carrier.
Close Quarters Combat — an instanced PvP arena, and the one ladder that does not earn the Founders World permit.
There is no dedicated CQC guide in this Black Box yet — the mode is niche enough that it has not warranted one. Everything you need to start is on the main-menu CQC screen.
The on-foot combat ladder. Requires the Odyssey expansion.
There is no dedicated on-foot combat guide here yet. The Combat playbook is ship-combat focused; treat it as adjacent reading rather than a Mercenary primer.
The on-foot science ladder, and the highest credits-per-hour grind in the game. Requires Odyssey.
The Exploration playbook covers the exobiology scanning workflow in full. To reach the sites efficiently, see the lightweight SRV-carrying hulls in exploration ships by class.
Where the effort actually pays off, condensed per ladder.
| Ladder | Fastest honest route to Elite |
|---|---|
| Trade | The easiest Elite. Run bulk commodity loops or sell mined platinum / painite / tritium in large drops — progress tracks profit, not trips. |
| Exploration | Honk-and-map outbound, then sell the entire haul of cartographic data in one bulk hand-in for a large jump. |
| Combat | Conflict Zones and Resource Extraction Sites. Prioritise higher-ranked targets — they pay more progress per kill. |
| Exobiologist | Highest credits-per-hour in the game. Sample bio-rich worlds and sell to Vista Genomics; the Update-14 buff makes this a genuine income stream as well as a rank. |
| Mercenary | Frontline Solutions on-foot Conflict Zones, run back-to-back. Restock at the CZ between waves. |
| CQC | Its own arena. Worth doing only if you want the mode for itself — it does nothing for the five galaxy ladders. |
Facts on this page are verified against the authoritative sources below.
