Combat Rank Point Values

Points	Activity
1	Destroyed S/M ships (fighters, corvettes, etc.)
1	Destroyed turrets
3	Completed missions
10	Taken over unclaimed ships
10	Destroyed station modules
30	Destroyed L & XL class ships (destroyers, carriers)

Some players construct a powerful fleet and launch massive invasions into Xenon sectors, showing no mercy even toward their space stations. While this aggressive approach is far from trivial and noticeably increases your combat rank, it will ultimately not lead to X-TREME. Eliminating the Xenon entirely might represent a satisfying personal milestone for certain pilots, but it is simply not the correct path to achieving the highest combat rank.

To amass the required 100,000 points, there are simply not enough enemy ships available in the entire X-Universe. Therefore, you must allow your opponents, preferably the Xenon, to continuously rebuild their destroyed vessels. While you can simultaneously go hunting for pirates, they usually disguise themselves as other factions, and attacking them will severely damage your reputation with those respective races. You would have to scan and scan again to unmask the pirates first before safely destroying them — which is an incredibly tedious process. A faster alternative is to instigate a war between the major factions and actively participate in the battles. However, this high-stakes strategy creates an additional enemy that will inevitably target your own traders and stations.

The only reliable enemies are the Kha'ak and the Xenon — fighting them is completely free of collateral damage. Marauding Kha'ak are rare, and you will only encounter them in larger numbers if you assault their stations, which are equally hard to find.

Alternatively, you could initiate the Sensor Analytics research project with Boso Ta, which subsequently spawns a massive wave of enemies. Mastering this Xenon Crisis is a monumental challenge, as your own installations and fleets will be under constant attack universe-wide. Alongside countless fighters, you will face numerous Xenon and Kha'ak capital ships. It is a grueling ordeal that drives many players to abort the disaster by reloading an older save game. However, the sheer volume of kills achievable during this period significantly boosts your combat rank. But beware: only ships you destroy personally contribute to your combat rank. Deploying your own fleet to eliminate capital ships will not increase your rank. You must be at the helm yourself, making this entire adventure highly difficult.

After a few intensive days of combat, once all enemy attack waves have been successfully repelled, you will have to set out and hunt for opponents once again.

I drove all Xenon out of Family Nhuut and built defense stations at the north and west gates to stop all incoming enemies. Behind the western gate of Family Nhuut, in Family Zhin, I took up a position myself, intercepting all arriving Xenon ships at the eastern gate of Family Zhin. Apparently, they desperately wanted to reclaim the resource-rich territory of Family Nhuut and relentlessly dispatched groups of ships in that direction. Here too, things sometimes got hairy when multiple capital ships appeared at once or the Asgard became overwhelmed by the massive flood of fighters. A defense station built near the gate provided huge relief; the Asgard could slowly circle it until the critical mass of enemy fighters was neutralized.

While the Asgard drifted in space, autonomously performing its gate-guard duty, I had plenty of time to expand my trading empire, pursue terraforming , and engage in diplomacy I only handed the controls over to my copilot when I had to accept a new rank somewhere or needed to scour a few stations for Rare Spices — the Xenon provided more than enough eggs required for Spacefly Caviar.

This approach to reaching X-TREME was highly efficient and entertaining — there was always something to do while the Asgard independently held off tens of thousands of enemies.

However, after achieving the highest combat rank, completing several terraforming missions, and with three personal shipyards earning billions, the game suddenly offered no challenges left for me. I decided to start fresh with a different plot. Now, it's time to tackle the highest trade rank.