Fleet Rank Explanations

Advancing in rank in Star Tek Online is fairly straightforward: you do missions and gain XP to level up. That is your character advaincing in the game.

Advancing in Fleet Rank is slightly more nuanced: you get promoted for either being really fun to play with or contributing significantly to the fleet. If you do both of these things on a regular basis, you will advance more quickly.

Ensign
Basically anyone can be an Ensign. Please, do not get me wrong, we love Ensigns. Most of our members at this rank are people who thought joining a fleet would be fun and help out when they can. That is not only acceptable, it is vital. We have crafted the rank privelages so you will feel like  you are getting something worthwhile for simply joining the fleet. You can advance in rank by getting noticed contributing to projects in the holdings section of your Fleet Tab, or by being fun to play with. If you think you are being overlooked and are interested in advancing you can ask for promotion. Any ensign with a game rank of level 50 can also ask for promotion.

Lieutenant
Lieutenants are generally lightly active players who contribute all they can when they can or people who are fun to play with but have not or cannot contribute significant amounts of resources. LTs get slightly better bank privelages, particularly crafting supplies and consumables. They can wear the Fleet Black Ops Uniform* (try it with Section 31 or Enterprise lower and Enterprise Mirror Belt).They can also now purchase items at provisioned fleet stores. Lt's can advance by contributing a bit more to projects.
 * Not a new costume slot, just a new preset.

Lt. Commander
Lieutenant Commanders mostly belong to three groups: Players at this rank should feel that the Fleet is genuinely helpful to them and that they are benefiting from being a part of it. They can advance by either moving way up the leaderboards or by being continually active and helpful while making steady progress.
 * Players that are making slow or infrequent but steady progress, usually due to their play schedules. Casual players absolutely can and do advance to officer ranks, it just takes a bit longer.
 * Players that are very active OR have significant contribution levels. Players who really dig being part of the fleet, or just want access to a cool starbase and are willing to help make that happen, get rewarded for their efforts.
 * Players with low activity and low contributions that are very hardcore players and/or have been with the fleet a long time. These are the people that you see in the starbase bar once in a while and whisper "Isn't (s)he the one who..." They are rewarded for just being here (this long) and they will likely be an asset in the future.

Commander
Commanders are the junior officers of the fleet. Commanders have proven themselves by actively participating in the fleet or making very large lifetime contributions. These people, you recognize their name. Either through having chatted with them a lot, teaming with them regularly for PVE/PVP, or from one or both of the leaderboards. Commanders have earned the ability to promote other fleet members and to see Officer Comments in the fleet tab. They are required to check these before promoting someone to LT Commander and strongly encouraged to check their lifetime contribution as well. Commanders have better bank privelages with better access to non consumable items. They also ulock access to the Fleet Officer Uniform (try it with the DS9 Admiral belt and DS9 Admiral Coat in the same color pattern, it also works really well with the Wrath of Khan Combadge).

Captain
Captains have proven themselves to be invaluable to the fleet. They have either contributed massive amounts of items to fleet projects, climbing to the very top of the leaderboards, or have been dedicating significant portions of their game time to actively helping the fleet. They have earned the right to demote players but are required to check The Rules and Officer Comments first. Demotion should not be very common and has only occurred in either cases of accidental double promotion or very rare cases of borderline abuse. Captains are considered senior officers and have the ability to actively manage fleet holdings.

Vice Admiral
Vice Admirals run the fleet. They are collectively responsible for the majority of total fleet assets and are so heavily invested in the fleet that leaving would really hurt. There are almost no restrictions on Vice Admirals. The few things they do not have access to are all things where any Fleet Admiral would be very strongly inclined to follow their reccomendation based on nothing more than good faith. They should feel like it's their fleet, they're in it for the long run and they get to make big decisions on their own. There is a reason we went with Vice Admiral rather than Commodore.

Fleet Admiral
Fleet admirals are either founders or massive contributors and are entrusted with total discretion over fleet events. Historically speaking, promotions to this rank only occur when it becomes clear that all the existing Fleet Admirals have gone inactive. There are, however, currently a few select individuals being considered for promotion to this rank. When we start to have maxed out facilities and/or approach 500 active members, we will  promote at least one more Fleet Admiral.

Legacy Cases and Autopromotions
Aside from the guidelines as to what's expected of members at each rank, there are two other possible ways people may have obtained their current rank.
 * They have been a member for a very long time or were an early contributor. Someone who helped found the fleet or helped us hit Tier I gets to keep their rank even as they go less active and are overtaken in the leaderboards. Nobody gets autodemoted. If you actively become a problem, you will get demoted fast, but given the integrity of our fleet mates, we don't expect it to happen.
 * They have hit certain milestones that trigger promotion:
 * Any Level 50 player may request promotion to LT.
 * It is reccomended that your total lifetime contribution not actually be 0.
 * 40,000 total lifetime contribution guarantees you at least LT.
 * If you are already an LT or higher, it does not trigger an autopromotion but is grounds to ask for promotion up to LT. Commander if you feel like you deserve it.
 * Anything in the neighborhood of 300K-400K (depending on participation) guarantees you Lt. Commander and gives you grounds to request Commander if you are already Lt. Commander.
 * Captain generally requires around 800K-1MIL depending on other factors such as participation and an ability to manage fleet holdings effectively.
 * If you have exceeded 1,000,000 total lifetime contribution and are already Captain you may ask for promotion to Vice Admiral. This is a promotion that requires approval  by at least one Fleet Admiral (as only they can actually grant the promotion) and it is strongly reccomended that any decision to promote to Vice Admiral be approved by at least 3 Admirals of either grade.
 * Cases of Romulan Ale will not be accepted as an "incentive" for promotrion... unless it's pre war stuff.

Promoting Yourself and "Combining" Character Contributions
IS allowed with a few caveats: Basically, we look at the contribution YOU make not your characters. But this still means your total contribution needs to be sufficient for the highest fleet rank you have on any of them.
 * You will never be AUTO promoted based on total contribution from multiple characters.
 * Players below commander cannot promote but may ask for promotion based on total contribution. If, for example, you have 3 charcters with 100K contributions all three would probably still be Lt. You could ask for promotion to Lt. Commander based on that combined total and a fleet officer would very likely do it.
 * Players below Fleet Admiral can only promote other characters to one grade below their current rank. For example: if you are a Vice Admiral, you will not be capable of promoting your other characters beyond Captain.
 * Fleet Admirals can promote their other characters to Fleet Admiral, but should at least attempt to inform another Fleet Admiral first so as to avoid any confusion or technical issues that may occur.
 * It is considered good form for Fleet Admirals to treat their other characters as "real" players. In addition, having the ability to interact with the fleet at lower levels allows you to more accurately gauge the impact any settings changes or bank permission changes are actully having. In general, Fleet Admirals should try to have at least one character ranked Commander or below.