Combat

Combat Rank
Harmless
Mostly Harmless
Novice
Competent
Expert
Master
Dangerous
Deadly
Elite

Within Combat there are multiple roles a commander can take, such as Assassin, Mercenary and Bounty Hunter. To increase ones combat rank one needs to kill other Ships, where killing higher-ranked pilots increases your rank faster.

"Combat works slightly differently, this is done on the number of kills, but the points you get for each kill are based on the combat rank of the target relative to your combat rank so if you are harmless and kill an Elite ship you will get a large number of points were as if you are Deadly and kill a ship below Expert you will not get any."