I'm interested to see some ship logs from the first time player who doesn't spend money. Are there any of you out there?

im a non-reset, but i do spend GP......

i've reset but didnt keep any of my planets ( typical first time through mistakes, sillix biologist kinda stuff ), but same as stevo, i've used GP on a couple of things > http://galaxylegion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=31488&hilit=creating+a+ship+log+as+promised

chances are there is one or 2 ship logs out there that are both non reset or non GP spending, but the majority of people that are pure non GP spenders of one fashion or another ( out of pocket, or FB gift cards for Bday, or something else ) likely do not frequent the forums, I am just guessing though.

I'm a non-reset as well, but I do spend GP from time to time. I'd bet that there are quite a few non-reset, no-GP using ships out there. I think Elerian is right, though. Forum usage is so low I doubt you'd find any here (or at least not many).

when did you reset Merry?

ages ago when i first started playing, had a number of resets before i figured out exactly what professions were actually just useless vs useful.

Don't normally post, but I am a non-reset and non-GP purchasing player

I'm a non reset non GP buyer. What GP I have comes from doing reward related things for "free" GP and most of that GP is spent on abandoning planets for trading. 5 gp for an abandon to get QSE, RT and such.

I do have a couple GP bought mods obtained with above GP and lots of patience.
FATHERs
Thracti
single Chromatic cannon

I have 2 rifts that came from QSE found with lots of NPCing and luck.

Tis a fair question, doesbfree GP count in your perception of what your after or no?

no GP of any kind other than the 10 you start with. Donio, have you by chance kept a log of your progress? I'm interested to see how much of a gap is created through the use of GP. Hopefully someone out there has records.

Unfortunately I never kept any logs, plus it's been 4 years since I first started (albeit with a few weeks off every so often). But I can safely say that compared to most of the forum users like Tree, etc, my ranking rate and arti increase rate hasn't increased as quickly as they have (currently rank 1055 and arti per hr of ~57k - 58k).

Think I see where you are going with this, and GP doubtless gives an advantage - no question. It's going to be hard to quantify just how much of an advantage it gives, however, since GP can be spent very wisely, very foolishly, or anything in between. IMO, you will have a very difficult time ever finding enough ships that meet the criteria, have kept logs, and are willing to participate to ever get enough of a meaningful sample size to try to interpret exactly how much advantage is gained per GP spent.

Just as an example, I spend limited amounts of GP and my priorities were FATHER's and ELIOS RELAYS to get faster energy recharge, certain ships allies, and mission planets. Of those I have the FATHERS x2, ELIOS x1, The BANE, LEPUS, and SCRUUGE allies, and so far only my mission exotic when it comes to planets. That amount of spending has yielded a certain net benefit/gain to me based on my spending priorities when it comes to GP. Other's who have spent relatively the same amount of GP will have different results depending on how they've chosen to spent it.

Then you have entirely different classes of GP spenders.... Those who have spent more/less. Then how wisely each player has spent it, etc, etc. I think the only thing that is safe to say is that spending GP definitely gives an advantage, but just how much advantage is going to vary quite a bit per individual player and how much they've spent and how wisely they've spent.

Donio, in your opinion, do you believe your ability to compete with other ships is on par with your peers (+/- 25 ranks)? At what rank do you feel you were able to close the gap between you and the GPers? Do you think if you were to take a similar path starting today versus when you started years ago, you'd still get to where you are?

Apart from the few insane ships - overall I feel that I can compete quite well with my peers (in rank +/-25). I only really struggle with those who are 300 + ranks above me most of the time.

To answer your second question, I've never really felt that the gap was that much when I played the game more intensely. As Roddenberry said that it depends on the player's own style. I'm sure there is an advantage, but it is difficult to calculate it quantitatively (IMO). But so to answer your question, maybe around rank 700? At least that's when I started to focus on getting more AP (at least more active in getting more AP)

To answer your last question - I'm not too sure on how active the lower ranks are, but I assume with the base payouts I would get to where I am or maybe slightly ahead. That's if I didn't quit playing due to activity levels.

I hope I managed to answer your questions sufficiently, I'm not too sure if it was helpful or not?

Very helpful thanks. One more question sort of linked with my previous one. Would the fact that you were getting owned daily have any effect on your wanting to continue with the game? There are so many more reset ships with insane productions and such in today's GL than there were when you originally started.

Personally I don't think I would. If anything it would be all the clicking needed in this game.

After 4 years, I'm used to being attacked and attacking back. As long as it isn't harassment to the point where I can't even play the game, I don't think I would quit due to being attacked by resetees

Not a reset and not a GP buyer, but I've earned enough to be able to hold and drop a few planets for a legionmate. Does that count?

hehe earning GP not allowed for this "expirement"

I'm a non reset player but I have spent enough money to buy 1 F.A.T.H.E.R and 1 trinity core drive. I haven't done any surveys for free gp so does that count?

nope, sorry