I would like to find better NPCs on the battles tab. I assume better sensors are at least partially responsible, but I don't want to involve the space. I would like to use the space for guns/defenses, so if I find a rare NPC I can defeat it and move on. Althouh, I was epically lucky and found a Vortul Crimson Annihilator, only to find it could kill me in like two shots. (WHY?!) Can somebody give any good advice?

The best way to get more rare NPC's it's the obvious one and namely killing common/uncommon NPC's. Anything else it's just urban legend. It's a matter of RNG. You can get 10 per day or none for a week. As for the Vortul Crimson Annihilator that one you can link in legion if you have one. If you don't then it's a matter of slowly killing it.

Elite enemies like the Vortul are supposed to be fought by more than one person; I believe the Vortul is designed to be fought by 3 people, but there are elites out there that are designed to be taken on by 12 people. With these types of enemies, it is therefore a good idea to have a strong, high-ranked legion, because not only does it mean you're more likely to get one (Since the entire legion is looking for them instead of you alone), but it means you've got all the extra help to take it down. Trust me when I say the Elite 12 bosses have jaw-dropping amounts of shields and hull.

If a Vortul is killing you in two hits though, there are several reasons why this may be happening:

You don't have enough defence.
You can never have too much defence. Defence basically works by stopping incoming weapons from hitting you in the first place, so the more you have, the less damage you will take, making your existing shields and hull more effective. It doesn't matter if you only have a small amount of shields and hull if you're got a huge amount of defence because you'll only take tiny amounts of damage in combat. Conversely, it doesn't matter if you have massive amounts of hull and shield if you've got no defences, because the enemy will cause massive amounts of damage with each hit.

You don't have enough shields/hull.
Hull is much more space-effective than shields, but hull costs to repair and you can only repair every 5 minutes. The cost of repairing increases the higher your rank is as well. You'll really start to notice the increase once you hit level 130 or so. Shields are less space-efficient, but they recharge over time for free, and the more shields you have, the more they will recharge per "tick", since they recharge as a percentage, rather than a set amount. You can also get artifacts that reduce the time between ticks, so they recharge even faster. When hull starts getting too expensive to repair, I would suggest unequipping some hull and instead equipping some shields. Note that since shields are less space-efficient, this will result in you having fewer overall hit points though. But if your shields are strong then they will also repair quickly, so this really doesn't matter.

Your modules are weak.
Research grants you access to better modules. The bigger the module is, the more space-efficient it is. Look at some of the most basic modules for example: the Autopilot Console gives you 1 defence for 3 space, but the Mark II gives you 2 defence for 5 space. You would need to equip two Mark I's to get the same benefit as a Mark II, but they would use up 1 extra deckspace to do it. So whilst having larger modules means you can equip fewer of them, it's better to equip 1 large module than lots of little ones. Therefore you want the strongest ones you can get, so start researching more!

You have a poor mix of modules.
Modules can be unequipped for a reason. Only equip modules that are useful in the specific situation you're going into. If you're going into combat, then unequip any Energy modules you don't need, and use the deckspace to equip extra Weapons, Hull, or Shields. Whilst what DMDMDM said above about Scanners and Cloaks affecting critical hits is true as well, most people find it is better overall to equip Weapons, Shields, and Hull first, then to use any remaining space for Cloaks and Scanners. If you equip lots of weapons, you're going to do more damage per hit, so combat won't take so long - the enemy won't survive as long. But at the same time, you'll have less space for defences and will be able to take fewer hits. So experiment with modules and see which combination works best for you.

Your ship is unprepared.
Don't go into combat unless your shields and hull are full or close to it. If you have few hit points left, you're only making it easier for the enemy to kill you. Also refer to the next comment.

Your ship is unbuffed.
Artifacts are in the game for a reason. Use them! They can boost your stats for a short time. Ancient Crystal Foci, Crimson Obelisks, Crimson Amplifiers, and Shockpulse Chargers will all boost your attack (And can be applied simultaneously) and Grid Consoles will boost your defense, whilst Shield Amplifiers will strengthen your shields and Nanite Swarm Capsules will strengthen your hull. Shield Restorers and Repair Nanodrones will also repair you for free. If you haven't got any artifacts, consider getting some more artifact planets, or ask your legion to share some.

Your ship is enormous.
The game takes the size of your ship into account when calculating damage. Bigger ships have bigger damage ceilings because they make bigger targets for enemy weapons, and therefore will be "allowed" to take more damage. Since you're only just encountering Vortuls though, I seriously doubt your ship is that big. And if your ship is that big, it would have enough space to equip some defence modules, so you wouldn't be encountering this problem.


I hope these help you.

So bigger ships are more easily hit? That's interesting. Although, I try to balance my ship between defenses and weapons, although I feel that my ship is never big enough. I'm also a Vygoid so research is my game. The Vortul was probably just a one in a hundred chance of discovery, and I only have 300 attack and 300 some defense. Not enough to beat up on a Vortul. Besides, everybody in my legion is a very low rank, and couldn't really help anyways. Thanks for the help though.

not sure what rank you are but 300 attack and defense is horrible for most boss fights. I'm going to assume your under level 60. If this is the case then don't worry about it because you don't see most boss shares till over level 60. But mostly your looking for uncommon and rare NPC and you still get very good drops off them. The only way to find them is to kill NPCs, lots and lots and lots of NPCs. As far as npc farming goes the only things that matter are attack power and energy. The more energy you can cram on your ship the more NPCs you can kill when you level and get a new energy bar, and the better relays you have the faster you'll regen energy. Attack is important because the higher your attack is the more damage your doing for each 5 energy you spend on an attack, so the more energy efficient your damage is. The first priority you have is to get all 8 guns on your ship. After that it's simply a matter of upgrading your weapons with tech and thats easy since you only need a couple decks per gun to increase to the next teir and thats fairly easy to come by. Also make getting every mob dropped weapon a major priority. These extra weapons don't count towards your max gun limit so they increase your firepower quite a bit for only a little deck space. I've got 17 guns on my boat.

Outside of this the rest isn't nearly as important. Have enough defense and hull to make it through several mobs before having to repair, but don't worry about repairing. It's fine if you're waiting on your repair timer to keep attacking as long as when your attacking you can get the most out of each attack. You'll get more defense and hull soon enough. Don't bother with scan till your getting close to 100 and then only worry about 1 mod, try and get a 200+ mod so you only have to equip one. There's very few bosses you need to worry about needing scan for. The dark ring is one and that only has 200 cloak and after 150 is the dark mega complex with has 300 cloak so around level 100 look to get 200 scan on your ship and leave it at that.