Can someone list the best, and why it is the best? because im rank 350 almost, and i want to see which are important for me being a higher ranked player.

taltherian...you passively boost your artifact production. Need I say more?

yes but with drannik, you can get a terraformer in less than 40 hours and its even better.
today, i got 2 data optimizers, 4 purifiers, and 1 terraformer from an hour of npc.

You can still npc when you are talth. plus you can go excavator and get an extra 10% boost.

yes. but its so much easier to autorank with drannik. and still interested in other chains.

theres always the lazuli and sha'din chains for more npc slots. also could get tactical algorithm.

also lots of goodies in the trelith chain and a nice ability at the end.

Exactly what i want to do when i reach 185 40% Npc attack will help me a lot

Just remember, the Drannik attack bonus is nice, but without good defense/hull, you'll be repairing alot and you'll find that you run out of nanos, shield restorers, and credits fairly quick.

The Aeon Moon chain, the Exotic Algorithim chain (I forget the first mission's name), the Silithion chain, Zortah's Abduction, and the Trelith Chain. Lazuli chain too, for all 8 slots.

Drannik also depends on your level and attack a lot. I'm currently a Drannik to make the Seeing Red medal more bearable, but it basically just keeps my attack the same as if I was a buffed Taltherian.
Because I hit the damage cap on a lot of NPC's without being Drannik, it wouldn't actually be that helpful - I'd kill Sha'din Chargers in two shots regardless. At low levels, Drannik is a big help, but it becomes less so as your attack increases.

+1

I was Drannik for a quite a while, then went Konqul. I am now Taltherian and I can still autorank npcing. I am actually pretty close to ranking up by missions alone.

While Taltherian do not give you any bonus that helps to npc, it does help you with probably the only area any "high ranker" actually cares about, ARTIFACTS.

Artifacts are the key to this game and every little helps.

True but it is also useful for the following medals:

-If you want something done right...: Disable 30 non-player 'Boss' enemies (10+ rewards) by yourself, without alerting them to your legion.
-Can't get you out of my mind: Activate a Neural Interface while you are a member of each unlockable race
-Hacker vs Hacker: While a member of the Hacker profession, disable 900 ships from the 'Sha'din Coalition'.

You're probably right that one will cap a lot however, I have the potential to 1 shot Sha'din Chargers as well as Dark Runners so it might be worth it. Gotta cycle through so I'll let you know.

All that being said, I do agree what it is a good mid-level race.

Agreed, I'm currently a Drannik Hacker to do Seeing Red and Hacker vs. Hacker - being Drannik basically counteracts not being able to use buffs for Seeing Red. The main thing I've noticed though is that being a buffed Drannik at rank 820 would be overkill - can't one-shot Chargers due to rank limitation (2.5X rank is damage cap, meaning I max out around 2k damage of their 2.2k hp), and already hit cap on enemies like Tyrants, Fab Plants, and such. Not dissing Drannik at all, but more offering a warning - if you're a high-level Drannik, it might be hard to tell that your bonus is overkill because you've been hitting caps for a while.

At 1080, I can get lucky and 1 shot Sha'din Charger (9.8 xp/energy) and Dark Runners (10.4 xp/energy) but not 100% of the time.

The issue it seems is how damage is calculated. It doesn't seems to scale well when you get towards the top. What I mean is when I was not drannik, on a Rogue Data Analyzer, I can hit for the cap most of the time. As a drannik using a crux, I can still only hit the cap for most of the time, even though I have 51% more attack. I see the same thing on fab plants, 51% increased attack doesn't seem to be a big enough increase to always hit the cap.

I'm note sure if this is how things were planned or Dan just didn't expect people to be getting this strong. Either way, I think there is an error in the way damage is calculated.

This is because of the tanh function in the damage equation. To hit for damage cap 100%, the tanh needs to be 1 (which is mathematically impossible). The curve of the function has a steep grade as you approach tanh(x)=1 because it is undefined. Therefore, the closer you get to damage cap, the more and more attack you need to get there. You never actually get there, but you CAN get so close that it appears to be 100% even though it may only be 99.99% of the time you hit damagecap.

I will agree that Drannik, however, seems to be a great MID-rank option for hardcore NPC players. It loses its advantage once you get into the high-rank (800+) range though.

I don't know... I'm starting to like the 1 hitting NPCs. I just found a third one-capper, the Mylarai Extractors.

rank?

Over 1k

The terra project and subsequent missions, takes a while if you don't want to fork out but quite worthwhile rewards once you finish I've seen....