So I'm looking to autorank for a few ranks (a few being completely undefined and undecided).

I'm at rank 166, Konqul Excavator.
I have:
Attack: 3726
Defense: 2564
Energy: 1027 W/relays, 1267 w/o. (Although I'm within a day of finishing research on the next tier relays)

How close am I to being able to autorank? What stats should I aim for?

Also, once I start autoranking, how do I keep up the ability to do so? Rank points to engineers? TO's? A combination of the two?

Thanks ahead of time for your advice.

if you havent already install as many energy modules as you have available and stock up on neurals and RSLs. if you can switching race to either human or inergon may also help. good luck

you would need 11x time your energy since ranking is cut close at 10x your energy when your low-mid rank. I went inergon to get some more energy and didn't see that much of a difference when killing npc's and it helped me gain about 200 rank in a bit over a month and can work my way through the taltherian chain. when ranking normally people either go with energy or having a strong ship for their rank. judging by your ship you went for strenght which is nice but doesn't allow you to autorank until later. maybe once you get 1800 energy you'll be ready at rank 166. rsl only last for 20 minutes which is about 2-3 ranks(costs more than the artifacts you will scrap in that period of time)

you're close to it, the formula is at least 1 to 11 ration lvl/NRG and as much att as you can have...!!!!

but hear a friendly advice... drop it..!!! you don't want a high lvl rusty tin can... as some ppl have... pointing at some lvl 900+ CC player... ghm....

don't try to get to the high lvl league... believe me you won't like it if you're not strong enough...

So I should aim for about 1.8-2k e to rank comfortably with a neural and no RSL? I have no intention of changing races.

Also, I assume I just kill everything that pops up in my NPC tab, right?

And Chunya, I don't plan to go that high. At most I would only be autoranking to ~250-300, in order to boost arti and get a stronger ship overall.

I feel like I have a tin can, so auto ranking isn't a great idea as mentioned before. I did get my kills and have a decent rep, artifact prduction is key to the game so it may help getting some terraformers and building planets but don't skip too many ranks since you won't enjoy your ship then. high ranked players who did it correctly don't worry about a tin can ship, since they should have 50k+ artifact points per hour. don't be a rank 1000 player with only 8k artifact points(you will die everyday, have trouble with bases, and npc's)

You should have 11x to 13x your rank in total energy (no relays) and enough attack to kill NPCs in as few shots as you possibly can. The best method to get to an autorank ability is to put ALL your rank points into Engineers until you have that energy minimum. Your attack will suffer slightly during that process. Once you get to that point on energy, use your rank up points (5 per level) to add more engineers while using all your prisoner rank points for Tactical Officers. Your goal is to be able to get an average xp to energy ratio of 4.0+ with 10x energy. Obviously, the more energy you have the lower xp ratio you can use to achieve an autorank. And vice versa, a higher xp ratio will allow you to autorank with slightly less energy. 12x does the job pretty comfortably once your attack catches up. You can usually put a little bit of energy into missions or base donations at that point as well.

Biggest thing though, as someone else already pointed out, is to NOT endlessly autorank. Your ship will suffer greatly the higher/faster you go autoranking. I can autorank on NPCs rather comfortably but when I do, I only go 2-4 ranks and then stop. Slow ranking for a few days in between doing missions to let my AP catch up with my shipbuilding artifacts. Doing that, you'll be able to get some good stuff for your planets during your NPC run, but still maintain (long term) a strong ship.

Battles 26330 (Grand Master)
Player Kills 1374
Deaths from Players 168
Non-Player Kills 1029

So far I've gone straight pvp. Just recently I started working on the Mylarai chain to get the Kalvium Fortified Platings. Doing the math, it was going to take about 3 months to get em. I want to rank to about 230-250 to get my energy up to do that chain, and then the Taltherian mission chain. At that point, I intend to slow rank while increasing my artifact production to about 100x-150x my rank, if not more. My goal is 50k arti/hr by rank 350 (depending on how long it takes to finish the Mylarai and Taltherian chains).

If your intermediate goal is to increase your energy bar in preparation for the Taltherian chain, autoranking is NOT the way to go. I'd also recommend you stay clear of Mylarai at all costs. It is by far the worst of the planet boosting races. To get a long E-bar, you want to slow rank, putting all your points into engineers while doing various useful missions. Get your Kalvium Plating and Leviathan Rift Emitters then ignore the Mylarai. I would recommend taking 2 or 3 decent to good artifact planets, 1 mining (VL Toxics) and 1 research (VM Gas). Your goal of 50k APH by rank 350, not very realistic to be perfectly honest. You'd need incredible luck in scanning plus dropping a chunk of money making Rifts. Also, Taltherian isn't really that good for mid-rank players. You're better off being Konqul and farm Terraformers. Once you get into the higher ranks (650+) your attack should be able to carry you without the Konqul bonus and that is when you can effectively switch to Talth. You'll be able to boost a planet every 40 hours PLUS effectively farm NPCs.

"working on the Mylarai chain to get the Kalvium Fortified Platings"

I have no intent of actually going Mylarai.

And yes, I know 50k/hr is not a realistic goal, but I'd rather shoot high. The biggest thing that's encouraging me to do this is seeing ships that have been playing the same amount of time as me (or less) and are far stronger. Maybe they aren't quite as strong compared to other ships their rank, but I'm tired of doing 2-3 damage to a level 5 base, not being able to take enemy planets, not being able to get so many NPC artifacts, etc. My legion consists mostly of higher ranks than me, and I'd like to be able to participate should we go to war.

^That's mostly ranting, so in short: I'm strong for my level, but I want to be strong overall.

first of all I don't think that there is more to add to Darth wisdom

so I'll just point some things rather than add...

1) 50k arti by lvl 350 is not possible without buying GP and having a huge amount of luck (and some good and generous friends) + you'll have to be online every hour or two else you'll just loose production (so not a good idea anyway, unless you live inside the pc lol)
2) same for being a talt by then (I only know few who achieved that in 350-450 rank)
3) for mid lvl is better to go Kronyn and make some damn good plasmas for later when you can use research contract (thats when mining becomes not that useful)
4) keep in mind that even the high lvl players don't do huge amount of dmg per hit to lvl 5 bases (am talking about those who have 16k+ unbuffed att) remember that a good lvl 5 have 50k deff so in the end even they do around 40-60 per hit, what they have that you don't is huge amount of artis to help them and lots of nrg... so 2-3 dmg at your lvl is not that bad..!!! Darth feel free to correct me on this one...
5) when you see a ship that is stronger than yours ask 2 questions: a) does he buy GP..? b) what can I improve in my ship... you're relatively a low lvl so you haven't made the big mistakes yet (I hope LOL) and try not to, for that you have high lvl players in your legion that can help/ leaders as for (a) sorry it all depends how deep is your pockets

1.) Not a goal I expect to reach. I like to set my goals as near impossible as possible. (Yeah that makes sense).
2.) I will definitely be added to that list of those you know.
3.) No argument. Valid point. Thanks.
4.) Makes sense, but still a whole lot more than I do.
5.) What big mistake? Decks?

Ok, not going to go point by point but ChuNya does make a couple good ones as add-ons. Yes, low levels should not expect to deal much damage per shot to strong bases. Damage cap on a level 5 base is 120 so with full defenses, yeah, they can be annoying for even high level (read strong) ships. Without knowing how "low level" Oexarity is, it's kinda hard to say how much s/he "should" be dealing. Kronyn... If you do it right, it can be a great boost for lowish mid-ranks. I did it for about 4 months from Sept till Christmas last year. I jumped my research from roughly 8k up to 15k mainly by grabbing fairly well off VM Gas planets and boosting them to 17x Plasmas. Since then I've more than doubled my research per hour again via artifact production with only having taken 2 more research planets. Stole a 17x Plasma and a 17x Aphotic. But that's it.

The educators don't necessarily need to be your legionmates or leaders. Coming here to the forums can be a great resource that will really help you. There are several very experienced players that are more than happy to give advice to newer players. You do have to watch who you listen to however because there are a lot more that think they know what they are talking about without having personal experience.

And lastly, I think ChuNya was referring more toward mistakes like rank points for Scientists and Cargo and colonizing Large Abundant Gas or Average Average Barren planets.

Lol, yeah haven't made any of those mistakes. *phew*

I've started limiting my decks and am going all engineers at the moment. Once my energy is at a secure amount I will start splitting between engineers and TO's.

Also, it does say my rank and current stats right at the top of the page....

At rank 350 you can have 88 planets, lets say they are all Artifact planets you would need them to produce 568 AP/h each to get to 50 000 AP/h.

for that to be possible, they would all need to be x10 or better with no defences. massive or bigger as well.
its not really easy to keep from capping with a production like that, ive got an arti production of 33K an hour, with a capacity of 317K, 162K of which is from arti storages, some i bought with my own RL$, for another 20, i sold a planet.

agreed i worked out last night i've spent 54k ctp on mineral and arti towers, so if your going for high arti/h be prepared because it doesn't come cheap.

Yep. To cap in 8 hours you'll probably need.45k tech and 15 storage planets.
Think that pages up the required average by 100 or so.