As the title says, I am wondering how much energy it would take to autorank the Taltherian chain without using a Neural, RSL, or being Human. I am looking for the amount of energy it would take assuming a start at rank 230, when it unlocks. I have figured out that to autorank the first four missions, 3674 energy would be needed. After that point, however, I am lost, as the ratio goes down after the first three, and I have no idea where the first four missions would put you in terms of rank. Help on this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Not sure about the energy requirement but this might help you determine what level you would come out at after the first 4 missons

http://galaxylegion.com/wiki/index.php/Ranks

Thank you for that, that actually did help me. The first four would put me at around rank 285, which would require about 4726 energy for the fifth mission. That one would put me at rank 304, and I would need 5075 energy to autorank the next mission, which would put me at around rank 315. I would then need a grand total of 5766 energy to autorank the last mission, finishing the chain. I would end up at about rank 325 to rank 330, and I would have finished the massive Taltherian chain. Then I would go get some planets I had lined up, and I would slow/freeze rank for a while to recover.
By the way, yes, I am planning to burn through this chain with minimal delay after I start it. Thank you Johnson!

No problem Joseph glad it helped

this was originally my plan as well ... but my production began to cap under 8 hours so going Talth would have been counter.productive. (yes, i do have a targeted planet for storage, but cloak is not yet sufficient)

i decided to go for the extra npc slots from the lazuli chain from rank 279 instead so i could search for Caelon at 303 instead ... actually took me to rank 310 as i dumped excess energy into the base and did some legion missions as well. good luck ... just be prepared to be a bit higher rank at the end than you plan.

oh, and glad you found the ranks page worthwhile ... took bloody forever entering the rank info from about 140 thru to 260

EDIT: just entered the data up to rank 310 ... may go up to 350 but that will have to wait for another day ...

lol thanks for doing that.... I don't know if I could have figured it out without that data.

If you are using a neural and RSL you need 4k energy according to the formula on the mission page (i think)

The first part of the chain I didn't have to mix any other missions, just straight talth and ranked from 329 (starting at 4511 energy) to 377 - this took me about half way through Unwelcome Visitors.

I took 5 days off (and did some npcing) to gather supplies and plan out the route and then I auto ranked it from Unwelcome Visitors through the end. At lvl 384 (when I started), I had 5127 energy. I mixed in the Prototype chain since the xp reward of 2.6 helped balance things out and when that was done one of the mylari chain missions, which gave the same 2.6 ratio.

I finished by level 412 on the 17th of April last year

Is your intention to do this in one sitting for the fun of it or to have this chain done as soon as possible?

If doing it ASAP is the goal you can cheat a little on auto ranking it by saving 2000 energy to donate to your base when you need 1 xp to rank. So you would be starting rank 230 with a 2000 xp head start.

You could also ask your legion to help. You could lock a few elites and then your legion kills them as needed to give you the small xp boosts once you start into the talth chain.

Both of the above plus an energy sac here and there let me auto through the talth chain when I didn't have an energy bar large enough.

See that you have has many reply's already but i'll add this for you, went through the talth chain in one continuous go in the past doing nothing else apart form a dump of energy into the base to level up

1 hour, 28 mins ago
You've been promoted to Rank 231
5 mins ago
Medal Awarded
Empty, the opposite of full
> Tell Your Friends
6 mins ago
You've been promoted to Rank 332

@Tree7304

Hmmmm..... Good question. It is kind of both, I guess, as well as a bit of strategy, as I would easily be able to autorank with that kind of energy. I also want to get the chain done soon, but I am kinda hanging out as Kronyn to boost my research (when I actually remember to Erudite), to increase my engineers so I can do what I'm planning, and widening the branches of my research tree. Also, soon, I will start getting planets (15 or so, hopefully) lined up for me to take when I am finished with the chain and slow-rank for a while, putting all points into Tactical Officers. That should keep me from being totally glass after a little while, as I will have it all set up so I can increase my artifact income at the drop of a hat. I will be going Inergon Explorer for the duration of the chain, with Inergon (obviously) helping me with the energy requirements, and Explorer helping me with the scan needed for some of the missions. After I have finished the chain, I am planning to go on a scan blitz, with which I should not have a problem with scanning to grey because of my energy total. This is gonna be fun!
Thanks for asking that question, as it kinda made me think about why I decided to do it this way (and, honestly, helped me think it through a little bit more than I had thought).

P.S. I just thought of another reason I wanted to do this. I think I heard somewhere that the lowest rank that you could possibly be after completing the Taltherian chain is 315, and I want to test that for myself.

@Chloron

I would like to do the Taltherian chain all the way through from beginning to end without doing missions. If I end up having to wait on energy recharge, so be it. See the above reply to Tree7304 for the answer as to why I want to do it this way.

@muppetds

Ah, but that would make me take on more ranks, because I would get more experience. I would eventually regret those lost levels of NPCing when I got to a higher level, and I would think, "Why was I so impatient? If I had gathered my strength for a couple more months, I would have been able to autorank it anyway! Screw you former self for your impatience!" I do not want to have that regret. If you want more information, see the response to Tree7304 above Chloron's quote and answer.

@abb.tighe

This is part of what I want to test. I would like to see for myself what the lowest level you can be after finishing the Taltherian chain is. I have heard that it is 315, and from what you have given me, it sounds reasonable. Now, to prove it!
See my response to Tree7304 for more information on why I chose to set out on this juncture in this manner.

Thank you for your responses, suggestions, and questions! They actually have helped me plan out how I am going to do this. This is why I enjoy the forum!
Happy flying amigos!

[color=#40FF00]Ah, but that would make me take on more ranks, because I would get more experience. I would eventually regret those lost levels of NPCing when I got to a higher level, and I would think, "Why was I so impatient? If I had gathered my strength for a couple more months, I would have been able to autorank it anyway! Screw you former self for your impatience!" I do not want to have that regret. If you want more information, see the response to Tree7304 above Chloron's quote and answer.
/quote]

See here.
http://galaxylegion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=35966

I don't see how improving arti production can in any way be counter-productive unless you're already capping in 1 hour. I'd rather get 25k/Hr than 20k/Hr regardless of how much I can hold because when I'm online I can just collect incessantly.

I will also be autoranking through the Talth chain when I hit 230, will post the result here when I do.

As will I.
Partners in determination!
Also, I am hoping to start from 0 experience into Rank 230, and see where I end up. This is going to be fun once I start it!

Didn't really autorank it as I planned, because my finger hurt so much from clicking and adding on more engineers as I ranked, so I just started using Cubes and Tris instead. XD Not sure how much it affected the final level but I ended up at rank 321. No exp boosts of any kind

Hmm, thanks for the info. I do not think using Tri-Matrices or Energy Cubes would affect the XP gain, so 321 is probably the level I will be as well. Thank you for the info!

OK, so this has been bugging me since you first posted this, mainly because I'm getting towards the end of the chain and had wondered the same things you are but couldn't be bothered working it out. So hopefully I haven't made any errors, but here goes.

I checked and agree with your 3674 energy as the required energy to start auto-ranking the chain without any XP benefit. Also checked and rank 321 is the lowest level you can be to finish it.

Oops, I just realised you may have forgotten something!! When you talk about auto-ranking the whole chain, I assume that with each rank you will put all your rank points into Engineers. When auto-ranking off NPC's and getting 4 XP/energy, this is to get the extra 40 XP required for each level. But in this scenario you are not getting 4XP/energy. So you will auto-rank the first rank from 230 to 231, but then what? I did a quick calculation of the energy you will have at the start of rank 231 (3674 + 10 engineers = 3684) and for the XP needed to get from 231 to 232 (40 * 231 + 20 = 9260XP). And with the XP/energy ratio of 2.5102, 3684 * 2.5102 = 9247.6 so you will end up 12 to 13 XP short of ranking. You won't have any relays on, so your recharge rate will be slow, probably take you half an hour to recharge that.

So the whole point of auto-ranking is lost because of those 12-13 XP.

This aside, some other calcs I did were as follows - by the end of part 4 you will have reached rank 289, increasing 59 ranks and gaining 295 rank points. Assuming they all go to engineers (590) your max energy will be 4264. The energy required to autorank part 5 is 4809, so you will need to wait around and collect 545 engineers or 273 rank points or 91 rescued prisoners. Don't know about you, but that would take me along time!

Alternatively, if you used just a neural interface, you could comfortably auto-rank the 5th and 6th parts of the chain. (XP to go from rank 290 to 291 is, 290 * 40 + 20 = 11620, so using your max energy of 4264 * 2.4167 (part 5 ratio) = 10305 XP, using a neural interface this is 10305 * 1.15 = -, so comfortable.

So anyways, it is not going to be as simple as getting to a certain max energy and then popping out the Talth chain in an hour. The way you could get around a lot of these issues is to use some neural interfaces and you would rank no problems. You would reach rank 332 to 333, not much more than 321. I wouldn't worry about ending up higher rank and having a weak ship, once finished you'll be slow ranking and catching up and you'll have knocked it off inside a day.

I haven't bothered with the calcs for the part 7, but it should be close to being able to auto-rank it.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the reply, but I did factor it in to my calculations a little bit. You are correct, I did not factor it in as far as ranking up after starting the last mission. That means that I would probably need about 5900 energy. Thing is, I could probably start the chain with about 5000. I would gain about 400 rank points, which equals 800 energy. That would be just about what I need. I think I'll start it with about 5400 energy though, just to be safe.
Thanks for bringing that up!