ok, a comparison with my ship at rank 248 (similar enough), i was quite weak (i found for my liking) although its worth noting i was an SSB. The comments made to me in the thread apply similarly to your ship

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=39493

Notably, even without the fixer bonus, my hull is much higher, and generally SSB's really want a high hull to annoy in PvP, that is your main defence, high hull, low damage cap.

Your productions in the artifact department, as always, can improve, mine was hugely lacking at the time, the whole game revolves essentially around artifact production and time. But it looks ok. Wouldn't particularly say you looked like a NPC'er though. As said other places, minerals look fine, but upgrade hull to fermionics (that is the main reason people get their minerals up in the early game really),

ALWAYS HAVE AT LEAST 50 SCAN or you cannot find the Troop Carriers, as has been mentioned.

Sorry for late reply, thanks for a comparison Spock!
As you probably know, you have about 5x the amount of decks as I do and therefore can fit more modules, that might explain my low hull, although atm my hull is around 8k(with a nanite).
And I have found a Troop Carrier since your reply.

yes, my ship is a large ship build, but i am mainly Npc's and have (now) enough AP for repairs to be of no consequence.

usually a hallmark of the ssb is high hull, and i would consider sacrificing the more inefficient modules in favour of more hull

Still looking for advice and comparisons, now i'm a SSB

Well, from what I've seen, your ship is actually pretty good. A nice amount of defence and your attack is pretty decent.only thing I can think.of is up your arti

Thanks TheBandit, your ship is also pretty nice, its just yours has A LOT of decks, which is the only reason that I am able to easily disable it.

Ooh, easily? Fighting talk lol a few less decks but a few more hulls...

Well, easily last time i checked, haven't seen you on BT in a week? two maybe?

Your ship is looking pretty solid now and that is very good. Velox thrusterd would be recommended on your ship when you have a bit more helmsmens to defend against attacks. Well, any % module right now would be a great addition to your ship whether installed or uninstalled (maybe purposely broken) on your ship.

At rank 251, I had:

Energy: 2289 (no relays)
Hull: 11335
Shield: 3206

Attack: 5116
Defense: 1355
Deck: 270

Race/profession: Konqul fixer
Artifact: 8306/hr

Player kills: 2128
NPC kills: 3037
Planet scans: 4213
Missions completed: 151

Are you swapping your mods when you go offline? If not, the surge plexuses can be replaced with a hull mod, and the weapons can be swapped out as well when you leave the game to go do something else. If you need a couple of decks for something, the stryll prey tracker can be downgraded to the stryll hunt sensor (you only need 50 scan for troop carriers).

Aerlen hacker is maybe not the best combination for a low-ranked SSB. I think Konqul fixer is the most effective combination, especially since you're working on PvP.

It might not be a bad idea to work on getting Anubix, too. The 3% attack bonus at the end will come in handy as you continue to rank up and increase your strength.

I'm not sure of you are still doing the hacker vs hacker medal, but it would be nice to know the top 3 main medals you are focusing on right now.

Ok, so 3 main medals, i'm working on atm:
Hacker vs Hacker (3 more to go)
First Contact (Drannik and Lazuli left)
Black Hat

And yes, before I go offline, i swap out a bunch of energy mods for hull.

There aren't many Lazuli around your level...I have seen even less Drannik...

Yeah, what bandit said is true and it took me a whilebto find one lazuli on my battle tab. However, I did find one during several hacking sprees that was a tough nut to disable.

Dranniks were difficult to find too, but fortunately a legion mate alerted one for me to disable. I've only gotten the first contact medal after slow ranking for a little over 2 years and that is very recent.

I found one Lazuli, but he/she was hiding under a halc.
Still looking for advice and comparisons!

And now 3 medals
Cleaning Crew
Menace to the Galaxy
And Black Hat

Also working on First Contact, but its not a major goal atm.

Well, take a look at my log if you want. I am Lazuli, see how I fair to you and then you may take your chance

At Rank 243:
Attack: 6715
Defense: 2583
Decks: 1200
Hull: 14171
Shield: 2659

Mining: 6185/hr
Artifact: 6864/hr
Research: 8094/hr

Bane: Rank 22
Thraccti Rank 39

(One Velox)

Player Kills: 1565
Deaths: 216
Hacks: 967
Raids: 1289

I'm an MSB style ship.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=37430&start=80

Rank 270ish is on that page too.

What I seem to be getting is I rank too fast, and my productions are too low. Ranking fast doesn't allow me to have as much tacs/durt brackets/xch cells per rank. So from that, I'll try to fill some of my planet slots with good planets to boost my arty production by loads as well as ranking a bit slower.

I just set a goal for each 100 ranks, and would see how many Rescued prisoners and Durtanium Brackets I'd need before I ranked, and followed it pretty closely. I choose my PvP targets very carefully as well. If I wasn't at the Rescued Prisoners or Brackets I wanted prior to ranking, I'd hack or do a planet scan to use up energy and keep myself busy. You can also use the time to organize planets and such. Slow ranking doesn't have to be boring.