At rank 114 I have:

688 minerals
1501 artifacts
1251 research

Today I was told that all my productions were WAY too low for my rank. Just wondering what some others think.

yep, you need more research.

What buildings do you have, and what rank? I may be able to back-work something out from my stats (that I hope are average).

+8, but only artifacts have been upgraded.

As you NPC more and more and get more kills:rank your production grows faster. Just saying.

Same as me for structures then (upgrade progress)

1500 RP
1000 MP
1250 AP

Is what I'd expect. That's 1/2 my productions, rounded down, and given a bit of leeway (for structural difference)

My AP is lacking. Badly. But I have 5 empty slots. I'd say get your research up, and maybe get 1 or 2 more mining planets. Upkeep WILL start hitting you hard and fast, especially as you upgrade weapons and hull (essential for PvP)

I don't have any 16x Toxics...

But upkeep, for now, is bareable. Antiprotons will be a step up, but not even starting to be a concern. Nulls/Fermionic are not on my "to do" list.

Raising my RP? Well. I will, the moment I have some storage structures... I face a 16+ hour cap restriction (ie. I'm away for 16 hours)

when I saw your MP, I was like... hmmmm... slow ranker, WITH ONLY THAT MUCH MINERAL PRODUCTION?!
your minerals is severely lacking, you need to get that up before you focus on research. if you don't have any viable mining planets to take, try NPCing for a month or two and hope for some blade harvesters.

Now at 124 I have:
1085 Mining
1687 Artifact
1514 Research

What to work on now?

EDIT: Quick note: My mining cap is actually higher than my artifact cap. Just sayin'.

ur stats / income ratios were very similar to mine . though i am still at lv 5 structures.

rank 109
Minerals 604 units / hour
Artifacts 1740 points / hour
Research 1253 / hour

i know upkeep becomes quite expensive later on but i been able to manage keep my self aflot with art trading. how long can i keep doing that without increasing my mining? any ideas on what level that might be or what tech level?

Well, that IS technically thread-jacking, as this is Strm's thread, but it's a valid question.

Antiprotons
Dark Energy
Neutronium Plating

Those are the max you could probably get away with. but by then, you should definitely have more mining

I comfortably keep up with 8x antiprotons, 5x Neutronium Hull, 1x Dark Energy on my mining alone. My upkeep is 200M/day, so if you can make that via trading, go ahead. After that it gets way too expensive though. I'm going to get +10 structures before I do any ship upgrades, except perhaps Trans-Temporal Arrays, as I'll only be running 1 for now.

+10's are horribly expensive. I make around 1b a day, after upkeep, and am struggling to upgrade all my planets

I know. I'm going to do alot of trading, get some help from friends and I'll be fine.

It'll be worth it, I think.

Don't come to me

My honest advice would be to take a small break from PvP - just a week or two - and get killing NPCs. Several reasons:
Blade harvesters will help mining.
Lab pods will help research.
Terraformers will help everything
There are lots of weapon modules which are NPC drops (ion pulse things)
Elites drop good stuff (dark smugglers caches)
Dark badges will give you weapons and defence, and planet structures (and believe me, the Assassins get super difficult after rank 200).
Also, passive bonuses will let you convert more planet space to production rather than defences.

Heard that. Several times. To NPC with any degree of success in finding anything I would need more energy, more energy=screw up my ranking

Think about it... I have 400 energy... that's 80 hits... or 20 NPC at absolute best... Harvesters are 1:250, T.O. 1:400, not sure on labpods.

My point is, I would be lucky to find 1 a week...

I have all the elite modules except drannik cores right now (which I do want) that I can see the NPC for. Don't think I'm high enough for the Ballistae. I wouldn't even get close to killing enough assassins to get ANYTHING - possibly not even the decoy.

drannik drops are in all rank ranges... starting with rank 75 (if not lower), just ask around if you are not perma-stuck in legion
if you have decently build ship +/-20 ranks will not hurt you,but it will increase your in come and research speed 20ranks=5planets if they are decent its 500 goodnes points/h (at your rank,due to lack of +12's/+10's)
decent metalics are pretty safe bet, they usually have same output on research and mining,so you can swap back and forth depending on needs and you have decent income from multiresource artis like:
Processing Core Chassis
Relay Tower Chassis
Refining Lab Chassis
Warp Gate Chassis
(standard ones)

Yes. I know Drannik starts at 60 with Akkiren. I have one of the cores. It's the ballistae I can't see. Akkiren are few and far between so I'll probably wait for Okkilor which is more common as more people are able to see it.

And yes. I know that 5 more planets would boost my income by 600 or so.

Fact is, I don't find NPC all that interesting compared to PvP and jumping 20 ranks is not on my "to do" list. I'd rather stay back and reach 1k decks by 150 (would put me at 950) if I jumped all them ranks.

Assassins, Warpers and Rogue Tech Collectors are all #$&*@... :/ Why, oh, why did Dan have to cloak all them nice NPCs? :/

Because some people (and by that, I mean Binary) were using a loophole to avoid them, and to powers-rank, which is something Dan is against.