Heavy PvPer. 1k mining, but rising as I get planet slots.

EDIT:

Hyperflux Signalling (after X-Manifold). It'll be expensive for you, but the scan run will be worth it.

actually. null rays, trans temp, fermionic. still wrong?

I did it Fermionic, Null Ray, Trans-Temporal myself.

any order. just do those 3

I'll wait for Darth Flag...

Probably a good move.

if you are not curretnly running gravshell construction on all of your planets then I would do Stellar engineering 1st, if you are then hold off. Planets are your power source, take care of those first and rest will work itself out.

Since your heavy PVP,

1. stick to your guns...literally
2. shields --> reason 1) your planet defenses come from the first tier, reason 2) this is the lightest research tree in the game by far, reason 3) your not exactly hurting for hull.
3. energy --> keeping 1 or 2 very large reactors will give your more space for hurtfull things
4. cloak --> you have lots of hp, but a critical hits still hurt no matter what game your in.
5. Hull
6. sensors
last. base stuff

Finish Dark Energy cores.
XMan sensors, do the best purge you can and scan scan scan.
Don't waste points on Nulls and TransTemp yet. You'll never be able to afford them plus do other stuff on 1k mining. You need better production first. AP cannons did me just fine well into the 200's, and I ran drop-only defenses unto over 300.
Increase your hull.

Don't colonize the first semi-decent planet you find. Be a little picky. Mining-VL toxics only and farm a few Blade Harvesters, Research-VM Gas only and farm Rogue Labpods

You didn't run any researched defences huh? Losing mine would drop my defence drastically (from 1371 to some 550ish), but allow me to max on guns (Raising my attack to 3590).

And I can always abandon planets later... I buy enough GP to manage that.

I'm maxed on planets for now, so a scan run would be welcome I think.

Is 550 defence really enough? My cap is 404.5, which if I had no defence would mean I'd die fairly quickly. Else, point me in the direction of another defence drop. I only have the dark rings and scruuge x-deflectors, alongside 2 researched defences.

And yes Elerian, I did upgrade every last planet that I owned for some 5bil to gravshell construction. Tempting just to get the mining structures, as I've invested in a fair bit of mining storage to bring my mining cap up to my artifact cap.

And it's strange you'd say my hull is good, because it's the stat I'm least comfortable with (although I know it's pretty good), as it's pretty much the most important stat for combat, except perhaps attack.

As far as crits go, I have a fair bit of cloak from the Xecti Disruptors, which is usually enough to outweigh my opponent's scan and negate crits.

I'm well aware of the fact that using less, better cores is more efficient. I run one Dark Energy core (now completed - chucked the RP I gained into Isomorphic Entanglement so I'll finish that off) as that's all I want. I'll research Intra-Ds when I want more energy.

Why shields though? I can't afford obviator shielding and I already have planetary shields.


So... X-Manifold first, then Fermionic. Swap out my 2 researched defences for the last 4 researched cannons.

That about cover everything?

There's also Octafari Deflectors and Prejoran Power Diffusers that you can squeeze in when you have a few decks, but not enough for a full size mod. The OctoDef also provides a shield bonus.

Both of which are a long way into big chains... :S

i put shileds higher for a couple reasons,
1 the planet defense - yes its expense and you dont need to put them on right now but they're there,
2 its by far the lightest researchable tree, obviators are 390k per tier.

Nulls highly expensive yes, but same for Fermionics when you finish it off, and I remember you saying that you were uncomfortable with your hull but im wiling to bet that you have one of the alrgest hulls at that level, so you are probably fine.

And yes if you are looking to only use dropped artifacts for you defense the the octafari / prefor missions are where you want to go, you could also look at getting the BM50's from base combat if you dont already have them.

The Octofari mission chain is LONG and tiresome I know, but its worth it for a couple of reasons:

1: plasma lances - more attack / hull
2: deflectors - more defense / shield
3: Kalvium - hull + 10% hull [ ~ 7187 hull / 7447 hull with plasma lances ]
4: Stripcore mines, and Myalari in general - massive mining output

the downside is that it will veer you away from PVP, upside you come out with more hull, and larger mining output to afford the modules.

Antiprotons served me well up until rank 250. I'm still running them now as I upgrade to nulls, which I'm struggling to fund at 3K MP/hour.
Dark energy will do you until rank 150-175 Isomorphic Repeater (I think) should be the next thing you get - affordable, and more energy to kill stuff with won't hurt.

Leave shields for now. Wait until rank 200 ish, and go right up to 1/3 obviation. Planet defences are expensive but valuable.
Ignore cloaking. Finish that later. NPC/mission drops will serve you fine. I've got nearly 1K cloak and not a researched module in sight (zolazin though)
Fermonics are nice to have, but almost as bad as nulls for upkeep (about 200K less).
Ignore defences for now - I haven't even started trans-temporal yet. (but next on my list) 1 or 2 researched defences do me fine along with mission/NPC drops.
+10s are expensive too. Again, nice to have, but expensive. stick with +8s to at least rank 150.
Base, just research it as you need it. Ignore it for now.

My "plan" for you:
Energy up to next relays
Fermonics - you should have enough mining by the time you finish them.
Take it from there. Fermonics will take quite a while.

Get some mining planets - Perhaps even take a break from PvP and hit the NPCs for some harvesters. NPC = PvP with better drops and no retaliation. NPC dropped defences are what keep me going.

That Spyder is a smart guy... Should listen to him too.

Is that sarcastic or serious? can't tell with a computer screen.
I learned from the best. Thanks. I'm just saying with his style/problems I remember having.

Oh, and I skimmed the whole thing too. I basically said the same as you.
X manifolds are good too if you need to scan run.