I'm pasting this here so that I can compare back to these stats once I hit rank 100. I also want an opinion of how well Im doing now so that I can also compare your impressions too when I hit rank 100. And what should I do next?

Rank 52 Sillixx Explorer
Decks: 303/308
Attack: 866
Defense: 389
Scan: 61
Cloak: 50
Cargo: 187/230
Upkeep: 5M
180 Energy
1185 Hull
118 Shield

Modules:
Weapons -Heavy Quantum Devestator x3, Dominion Cannon - Mk II x4
Energy -Omicron Injector
Sensors -Decryption Quad-Frame x2
Hull -Overcharged Q-phased Plating, Protean Armory x3
Shields -Harmonic Resonator
Cloaking -nothing
Defenses -Phase Shift Engine - Mk III, BM50

Research:
Micro Singularities 0/3
No energy research done
No shield research done
No cloak research done
Nexus Grids 0/3
Quantum Overlays 0/3
X-Manifold Detector 0/3
Astro Binding 0/1
No legion research done

Production:
Mining: 678/hour
Artifact: 914/hour (one more planet slot open and 2 planets not at 100% bonus)
Research: 1082/hour

Ship Stats:
Battles 3413 (Veteran)
Player Kills 411
Deaths from Players 37
Non-Player Kills 104
Planets Found 219
Planets Occupied 12
Planets Captured 2
Missions Completed 100
Scans Performed 658
Successful Hacks 259
Successful Raids 244

Do we seriously need to have so many of these posts? look at the countless other topics on exactly the same thing and it'll tell you how your doing and what you need to do.

Your right, I'm not going to trudge up the link but Sparky I think it was that made a topic with all the different threads like this one.

The thing with sparkies link is that people may have better stats so it doesnt help

Yes it does, because the advice is pretty much identical every time, maybe changing slightly every fifty levels or so.

"Research [usually planetary structures] first followed by [obviator shields], and then [generally defense, followed by hull, followed by weapons] unless you need to research [scanners for a scan run]."

I'd change a couple of things but yeah, I'd say your close to it.

no the thing with sparkies is that it isnt stuck so it isnt visible on the front page, therefore the new layers who log onto the forums dont know it exists and it isnt helpful. It needs to be bumped probably once a day for it to stay at top

here it is

first bit of advice, STOP BEING SILLIXX IMMEDIATELY

+1

To elaborate Sillixx is a bad race at higher levels because eventually you will end up changing race to something more useful but you will have a lot less space, it's something very hard to get out of and gets even harder to get out of the higher level and more decks you get. So it's better to get out of it now, before that happens.