I was looking at how I was playing the game and realized I was devoting every planet to research. Which is nice to see that I can build bigger and better add-ons to my ship but I can't level fast enough to make my ship bigger so I can hold the things I'm researching. Luckily the daily rewards have been giving me enough money to pay for anything I want to buy as I choose the missions with the highest XP so I can level faster.
So the real question is, what RP/hour is just enough or is it worth the effort and focus on others.
BTW I'm a vyg hacker so better research and hack so I devout my research mostly on scan and stealth with a little in energy to lvl faster.

It should be a percentage more than a specific number.

Under level 250 the mission pay will help you out so you should be about 50% research/25% mining/25% artifacts.

Level 250-400 you need to bring your mining up way up 40% research/35% mining/25% artifacts.

Level 400 - 650 you need to focus on mining to pay your bills. You will also start reaching the end of research trees so you should start cutting back on research 35% research/40% mining/25% artifacts.

Around level 650 to 700 most of your research should be done so you will be wasting resources if you keep taking research planets. You should be fighting more so you will need to bring up mining and artifacts 30% research/40% mining/30% artifacts.

After you have finished the research and have saved up a good amount of money, you should focus entirely on artifacts. This is what my build currently is 23% research/32% mining/45% artifacts.

Artifacts are better than research after rank 200.

i found that i have more than enough research when i was at 4500 per hour. i figure, the research tree isnt getting expanded any time soon, so i'll just keep going at it, and i'll finish in a few months (save for proxy universe reactors). IF we can donate rp to the base, i'll consider getting more, but with my artifact production i get an android scientist around once a day at least. so, while research may be a priority till around rank 100-150, mining and artifact should take priority over that once you get beyond there.

Wow, how long have you guess been playing to know of tactics for that high levels?

actually web guy dan said the research branch is expanding because of the base sytem, a new tier will be introduced

well i worked it out at 3000 research per hour it would take over 2 years to finish my remaining research off so i guess more then 4-5 times amount

I had over 9000 RP/h for a while, now I'm down to less than 8000. I feel like if you have +12 structures, Heavy Thetacron Cannons, some cloak, all the scan, all the shields, all the hull, HyperChannel Relays, and Trans-Temporal Nacelles you're pretty much done, and that's when you can just drop a lot of research for sure, maybe even before that.

Well, here is the thing, there are 3 phases generally; phase 1: you are heavily researching to grow your ship, phase 2: you are finishing up high tech but its taking forever for marginal gains, phase 3: you have research contracts and RP -> credits. Credit exchange was analyzed to be about 25k / RP , vs. 35K / mining at max mineral quality. So it's not horrible to get to that point and overdo RP a little, but I'm focused almost entirely on AP unless the RP world is really good (I have like 20 Gas Very Massive Research: Rich Unoccupied that I just don't feel like dealing with). Partially it depends how impatient you are to finish most of the tech tree. If you are Vygoid, the credits may actually be worth more for the RP you have than mining, if you went heavily into it.

I would expect artifact production to be - in the long run - far more valuable, as it gives you fairly directly decks, rank points, hull, shield, scientists, helmsmen, research, etc. I'm currently running about 25% mining, 50% artifacts, and 25% research. Pretty much every day, I end up with one or more androids, plus the various chassis which are the best for buildings you can get, as far as I can tell. But with the take on durtanium brackets, alien data disks, xcharge cells, etc. - artifacts seems far and away the best way to go, as long as you're making the money to maintain your ship. (Though some research is important, for sure! - but those damn gas giants are just *SOOO* plentiful, it's a pain!)

the way i read it, bases will have their OWN tech tree. bases will then have to research the tech on the tree to be upgraded. im guessing players will be able to donate RP to the base in order to accellerate the process. however, players have asked for new ship tech for a while now, and there has been only a small increase to scanners and energy, other than that nothing new. Because of the extreme costs of high level tech, the only way the research tree can really be improved is if new branches are added, as with the exception of maybe hull and shields, everything else would simply be too expensive to have on your ship.

AP -> androids for RP -> RP to credits. Due to this property, I have only focused on AP for awhile and my RP is still at a decent level.

I never quite understood the debate about "how should I focus my production ?". I got 15 free slots and no decent planet to colonize. Besides the ones I don't feel like taking from others, for karmic reasons. Until now (rank 414) I never had to chose between research and artifacts planets. Ever. I just colonized whatever was available. If the discussion was about what should I build on an equally abundant planet then yes, artifacts are the "win!" solution. Or, maybe, I'm the only one getting 1 decent artifact planet at 50 gas planets. I don't know, I'm just saying.

On topic, enough is enough when you fill in 8 hours or less.

Don't look at the numbers, take a minute and look at the time to fill your tanks. I'm rank 26, and I have so much resarch right now (5300 ballpark) that my tank fills every 6 hours. I have a 12-hour work shift, so I'm losing about 35K of RP a day. Seriously thinking about refocusing my Dyson from research to artifacts.

This is good advice too, if you're in that situation.

er, rank 226, not 26. :p

Yeah if you are filling up got to adjust. The only one I have the issue with is mining, which fills up if I sleep in, so I just upgrade toxics but don't really get more mining specifically anymore. Since AP has proportional returns and RP has diminishing returns (at least until you convert to credits), that's the main reason for AP, well and ship growth is always useful.

But dan did mention that Bases will have a new research branch called i believe Logistics.
So yea reasearch is a necessity.
As for me My research needs to be high because of the levels but as Kaos said thats mainly what you need, Mining is of most importance until you get all 8 Quasi Cannons and all 5 Perfect Platings, all 5 Sensors ALL of everything. Get to a mining level you can pay the bills with and still have more left over, Then devot it to Artifact.

The trick is to taper your research off and bring up your mining and artifacts so that you don't end up with 20 research planets you can't use and not enough mining to pay the bills. Thats what I did and there were at least half a dozen times I couldn't pay my daily upkeep and had to sell equipment to get it down.

This % might change after legion base inclusion. Mining might become more useful than before..