I've been seeing people complaining in various threads around here that SoAndSo legion or SoAndSo players only prey on those weaker than them. Listen, they're not going to stop leveling so you can catch up, so start taking control of your own fates. One way you can do this is to pile on energy like a 3 yr old piles on cookies.

Keep your energy science as up to date as you can, and use the best relays you have available. Make sure you remember to disable them when you level to get the best return on your full batteries as you can.

Pre-calculate when you're going to level, and spend partial tanks to try and adjust that to a time that's conveinent for you. Nothing good about leveling at 10 when you're at work until 3.

One other thing, don't let large research totals dissuade you. Look at your research numbers, and divide them into the research required. If it takes you less than a week to complete a research step, then it's worth doing.

Use your disco balls wisely. Save them for missions that give you at least 2.5 exp/energy ratio. I know there's 3:1 ratio missions out there, but not sure how often they come up.

This is nice but faster ranking up makes you weaker than those that take it slowly and surely.

Rank does not equate to ship power.

It does *if* you keep your research to scale. That's why I don't advocate using GP for faster leveling. That road leaves you vulnerable.

Research to scale is one factor, but time invested is the other part of the equation you are missing. Without the actual time to gain those research points scale is meaningless. If someone takes twice as long to reach the same level as you (and has collected all those points, and used them) they will be stronger than you... by a lot, period.

I'm also trying to understand what the OP is getting at... I mean yeah all the tips are good, but we all know them, they are basic game techniques and in no way enable you to catch (or be effective against) someone 100 ranks higher that did the very same things you've mentioned.... months ago.

+1. I have seen several that have ranked faster than me, but their tech is weak and they were still easy to take down.

its not only the tech that is missing...

Theres a lot of artifacts that you get over time that makes your ship stronger if you take it slowly..

Durtanium brackets
Android Helmsmen & scientist
Ship bots
Rescued Prisoners
Xcharge cells..

If you collect these slowly and surely without really ranking up fast you ship will gain power which does not require you to have higher upkeep..

I have about 100 neural interface waiting in my cargo hold. I really dont like using them I would rather get more artifacts everyday and improve my research a slow as I can.. Im not really excited about ranking up or gaining XP to rank up.

Did I mention this before? Damn, must have slipped my mind.

"Theres a lot of artifacts that you get over time that makes your ship stronger if you take it slowly.. ", Umm, no.

The reason that I rank up as quickly as possible is so that I can colonize more planets, which allows me to have more artifact points. Which allows me to get stronger, faster than someone who ranks up slowly.

Btw, I'd be more than happy to take those neural interfaces off your hands.

Yeah, if you take a lot longer to level up you will be more powerful than someone who got to that level faster--when you get to the level they're at now. If you get to level 200 in 25% more time than it took them, you'll be more powerful than they were at that level, but now they'll be a higher level. Slowing your leveling won't make you more powerful than somebody who's been playing the same amount of time, it'll just make you a lower level; you'll be stronger for your level, not stronger than them (assuming both players are fairly active and other things being equal).

If you do enough weapons research then NPCs give a 4x return on XP/energy when you use a neural interface and some ship buffs. The disabling bonus becomes more significant when you do it with fewer attacks. Just wait until you have enough energy to level and try to have stored energy be a very large number to conserve neural interfaces. Then use all your buffs and a neural interface then click NPCs as fast as possible, level and use all the energy you get from that. You end up 50-70% done with your next level already. You can end up having to waste energy when you use energy cubes if you don't throw in some less XP-efficient missions. You get better loot from NPCs than from missions anyways. The single player rare NPCs have some good drops too: rescued prisoners, terraformers, all those things that are like terraformers.

The only other strategy that seems feasible would be a pure energy build. Get nothing but engineers every level, put all your research into energy and neglect most of the combat related research on favor of energy, planetary structures and cloaking. You can still do you missions in huge chunks with neural interfaces. I think it might be slightly faster levelling than NPC hunting. The extra levelling should get you better production than the people you surpass and you will still get rescued prisoners and eventually you will have enough decks from even just ship-bots to install 8 weapons. I think production might not be that much higher than an NPC hunter, due to the lack of terraforming.

Some combination of the two strategies would really be the fastest in the long run, though I took option #1 because it seems to be more fun. Eventually everyone ends up with enough decks, even it is a year away for most.

There is a level limit on who you see in the battle tab. It is your level +/- 40% of your level, so someone at level 200 can still find you if you are level 120. Being strong for your level becomes even more pointless once you get notified. You can't catch up with the entirey of the game and be a level leader without using a CC, so being strong for your level is probably a bit more fun

Actually you can catch up to the level leaders without using a CC. I'm #5 in the ranks and that was done without buying energy (I've spent $30 dollars so far, mostly on switching races).

ATM, my build is 50/50 decks to engineers. It use to be heavier into engineers, but I've been dumping into decks recently.

If you go heavy energy route, then don't neglect researching sensors. As the point in leveling faster is to be able to colonize more planets to have more production points. But, it's pointless if your colonizing crap planets.

Spoony is correct, farming mobs gives much better energy returns than missions do. Likewise, it also offers much better drops that increase ship power and other rare artifacts, like terraformers, quasi expanders, etc than missions do. You can always go back and do the missions at later levels, and you'll get them done much quicker when your a higher level with much better energy.

As far as speed of which you level, Frail. It all depends on how you want to go about it. Leveling slowly will make you very strong for your level, but naturaly anyone with enough levels on you will still take you out with relative ease. If you level faster you get to the sweet zone sooner where your getting more increases faster, but your going to have to play catch up once you get there so it will still take some time. I'd imagine they'd be close to the same I suppose, as far as the speed of wich your ship reaches a certian power level. I wouldn't be going out of my way to piss anyone off until you get there though if you go the fast route.

I am using a high energy build for fast ranking. At rank 194, my max energy without relays is 2250. Hourly energy income is 52. I was just looking at some things in the wiki to analyze this. It takes 40 XP more per rank to rank again. It is basically ((40*rank)-20) needed to rank again. So, using all engineers like I've been doing for awhile, you get +10 energy per rank. If you get some prisoner AP drops, it will help too. This means if you could hit 4.0 XP/energy ratio continuously, you could then rank continuously. In practice, I've been able to get 90% or more to next rank with only a neural interface (not human, not using RSL implant). I've been able to rank 2-3 times in a day if I'm lucky and have enough neural interfaces. There are some missions like ones that take complex tech parts, and exotic matter missions, that get close or exceed 4.0 ratio, but they are limited in quantity. Do those first.

Using a high energy build (all engineers) you have less decks. It's useful in one way as it limits damage you take per shot (half decks). You go high tech. Since you can't fit everything, you instead do energy, weapons, and shields and have the patience to wait to recharge shields (amped all the time of course, with T.O. shield recharge to speed it up). If it's balanced right, you can recharge shields as fast as you get energy to attack NPCs, even with no defensive modules. You pick and choose NPC with a good ratio or a drop you want; most ranking up energy used will be on missions quickly with a neural interface; in between ranking you do any NPC that looks good, if none you just wait until you can rank up again. High AP gives ship-bots often enough so you can tech up a bit with the extra space. You are basically trying to rank quickly = more planets = more AP = more effective rank points from arti drops, to substitute for the ones you are putting into energy. Also, better mineral drops at higher ranks to support the tech you need to make more use of the space you do have, although many NPC drops can be used to supplement since they are small and often efficient. When you have done pretty much all the missions (it will take awhile, I'm not even close), I expect...

- NPC farming, the most common I think. Once you finish most/all the missions you care about, that's what's left. I hear you can get 6 NPC slots. Drannik would increase your disable bonus by reducing the shots taken. The base XP/en appears to be 2.1 for just firing a shot. Of the common NPC I see in the wiki (which we'll assume for this purpose), and a 4-shot minimum to disable, some are 30 XP bonus, so you can add 1.5 to that. With a neural interface and perhaps other XP enhancers, you can exceed a 4.0 ratio, however that's really a best-case scenario. It's likely to be around 3.0-3.5 (?) if you are going through NPC quickly and not waiting for less efficient ones to drop off, and you can't wait that long with a neural interface in play.

- Mission farming. Of the 4 infinite missions I know of, only Controlling the Silthion and Stellar Cartography are feasible for continuous use. Let's assume your exotic matter supply is good, Stellar Cartography is the better choice with a 2.33 ratio, and purgers as a reward. However, there's no way to get this anywhere near a 4.0 ratio. The other rewards (loot, team fighting) of NPC farming are probably something to consider too when comparing. Although indirectly, purgers = rescan = more potential good planets = better AP = more often ship-boosting stuff drops. That's a slow process though. You will do better by ranking to just get more planets and get purgers from arti drops, and you will rank faster with NPCs since the base 2.1 ratio is almost as much as the best repeatable mission, and that's the minimum ratio.


Whether more energy or more attack speeds up leveling more depends on which missions are left (and their ratios), and how the current NPC compares to the ship. I had an all deck phase, but after I got near max energy tech and fit it easily, I realized ranking would slow so I started on engineers. Think of it like an investment, you will get the benefit of the energy every rank, ranking faster will allow more AP and "give back" the rank points faster in the form of ship boosting artifacts. It's just one style anyway, and it precludes competitive PvP really until much later, if you're into that.

i always thought that power as far as this game is , its a mix between rank and research, the higher your research is the more better things you can build but they require more deck space.
and the more ranks you have the more rank points you have.
and the more rank points you have thats much more that you can apply to your decks.

if anyone really new reads my post put all your rank points into decks, you will thank me later for it trust me haha dont do like i did and dump most of um on scientists

yeah, that was a bad call with the scientists, but frail had another interesting suggestion that was to go 3decks 2engineers every rank so you can level even faster.

Rank points are one way to get decks yes, but not the only way. Currently i'm getting over half my decks from artifacts, not rank points, and I still rank up once a day. Heavy artifact production is a key component to the "slow" build. As it stands i'll be Star Destroyer before rank 220.

What does "Heavy artifact production" stands for. That term always escaped me. Numbers at rank please.

There are no specific numbers at any given rank because they can vary depending on many different factors, including the quality of planets you find. What it means is mainly that most of the planets you've colonized are artifact production planets and the lions share of your production is in artifacts, typically 50% or more.

3100 AP / hr with 50 planets, if you want a number. My balance is 20%/40%/40%, only getting mining enough to support my techs with some decent net income; I will always go for AP planets first, and put AP on a planet that has AP/RP. Based on observation, the number of ship-bots etc seems directly proportional (linear) with your AP income. So, given a certain AP ratio/planet quality, double your rank should be roughly double your ship growth rate per day/week/whatever. It will be a bit higher since higher building tech and special items will increase efficiency a bit once you get there.

>> Rank points are one way to get decks yes, but not the only way. <<

It is true for all the ship stats except energy and attack, where there are no AP drops except rescued prisoners. Thus, the energy build is focused on using the natural rank points on something that doesn't have its own drop specifically, but will help to speed up ranking and eventually your AP income (which does help the other stats grow, including more energy using prisoners).

I would actually suggest to the new player, to get 300-500 decks before doing an energy build (I had about 500 before I switched, and have gained ~160 decks from artifacts since then). Part of the reason is you need some modules at least to qualify for missions, and missions are the primary thing for a high energy/lower deck build; you also need to fight NPC for some missions anyway, though it's not my focus yet.

3100 ap/h with 50 planets is really too low, you should have double that by then. Right now i got 100 planets and am on 10k mining and 12k artifact and research production. Altho my ship is small (2500 decks) my 3K engineers allows me to level at will.
Anyone saying that the slow leveling tactics makes them stronger is WRONG. If we start at the same time and i level 3 times as fast i will be level 300 when you hit 100 and when you hit 300 i will be lvl 900. Sure you maybe a strong lvl 300 but i will kick your ass whenever i want. Decks are a must but the engineers are the bomb in this game if you like to play this game go heavy on the engineers you will NEVER run out energy and you can keep on playing whenever you want. Atleast till you hit lvl 400 then you will run into the flamehawks and they will make you hate this game but with enough engineers even thay will not stop you leveling at will.