Rank 339 Konqul builder, 1460 kills vs 203 deaths from players, 3000 energy, 88 energy per hour, 5000 attack/defence unbuffed, 7200 hull, 5000 artifact an hour. I have been ranking quickly lately, was thinking of npcing until I had 5000 energy, then doing the Taltherian Chain--ei building up my artifact production though improving planets etc. Is this a good strategy? If so, what would you do after it? Also, if I want to switch to a taltherian, what would be the smallest planet size you would take? Thanks.

...VL I would assume so you can get the best production out of it in the end

I would only 'urbanise' (the ability) a very large planet if it can be upgraded size wise with an artifact, for example a very large terra can be upgraded to a massive x17 gaia. I'm a taltherian and my strategy involves starting at the biggest planet I have and then moving down the list while considering its richness. I will upgrade those planets that can be upgraded using arties as mentioned before.

The above is for a planet to use the urbanise on, I will colonise any decent arty planet that I find depending on size and richness, vl + my most preferred but will take an avg or large if it has great arty production (ill also have less defence on these as its not a big deal if I loose them)

Also, get your hull up.

start at very massive planets and get their richness up.
a x7 VM will out produce any x15 VL planet. and youll have better defences on the larger planets.
check my progress in the beginners hub
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=18661

Yeah V. Massives or V. Larges only, but only use the ability on V. Larges if they're Terras, Deserts or any other planet that can be upgraded past 15x. Like Blue said more hull is never a bad thing. Another thing is you need to get your arti production higher before you reach Taltherian. Other than that your ship/plan seems alright.

Thanks for all the feedback.

2719 / 2726
Attack: 5410
Defense: 7500
Scan: 2031
Cloak: 265
Cargo: 20k
Upkeep: 1.7B
Taltherian: Urbanize
Excavator: Artifact +10%
5700 energy
13k hull
3300 shield.

Minerals 6528 units / hour

Artifacts 11898 points / hour
7400 research/hour

Player Kills 1605
Deaths from Players 248
Non-Player Kills 16570

I am at rank 534 now. I plan on staying under 600 and picking up around 1000 new kills and raids. My attack and defence are 2 tech levels below what I have researched since I would rather save those funds for scanners, new planets and my legion (my tech is actually lower than when I posted back in july). What kind of hull, defence and attack numbers should I have before I consider ranking up again via npc? I am currently doing all TOs with rank points.