While there's clearly downsides to ranking extremely quickly (speeding past game content, missing NPC's, making a tinfoil ship), I've argued for a while that rank freezing at low levels (200's) is a terrible idea. Terrible mainly because you've hamstrung your artifact production at very low levels, for a very long time. Level 200 means 51 planets maximum for you - even if we optimistically allowed an average of 200 AP/hr per planet, this still caps you at 10k AP/hr. This is of course imagining that you have *zero* mining or research planets, and that every one of your planets is some degree of mega rich. Unlikely. Many of the folks talking about doing freezes have 5k AP/hr or less. Considerably less. 2k? 3?
The idea of rank freezing is to soak up power while not advancing in rank, but I contend that stopping for so long at such a low level is a waste of time - the power you soak up is insignificant for higher levels, and you've wasted time that you could have spent acquring more artifact planets.

So to offer a real-life counterexample, I mention the new CT-lab item, which requires 50 Android Helmsmen. The ability to research the new item appeared on July 31st. I don't usually save Helmsmen, so I had zero in my hold. Since we didn't know what the new item was yet, I stopped using *everything,* just in case.

I have 53k/hr artifact production, which is pretty normal for someone my rank. Higher than some, lower than others. How long did it take me to generate 50 Android Helmsmen (which cost 2,000 AP each)? I installed the new module when I woke up yesterday morning, August 3rd. So basically, 3.5 days. Without any caches or the like.

So rank freezers, I ask you this: How long would it take you to create 50 Android Helmsmen? A month? Longer? I woke up to 7 Rescued Prisoners this morning. How long will it take you to get that many?

And please don't misinterpret this as bragging - like I said, I know plenty of folks around my level that have comparable artifact production or higher. This isn't 'whee look at me!' But it's to point out that you're not making the long-term investment you think you are. Use your time wisely.

While I agree with you there are a few things you may want to consider.

1. A person who pays and gets GP could easily get over 10k/hr at rank 200 with their mission planets + the trelilth chain artifacts. (Is it common? no, but still a possibility)

2. Some don't care about being strongest, just comparatively to those their rank. Yes they are weak compared to those who have played just as long, but while you have to deal with people who are comparatively equal to you they are beating on people who are maybe half their strength and they might enjoy that part of the game more than say, fighting bases or NPCs.

3. They might not have the time to play. Speed ranking to get production does take a considerable amount of time.

As for freeze ranking, I don't believe anyone should ever do it before they unlock taltherian. Just for the fact you can get exponentially stronger while you freeze compared to those who are another race.

Good points, especially on waiting until Taltherian. And I should emphasize that I'm not advocating speed ranking - I got to my level after nearly two years of play.

I don't think you should think about freeze ranking until the flowing.


- you have like 50k+ AP.

- Your about to change to the drinik race your a lower rank but want to take a few days to build up your stats so you can auto rank your butt off.

- The boss is riding you , trying to push your over time hours on to next weeks check so he does not have to pay u the extra cast (SOB) and al have have time to do id burn 50 TM's and make some one cry.

- your a way upper rank with no one to badge any more cause every one runs a halc so you plan to wait for people to rank up as u colect massive AP drops then smash them .


Other then that freeze ranking will only hurt you. don't for get just cause your strong for your rank range does not mean you can keep me from taking your planets and using you for medals if you get alerted.

I have a pretty important counterpoint.

Planet slots not being full. My main reason for freeze ranking is so that I can fill my planet slots, and then I can start ranking normally again. This may be in part to me being picky about planets (any planet I take now has to produce at least 197-200 AP per hour undefended). I currently have 12 planet slots open. My mining is good, and I have everything I need researched researched (all ship tech except for the last tier of energy), +12's, and access to the CTL. Therefore, I am currently missing out on about 2400 AP per hour, or almost a 1/4 of my current AP. Therefore, I have no reason to rank up and open up more planet slots. And please don't suggest the star chart purger mission. At my rank, I can produce very few purgers per level, thus making it not worth my time to do that mission.

Taltherian chain can take an excessively long time to complete - months even at max charge. That puts alot of people off of the Taltherian chain.

In the time I have available to me as of right now to play GL - around 20 minutes - how many NPCs could you kill? And like Silver pointed out, whilst my slots are actually full, all the planets I have scanned are crap or untakeable, and I rely on purgers until I can afford the last scanning tech. Therefore, ranking up would make absolutely zero difference.

Onto LittleFluffy's point, at best I can muster 42 energy/hour. It takes a year to do the Taltherian chain on that charge. By the time I finish, I'll be way over the 2 year mark. I realise that you will just say "Buy GP" or "Get better relays" but I point out that once again I'm capped by my rank there, which I pace by my planets, which is in turn capped by my artifact production. So yes, it does come back to ranking up, as I get higher artifact productions I'll rank faster but at this time, I'm quite happy to freeze rank. Of course, if I were to slow rank the way I used to with the whole "no relay" pizazz it'd take to 2 years, leaving it with very little point in even starting. Sure, I could get the ecumenopolis planets, and probably some drops I'll never use but Talth is something I intend to leave until it is actually viable to do within a reasonable timeframe. Of course, it wouldn't actually take a whole year, because my energy tech would certainly improve, I'd go up alot of ranks, which would then allow higher regen without the cost of a tin can until max regen becomes the norm.

Often, freeze ranking is only for a temporary advantage or to catch up due to fast ranking. That's where it's uses end. Sure, it makes you bad-ass in PvP, but slow ranking does that just as well, and actually allows you to, you know, PvP?

I see the downsides of freeze ranking, honestly, but right now I'm freezing because I'm playing catch up to what I was supposed to be at this rank had I not ranked more quickly for some time (although still slow ranking by many standards, I'm talking 2-3 days per rank as opposed to 6-7 days per rank, which is fast enough to get you onto the killsboard). I wasn't due to hit 200 until Hallowe'en. I wasn't that far off.

Now, some people do freeze rank so early (and for bad reasons) that it makes my braincells die. Some freeze below rank 20, which is quite rediculous (we have a rank 24 who has been playing 178 days. His ship is awesome for a rank 24, but... ).

Thing with freeze ranking, that many do not understand is it is completely fluid. Alot of freeze rankers can rank up at will (through TMEs or even autoranking - the latter being one of my goals to achieve whist frozen, though most spam TME) it is just something that I do because I don't have the time to play much.

I'm rank 163 and want to complete it within 3 months

Max charge gives you 4 months minus refills and rank ups. It unlocks at 230, so you will not have max charge at that point (or at least, it's highly unlikely). I'm not saying it's impossible though. There have been ships known to autorank off of missions, have rediculous energy pools and could probably do the Talth chain in a matter of days... assuming there is no NPCing.

I like this discussion. We have had it a bunch of times already, but it is still good to do the points/ counter points.
I will bring up my usual statements.

To me, it is not a matter of slow ranking or fast ranking, but ultimate ability to pvp.
All the talk about production is to build a better ship. And the better ship is to do what?

Blast some fool out of the sky! Or, keep from being blasted out as easily!

Slow ranking isn't a bad idea if it allows you to build a killer ship.
Fast ranking isn't a bad idea if it allows you to build a killer ship.

Both are valuable, and both are flawed.
You just basically pick your poison and go with it.

I will say this though (as I have numerous times), with enough artifact spam, everyone is effectively the same rank and strength anyway.

In fact, several people have argued that it is a bad idea to mess with ships lower than your rank. Let me find the complete list and I will post it.

Have to disagree with the statement about artifact spamming as no matter what those who rank normally will have more hull and energy. Both being things you cannot debuff.

Depending on the enemy ship decks, the lower rank can do over 2k damage, so hull becomes less of an issue than you think.
Let me find that dang post on the facebook page, some one addressed the energy part too.

Edit: that should read 2k damage per shot

Here's my point: I freeze rank because I actually enjoy it.

I don't seek to catch up to the top guns out there, I don't seek to build my ship efficiently. I actually find it an enjoyable challenge to see how far you can push your ship without ranking up.

I agree with what the others have said about slow/freeze ranking. It is no fun to have a weak ship for your rank. Once I get through with the Trellith chain I should be around rank 200. I will then get a rift planet, and I will have an arti production of around 8,000, alongside a rank 6 arti base. I will freeze until I get the black hat medal, and then pvp till my hearts content... which is fun to me.
Let me say that I have personally witnessed TheBlackPearl easily take down ships twice his rank. Can any auto ranker say that?

yes yes i can

"Easily and Ships" taken down was the wording used there.

If you dropped multiple people double your rank without breaking your shields, it qualifies. If you had to repair even once, it does not.

He does that. Thats because he could have been three times that rank easily, so simply killing people double his rank is childs play

shooting at someone with gemini cannons makes that impossible

And at his rank, thats not an issue

'like' <---- "click"

Seriously? Haven't you got any of the mission rewards? The only way I can reach this figure is if you've just got Wormhole Relays and nothing else (not even an Omicron injector). Even then it's 42.8 which would round to 43 in-game. I know you mentioned having supernova generators in a post some months back, and as all your production outputs - including research - are pretty awesome (and you've finished nearly every other chain) I'm surprised you haven't moved on to Hyperchannels yet. Maybe I'm missing something.