Looking at the wiki, there are some serious research points to be spent, like into the tens and hundreds of thousands. If I can only colonize 1 planet every 4 ranks and get only 20-50 research on each one, How can I get through the research tree in any reasonable (less than several years) time? I know I can buy 1000 research points with real money, but when you have things that are routinely 10K+ up to 100K+, that gets REAL expensive. There are players out there who have (or I guess claim to have) maxed out a particular research branch. Am I missing something, or did they just pay hundred or even thousands of dollars to get there? Or have they been playing for like 3 years straight?

all i can say is with time you get beter production rate.... quests give you nice artifacts for research and so on.....i have seen some planets making 300 400 an hr and their not even dysons i make over 4k an hr and have yet to get a dyson.....still looking tho.

4K / hour? That would require something like 8,000 planets full of nothing but research? Which means your rank is upwards of 32,000? The best planet I have scanned in a total of 46 scans (enough to represent an average) is giving my 61 research/hr

!st the game was not meant to be played in a month.

Research seems to be a big monster but actually it should grow with your rank. having high research will get your bank busted. because your rank determines what kind of minerals you are getting. At low levels its almost impossible to receive a single Kurenite, but at high levels they become more common. So being able to research the best technology will not let you build the necessary structures and ship components.

I have heard friends and acquaintances in the game complaining. that they are having Money problems because they cant pay for the upkeep that they have on their ship components. Having a good balance of Research, Mining and Artifacts will make your game more well rounded than just concentrating on research..

Mining does not reward you as much at high levels. (but this will be your friend at high levels of research coupled with your higher rank)

Artifacts are really great.. I suggest making your Artifact rate higher than your research rate. The ship improvements and the planetary improvements you get from Artifact points are way better than what you can buy with credits available with your current technology..

Research (although your tempted to make it high) should not be your main concern.. A low level player with high level technology will not be able to;
a. Equip a lot of ship components. (due to deck size requirements)
b. pay for the high tech ship and/or planetary compontent/structure
c. will not be able to pay the upkeep (in case you are able to pay for the component) of said components installed on unrealistic research

46 scans of the 600119 planets currently available is NOT representative of the average.

pick your planets wisely. research planetary construction. develop the resource rating of your planets' research. there are plenty of ways to increase your production without having to get 8000 planets or donate tens of thousands of dollars.

My average research planet makes 187 Research/hour, this is from just having very good planets and getting good production buildings. I make about 6K research an hour and I have only 52 planets in total.

OK, I guess my question should be, how do I get anything over say, 100 research per hour per planet? The best possible structure yields a whopping 10. There are some special artifacts out there? because the typical planet with everything put into research will yield about 50 per hour. If I haven't seen anything above "Extremely Rich" in 46 scanned planets, then statistically, the Ultra, Mega, and up to 48X Mega are outliers not to be expected with any useful frequency.

Yes it is. Statistically, the average of 46 will be close to the average of 600119 (assuming a random distribution and random sampling)

You find very/massive very/rich Research Planets, with my best buildings and research chassis on one of these I make 140 RP/hour, 28(from buildings)X250%(Availability bonus)X200%(development bonus)=140 RP/hour
Now I have a few VERY GOOD planets so my average goes up to 187 so im above average but anyone can get this level of RP/hour, seeing as I haven't spent even a dime on this game.(though I do contribute quite a bit to the community)

Well, I guess I'm just extraordinarily unlucky in this game. My approximate chance of successfully scanning a new planet is now listed as 0%, and most of the planets I've found have had less than average resource availability as the BEST resource. If you are getting 6k over 52 planets, your average per planet is 115. That number seems at least plausible, but when only a few of the planets have above average research ability (as is my experience), it seem unlikely. How can get just one measly planet to 115? I could at least then have the hope of getting more scanning technology researched to find more of these planets that are supposed to be out there.

Right now, 16 of the planets I have scanned are unoccupied. The BEST research on any of those 16 is "SPARSE", meaning I actually lose availability.

I am occupying a total of 18 planets. Since I had more mining and credits than I know what to do with, I went back and Maxed out research on any planet where research availability was at least average. The result is 482 per hour. 62 of that comes directly from the ship, so my planets are producing 420 themselves. That is an average of 23.3333 per planet per hour. Weak.

46 scans doesn't represent an average of someone's planets because they don't colonize most of what they scan. Not all of one's planets even come from scans. About half of mine are from my scans, the rest are legion shares or ones I hacked from someone's database and then invaded. 20% of my planets have at least one resource that is higher than extremely rich. But among my scanned planets, that percentage is much lower.

If you pick good, but not spectacular planets, and have good, but not spectacular planetary tech and artifact buildings, then 100 units/hr is ambitious for your average planet. If you are lvl 100, you'll have 21 planets iirc. Let's say 10 are research, 3 mining, 8 artifact. That will give you 1000 research per hour, not including your ship's scientists (maybe a couple hundred more).

in this game your probability of scanning all the planets is impossible.. your only supposed to scan about 500+ planets (with current existing technology) that gives room for players to have their planet undiscovered by enemies. (otherwise you will be busy defending your planets all the time and/or lossing your best planet)



With enough research+mining+artifact production you will be able to build on your planets structures thats more efficient for its size and output. if you "fit" the necessary structures then you will get your production past 100/hour assuming that you chose the right planet to build said structures

Well I guess one of my secrets is that if I see a good planet I can take, I take it by force. Once you get past the whole "I dont want to piss anyone off" thing, a whole new array of planets show up.

I have 36 planets and am making 2345 research/hour. That makes my average about 65/planet but but isn't a good representation since many of my planets are not research planets. When I search by research, there are 10 of them, with the worst one giving 88/hour, the best 192.5.

I think you are missing out on the best source of planets, your legion. I've given away 7 research planets Large or Better and Very Abundant or better.

As the game progresses, you will find better. I would suggest you do the following:
1) Learn how and when to do a scan blitz so you are maximizing what you can get from scanning.
2) Get into a legion that is good about trading. You probably have planets someone needs.
3) Learn what you should about planet types and what they can be in the future. (IE, a decent Icy can become a great oceanic, etc).
4) Look are good enemy planets that have inactive players. Take them if you can.

I get 2 or 3 star chart purgers a day. If I go long enough between scan blitzes then I end up with nothing below abundant on my list. Artifacts will also get you android scientists to help boost your research. I started researching shields and cloaking since anything else would raise my upkeep too much since I usually don't leave those installed and they give nice planet structures anyways. It is pretty easy to be adaptable between the 3 types of resources at the higher levels. Your long-term production strategy should really be based on the type of planets you get, and it is usually best to settle the best planets, regardless of the type of resources they have. Credits might be hard to get rid of at certain points, but that ends up being temporary in most instances.

I've always had a lot of artifact planets. I had 5-10 terras and oceanics producing research even though it wasn't the best resource, now researching energy, weapons, defense or hull will all make my upkeep take well more than 4 hours of income, so I switched them back to artifacts because of that, and the fact that my research was filling up in 6 hours and a lot of it was going to waste. I could probably afford for my upkeep to be higher like most other people, but it seems smarter to spend it on planet structures or I will pretty much lose the chance to ever upgrade those and raise my overall production. I'm probably biased, but artifacts seem to be the best way to raise your overall production. The chassis were great earlier on, now they seem annoying to find a decent spot for and I will probably have full chassis on everything soon. Artifacts directly raise your research with android scientists. The decks you get seem to be the main point to me now. Research isn't really the only thing to make you stronger and it becomes more true as you level.

oh and taking planets seems to be pretty pointless if you don't have a flux, or if you are even smarter/more patient, if it isn't worth fluxing to you. Any decent defense will nerf the planets production to the point where you should have just settled a crappier planet. Anything worth vigilance will drain your artifacts and your legionmates patience. Mounting a defense only seems to make sense if you actually intend to get a flux somehow. That is why I share nice planets if the owner is of any appreciable level. I assume someone else might want to flux it, or it will at least take it off my list if it is recaptured and fluxed.