On my missions it says I can do the terra project. When I try to do it, it says I don't qualify as I don't have a neccesary artifact. WHAT?

The Terra Project requires 10 'Terraforming Device' artifacts to complete.

this will be a long term mission. unless you use your credit card.

forget about that mission for now. With the new version of this game, you will nevery find one anymore all us new players are fracked.

found one off a TO troop carrier the other day.

quit whining and start battling NPCs.

Thanks guys. I thought the terraforming artifact was what I got as a reward. Hmmmmm. Welp I'll quit whining and go battle some npc's then.

Ive gotten 4 so far from this npc, but it shows up very sparsley

lol I have a right to whine I've been playing this game for a month now and it will be a very very long time before I'm able to kill an NPC

Fight, repair, and fight some more. If you can't afford to repair, then get some more mining planets. At low levels, you get several missions that pay credits. For those uncommons that stick around for a while, you might be able to take a hit or 2, let you shield recharge and take another hit until it is killed. Several NPC's including the one that drops terraformers, scale with your rank, so I know you can kill if you try.

Is thier a list of NPC's and what rank they start appearing at, which drop terraformers

There is only one NPC that can drop Terraforming Device and/or Quasi-Spatial Expanders. T.O. Troop Carrier, rare matched ship. I got my first one around level 20 so I assume you can get it at any level.

The trick is to be able to mow down a few NPC's on a single energy charge in order to try and force the ship you want to spawn. Otherwise you have to wait 8 hours for an NPC target to refresh itself.