Well, I've gotten a bit past Rank 40, so I'm starting to learn some more advanced stuff. But, I still have some questions.

1) I'm stuck with 2 shroud bases after doing Vornexian's Taunt (pretty early on when I didn't know there was no other reward). I hit them a few times but it appears they don't regenerate shields; is this true for all NPC enemies?

2) Can Energy Cubes be stolen or are they exempt (I notice you can only "Use" them which suggests it's in a special class)? I am also assuming any artifact you can roll with artifact points can be stolen?

3) Is level the only thing that determines the mineral distribution you get when collecting minerals?

4) How do attack and defense work under the hood? Other than more is better, it's unclear what ratio I would want. Anyone have a link to mechanics thread?

5) How many times can you repair the ship, is it unlimited? Does limit only apply to when you are completely disabled?

6) If you are a builder (I am), is the amount shown for upkeep the base amount or the halved amount?

1:yes
2:I do not believe Cubes can be stolen, but I cant confirm
3:For quality of minerals, yes.
4:Keeping balanced cant hurt but id recommend specializing a bit in defense.
5:While unlimited there is a 5min timer. And while you can repair at any time while you do not have full hull the timer will still be 5min each time you use it.
6: The shown amount as in "Upkeep: 66.9M" is infact pre-halved.

Thanks for the input. I in fact attacked the bases with attack matching their def but no def myself; it takes a long time in that case even with hull upgrades. Do you get more exp per energy used if you do well in combat ? It seems to be about 10 XP per 5 energy to strike an enemy, but varies. Mainly, I just want those out of my queue so I can get normal enemies again. I had finished Vornexia's Taunt a bit too early I think.

Its 160/160, I am 154/10, take a couple hits, repair, then do it again. It's doing about 50-55 damage and I'm doing 17-20 per round, but it seems there is an attack vs. def "roll" as it states they "win" the round so I'm not quite sure how that plays into it. I teched up to its level in about a day (research heavy) so eventually I will beat it. Despite the delay, repairing hull seems to be faster and not too costly at this point than shields. I've got more tech than my decks can support so far, but we'll see how defense plays out after I tech a few sections of that (went all energy, now trying combat for the first time).

I havnt seen any XP increase from battle XP by doing well from what I can recall. But the faster you beat Mission-NPCs the faster you can complete missions that require artifacts from Mission-NPCs, and do to them having huge energy/XP ratios that can make the battling/mission have a ratio of over 4 (AKA goldy.)

Personally I just killed them as they came but ya, there going to be stuck there untill you kill them all.

Do you know how the "red" battle missions work? They have limited time. I have Spoils of War, but it will prolly expire before I have the required battles. I feel like I'm missing out on something but I don't know what triggers them or if they cycle or something.

Also idea: find awesome enemy planet, conquer it, Flux it so they can't retake it, cloak the crap out of it. This game has a lot of surprises

You have to gei either a certain amount of player, NPC, or a combination of the two to unlock them. Dont worry after this story arc is done it will be archived into the normal mission list.

Well you dont have to put tons of cloaking on but thats called "fuxing" someone.

Energy cubes cannot be stolen. The only arties that can be stolen are the one's that can be shared.

I think there's a small increase in exp based on your damage and likewise if you "win" the attack (do more damage than damage recieved) but not sure if that's pvp only. If you're going to spend a lot of time farming npcs then specialize in weapons. The harder you hit them for the more energy efficient it is to farm them. If you want to specialise in pvp then specialize in defense. Either way you still need both. W/O deffense your not going to get more than an attack or 2 in on a mob before you have to repair and there's a 5 minute cooldown before you can repair again. Research all your trees but equip/unequip weapons and defense mods dependant on what your doing.



The attack/defense equation is more complicated than just attack-defense=damage dealt. If this were the case most ships would be one shotted. When farming NPC's you want a LOT of attack. If your attack is equal to or less than their defense your going to be doing very little damage. Also consider these are elite mobs. They going to be quite a bit harder to take down than your standard NPC. The fact that they're mission mobs means they will stay in your tab until you kill them. This will allow you time to level up and do some weapon research if you need to. Always take down any uncommon or rares that pop up on your screen. Many of these drop usefull artifacts when you kill them and some drop ship mods that you can equip above and beyond your ship limit for that specific mod (i.e. weapons) Science pods, even though a common, always reward some extra research points so they are also valuable to farm.

Yeah plus damage is also capped out based on enemy's decksize.. Bigger decksize it has, higher damage cap will be.. 1M attack vs a scout ship with 0 defense will see only tens of damage just like 1000 attack would see.. 1M attack can't 1-shot a scout ship if it got high hull to start with whilest 1M attack CAN 1-shot a Colossal Galaxy Destroyer with no hull. I know cuz I did 1-shot star destroyers before cuz they carried no hull modules. Lol.

That's interesting it does 55 each time which is half of my decks, but was doing 50 before when I had 10 less, so I guess it's 1/2 decks per attack it caps at. I got some def researched yesterday so it should be a bit better (I hope, will log it here). If it's still doing cap damage I guess I will just bulk up on armor and take the hits, maximizing the damage is more important.

About how much of planets do you guys normally spend on non-productive structures ? (like defenses, attack, housing). I can't tell how much any of it would help against unknown enemy, but I did notice invading seems to cost about 2x what colonizing does; is that generally true? I'm at the max for my rank anyway and pulling in 400 research/hr which is good for my rank I think. Noticing diminishing returns are sharper now.

Figure some would question my build (I read deck-heavy is the way), but I make sure I have 2x decks in cargo for stuff not equipped plus mining space (fight build, energy build, scan build), plus enough engineers to make sure I don't need to have generators on until the level up (I do forgot 25% of the time to take of the relays tho), basically 8-12 hr of storage but I play a few times a day. The next generator level is out of scope for now by $$$ until I recoup.

OK, Zolazin Shroud Base, 170/170.
Previously, I had 155/10 (att heavy), now 120/80 approximately. Still I can't match this thing but let's see...

I was taking 55, giving ~19. Now, oddly I am doing similar damage but taking about 25-28 per round. So, defense may be worth giving up a couple weapon slots. I just want both of these out of my sky so I can attack a normal NPC...

70/120 (debuffed me naturally..., swapped out more weapons to see the effect)... It does 20, I do 10. So the damage was about divided by the defense in a way (at least, since its less than it's attack rating). And with attack half, I do about half, so that pretty much sums it up.

In the end I just loaded up weapons, got one defense item, and didnt have room for armor... I have to wait for the debuff cooldown anyway so ship death repair time isn't my issue, it probably comes out about the same either way (well, def results in less repair costs than the armor increase). Man, for first NPC battle this sure sucks. At least I get XP comparable to missions, so I don't feel too bad about it. My battle count has risen so new missions are unlocked hehe. I'm hoping normal NPC aren't nearly this bad.

Is there an IRC channel for GL ?

Very little. First off, if the planet is very small or has very little (i.e. less than rich) resources, don't bother sticking much of anything on it, unless mabye if it's a nice Terra or icy. I laugh when I see a Large/Rich planet producing 20 resources because it's stock full of defenses.

If the planet is quite good (i.e. vLarge/Rich or better) just stick cloaking on it. 2-3 cloaking moduals should do ok. Your cloak may be low now but at least it keeps it off the radars of the people who might be intersted in it. Higher level players have a better chance of finding it do to their high scan, but the upside to this is higher level players are very selective about their planets and arn't realy interested in your piss ant little planet unless it's realy good. Likewise if said higher level want's your planet...there's not realy much your going to do to stop them from getting it. Pay special attention for icys, terras, and toxic planets as these can be upgraded to better planets by certian types of artifacts that can be farmed at higher levels. Likewise higher level players will be more apt to take these from you just for these very reasons. I promise you they arn't intersted in your barren little rock, only noobs go after these planets. You gain better cloaking structures by researching your cloaking tree.

Now if you know someone is gunning for your planet, i.e. they hack from you data base, the first thing you have to consider is it worth defending. Sometimes someone taking your planet can actually be a favor. If, however, it's a realy good one, do everything in your power to hold it. The 3 types of planet defences for this are attack, defense and planet pop. My suggestion is tear down most of your structures, and fill them up with defenses.

Never, ever, EVER bother putting attack on a planet. Damage is about useless as they can just repair and come back in 5 minutes to keep at it.

What you'll be looking to do is to strike a balance between the other 2 defensive stats, defense and pop. Of the 2 defense is the most important of the 2. Defense, like on your ship, reduces the damage dealt to the planet in one shot. However, considering the max damage that can be dealt to a planet in one attack is 20, odds are at higher levels you're not likely to mitigate it that low. The reason it's the most important is because once they reduce the planet pop, the chance of they're invade roll to be successful is based on they're attack vs. your planets defense. The higher your planet defense is the lower they're chances of succeeding on the invade roll becomes. This is important because if they're planning on using a planet flux afterwards, this will probably be about the only warning you get that one of your planets is being attacked, since if they fail the invade roll, they have to wait 24 hours before they can try and invade again.

There are 2 different types of defense, normal defense and "invasion" defense. Normal defense is just that, it's generic defense that decreases the amount of damage done to the planet and also counts towards the invade roll. Invasion defense is a defense modifier that only kicks in when the player hits the invade button. The benefit is that structures that offer invasion defense are typically smaller and offer a lot more per size than structures that give just generic defense, such as your soldier outposts. You gain better defensive structures by (ironically) researching your sheilds tree.

Planet pop isn't quite as big a deterent but it can play a roll. The idea of planet pop is to basically require them to expend more energy in their attempt to take the planet. Your hopes are that they may run out of energy before being able to take the planet down to less than 10 pop. The planet by its self this is probably unlikely, but start throwing in ceritan artifacts and defenders and all of sudden it can become quite energy intensive, as, barring artifacts, they must reduce the planet pop to 10, then take out each defender before they can attempt to invade. Having multiple defenders, a high planet pop, and lots of defence can make this a very energy intensive endevor, and if they run out of energy before hand they may not have the energy to try and take the planet. The only downside to this is, eventually your legion is going to go off and do other things than defend your planet indefinately, and they'll come back when your planet is weaker. This is why I specifically either keep an extra planet flux on hand or have enough GP's to buy one if I need one in a hurry.

I swear I'm going to write a guide for this soon as this is probably one of the most asked questions on the forum.


Yes. I'm not sure what you were talking about with "diminishing returns" though?



Decks decks decks decks That is primarily what you need to specialize in. The first few levels I spent my points on engineers to get my base energy up to 100 and then stopped spending any points on crew. Some may agree with this some may not. Don't worry about crew for a long while yet, not untill you can start farming NPCs that drop rescued prisoners.

In the beginning you'll need to by some cargo space until you can get your artifact production up a little bit, but definately don't spend 2 points per level. I did 4 decks to 1 cargo till around level 20ish but basically just stop once you get comfortable. Afterwards all your cargo will come from tessaract containers and leave it at that. Don't ever, ever add cargo just so you can get a larger hull of minerals at one time. Who cares if you only get 50 minerals at one time? So what you hit the recieve and sell buttons a few more times. Big deal. Certianly don't think you have to have enough decks to pull "8 hours" worth of mineral production, that's just a waste. And now that exotic materials like exotic matter don't take up cargo room, you'll be feeling the pinch a lot less. The key thing is to keep artifacts and moduals to a minimum. Many artifacts at this point you'r not realy going to need and chances are your not going to have room for anyways. Either just send them off to a legion member or just scrap them for the creds. You'll be needing them as well. Your most important artifacts you'll be needing right now will be the ones that improve your ship stats and those can be used immediately. Any moduals that arn't used on a regular basis just scrap. Unless you do a lot of hacking dont bother holding onto scanning and cloaking moduals as these give you very little benefit in combat, and just take up more deck space. Space is going to be extremely limited in the beginning so your just gonna have to make some sacrifices right now, but that's ok as your realy not going to benefit much from these until later. If your going the AP route, then as you level up and increase your AP production it will releave some of the pinch your feeling now. Just be patient.

Thanks, very in-depth

Decks, Cargo, Engineers.

Well, the theory anyway was enough cargo to store my decks to swap out energy modules for battle modules, 200 was enough for this for a long time I think. I realize the mineral quality has nothing to do with how many you get at a time.

Decks obviously provide flexibility in almost everything, but it takes longer and longer (and more cost) to get the next generator, and the matching relay tends to offset the gains, so I wanted more engineers to get beyond a certain limit so I could run with relays and not generators until I go to level up where I invert that temporarily. I think 300 would be enough to give me some natural storage for it, although I'm sure you find that excessive given that I could put it into decks.

I don't know what the "AP" production route is, could you explain? Artifacts?

For typical larger planets (I don't bother on the smaller ones), I put my best shield and best housing (1 of each), which is at least a deterant for someone at my level, but I'm not that attached to any of them. If what I found in my recent combat experiment is true, the biggest gain is from the first defense structure, further ones give less of a reduction in damage. The population increase just makes it proportionately harder and more energy intensive to take the planet. Well, it's less juicy than an undefended world anyway...

Also, for NPC targets, the Status is something like "50% Stable" , is that just an estimate of its life left, or does it mean something else?

Exactly. 200 is more than enough for now. I just jumped from 235ish to 255 today with a couple of tessaract containers that I recieved in my arti shipments today, perfect timeing as I was starting to feel the pinch since I have a TON of artis on my boat.



Exactly. The thing is because it takes longer to get the higher end research it will give you more time for your ship size to catch up. As for relays, don't bother with them until you get to the +6 relays. Quite frankly they just arn't worth it. Once you get to the +6 and beyond they're much more helpfull if you play a lot during the day. I tend to equip them then come back every couple of hours. If your going to be gone longer than that then unequip them. I'm to the point now with 3 generators It takes over 10 hours for me to regen that much energy, so when I log out for a long time I try to budget when I'll be back on, meaning I'll probably leave 1 or 2 realys on to get the recharge down to about 8.5 hours. If i'm going to be off longer than that I'll uninstall all of them. Until you get to those size relays though just go with your normal energy with generators as it wont take 8 hours for them to regen. Relays are basically realy good if you log in often to burn off energy, and bad if you only log in one or two times a day. Don't research yourself too far out of your league, higher end modules may be more decks than you ship can hold and might cost more than you can afford to make. Keep an eye on the wikki and research your next moduals so you don't outpace yourself. You'd be better off spending the research on something you will be able to use immediately than on something you might not be able to build or equip for another 10 levels.



Correct. AP=artifact points RP= research points.
When I say "AP production" I mean focusing a large percentage of your resource productin into artifacts. At level 53 I only have 3 mineral planets. I tend to keep my production levels at around 40% RP 40% AP and 20% mineral. As you get higher levels you'll get better minerals and will automatically start making more even with the same amount of mineral intake per hour. By keeping my AP/RP each at about 40%, the idea is to get enough artifacts to increase your ship size relevent to your research. Some prefer to go heavy research and mineral and low AP. It's just a matter of preference realy.



This I wouldn't bother doing. Stick cloak on it instead. They can't take your planet if they can't find the planet. But that's just IMO.



Correct.

Well, quantum capacitor 4 + wave conduit, max equip of each, so 27 energy/hr and 265 storage (10 hours) with all of them equipped (uses most of the decks). Unless I'm missing something energy income rate is the limiting factor to leveling. The next level however is going to take a lot of research time relative to getting a few tiers on other techs to round out. I initially cared only about maximizing energy, while higher generators are higher efficiency, the ability to store enough was coming from engineers; artifacts prolly are the answer long term to increase some limiters (mainly on the ship). When research hits a limit, I can switch a couple planets to artifacts that were doing research (they have the same richness for both).

I am at 70 AP / 400 RP / 230 MP (well, minerals anyway) per hour. I'm waiting for artifacts to max out at 11k before pulling them, not sure exactly what I'm hoping to get but ship-bot would be nice. For the ones I don't need, does having AP instead of MP generally make about the same money from salvaging artifacts, or at least a decent amount?

Well, at least being Vygoid I can store all these RP (looks like 100xrank = 4400x1.5=6600, not bad), most of the research planets I have can do AP just as easily, the MP planets aren't that flexible since my decisions were made early on for minerals before I learned stuff. At what point should I shift from RP->AP ? I'm still getting a couple of tech levels per day easily.

Looks like you have way to much mining......you would be better of if your ap and mining points were reversed. early on i believe in res/ap/mining but by mid game it can be argued that it should be ap/res/mining. right now your out of wack....oh and the energy thing...stick with it. since the game is so energy Dependant the more you generate the more you can do and the more powerful you are

Well, at the beginning I created a bunch of colonies on mineral planets that really can't do anything else... then spent the initial 10 GC removing 2 of the smaller ones once I realized you can't just dump colonies. So, I only have a few "good" non-mineral planets, AP would come at the expense of RP in this case. But, I'm still pretty bad on income vs. my tech level so the minerals are important atm, I won't get much farther without running into money problems. I need to tech out a bit more because I was heavily into energy and scanning but now I am rounding it out. I have yet to really see what portion of the AP rolls actually give me something I want, but they can be resold, possibly generating extra income that I can use too, which means the mining is less important. atm, the mining is not making that much I would rather have gas/ice planets for AP/RP. There's no artifact to dump a planet sadly...

I am finally almost done with the first Cloaked Base, it was a pain but I learned some things about combat. I look forward to a normal enemy now.

I'm also thinking about how the player economy works... artifacts --> exotic matter --> artifacts, both are interchangeable for trading ("give"), and artifacts have a monetary value as well, so what does this mean for in-game and out of game trading ? (I assume out of game trading isn't allowed, most games are that way). Is there a certain exchange rate, I've seen threads with ppl trying to get a market going.

Mid-game (rank 40-ish) what artifacts do I want anyway? I looked through the wiki and I see 1) planet improvement, but that's marginal atm, 2) ship improvement, but you have to get lucky and roll the correct thing in either case. Most of the lower stuff is one-shot which I would sell since I don't have much use for it, but then there's otherwise no penalty to AP for that. Is the roll equally probable for all artifacts that you have enough AP to get, or skewed toward ones appropriate for your rank?

On another note, I guess the fastest leveling strategy I can think of is:

1. Do the missions with the highest XP/energy first. I don't know if combat can exceed 2.5 XP/energy (well, not directly, but maybe indirectly?). It's been a bit random so far for me 1.5-2.0 XP/energy per strike. Stuff with other rewards usually has less of a ratio I noticed.
2. Research mainly energy technologies (I'm at the point where this isn't as useful anymore); I did scanning secondary but I'm at max planets for my rank so I've decided that getting more energy tech is less important atm than other stuff (ie, everything else). Or maybe it's more satisfying getting several techs a day now
3. Add engineers because even if you put it all in decks, you can only get so much for energy at any tech level from energy modules, and I've got enough for that easily. Part of the argument is that you always have the storage for your energy income even with relays (if you happen to take the generators off), but also you get the added energy every level from then on regardless of equipment. Yes, I know I could try for 2x the decks instead to keep all the stuff in the ship, but I just switch out modules for whatever I happen to be doing atm, since the cost isn't that high yet. That's why I have 200 cargo for 110 decks.

Well you didnt mention what level your planets are at. planetary production is pretty huge and sometimes goes overlooked. Just think of energy and planet production as the basis of your economy which supports the fun stuff. There no market now or in the new system at first. make a deal, personally i would keep your exotic matter you will need it trust me. it takes no space and getting rid of it now for cash is just mortgaging your future. hope that helps

I'm going to go with the stealth "defense" on planets I think; at my level, none are so great that it matters, and anyone that really wanted it could eventually get it -- unless they can't see it! Currently I am sacrificing a +3 production (9 space) for pop+def, but the same space could get me 75*3 cloak, idk how good that is, but it probably prevents invasion about as well as the actual defenses in a different way. Anyone around my rank not spec'ed for scanning probably has minimal chances of finding it. It's interesting though because you can never tell if anyone does find it unless they invade it, but there are only a couple of rare planets worth invading.

I also noticed among the artifacts, a lot of stuff can be upgraded on the ship in terms of crew or perm upgrades... but engineers is not one of them (I didn't see attack either).

Attacking the 2nd Shroud Base with 8 Ion Cannons, 210 / 10, with an extra armor plate so it doesn't 1-shot me. Sounds bad to repair all the time but weapon-heavy is still the fastest way to kill the thing. In fact, any NPC has to shoot twice before I repair; turns out normal NPC of this level range is about the same stats as the base, but a lot less HP to go through. Not sure what the rewards are for either, but at least this part of the game is open to me now that I tried it to mix it up, fun times.

Precisely what I stated before, if you try going too far down one tree, your going to have problems in 2 ways. One your ship isn't going to be able to support the size of the mods and 2 your income isn't going to be able to support the cost and upkeep of those mods. It's hard to tell because we don't know what level your at, and what your ship stats are, but it sounds like your ship is filled with nothing but energy moduals. This is great for doing missions but your a sitting duck in pvp and your going to have a hard time taking down NPCs.



No don't go overboard with this. Yes I agree putting some points into engineers in the beginning is worth it, My first 3 levels I spent all 5 points into engineers, for a grand total of 30 engineers. I haven't spent a point on crew members since. Don't worry about crew members till you get into your 100's, by then you'll be able to farm NPCs that drop the captured prisoners artifact that gives you 3 ship points that you can put anywhere. Once your able to farm these you can fill you decks up to a comfortable level then start adding some to your crew. Also spend a LOT of investment into scanning. I'd research the first 3 tiers of scanning before doing any major scanning for planets. Then pack on 5 of the best scanning mods you have (another reason why decks are so important) and then do your first major scanning blitz. Once you start discovering planets the odds of you discovering more drops very quickly. Also another reason why artifact production is important for those arties that increase your scanning.

I don't know what level your at but I'm assuming your pretty low and odds are 200 cargo to 110 decks is more than enough cargo. Don't spend another point in cargo, put them ALL into decks now. You think you can switch out mods but pvp requires a LOT of mods. 8 weapons 8 defense mods, 4 hulls and 4 sheilds, plus energy mods, and not including mission reward and NPC dropped mods. That's an awful lot of stuff to try and cram on your ship and your not going to have the space for it for a long long time. As of right now I'm purposely researching a lot of planetry structure tiers just for the sole purpose of trying to let my ship level up enough to get more decks so I can get it to catch up with my tech. For arties what your looking for the most is the captured prisoner artifacts that give you 3 ship points, basically 3 decks, that cost 4k artifact points. The second best is ship bots that give 2 decks. Then tessaract containers and of course any that add to your crew members or increase your hulls or shields. Hold onto anything that increases scanning till you get ready to do your scan blitz.