This thread is going to be about what paths you can take in GL as you play. Note that there are many so bear with me. lol After each path "title" I will post a quick description of what players that go down that path are normally like in game so new players or players looking for a guide can just read through these quickly and find one they may or may not like instead of reading everything to see what its all about.

So here we go now. First off when you are first starting this game it can be a bit confusing and overwhelming. Thats ok its the same for everyone. If you are here then you are at least giving the game a chance and want to find out at least a little more about it before just up and quitting on it. So you are all ready off to a great start. First thing you should do when starting is slow down and read up on things in the game. There is a lot of info there and it can take a while to get used to where everything is. once you get used to the lay out of the tabs in the game more or less then try to find out what things in side each one of them do. The titles explain what they are each based around but each one has much more in it on top of that. Read here in the forums what Decks are, what Cargo does, and what all the basic stats are used for. Such as attack, defense, cloak, scan, and energy. Once you get more comfortable with those then you are ready to start thinking about a path to pick and form your ship on. Everyone does it and it changes all the time. What I mean by that is that even if you pick one now you can change it later. You don't have to pick one path and only do that for as long as you play. But concentrating on just doing one or two paths at a time will really help you more in that area and make you a better ship. So my suggestion to you would be to set a goal for your self when you pick a path and when you reach that goal either expand it and keep going down the same path if you enjoyed it or pick a new path with a new goal and see what you think about it in the long run. But its important all the same.

Also as just a side note. While working down one path this does not mean you should stop doing other aspects of the game. You should all ways be doing some missions even if your not currently working on that path. Just as you should always keep working on PVP and NPCing no matter what path you are on. I'm making this so players can try and pick one main path to follow and to try and aim for. Every player should do many parts of the game but its so much easier to get somewhere in the game if you put more effort into just one area then the others.

If you are new and decide you like one of the builds I have listed here and want to know more about it and know a step by step plan for it please feel free to send me a PM and I will see what I can do to help you. If I don't know for sure how to do one of them I will put you in contact with a player that does know or find out from him my self and help you from there.

Here is a Key for you so you know what some things mean. lol
LR = Low Rank (ranks 1 - 799)
MR = Mid Rank (ranks 800- 1749)
HR = High rank (ranks 1750+)

So here are the paths you can do to start they will be numbered for easier referencing:



1. Deck build: This is the most common build for players just starting. This is for players who like to put a bunch of the best stuff on their ship and grow fast.

The Deck build is based on, you guessed it, decks on your ship. This is where most players start out. As they see all the mods they can add but realize they don't have nearly enough space for them. This is a good way to start out as it will give them the room they will need for later. You will need to watch it carefully though as you get bigger and bigger. There is a point where you will want to stop using rank points on your ships decks and switch to just ship bots which is normally right around the MR range. Players in this path want to put most of their rank points into decks till they hit the point where they switch to shipbots only then start putting in energy and attack. The Pros and cons of this build is this:

Pros: -Add on a bunch of scary looking mods that may cause other ships not to attack you. (LR & MR)
-Gives you more hull and shield then players that don't do this build causing enemy ships to waist more of their limited energy on you if they want to disable you. (LR & MR)
-Gives you the option of adding a bunch of energy mods on your ship before a rank up allowing you to jump the gun on your next rank. (LR & early MR)
-As time goes on you no longer need to worry about switching on and off mods for different things (late MR & HR)
-Ship looks awesome when others look at all the mods on it (HR)
- never have to worry about replacing something because you don't have room for something better. (HR)
Cons: - Ship may be easier to kill because of how damage dealt is done (all ranks)
- If you don't have a lot of PVP mods on you will be killed really easy with this build. (LR & MR)
- Bunch of wasted rank points once you get everything on. (HR)
- Lower energy and attack. (MR & HR)


2. Small ship build: The small ship build is for those who really read up on the forums and know the game pretty well before they get to far in the game. Its for those who want to take their time and have an awesome ship at every rank.

The small ship build has all ways be around but wasn't to popular till late 2011 early 2012. Its for players that have a lot of patience and don't have to have the best of everything. It makes their ships super hard to take down and most of the players in this class are considered some of the best in that range. If you go with this path however you will have to be in it for the long run as it may take a while for the game to get more interesting for you and you will have to stay calm and follow your long term plan and not rush off. Players in this path don't want to use a lot of rank points (if any) on decks but want to use all of them on energy and attack. This will make your ship super strong while not taking a lot of damage. Some players suggest not starting this build till later in the game. Here is a great more personally guide on the SSB that you should look at if you are thinking about starting your ship as this or switching over to it: http://galaxylegion.freeforums.org/sena ... -t168.html it has links to other SSB posts as well on it. Here are the pros and cons:

pros: - Ship is a fortress and super hard to take down by players of all ranks (Mid LR & on)
- Easy to raid other ships because of high crew count. (all ranks)
- Can hit bases for a longer time without a repair saving you arti's and getting you higher on the damage bored when attacking (MR & HR)
- Saves on creds from upkeep. (LR & lower MR)
cons: - Game starts out slower for players. (LR & lower MR)
- Really slow ranking. (LR)
- Constantly swapping modules for different purposes. Very time consuming and heavy cost on bigger research modules for repairs. (all ranks but more so in HR)
- Will have to pick which mods will best fit your ship and will help your goal and ditch others. (all ranks)
- Won't be able to scan as many planets because of lack of scan mods. (LR & MR)
- Won't do as much damage to anything till Crew is much better. (LR & MR)

3. Fast rank build: The fast rank build is for those who want to grow really fast. They want to get up in rank and join a decent legion and have a ton of energy to do things with all the time.

The players that pick this build want to have something to do on the game all the time. They want to hit NPC's all day and not have to wait on constant energy refills or do a bunch of missions and not have to wait. Its a great plan and will get you noticed for ranking fast and getting things done. It also makes your legion happy from giving to the base and a bunch of NPC kills as long as you do it right. Players who go this path should not only put a bunch of rank points into energy but should put a good amount into decks as well. I say this because players will need to keep their attack up as well so they can kill the NPC's faster or so they can find them with Scan mods. They will also need the space for more energy mods and space to put all the mods they will get from NPC's they kill. If they want to go with the mission path then decks are still needed because many missions say you need X amount of some stat to unlock the mission. You will also need it to help protect your ship more.

Pros: -You will get in better legions much faster. (LR & MR)
- You can put a lot of energy in your base. ( all ranks)
- You can kill NPC's for longer. (Late LR and on)
- Do more damage to base in long battles because of not running out of energy as fast. (all ranks)
- You can play the game for longer periods of time with always something else you could do in it. (MR & HR)
- Auto ranking!! (late MR & HR)
Cons: - Ship easier to kill because of lack of attack. ( all ranks)
- Can't lock on as many NPC's that are alerted to you because of lower attack. (LR & early MR)
- Won't do as much damage to short base battles. (all ranks)
- May have low productions because of to fast of ranking. (all ranks)
- May run out of creds because of high upkeep and no mining. (all ranks)


4. Slow rank build: These are for players that want to take their time and get to be part of the strongest in their rank range.

Slow rankers don't want to rush off they are fine where they are and want to stay there and get to their top potential before moving on. They want to enjoy the game and see what it has to offer in every rank stage. These players look for the best worlds they can and take their time finding things. They get a ton of arti production to help build their ship up while not growing in rank making them stronger and stronger. While they may be lower ranking they are normally pretty strong and know what they are doing. Many of the vets that play this style are still considered MR Even though they have been here as long if not longer then many of the HR's. These players will go with a mix of everything (but energy) in their ranking.

Pros: - Strong ship through and through (all ranks)
- Really good productions and even considered some of the richest players in GL (MR & HR)
- Gets to see a lot of the best NPC boss's and elites for a very long time. (all ranks.)
- All ways has something to look forward to. (all ranks)
Cons: - Runs out of things to do while online since not wanting to rank. (all ranks)
- Doesn't fight as many of his own NPC's limiting the amount of planet arti's he could get from them. (all ranks)
- Falls way behind the players he started with and may stay in a smaller legion while his friends leave for bigger ones. (all ranks)


5. NPC build: The NPC build is for players who want to kill a ton of NPC's and build up a bunch of good planets. This is more of a long term plan and takes a lot of time.

Players who want to kill a bunch of NPC's must be willing to spend hours on the game each day. NPC killers have high deck, high attack, and high energy. Most go for energy and decks first. They get their decks to where they switch to shipbots only and then go to mostly energy. They go that way till they can auto rank off of NPC's and then they go into attack going back and forth to energy again when they need to to keep auto ranking. These players are normally faster ranking ships that have well built planets. They are valued in most legions because of all the alerts they put out for their legion mates. They normally avoid most PVP though because they are always buffed and hitting NPC's and don't want someone to debuff them while they are in a NPC blitz.

Pros: - Great planets (Late LR & on)
- Well liked in legions they are in because of alerts (late LR & on)
- Lots of arti's from good NPC's and CTP from selling mods. (all ranks)
- always something to do. (Late LR & on)
- Lock on more NPC's since you are the one finding them and can get alerts from other faster. (all ranks)
Cons: - Faster ranking once you start auto ranking off of NPC's making you loss them faster. (MR & HR)
- Not very good PVP stats. (all ranks)
- Takes a lot of time up from your RL. (all ranks)
- Get buffed up just to run out of energy and waist the buffs. (LR and lower ranked MR's)

6. PVP build: The PVP built players are considered bullies and have lots of mean comms on their comm. They are highly sought after in most high ranking legions.

The PVP built player has lots of mods, high attack, and a high action count. These players are the fast and strong. They come in hit there target taking out every trap and disabling them before the other player really has a chance to do anything at the LR and MR stages. Once a player gets into the HR area he is someone who takes down planets fast, does a ton of damage on bases, and likes to attack players off of planets all day so their H trap has no effect on them. Most of the time these players are all about the stats. And disabling them back is worse then if you where to zero their hacks out. They want to have a really high kill to death ratio and a lot of hacks and raids under their name. Since this is the case many players get super mad at them and this leads to name calling and personal stabs at the players RL person. So if you want to be a "nice guy" in this game and don't want to offend anyone this is not the way for you. If you want to be more of a renegade and don't care then this is the way for you.

Pros: - Feared by most players in your rank range so they won't attack you or steal planets just because of your name. (LR & MR not so much in HR)
- Disabling you is something people are proud about making your ship to look even better yet when they brag about it to others. (all ranks)
- High stats making you a prime target for recruitment within the Top 10. (MR - HR)
- Lots of stolen resources making you a better ship. (all ranks)
Cons: - Tick a lot of players off making them alert you to their bigger friends who will destroy your ship for the time they can see you. (all ranks)
- Lots of comms that are not so nice on your comm. (all ranks and some consider a good thing too. lol)
- Can cause you to not get many resources from production if you tick off the wrong players who take all yours while you are off line. (all ranks)
- Your planets are a prime target for high ranking players who's low ranking legion members you have hit a lot. (all ranks)

7. Mission based: All you want to do is do missions and scan for new planets. High energy low everything else.

The mission based player is someone who doesn't want to fight anything and doesn't care what others think of his ship. He wants the story lines in the game. These players will do mission after mission reading the story's and following along. These players have a ton of energy, cloak, and scan. They have the energy to do the missions. The Cloak so no one can find them and disable their little ship. And the Scan so they can do a scan blitz once they do the purger mission enough times again. They are high ranking tin cans that rank up super fast. Most of the time these players spend GP's on the game so they can rank really fast and get to the next story line in a mission. There are not many of these players out there but it is a path that you can take. Off set from some energy builds.

Pros: - High ranking player really fast.
- Lots of energy for base, missions.
- Normally decent production because of lots of planet scans.
Cons: - Tin can ship. (all ranks)
- Only way to make a legion want you is to give a lot of energy to the base.
- Only a limited amount of content. (HR)

8. Trader: The trader is a highly respected player that has a lot of friends. They are the go to guy for needed arti's and money.

The trader is the guy who will do some NPC and some PVP but just enough to keep his stats up to snuff for his rank. He allways leaves a nice remark on those ships he fights and keeps his image clean. He is very active in the forum and likes to bounce around in game and get his name out there. He has high productions and is normally LR or MR. He normally gets to know high ranking players first and tries to buy their massive amounts of arti's for cheap and then resells higher to make a profit. He is one of the few play styles out there that puts any rank points into cargo. Every well known powerful HR player uses one or is one. He likes to talk and make friends and his ships stats don't matter much to him just that he get richer and richer.

Pros: - Lots of friends who will protect him. (all ranks)
- Very rich in game and loads of arti's. (all ranks)
- A needed member of most well made legions.
- Gets to know many of the high end players and (if your into it) the story's behind them. (making you a better player in the end.
Cons: - Normally doesn't have a very good ship.
- Have to keep up with the current demand of arti's and the current prices.
- Have to trust other players to pay you for what you deliver.
- One decent mistake can ruin everything you worked for.


9. Hacker: The Hacker is a player who is all about research and planets. They don't want to deal with disabling other players or getting their crew up high to raid them they just want to spam others with arti's and get their reward fast.

The Hacker buys a ton of flair's and Positron Clouder's. They don't care what the other player does back to them and are mostly interested in crit hacks. They normally have decent productions because of planets they hack from others of because of all the scan they put on their ship to hack others with. (more scan = more planets found when blitzing) With the new medals out there more and more players are getting into this path to up their hacks stat. Off set from some PVP builds.

pros: - Lots of extra research for you to use. (LR & MR)
- Good chance to find planets that are well built up because of a crit hack. (all ranks)
Cons: - Ticks off a lot of players who attack you back. (all ranks)
- May find junk worlds that will just waist another purger in the end. (all ranks)

10. Raider: The raider is a player who wants to steal others arti production to hurt that player and help himself. He is normally a tougher player with really good attack.

The raider is all about brute force most of the time. He wants to find players with high action counts and a weaker ship (less debuffs wasting the TM limit for them) smash them and then raid them to no end. The higher ranking the enemy player they find the better as well since higher ranking ships give a lot more resources per hit. They go after players who are offline (you can see with the resource probe) and lots of resources on hand. They love to post what arti's they "stole" from the enemy player as well. This is also becoming more and more popular because of the medals. These players put a lot of their rank points into crew so they have a much better chance of raiding enemy's. Off set from some PVP builds.

Pros: - More arti's gained from raiding others. (all ranks)
- High crew making there ship better. (all ranks)
- good stats making higher end legions more interested in them. (all ranks)
Cons: - Ticks players off making them disable them and hack them to zero. (not raid because of high crew count. (all ranks)
- May get a player disabled just to have that player get online and repair and use resources before you can take anything. (all ranks)


11. Mercenaries: A merc is a drifter. He goes from one legion to the next helping who ever will pay the most.

The merc is someone who has to work hard for everything he's got. The most used mercs are those who get their name out there and get the job done right. A merc who doesn't do what they are paid to do is quickly found out about and not used any more. So if you want to be one you have to be sure you only take jobs you know you can do. This is mostly for higher end players but can be used by any rank range. They have high attack and spend lots of time online. Their are also those who are mercs in energy that give to bases and such as well.

Pros: - Can get some great planets or very rare arti's for jobs. (all ranks)
- Get to know a lot of players. (all ranks)
- stronger ship with good stats. (MR - HR)
Cons: - Make a lot of enemy's and normally not considered for recruiting in bigger legions. (all ranks)
- Not around in a legion long enough to be loyal and get to be in base fights as much. (all ranks)
- Always having to worry about your planets because of all the wars you have been in or are in. (all ranks but mostly HR)

Well as time has gone on here I started to see that there could be another path to add here. I don't know if anyone as of late has read this or if anyone really cares any more but I'm going to add it anyways. lol As always if you have any questions or just want to talk about any of the paths or any aspect of the game just send me a PM. Also I have added this to the end of my first post which has all the other paths on it still. So if this is your first time reading this then please feel free to read the rest and let me know what you think or if you think that I should add anything else or edit any of the old ones. Thanks for reading and here is path number 12.

12. Base building: A base builder is a player who wants to have his ship built up to help rank up bases.

The base builders main focus is all about what ever legion he is currently in. These players are mostly very loyal but some may be more like mercs (path 11). These players are highly sought after in legions of any size. Most base building players are higher ranking and have a lot of energy and credits. These players can either stay in one legion that they are loyal to and put all their resources into the base. So all CTP, EM, and Energy. Or they can go around putting these resources into others bases for payment of any sort. Creds are either used to help fund the bases upkeep or to buy more resources to help lvl the base up. These players could also be decent raiders do to there large crew count. Most rank points should be put into energy.

Pros: - Very sought after and well liked in most legions. (all ranks)
- Can make a lot of money or resources from selling to others. ( all ranks)
- Get to know a lot of players if you sell to others. (all ranks)
Cons: - Can rank to fast and pass up a lot of NPC's. ( all ranks)
- Can cost you a good amount of RL money depending on how you do things. ( all ranks)
- Can take a lot of time to see any real results depending on how you do things. (all ranks)


These are the top 12 I could think of I'm sure there are more and if someone wants me to write one up and add it here please let me know know. Hope this helped and again if you have any further questions about any of them or just want to talk about any of them let me know via PM. Thanks for reading!

very decent guide!!!! +10

Nice guide!

Awesome! This may help bring in more new players to this game. Well done! The only suggestion is.... giving them a list of suggested "Races" and "Professionals" to choose from

See I thought about that but my thing is most new players all ready picked there race and profession. So telling them stuff like that would seem like forcing them to pick the path that has their race and/or profession in it. So I left them out. Now if someone wants to know what I would suggest for one of the paths they can send me a PM here and I would love to help them out.

Also I'm glad to see you guys like it I hope it is used and that it can help some players out.

Great guide. Kudos all the way. I would make one tiny adjustment under the slow rank ship.

"Cons- - Have to fight alone (no legion) for a while at the start because of really low rank. (LR)"
There are several slow ranking legions still floating around. You don't have to fight alone at all.

huh well I don't know many of the really low legions out there. And they way I figured it most of them are not nearly as active and prob won't help you fight as more well known established legions. I was putting this in for mostly the first 50 ranks or so which would be a long time for a good slow ranker.

have to agree with stolen here. if they come to the forums theres a ton of legions here accepting any rank.

my suggestion would be to separate the deck sizes from the other categories as it is an independent thing.

SSB
con: constantly swapping modules for different purposes. Very time consuming and heavy cost on bigger research modules for repairs.

I think you should also add that all of these can be done with a single ship, being on does not force you to not be another except 1. deck build, then you can't be a SSB.

Personally I have done/been all besides 7. and only dabbled at 10. recently.

Holy !@#$% Mojo....that's a book

The worst part is, it's all wrong

lol j/k

Nice of you to help the players out, I am sure that took some time...

Lol, I was just in the middle of writing a guide like this for my new legion when I saw this. You just saved me a lot of typing
Quality work Mojo!

There you guys go. Made some changes to it. Thanks for the extra info about slow rank builds. I also added more about changing your path mid game at the start of the post.

No prob darthRavadge, lol, it did take some time to write out but I was really bored here so why not. lol

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

thanks fixed.

Nice guide, and I can spot most of the types when I'm playing.

I'm currently Rank 62 (ranking up slowly - mainly because I hack a few times a day, and try to sneak a 'free' raid lol), and you don't get XP for hacking or raiding (which I see as a help rather than a hindrance). I don't understand those who'd play the game purely for the story - I mean, the write-up is actually very good, but the game has so much depth that it's a crying shame not to explore all the features even just once.

I admit I'm not one for killing off the NPCs: it's weird, but I see it as wasted energy. I'd rather be hacking, raiding, heck even attempting a bit of PVP - my K/D ratio is 94/46, so I don't think I'm doing too badly for someone who's not actually much of a PVP-er in the first place. I've found that only really those with a beast of a ship will attack me because of my defense (I've built as far as the Microwarp Nacelle and Nanosphere Plating).

For a game that I started playing purely to get some free facebook credits, I've ended up playing this far more than my other games!

squodge

I can see how at a low rank you may see NPCing as a waist of energy. Since it takes so long to kill some of them and you just don't have the energy to do it for long periods of time. They are so nice though once you get your energy up or some cubes or Tri's saved up so you can go for a longer period of time. I would not suggest that path for most low ranks though unless they do a energy heavy build in the first place. Players that do the mission based path are mostly doing it for the arti's they can get. Very very few do it for the story. I know several players who have done the, Controlling the Anomaly, mission hundreds of times, as well as many more players who have done the, Stellar Cartography, mission thousands of times. They both give arti's that are badly needed and help them in the long term. Down side is that it makes them rank very fast.

I only bothered to disable a few NPCs which were needed for a couple of the early (low-energy) missions. I've just checked, and I've disabled only 13 NPCs.

I guess I want to put too many fingers into the pie
I like to enjoy as many aspects of the game as possible, and I've tried to find a balance that works for me. I do a lot of reading in my spare time, also musical instrument practice (piano & drums), so I generally have lots of short breaks - so a game like this is perfect for me. It also helps that I sleep twice a day (usually 5 hours at night, 2-3 hours during the day), so it meant I could leave my (basic) energy at 150.

One of the things I didn't know about until about a week ago was that personnel were needed for raiding. Of course, when I first started, I didn't really understand the mechanics of the game - but the research intrigued me, so after reaching 150 energy I then started pouring all my rank points into research. Only after about Rank 20 or so did I realise that I needed more decks lol! I've been lucky up to now - I've managed to get 4 ship bots from artifact shipments, as well as two sets of prisoners, which have helped increase my decks.

I'm currently producing 250/hr = 6,000 artifact points per day - not sure if that's decent for Rank 62
Research production is 570/hr = 13,680 per day (and also at least a few hundred per day from hacking)
And minerals at 342/hr = 8208 per day

I've not bothered to increase mineral production: I figured that unwanted artifacts could be scrapped for credits, or sold on the Trading Market - is that a decent strategy?

By the way, what's the best way to get tech parts? They are WAAAAY expensive on the Trading Market, and there's no way I'd scrap something like a shipbot for just a few tech parts. Is it not possible to receive tech parts any other way?

Ok few things here. First off I would not put any more rank points into research. If you want to use rank points on something other then Decks go with attack or energy. The others you can get with arti production. Which leads to the next thing. Arti production needs to be much much higher. The better your arti production the more awesome arti's such as ship bots and prisoners you will get. Not to mention the other great arti's that will raise your other stats.

Next I wouldn't scrap most arti's. Many of them can be sold on the market for a good price.

Now for the last part. CTP (the tech parts) are only found from smaller base battle crates or NPCing. You can kill Rogue Tech Collector for a small amount or look for elites or boss's which will drop arti's that you can sell for a higher amount of CTP. Also if you trade some arti's on Facebook markets for this game you can sell them for EM or CTP there as well.

(Also shipbots can not be sold for ctp. Only items that say they give ctp when scraped give it...)

Hi mojo, thanks for taking the time to answer my queries

I stopped putting rank points into research once I discovered I needed decks. From memory, I've put all my rank points into decks in the last 30 or so ranks; but I've reached the point where I think it might be better to put rank points into energy - although your reasons for increasing attack are very good too. One for me to ponder!!

Just two quick questions...

1. How do I unlock more NPC slots (I have just 2 at the moment)?
2. Are there ways to improve chances of getting NPCs that drop tech parts?

At the moment, I have 1 tech part - I destroyed one NPC today, used about 50 energy which I consider quite high considering I have 150 max energy.
So that's about 10 NPCs I can kill per day, for a max of 10 tech parts o.O