I've been playing for a month and about a week ago I decided to start reading the forums because it seemed impossible to win against anything on the battle tab, a situation that has only gotten worse since. Now I know that I've made a huge mess of just about everything by doing too many missions and making other bad desicions. I posted in Mojo's newbie thread and the advice was to create my own thread asking for help so here it is.

I'm looking for pointers as to how I should recover from my early bad decisions. I think I need specifically need ideas as to how I can accumulate the red and yellow badges required to obtain the Dominion Cannons and Protean Armories that nearly every other ship with my rank seems to have. They are vastly overpowered at this level.

Rank : 57
Race : Vygoid
Profession : Builder

Ship Crew & Size
Deck : 205
Cargo : 175
Engineers : 120
T/O : 51
Helmsman : 35
Scientists : 78

Ship Stats (for attacking)
Space : 205 / 205
Attack : 518
Defense : 116
Scan : 52
Cloak : 45
Cargo : 129.1 / 175
Hull : 380
Shield : 50
Energy : 135 Max

using:
Weapons : Heavy Disruptor Cannon x3, Light Phase Cannon, Prototype Mech XV
Energy : Omicron Injector
Sensors : Wideband Scanner, AI Supercomputer
Hull : Merged Nanosphere Plating
Shields : Q-Phase Battery Array, Harmonic Resonator
Cloaking : Zolazin Jammer
Defenses : Inertial Dampener - Mark III, Thrust Stabilizer

When not trying (and usually failing to attack something) I swap in
1 x Singularity Core - Mark IV
4 x Positron Relay
2 x F.A.T.H.E.R. - due to misguided belief that recharge rate was holding me back
overnight I use another two Singularity Core - Mark IV to store excess energy

Battles 695 (Adept)
Player Kills 37
Deaths from Players 77
Non-Player Kills 28
Planets Found 74
Planets Occupied 15
Planets Captured 2
Missions Completed 259
Scans Performed 119
Successful Hacks 32
Successful Raids 14

Planetary Production
I colonised anything in my planet list that looked half way decent until about level 48 on the basis that something was better than nothing and I was leveling really fast so planet slots would not be limited. This was possibly a bad idea.

Research : 976 per hour
from 10x Gas between V.Large and V.Massive
Minerals : 234 per hour
from 3 x V. Large Toxic, Extremely Rich
Artifacts : 202 per hour
from 1 small and 1 average Oceanic both Extremely Rich

I've installed a few artifact buildings but not enough to get excited about.

Research is the only area I think I've done reasonably well in but I've probably been researching the wrong stuff. For instance I've begun to question the sense in all that energy research (though it was suggested as a good idea by the F.A.Q. I read when I started). My current plan is to finish X Conduits and then research planetary to +8 buildings with possible sidelines in defence and armour.

Weapons: Completed Matter Disruption
Energy: Working on X Conduits - half way there!
Shields: 1 x Force Projection Fields
Stealth: 1 x EM Adaptive Materials
Armour: Completed Nanospheres
Defense: Inertial Dampening
Sensors: Completed Quantum Resonance Sensors
Planetary: Completed Global Meshing

Any energy I can't throw away on fruitless battles vs. common NPCs (I don't seem to get anything better) and PvP because I'm disabled and going away from the computer for a while is currently going towards the first Stryll mission to get the transponder. I think that two of these would be useful to mostly replace the Scanner and Defensive modules I'm equiping.

I'm not looking to be 'the best' just good enough in the battle tab to get the badges required for the nice stuff in the battle market. I throw myself on your mercy and anticipate my enlightenment.....

You are going to have a VERY hard time, I made similar mistakes at your level. (I went all in decks, and only stoped at rank 52, I KNOW this is hard I haven't put a single deck on my ship since)

First up, ALL rank points from here on out Tactical Officers, (that includes prisoners) idealy you want 10x T.O's per rank and 10x Engeneers Per rank However until you get your artifact points up, try and stick to TO goal, once you have it more even out than start splitting points how you see fit.

Next up, get in a research legion, your tech is rather poor.

Next up, Hull Hull Hull Hull Hull Hull, hull mods before all others (possible exception =Fathers they are pretty soild) Than Guns, Than defense.

Drop the defense/cloak (only uninstall the zolazin though don't sell it! as these are useful late game as they add a stat you can't raise with AP )

Focus on getting artifact points, Since you have paid for GP, I suggest getting your exotic online asap, and ARTIFACT production, all other production is secondary, Artifact, (now if the artifact comes with bonus stuff like a warp gate or a zolizin analyzer all the better but the main focus is artifact) If you want to go really hog wild get your dyson up and running too.

I don't know what planet production buildings you have, but I suggest getting up to atleast +5's preferable +6's at your level. (and ideally eventual +12's Plant production should be a VERY high priority on your research scale)

Ice fish, (open a battle tab and wait for someone else to disable people than raid them) should help with yellows.

Most of the people you will be facing have been pumping crew for a LONG time (likely since level 20 or less) so they will have massive crews on you. it might take several attempts to get a badge.

Also STOP npcing unless you have a good uncommon, or a rare/very rare npc. all these npcs are doing is giving you terrable XP which will push your rank higher, and trust me it GETS alot harder the higher you go. Right now PVP should be your big foucs, find laughable targets and targets with little to no hull (also avoid people with insane combat reps, or 3 armory's ) you can "tap them" to get them off your battle tab, at attack them ONCE than stop.

It is not an easy road ahead of you, I myself and recovering from my poor decisions, I only recently got my armoury's and my dom 3's (oh don't bother with dom 1-2 save up for 3's)

You're not as bad off as you seem to think, actually...

I would replace the scanner with hull or defense, and remove the cloak module.

When you're online, swap in as many weapons as you can get, and when you're offline, swap to all defense/hull modules. When you're close to ranking, swap in energy modules to maximize your energy and as many guns as you can fit, and then disable as many ships as you can. If you want to vary your battle tab, use scan-boosting artifacts (once you reach 3 posts, PM me and I can provide you with plenty).

In order to get a good kills:death ratio, PvP in bursts; disable as many ships as you can in one run, and then lay low for a day or so, until your energy recharges, and then disable ships again.

While early on str is mostly module based very quickly this shifts to artifact based your main focus needs to be on your planets a high ap/h is the only thing that matters and it will help fix any ship

For mineral dont be tempted to take massive demons etc VL toxics should be all you take these are easily upgradeable as you progress and can make 5-600 mp/h per planet, if you have a chance dont ignore m18x irrads but most will be to heavily defended for you at this point.

Research becomes useless at later ranks but for now it is very important for planets avoid any gas that isn't VM if you dont want to regret the planet later on, again these are easily upgradeable later on and a well build C17x can make upwards of 1k RP/h

For artifact now this is the trickiest to raise by far a general rule of thumb is VL VR or under is bad which for you is probably the minimum you should be trying to take but understably these are not that common for you, Small mega + etc is ok,

If you're able to travel i can give you some planets to get you on the right direction

Kristerlisse Terra Small Artifact: 2x Mega Rich Unoccupied

Channeron Terra Small Artifact: 1x Mega Rich Unoccupied

Ailleaz Terra Average Artifact: 1x Mega Rich Unoccupied

Bardilith Terra Average Artifact: Ultra Rich Unoccupied

Hoggurvian Terra Small Artifact: Ultra Rich Unoccupied

Bataulaf Terra Average Artifact: Ultra Rich

Can also give you Vm gases and probably got some Mineral worlds if you need them, free of charge.

1. Don't put any more rank points into decks or cargo ( I know the wiki that the new player sticky recommend that you should put 4 deck and 1 cargo each rank, but that is TERRIBLE advise from the start of the game).

2. Check the legion recruitment search and find an artifact legion. It shouldn't be too hard to find a level 5 legion that will take anyone. Another option is a research base, but given how quickly those mods become outdated or too expensive to handle in a research legion I'd advise you to only put research into planet structures until you get +10 structures than over to an arti legion. A legion should also have a few higher ranked members who have some large rich planets they don't want, but you'd be alright taking for the next few levels.

3. Don't put rank points into decks or cargo

4. It seems like you already have a decent amount of energy,so put all your points into TOs

5. Don't put rank points into decks or cargo

6. THERE IS NO RULE 6!

7. Don't put rank points into decks or cargo

8. Put a full set of relays and as many guns on your ship as possible and attack other ships that look weak. As you rank up it will cost more and more for the same gains from pvp so start now. I wouldn't recommend spending research on defenses or hull mods because even if someone attacks while you are online you probably won't see it in time, and deaths are a meaningless stats and repairing you ship from a disable will be cheaper than switching around mods 3 times a day. Then when you're about to level take off your relays and install your reactors to get the max energy from a level up.

Overall, you've only been playing for a little over a month and are a little over rank 50 so its not like you've permanently crippled yourself. Once you get some more TOs and some of the badge items you'll be back up to the strength of the other people on your bt (with the exception of people who reset and have been sitting at sub-50 for close to a year)

ALSO: Check what kinds of deals you can get under the "Earn more points" button. I have not spent any money on the game, but have been able to buy both fathers, trinity cores, and most of the seasonal mods from free trials of Hulu, Netflix, blockbuster, game fly, and filling out some surveys.

Every ship can be saved and yours is far from being a hopeless cause. One of my favorite parts of the game is helping people turn their combat reps around.
I would totally disagree on Research legions, while you're there, other ships your rank are raking in artis, so you're really going backwards.

Totally agree with Fireblade on his planet suggestions and if I were you I'd think seriously about taking him up on his kind offer of some starter arti planets.
VM / Rich Gas planets are very plentiful, so anything less than that completely ignore. Volcanics you will end up hating because they are so inefficient to upgrade.
Draxsiss is spot on about getting your Exotic and Dyson if you do have the GP to spare, they help an awful lot.

Vygoid Builder is not a great choice for you, if you ever do plan a reset, think about Konqul Fixer and keep your decks as low as you can.
Aerlen Fixer would make you even more likely to get space in a good legion, but frankly the Aerlen bonus is more useful to base defense than to you.

If you're not in a legion that can provide credit support, then maybe think about changing legions. Upkeep costs early on are quite trivial for higher ranks to cover for you.
Mining planets really don't pay off until almost Rank 200 and by that time toxic purifiers make 15x and 16x toxics way more effective.
Being self supporting is a great goal, but if you need to be a builder to do it then it's just not worth it.
Vygoid Builder, like Human Merchant or Sillixx Anything will also tend to make you look like a juicy target on the BT.

You really don't need to go SSB to be effective at PvP, but you do need to use your decks wisely and only install really good modules.

Hull at your rank is much more effective in terms of deck space efficiency than defense, and as Draxsiss suggested I would certainly swap out your defense mods for hull.
Like Chiaro, I'd suggest a Turtle and Taipan kind of build for you...swap out weapons at night and replace with defense and/or hull and your energy mods.
When online and attacking go full weapons and hull, because you can repair as you go. Use Nanite Swarms, grid consoles and as many attacking buffs as you have at your disposal

Like Draxsiss suggests, good medium term research goals I would suggest for you are +12 planetary structures and +1200 defense structures, as soon as you possibly can.
I know these can be a hard slog early on, but early investment in these will pay off handsomely.

As mentioned, NPCing early on is largely a waste unless something really nice pops up on your BT.
Stryll Transponder is actually a little useless, I'd maybe suggest targeting the Cipher Bots and/or Decryption Quad Frames via hacking instead.

As Glaxor mentions, what you spend your rank point on matters a lot.
Arti will take care of decks, cargo, helmsmen and scientists, so your only real choice is between Tactical officers and Engineers.
As you rank up you'll want heaps of both, but early on TOs are a really solid choice.

Reset

It's probably going to cost you about the same whether or not you reset by the time you drop the junker planets and pay for a race change It's probably worth just starting fresh and take this as training.

Many thanks for all of your advice.

I think the conclusion is that it's 50/50 in term of cost between resetting or trying to recover. I like a challenge so I'm going to try recovery for a few weeks at least. It will also probably teach me even more about the game if I do eventually feel the need to reset. If I don't spend GP then I'm only losing time.

One thing from the above discussion that is very clear is that if I'm going to have a chance then I need to immediately focus on PvP and Artifact production.

The PvP side is obviously entirely down to me and the ship build I choose so thanks again for the guidance on that. I'll do my best to follow it.

The artifact production is going to take help. I am currently in a level 5 research legion, it was the first one I clicked on so didn't really know what I was doing, as time went on I thought that it made sense to get better modules more quickly. Though it will sadden me to leave as they've tried to help me and shown faith I don't think my loyalty there is doing me any favors for my long term survival.

On my way I can come and visit Fireblade. If the offer of help still stands?

Finally, and I'll only be considering this if it looks like the recovery is starting to work in a few weeks time, mission exotic and dyson planets were mentioned above. Can someone either explain or point me to a thread explaining why these would cost GP and suggest a strategy to go about getting them. Potentially, if it's just energy expenditure to start with I can start right away and decide about the GP expense later. From what I've read I think it's the terraformers that will cost but I don't really trust all that is written here after the decks/cargo and other FAQ advice has gone so wrong for me.

Once again many thanks. It might not work out in the end but I do at least feel as I have a direction to go in now.

Getting the 10 Terraformers for the exotic is much easier at later ranks, if and when you can autorank.
If you want them early, using GP is really the only practical option.

Getting 10 Quasi Spatial Expanders for the Dyson is almost impossible, as the drop rate is very low.
Most likely you would be at a high rank before you got them all if you choose solely to NPC for them.
If you want the Dyson early, using GP for QSEs is the ONLY option

If you feel you need some VM Rich gas planets to offset your research losses by moving legions, I have a couple I can swing you.

I'm a bit iffy about the advice to switch to a full artifact production legion so early in the game.

It would be better to research planetary structures to +8 before swapping to a purely artifact legion (and research shields to at least planetary shields, as well). With his/her own research, it could take months to get to those tiers, since planet slots are limited and a low rank's research production barely amounts to anything. A research legion would definitely speed things up early in the game as well as allow him/her to focus purely on taking artifact planets and maximize production on them.

just my 2cents

if PvP is what you wish to focus in from the start then due to race / profession your really hurting yourself.

Vygoid can be an amazing race at low levels :
1. it helps your research along
2. if you are in a artifact based legion, you can take extra RP planets to offset what you normally bring in daily from base.
3. as research is limited in its practical use ( not counting the contract ) you can get a little ahead of the curve, and slam out the big important things, i.e. CTLab, +12 structures, Obi shields. With patience that can be done at a fairly low level, someone in my legion is sub 100 as vygoid has the CTL, +12's obi's and finished hull research. So it can be done.

helpful hints
1. starting to collect crew is going to an arduous struggle, you typically wont notice much till you start getting around the 8k mark (ish) thats when you will (somewhat normally) see prisoners / androids and everything else. Hands down crew is the single most important factor in the game, when it comes to your ship alone.
2. Given your already large ship size ( rank speaking ) their are some things you can do to "cheat" the system, for example open 2 browser windows, on 1 screen your battle tab, the other your ship interface, swap out eveything for sensors, refresh your battle tab, you should see easier targets. Once you do, swap out sensors for all of your gear ( guns, etc ) and go a killin. When you go offline, switch to very high claok so they cant find you ( or less chance ). << this process can get costly depending on the modules you use.
3. Use artifacts, thats what they are their for, decloak / debuff to your hearts content, they stack so you can use more than 1.
4. At your rank NPC gear is second only to pvp gear, it gives you the most return for the lowest space and cost, so stock up on that till you get the other stuff.
5. skip D1 / D2 cannons you will kick yourself if you get those, save the reds, and your frustration go strait for D3 cannons, cant be installed till 100 but well worth it.
6. dont be a builder, one of the more useless professions. See #4

Things to consider:
1. You have one MASSIVLY annoying target all over your ship, at your rank its pretty much a deal breaker for if someone is going to attack you or not. That is the profession, almost everyone at your rank who is in it for the pvp is a fixer, 30% hull boost at low levels can be pretty insane.
2. PvP people at low levels typically have LOW scan, so to counter that with higher cloak ( again see NPC modules ) you will stay off their BT.
3. Hacking, not the funnest thing for people but stop to consider this :
Decryption Quad-Frame
[ Special Device - Size:10, Scan:25, Cloak:25 ] >> size 40 cloak / scan 100 ( all 4 )
Multiwave Sensor - Mark III Scan +100 size 40
EM Adaptive Panels - Mark II Cloak +103 size 27
roughly the same thing installed on your ship for about 2/3 the space.
Take that further :
Decryption Senary-Frame Upgrade
Upgrades a Decryption Quad-Frame on your ship to
a Decryption Senary-Frame, increasing its scan and
cloak bonuses by 20 without increasing its size.
Requires: 350 Medal Points Earned
[ Special Device - Size:10, Scan:45, Cloak:45 ] >> size 40 cloak / scan 180
Granted the upgraded example does take time due to medal point requirements, but by doing PvP things that can easily be obtained.

Things to consider if you reset :
race either konquol / aerlen IF you plan to mainly focus on PvP ( i started as vygoid spy personally and thought it was A M A Z I N G )
profession fixer, can do excavator as well, thats always a good choice to.
ship build : ssb / msb / lsb ( that is something that you have to decide for yourself. helpful hint though glass cannon builds are NEVER a good idea )

It all evens out ( more or less ) in the end.

All really depends on how you feel although I would consider the reset option however it is not too late to change it around. If you do consider resetting then you can try something else (instead of doing missions try pvping) or asking for help and advise to help improve your ship. Both options may take the same time to get back on your feet however at least with the reset you can start over again, change your name, get better planets. Then by time your back at your current level now it will be much better! With the extra experience you may do a lot better than last time...

However with purchased modules on your ship I wont recommend it you...