So, i'm coming up to my 1 year mark (3 days off), and have decided to, now that I've just finished the Talth Chain (which I mainly autoranked), freeze rank for a while:

So, I'll begin with a few goals:

1. Get up to 40:1 strength to rank ratio (currently sitting at 26)
2. Get the two remaining Veloxes, and work towards the Aegis Capacitors.
3. Get Anubix

so, my build, which is probably a LSB:

Rank 447 Taltherian Excavator
The TechnoMages (54)
Combat Reputation: Menacing

471 / 4025 Energy
13647 / 13647 Hull
3173 / 3173 Shield

Size Class: Star Destroyer
Space: 2215 / 2216
Attack: 5690
Defense: 6130
Scan: 901
Cloak: 725
Cargo: 7941 / 15600
Upkeep: 2.6B
Taltherian: Urbanize
Excavator: Artifact +10%

These stats are unbuffed (the defence has the 4% datanode bonus and the 5% velox bonus, which aren't temporary)

2216 Decks
15600 Cargo
3585 Engineers
1288 Tactical Officers
1333 Helmsmen
2033 Scientists

Battles 86895 (Grand Legend)
Player Kills 671
Deaths from Players 525
Non-Player Kills 10283
Planets Found 779
Planets Occupied 90
Planets Captured 30
Missions Completed 587
Scans Performed 5521
Successful Hacks 168
Successful Raids 339

And the modules:

Weapons Heavy Thetacron Cannon x4, Heavy Null Ray x4, Dominion Cannon - Mark III x3, Taltherian Sentry x4,
Leviathan Rift-Emitter x3, Vortul Blast Phaser x4, Charged Bane Emitter x4, Dominion Cannon - Mark II,
Atmospheric Decimator x2, Psionic Amplifier, Lazuli Mind Controller x3, Prototype Mech XV, Combat Analyzer
Energy Surge Plexus x3, XRP Warp-Charge Pack, XRP Battery Pack x3, Q-Pedd Logic Servo x2, Silthion T-Plasma Hub x3,
Omicron Injector, Exotic Dynamo, Chron-Transistor
Sensors Continuum Parser x3, Merged DataNode, Gravimetric Flume, Datastream Compiler x4, Stryll Transponder, Tachyon
Router, AI Supercomputer
Hull Perfect Fermionic Armor x5, Kalvium Fortified Plating x2, Scythe Plating, Mylarai Plasma Lance x4, Korteth Plating x2,
Silthion Exo-Plating x4, Protean Armory x3, Impact Absorber
Shields Tejiar Capitol Barrier, Gravidynamic Isolator x4, T.O. Harmonic TeraPulser, Q-Phase Battery Array, Harmonic
Resonator
Cloaking Gamma Channeler
Defenses Trans-Temporal Nacelle - Mark III x4, Velox Thruster, Sha'din Forcevoider, Silthion T-Phase Utricle x4, BM50 Convoy
Shuttle x2, Dark Phase Engine x4, Scruuge X-Deflector x2, Octafari Deflector x4, Auto-Evasion Node, Thrust
Stabilizer, Subspace Compressor

Also got the supernovae generators and encephalon cores, uninstalled in the hull.

Productions:

Minerals 5716 units / hour 0 / 52000
Artifacts 9243 points / hour 35 / 97000
Research 9072 points / hour 0 / 84050


So, any advice would be much appreciated. So that you know, dont spend money on the game, dont plan on it particularly.

If you're going LSB no point in holding back on the researched mods, get everything upgraded to top tier

If you have any thoughts about getting Auto-blasters or Tri-blasters, do it now! At the same time get the yellows for the Protean Arsenals.
I wouldn't recommend adding more decks, it'll just make you an easier target, but if you want to be LSB, then yea, don't hold back.
With just 3K shield I wouldn't bother with Aegis Capacitors yet, 3173 x 1.15 = 3649 + 900 (from each capacitor), an increase of almost 1400, probably 2-3 more hits to disable you.
And as always, increase your arti production.

you're still in my badging range ... so if you want to survive with that many decks ... you will need to boost your hull drastically.

Hey Spock!

At under 10k artifact per hour, it is going to take a looooooooot of freeze ranking to reach that point. I am not saying this to be mean or because I "disapprove" of freeze ranking in some way, just because I don't want to see you get bored and quit GL while freezing. Keep some goals in mind, slow your ranking if you like, but please don't freeze. We'll never see you again!

Good goals. Veloxes are great to have, and I'd advise getting them installed ASAP. As has been pointed out, Aegis Capacitors are not really "worth the XCharge Cells" at this time, so it's more a matter of what you want the most: do you want a more efficient ship (put Aegis Capacitors off until later) or do you want to get that particular goal out of the way faster (finish and install them as you get the XCharge Cells)? Only you can answer that question, of course!

Yes, yes, and yes.

Scan as much as possible!

I strongly suggest not adding any more decks for awhile, and am going to take the liberty of coloring all the modules I think you should put in your cargo as you research/find more efficient modules to replace them. This doesn't mean you must keep, say, your Taltherian Sentries or other modules I ignored -- get rid of whatever you like -- I just picked the modules that I personally view as the least efficient. (Note that while I redded out some defensive modules, it would be a very good idea for you to keep them on until you can replace them with helmsmen, better researched mods, and/or upgrades of existing mission and NPC mods).


Also got the supernovae generators and encephalon cores, uninstalled in the hull.

Productions:

Minerals 5716 units / hour 0 / 52000
Artifacts 9243 points / hour 35 / 97000
Research 9072 points / hour 0 / 84050

Since grabbing decent producing arti planets and dropping them later is not in the cards for you, you are going to need to be pickier in what you colonize/invade. I suggest scanning as much as possible, and putting your Taltherian Powers to work on any worthy Very Massive planet you can get your hands on.

This means finding Very Massive Gas planets with no scans and very LOW research (so you can boost artifact to be the highest stat*), means finding Very Massive Metallics with at least Abundant Artifact Production and boosting that up, means finding Very Massive Oceanics with Very Rich, etc...

Size is super important, because of the ceiling for production and your ability to cloak/defend on a Very Massive (or larger) planet. I mean, sure you can get great production from a Massive planet, but what's the point of spending all those hours boosting it to 15x if you can't properly hide it from enemy scanners without losing a ton of production? I see Very Large 15x Terras too often -- either with great production and no defense/cloak (stolen!) or producing hardly anything due to being bricked (uh, why did you make this planet in the first place? Just to look at and pray a top-20 legion doesn't scan it?), and it just confuses me.


* if you want to get any mining whatsoever out of these planets, you're going to have to do some NPC'ing and find some terraformers, which is kinda hard to do while freeze ranking.

So its been just over a month, and have been slow ranking (by my standards); mainly working on some pvp, some legion missions and getting my arti produciton up.

Rank 477 Taltherian Excavator
The TechnoMages (57)
Combat Reputation: Savage

Battles 109098 (Grand Legend)
Player Kills 886
Deaths from Players 588
Non-Player Kills 12099
Planets Found 779
Planets Occupied 105
Planets Captured 46
Missions Completed 693
Scans Performed 5521
Successful Hacks 168
Successful Raids 458


2352 Decks
20000 Cargo
3583 Engineers
2518 Tactical Officers
1422 Helmsmen
2636 Scientists

wont post the modules, but i took many of the ones pongoloid suggested off, and am replacing with the top researched modules (all 4 of the 2nd top tier and 2/3 researching the top for the other 4) and Quasi's will come on when my mining goes up. Also upgraded to syncopateds

hull: 16k
shield: 4k

Minerals: 6564/hr
Artifacts: 14447/hr
Research: 11569/hr

also, got the first two veloxes, and at 83 helmsmen, so will get the last one in 1/2 weeks depending on drop luck
have scrapped the aegis for now.

Once again, help appreciated.

5k AP in a month. Very nice progress

At more than 150% more artifact per hour, can you tell a difference in how fast your ship is growing?

Noticed your scan number is the same. Are you saving up your purgers for a massive scan run?

At 14,000 arti he would have only made about 100 purgers in a month.

Did you get a lucky invade from someone, buy a planet, rebuild a planet?
5k in a month is not something you can do with just talth.

The 5k increase is from invading the remaining planets on my 'to invade' list from the last run

And I'm purging my way down from 750+ to less than 300 so that I can blitz, as I can't afford to buy the modules over and over to do a run every 50 purges.

As I'm slow ranking, 50-75% of my e goes into the purger mission

So ... your last run resulted in 15 planets capable of producing 346 aph averaged across the lot. That is quite nice.

Some reshuffling of modules to maximise planets' production
planets maybe 15x 200ap/hr

also finished work on a VM 22x Gaia large moons so some of it is that

Im not sure if you got your merged data node yet but it's a great module to have. Here are its maxed out stats: Cloak 360, Scan 240, +3% defense when fully upgraded

Yep, great mod, but defense bonus is actually +4%

He's right i was looking at auto evasion node which is 3% - good catch deig

Yeah, got it as soon as I could

So, i'm gonna post my last update before i go holiday.
I am well on my way with targets and the like, and generally happy with progress.

2352 Decks
20000 Cargo
3583 Engineers
2982 Tactical Officers
1485 Helmsmen
2892 Scientists

Rank 482 Taltherian Excavator
The TechnoMages (56)
Combat Reputation: Insane

Battles 114093 (Grand Legend)
Player Kills 968
Deaths from Players 605
Non-Player Kills 12277
Planets Found 779
Planets Occupied 105
Planets Captured 46
Missions Completed 697
Scans Performed 5521
Successful Hacks 168
Successful Raids 530

Size Class: Heavy Star Destroyer
Space: 2341 / 2352
Attack: 7265
Defense: 10786
Scan: 591
Cloak: 700
Cargo: 7503 / 20000
Upkeep: 5B
Taltherian: Urbanize
Excavator: Artifact +10%

1470 / 4119 Energy in: 00:18
16834 / 16845 Hull
4074 / 4074

Minerals 6622 units / hour
Artifacts 14607 points / hour
Research 11678 research / hour

Goals:

Get 1000 kills medal
Insane rep done
am 2/4 on the top defence module, waiting for more mining to install the others, and saving helmsmen for anubix (i'm 174/200 on the ship-bots atm)
am also waiting to install heavy quiasis for more mining
attack to 8k+, defence to 12k+
strength to 40 (not taking as long as you guys were saying a month or two ago )
rank 500

Will aim to colonize some 10 maxed toxics, to bring up minerals to 10k+, and then work on some irradiateds, to bring it up to around 11-12k, so i can run these mods (this is my main goal to do during september)

Also may be looking for a new legion in september, as I seem to be around 2-3x more active that almost all the others in my legion atm.

The final september thing is to do a new scan blitz, and have been working on the purgers for a while, have lowered the pool from 750+ to ~500, so still a bit to go for that.

As always, comments appreciated