I don't think that 2 NPC slots is a good reason to unlock Zolazin. The slots are worthwhile, yeah, but you don't even have to use half the energy req of the whole chain to get them. Get the slots, but decide on unlocking Zolazin apart from that. On the plus side it's a really easy unlock. On the downsides, hacking sucks even as Zolazin, and sabbing a planet is only marginally useful unless you have a team of sabs to really soften up a planet for you.

I tend to think that Konqul is the best early game race, and Talth is the mid/late game (I feel that Litheor is a late game change, but that and everything else is debatable).

I think being a fly is bueno. And you get to multi raid and listen to people whine about it all day and laugh.

depends a bit no what you are looking for - a race you want to chance to or picking up medal points and tier rewards


if you want missions finished for tier rewards 3 chains stick out where you get a lot of missions ended for low total energy cost

Zolazin Chain = 7 missions, for a total of 46K energy
and you also get 3 The Glaviz Device (free race change) and 2 Stryll Tracker Cores (+1 NPC slot each) from doing that one


Genetarr Chain = 8 missions for a total of 51K energy
the rewards from the chain isnt all thet great, but most Legions that kill NPC love having a Genetarr or 2 in legion to help with anoying NPC abilityes
also, changing race to Genetarr and using that ability, can get you some medal points

The Resemblance is Uncanny = 15 medal points,

from doing the chain, and 2 more medals you can get if you also change race

Revenge of the captured (While a member of the Genetarr race, disable 500 'Stryll Assassin' ships from the Stryll Order) = 20 medal points
Mind Over Matter (Use the Genetarr's Mind Influence ability on 100 enemy targets that were alerted by someone else in your legion.) = 15 Medal points

making it a total of 15 + 20 + 15 = 50 medal points you can get by doing the Genetarr Chain

or

Prejoran Chain = 13 missions for 64K Energy
this one doesnt unlock a race, and the rewards are quite bad - but if you want to get your tier rewards asap this one is where you get the most missions ended for the energy spendt

doing all 3, would give you +28 mission ended for 161K energy, that 1/3 of the way to getting the Krionite Transducer and beeing able to max your energy regain

http://galaxylegion.com/wiki/index.php/Mission_Tiers


my advice would be, do both the Zolazin and Genetarr chains,
Zolazin for the rewards and Genetarr for the race + medal points it will give you

and when you reach rank 230 and get the Taltherian Chain, start working on that one

no realy hurry on the Prejoran Chain, save that one for when you have the recearch needed to max your energy regain to 90 energy pr hour (or 120/180 energy pr hour if you buy F.A.T.H.E.R. x2 + Elios Collector x2)

There is scan to be had in all 3 of these chains. With Genetarr providing the most, Prejor second most and Zolazin the least.

Hey guys I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed looking at all of your responses and have a much better idea about the mission chains and their effects. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question.

main reason I say genetarr is, if you want to get those 50 medal points, you want to get them early in the game

at low rank, the abilityes might make a difrence



+




and while you work on the 2 medals, you can also do Task 2, on the Carthyne Symposium legion mission to get the Cybernetic Link Interface



at high rank, the 2 Genetarr abilityes are less usefull and the Carthyne Symposium is a legion mission a lot of players want to skip if posible....

so if you think that system and the 50 medal points are worth getting, get it done before rank 600, so you dont have to go back to Genetarr later in the game


but theire isnt realy any right or wrong mission chain to do
most of the old low rank mission chains have artifacts, shipsystems or medal rewards that might be worth getting, depending on what you want do do with your ship

but later in the game, more or less everyone ends up as

Taltherian Excavator
Litheor Excavator/Explorer/Governor
Uldrinan Fixer/Governor
Aerlen Excavator/Explorer/Fixer
Konqul Excavator/Fixer

unless they are working on a LM task and/or medal that require a difrent race/profession combo

Agree with this. I started as Sillixx, changed to Konqul very early on (rank 50ish?), switched to Talth around rank 450 and have recently switched (~800) to Litheor as I now have enough planets to use probes on for a fair while and I now get a good number of terraformers and enumeration crystals to keep uplifting more.

I'm around rank 165 now. I did most of the zolazin chain for the artis (slots and race changers) but left off w/2 missions to go. I'm now working on the kronyn chain because I figure that later in the game I won't be too interested in improving my research planets so I might as well take advantage of that ability now while it'll do me some good.

I did zolazin when I was rank 91, a week or so ago, got the NPC slots, and the Glaviz Devices too. I've just started NPCing so the NPC slots are a BIG help.
I'm suggesting you go with Zolazin.

As to Talth, it'd say get it ASAP. You can get better arti planets(or improve) your shitty ones, but you need 2900 scan in one of the talth chain missions to power through it, so research good scanners, and get more decks.

For the decks,I recommend not getting too much if his ship lacks natural defenses from helmsmen that he can get from artifact production, but I do recommend that he limit his deck space to how much total decks all his scanners take up combined when he gets more natural defense from artifact production, instead of rank points.

308 decks for exactly 2900 scan - 3x Continuum Analyzer - Mark III & 1x EM Scanner
Those are of course non-upgraded versions at 960 scan for CA - MrkIII and 20 scan for EM Scanner.
Or you can just pop a Tach Cylinder for 5 energy and have 288 decks.

Or go Inergon Explorer. You have more decks and less scan requirement then. BUT remember that people also put on cores when they level up for missions so he might need more decks

How much time do you expect to spend on the game? And do you prefer absolute power or relative power(relative to player around you)?
Talth is one of the best choices, if not the best, for low time spend+high relative power. It's awesome especially if you choose to slow rank after unlocking it(350ish isn't really too late, just stop and camp)

But if you would prefer, for example, absolute power and can afford spending quite a bit of time on the game, konqul(a starter race) or drannik might work better--auto ranking via NPC will yield much more benefit for the same amount of time(as in days). Problem with that is that while you will grow in power quickly, you will also rank very fast and thus would be pitted against stronger oppositions and therefore becoming weak in terms of relative power.

Once the attack power boost is no longer needed, however, as you will likely min-shot the NPCs w/o it eventually and in a sufficiently coordinated legion that invade in pacts so that even the konqul boost on invasion is no longer of great value, you can switch to litheor. To be able to grow your planet via NPC drops and place the nice ability structure on them would be a good combo.

Of course, if you are quite selfless and like being a team player, zolazin sab, aerlen fixer or a genetarr would be welcome in most legions. You can almost never have too many of those in a legion(thou genetarr have very limited need...)

Meh... been hearing for just over 2 years how ranking at a good pace and actually doing stuff will make me relatively weak... not sure when that happens but must surely be just around the corner now I guess.

Slow or freeze ranking once you have unlocked Talth early might have worked 3 or 4 years ago maybe, but I really don't think it's a great plan now.

By all means, spend years at 30, 40 or even 50k AP at Rank 300 if you like... or spend a month at 150k+ later on. Choices, choices

Whatever you do, have fun and enjoy the game

Good point! Slow ranking doesn't work now, you fall behind and will never get to the same level as the ships that have 10k atk/def at level 200. Might as well have fun and just not worry.

Well, not necessarily purposefully slow ranking, you might just not have enough time to auto rank off NPC.
I'd say a break down like this:
If you NPC for less than 1 rank per day on average, talth is a good choice.(this is NOT how much you rank, but how much you rank off of NPC alone)
Otherwise, if you do NPC for at least 1 rank per day on average:
If you can't min-shot standard NPC w/o konqul boost, go konqul (you could do drannik but I like konqul better)
If you can min-shot standard NPC w/o konqul boost, go litheor.

What is the ability of Litheor? Why choose it? (Not a challenge, genuinely curious)

a planetary arti that for 1 space gives 150 cloak, 900 pop, and 2 of all resources ? and you can put 2 of them on each planet ? i rank that building in the top5 non% arti producers (only auric lepus drones 4 and 3, bainar prime, and transfused orbital stabilizer beat it). so without spending GP on the aurics, and on a non-transfused planet, they are 2d only to the bainar prime. i want them on ALL my planets.

they are good, but not sure I would rank them in top 5 any more, with some of the "new" Dan have added
from LM's, the new seasons, Vortov and Battlemarked

we have a lot more size 1, artifact 2 buildings in the game now (or size 1, artifact 1 with a realy nice bonus) then when we first got the DPP's


to name a few....and theire are more, this is just what I could easily find on 3 of my artifact planets

The thing is, there still isnt enough 2:1 AP mods to fill a VM planet. DPPs will always have a place for a long time. It adds ok cloak, hypergate stats and an awesome 900 pop in 1 space. If you slap on an xrp at some point, thats going to be one annoying planet to take