I created a temporary Halloween legion yesterday for the galaxy's trick or treaters, and had the good fortune of a new player (level 4) dropping by for some candy.

This poor little guy had no idea what he was doing, and had chosen to be a Human (Raider, I think?). I asked him why (trying not to indicate what a horrible choice "Human" is), and he said because the XP bonus seemed like the best advantage.

At that point, I tried to explain to him that GL was "different" than many games -- yes, leveling up provides a bonus, but true strength is gained via artifact production and time played... to which he replied, glassy eyed, "Artifact production?"

Hoo boy. The paradox of rank != strengh... not even knowing what Artifact production is? Now that took me back... and for a moment I vividly remembered back to how even the simplest things like scanning for planets or collecting base shipments can be totally overwhelming when you are starting out in GL. For a casual, clicky clicky game, there are a lot of little details to remember.

I dunno what happened to the little dude. I commed a few legions that I thought might have an opening and patient, teachy players and suggested he go there. Hopefully he found somebody who can explain things better than me. Hopefully the new tutorial and trainee features ease the pain of that learning curve, too!

Ahhh yes.....brings back memories.....lol. Human Explorer when I started. XP gained quicker has GOT to be good right? Gaining rank faster really, really has just got to be good. I'll show these guys watch how fast I can rank....lol.

Oh wait...this is GL....the only quasi-militaristic game in existence where the goal is NOT to gain rank. I don't wanna be a general/admiral whatever.....I'd rather be the galaxy's toughest private and if I religiously avoid gaining rank for only 3 or 4 years I might just have a shot

Unless your goal is to stomp everybody in the shallow end of the pool or have crazy high artifact production for your rank (which will be lower than the overall AP of any quality ship who has played less time while ranking normally), not ranking is just as big or more a disadvantage as mindlessly speed ranking. And if you don't have high AP for your rank, slow/freeze ranking isn't just a disadvantage, it is among the most insanely stupid, counter-productive tactics you can engage in.

That being said, being human at extremely low ranks can be a huge disadvantage given how little XP it already takes to rank up -- if you are the same rank as people who have been collecting for 20-30 days more than you on average, they are gonna be noticeably stronger than you, making red and yellow badges more difficult to obtain.

But IMO, the biggest disadvantage of a constant, passive XP bonus is that it burns you through content faster

I believe that there is a rank threshold at lower ranks that if you pass then PvP isn't quite as difficult.

Truth. After a while we habitualize all the little things and can start thinking about the big picture all the time, but at the start there's a lot to keep track of without a ton of guidance.




Yeah, the idea that ranking is bad only matters for some very niche goals. On the other hand, due to NPC rank limits and whatnot, gaining extra XP while doing worthwhile stuff eventually limits your access to some of that stuff.

The question of what activities are productive is debatable (and even what order to do them in), but AP is very widely seen as the stat that matters, not rank. If you started today and hit rank 5K tomorrow but had 1M APH, I think you'd overmatch 50% of active ships in a week and 75% within a month. Within 6 months you'd be in the top 1%. If you can find the best long term AP generation strategy and implement it as aggressively as possible, the ranking won't matter and it will work out for you in the end.

It's slighly fascinating to note as well, that AP generation is pretty much the sole driving force of a strong ship in the game. Sure you can play worse or better and building a tight efficient ship will help...but like ICB said, maxing AP regardless of all other things makes you stronger than the average bear.

Shame research and mining don't truly contribute more to the equation...or missions, etc. I know all of these are ancillary functions which in and of themselves will add value to the ship..but this value is incidental and markedly minor in the big picture compared to the artifact production

For a new(er) player that concept might be very unknown for quite a while. I started playing before legions. The first time i got arti prod up to 1k i thought, wow, now i'll find some cool stuff. But i only strarted working on it because it sounded like a dnd thing. OOOOH artifacts...nom onm nom. No one told me, you don't need to steal those 2x mining toxics or that plasma.

So i have to agree with the op +1 that you are in for a beast whippin if you don't catch on fast..or have people coach you along.

Ah yes. I remember the good old days when I first started. I started out as a human only because of the ship design. Found that changing races and professions is necessary for advancement.

I remember when I first started I chose Human cause I thought ranking up fast had to be good right?

i started off as a sillix merchant.... bad... just bad

The starting race and profession doesn't really matter.
Reasoning? How many of us started with something crappy and are doing just fine?

What's frustrating is starting a game and people just telling you how you've done everything wrong before you even know what you did.

My encounter with a low rank is usually something like.
I gotta reset, no one will take me into their legion because I'm not aerlen fixer. I'll sell you melters or whatever then reset.

Upon further inquiry he didn't even know why he had to be aerlen fixer :/
No one bothered to explain it.

When I started people said cool choice, you'll be good at blank and blank
No one presumed to know what was best for me.