This post is to help begginners decide how to research
P.S. Please vote in poll above

RESEARCH TREES
Lets start with all the benefits of the different research trees. This is in order of how important I think(IMO) they are.
Advanced Power Systems: Description: The study of new power generation techniques and devices.
Benefits: This I think(And I think most players agree) is the most important. Energy is used for almost every action you take in the game. This is a list of some of the ways it is used: Missions(most important), activating some artifacts, attacking, invading, scanning, colonizing, hacking, raiding, and using comms.

Planetary Construction: Research into construction techniques and designs that fit a variety of planetary types and sizes.
Benefits: This one I think is very important. There is an equation to tell how efficient the next production tier will be. Current building size+3 and Current Production Value+1. I am not completly sure that is right, so you can correct me. This is a list of benefits: Income(Minerals), raw materials for buildings and modules(minerals are used for higher level structures), research(This is the main reason why I made this #2, this tree lets you research ALL other trees), and artifacts which give you MANY abilities.

Advanced Sensors: Research into detection, location, and analysis of remote planets and ships.
Benefits: You need to research this one to even USE the one above(You need it to find planets which are what the structures researched from above tree are placed on), and it helps you detect cloaked ships and their modules in the battle tab. And some missions require a certain ammount of scanning.

(This next one I wasnt able to decide if it or the two Ill place below it was better, so its up to you guys)
Stealth Systems: The study of advanced stealth technology, used for evading enemy detection.
Benefits: This one hides you and your modules from people looking at the battle tab, and some missions require a certain amount of stealth. You also need stealth to hack people(Please post an equation to tell how much Ship Stealth/Enemy Scanning you need). Some tiers in this one unlock better cloaking devices for your planets.

Advanced Weapons:The study of new weapons designs, delivery systems, and miniturization of weapons for use in space.
Benefits: This one helps you deal more damage to people in the battle tab, and some tiers unlock better weapons for your planets. Some missions also require a certain ammount of attack, the reason why I put this above defense is because sure yyoull receive less damage if you research defense, but if you dont research weapons, you wont be able to kill the guy attacking you.

Defensive systems: The study of systems that enhance evasive capabilities of ships and allow automated quick response from internal sensors.
Benefits: This one helps you take less damage from attackers and some missions require a certain ammount of defense to do.

Advanced Armor: The study of new composites and methods for ship armor construction and development
Benefits: This one increases your HP increasing how long youll last in battle. The reason why I put this above shields is becaus earmor only cost money to instantly recharge but shields take a very long time to recharge.

Shield Systems: The study of emmission of energy fields for use in defense
Benefits: Shield Systems increases your shield hp which protects your hull from damage.

RESEARCH TECHNIQUES
Now that that is done lets move on to research techniques.

Balancing:doing same amount of research in all trees.
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Example: First research all stages of energy then planet production then etc until you research all lets say 5th tier research then you repeat cycle for 6th tier.
Benefits: Balancing allows you to be more versatile and you level as fast as you research other modules meaning your ship can perform at its peak ability
Specializing in single: Doing majority of research in one tree
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Example: research Energy 3 times then research everything else 1 times
Benefits: This is good wen you want to do anything fast, or as best as possible, in the example above you would level much faster than a balancing player would and earn much more rank points, but the downside is most of the deckspace earned from that leveling is used up by uber-reactors
Specializing in group: Ommiting some research from some trees so that majority is in the other trees
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Example: research energy, planet construction, and scanning 2x and everything else 1x
Benefits: This allows you to do great at situations that need multiple stats, if you specialize in energy, planetary production, and scanning , your production would be peak and you would level fast enough to use that production. Or if you need to do better at PvP you could switch to this technique and specialize in weapons, shields, hull, and cloaking to do optimal in PvP
FACTS: Balancing allows you to be versatile and to use your deckspace to its full potential, specilization in one allows you to be AMAZING at whatever you specialize in, and specialization in group allows you to do great at situations that require multiple stats, such as Production or PvP
MY OPINION: I think balancing is best because if you specialize in the ones that make you level faster(Energy, ones that unlock missions) you'll make it to rank 200 faster than your freinds but you wont be able to kill anyone once you reach that level. Balancing makes you perform the best you can at your CURRENT level meaning you can take that occupied Dyson you find when you reach rank 200 in one try. I research in the order I placed the trees for the 1st section of this post.

I went very specialized into energy and planetary research, late last night i finished and got Positron Relay(9th level) done and now equipped 4 of it.
I am now concentrating on planetary construction tree and im up at Deep Extraction(5th) level and will probably continue into 6th or 7th level of it before i look elsewhere.

Ive gotten into 5th tier of energy and 4th tier of everything else. Im researching Nano Assembly right now and should be done in a day or 2.

I think people specialize in energy because it gets you more deckspace and more planets and better minerals. The extra planets allow more resources and thus more research to allocate however you want... probably more energy research. I think people are forced into the other categories at some point because of the prohibitive costs of energy research and modules. From having just some nice reactors installed, the next rank is usually half done as soon as you achieve it, then relays make the rest pretty quick. Don't forget to uninstall relays before you level. It's not like you can't kill people... your old "friends" will end up behind in EVERY category if you spend even a fraction of your new RP on the other categories. If you ever want to change your mind, it's definitely the best spot to do it from.

The shields category also allows for improved defensive structures on planets

According to some thread, having more hulls makes you take more damage from the same attacks as when you had less hull. Hull might seem more space efficient but I think that probably negates it. The hull repairs are insanely high when you have nice modules installed or even in cargo. It makes it more tempting to just leave yourself disabled. I was planning on using more hull than shields before I found out about the % damage thing, but the only fighting I really do is for planet invasions.

Defense modules are nice... helpful for defending a planet from invasion... I don't really attack or raid much. When you are under attack they wear out your opponents energy as opposed to their credits (from hull repair), as attack modules would. So an end will actually be in sight. They make attacks not damage you as much... so you win

Attack modules are the key to successful invasions, hands down... along with having the right artifacts.... I don't really attack or raid but they are what will save your energy and (I guess) get you more experience in ship-to-ship combat. No bearing on raids. They make you damage more (big surprise)

Stealth is surprisingly worthless... The enemy needs more scan than your cloak to see you, so it takes a minimal amount of stealth to stay off the battle list since almost nobody really leaves scanners on. All an enemy needs to scan a cloaked planet is the same thing... Most people have coordinated scanning efforts, so it's nearly impossible to cloak a planet from anyone that could easily take it, and even plenty of other people that could just share it's location to a hundred or so people. The research from hacking is paltry and costs too much energy, though the planet locations can be invaluable... you have a ~3% chance of getting a planet... that is slim. Those planets won't affect your scan success.

If you want planets you need scanning... it's pretty simple... You want a lot of options so you don't settle crap planets

Planetary construction is pretty simple too... you can either afford what you just researched or you can't... if you can't then you need to level (research energy)



I think I gear my strategy towards prododuction through invading/settling/defending. But mine and plenty of others all say energy research is key.

That is why I put energy at top of list, also, I leave scanners on because they are BIG and I barely have any space in cargo(60). I need SOME space for minerals I need for construction (I dont want to have 0 Chrysium when a Chrysium shortage happens). About the "more deckspace" from energy part. Yes, leveling faster does get you more deckspace but if you barely research the other trees you wont have anything to put in that deckspace. And sure youll get better minerals from more planets and more money but you wont have much to spend it on besides uber reactors.
EDIT: I just checked the votes and you know that if you do this
Research energy 3 tiers
Research Planet Construction 3 tiers
Everything else: 1 tier
That is Specialization in group
Also, forgot to ask, like the list?

Yes, its true. You have to research things other than energy. I don't really see the problem with "more everything" though. There is no such thing as "enough deckspace". That is a myth put out there by people with ridiculously high artifact production.

You should sell the scanner if you aren't using it... nobody will hack you if you don't attack for 2 days and have even an ounce of cloak.

Well, I do a few "daily scans" every day to hopefully find a planet(Ive been really lucky past few days and found soem really good ones[Average Terra 2x Mega Rich Artifacts]) I dont do scan blitzes much. And I dont think I said anything about "enough deckspace". I said

Balancing gets me just enough deckspace to keep up with research (181/181 after mission artifacts while still upgrading most rank points into decks) but specializing in energy gets me 100/300. Thats what I meant. Im always upgrading deckspace by normally five a rank except for the VERY occasional Cargo upgrade(only 60 cargo).

i changed my vote from one Specialization to Specialization in group

unless your planets are constantly being purged and/or fluxxed I don't see why blitzing wouldn't work better. I think I'm the only person that doesn't let the % get very low at all... It just means I'll be able to get more planets on the next blitz with new scanners... and I save a good 200 energy... then again, I've never had a shortage of good planets.

I use most of my energy in missions and only about 25 in scans daily, 5 scans a day+3 new scanners every week or 2=enough planets to satisfy me.(19 total ever scanned, purged two)

I too put Specialization in group because since I am a spy type. I go all out in Cloak. I also need the research points for it so I also have it in Planetary Construction. I have found that with my high lvl. cloak it is a lot easer to take out an opponent. I get a critical strict just about every time and they don't do much to me. Granted I am talking about others around my rank not some of the guys who respond to the Legion alert on my ship and are ranked double me. lol

The problem with this poll is that the game changes as you get to higher levels.
What you do at the beginning regarding researching is very different than when your at the higher levels. My own efforts at researching have change dramatically from the level of the 20's to now the 80's. In fact as I think about at first I went for energy, then planetary construction; then scanners to find more planets that are research rich or higher. When researching is costing me 65000 I need better research planets. I've found 81 planets and only found 3 that where rich or better. And one was a 'small' Never found any of the so called great planets. The person who finds the great planets and manages to hold on to it early in the game levels has the biggest advantage of all. Their is a good chance you'll hold on to it since the odds are low anyone else will locate it through scanning. The odds are higher that anyone individual will locate it through hacking than scanning.

This morning I boosted my scanning to 910 and out of 53 scans got 21 planets 2 of which are worthwhile, 5 so-so and the rest useless although at the lower levels I thought they where good.

You have limits on the number of planets you can occupy based upon level tiers. So my advice is when in doubt don't occupy unless your going to buy credits to abandon planets as you move up through the game. However if you enjoy the game please consider buying credits to support Dan and his continued maintenance of the game.

Brian, thats why I let people change their votes. Also, small planets are better than you may think. I have a small planet that has very rich mining that does better than my very large abundant planet. The small one does 27 mining and 6 artifact while the very large volcanic does 15 mining and 4.2 research. I wasnt able to check the non resource structures for the small planet because twice in a row now when I clicked its name it shows a blank window with stars in the background and when I refresh the page it takes about 10 minutes(realy) before any images below the tabs bar show up and Im able to click anything.

But wouldnt a very large extremely rich be better? and yes as hard as it is to believe they do exist, just rare as heck. With mining though, you got to just take what you can get from time to time.

Wow, the same amount of people are balancing as there are specializing in group.

In truth I am specializing and trying to be balanced. This means while I am putting in my gear to a level I set I am pushing (and upgrading things here and there). Buildings and energy being the ones I work on upgrades faster then others, but they both help get everything else onto my ship in the long run.

Im going to add benefits of the different techniques to further help beginers decide how to research for different situations, BTW I meant the poll to be used by begginers.

I think when you specialize in energy research, you are going to figure out pretty darn fast what else you should research and what else you must do to maximize and hold on to the benefits.

The uses of continued planetary research are not worth the research points to me. To go from lvl 5 to lvl 6 buildings would cost over 100k RP, and on a rich, very massive planet, only increase production by 2 points.

But, when you reach higher levels and have more planets, it really adds up, if you have 3 production from every building and have two on every planet and you have 12 planets of that type of production then you would have 72 production of that type, if you had 1 production you would be able to have 4 on the planet but you would only have 48. The difference in tiers between the +3 production and +1 production are 4 tiers and that means that every tier you get you are increasing production by 6(actually 12 because there is a population building every two tiers, habitation module is 1st tier, arcology is 3rd, and I guess hypersphere is 5th if I am correct)and that means if you research to the 6th tier you will have an extra 36 production if you only have 36 planets but if you have 48 planets and can split it 16 for every type then you would have (+4 structures and you could fit 2 every planet, 8x 16 planets) 128 of that type of production but that is only if you dont count multipliers and race and profession(Vygoid, Miner, 2x Mega rich are multipliers of production). So, if you have a rich planet that you can fit 2 6th tier buildings of each type on(I dont have a rich but I assume it is 100% because very abundant is 50% so extremely abundant would be 75% and rich would be 100%) then you would have 8+8 production and if rich was the average production of all your planets then 16x16=256+any race/profesion bonuses(If that was research then if you were a vygoid you would have 307 production rounded down). SUMMARY: It doesnt add much for one building, but it really adds up when you count multiple planets and production multipliers. I know(if you read anything other than summary), Im a