i had been Kronyn for quite a while to get most of my project terras and icies up to even research with the arti (usually already the highest). now i am mylarai and getting the mineral resource up to match before the eventual terraform and subsequent enum.crystal x5 and uplift to 17x 22x 17x. the intro of the tributes should accelerate that process now and i have expanded the range of planets that i will target with this.

after Mylarai, i will go Litheor excavator. i currently have 189 planets and don't see why every one of them that is worth keeping shouldn't have a couple of litheor probes giving production, population and cloak. that should easily take me up to rank 1k.

while i am working on the Talth chain after rank 1k, i will go lazuli fixer to aim for the exotica medal and gun, and also the harrowers for the Avenger ship design. after that it will be Talth excavator to even up all the oceanics and crystals that someone uplifted to 15x research for some reason. i will also boost any of my mining planets that have decent arti production already.

i am still not sold on the idea of making 15x arti planets from Talth alone. Uldrinan seems to be more worthwhile in the long.term as most planets i am taking should already be arti.focused. otherwise i might drop down to Konqul just to drop the npc's faster ? anyway, i still have lots of time and flexibility to consider my options ... and Dan might give us even more lucrative options in the meantime

Doesn't Uldri already fail for its lack of Excavator and running out of good uldrian artifacts to put on planets (yes, there is the 5% boost).

excavator gives +10% arti for all planets. the uldrinan structures give a 5% boost. so going uldrinan, building all the structures, then returning to excavator gives even more benefit. obviously, the trade.off will have to be determined between how many planets you install the 5% artis on and the amount of time that takes vs how much the opportunity cost is for losing the excavator 10%. i have no problem moving off of excavator temporarily to ensure greater benefits in the long run.

I've still got a fair bit to go till rank 200/2200 (currently 1075) but i often think and plan what i will lose and how best i can set myself up for it.
Nice post and was an interesting read, thanks for sharing

Determining the amount of time is the question. I don't know what it is. I would imagine as little as possible but as I'm stuck as a spy at the moment, I am the least able to comment.

Well, the thing is after rank 2200, terraformers won't come as often (I went from making 2 or 3 15x arti planets a week to one or 2 a month). So you want to build top quality planets after rank 2200, since you won't be building them quickly anymore. Also you already have 136 terraformers on cargo, so it puzzles me that you are throwing the gifts away in such way (even after 2200, gifts are a lot rarer than terraformers and a lot more useful).

Also the gifts are not exclusively for gas planets - but for planets with an special effect that do not have arti as best resource (if you scan often enough, you should find quite a lot of those). E.g. a Rich arti / 2x research VM oceanic with rings I just finished upgrading to 15x...



Like the gifts of the ancients, the best use of being a Taltherian is balancing out the resources, so terraformers can be used... same example as above, finding a VM planet with rings but with research or mining higher than arti... you can use Taltherian after (or before) using the terraformers to get it to 15x arti (wouldn't get as high otherwise).

The introduction of the gifts of the ancients however has made the profession somehow obsolete, for me at least... I am planning to move back to Kongul Excavator at some point soon (the way I see it... aph is not the end goal, but ship strenght... a 20% increase on ship strenght outweights the aph increases taht Uldrinian or Taltherian bring, after some point at least).

I've never found something vm with a nice effect that also had arti below 3x
Colossal irradiated with a small moon that's already 18x mining sure but I'm not talth.
I get what you're saying sharn but those opportunities just don't show up for me.

Vm gas with stealth screen isn't worth my time, I don't want to settle on a 20x arti planet and cloak % structures are plentiful for me so the SS isn't that appealing for me.
Even if I found a massive gas with large moons I would probably sell it and save up enough to buy Qse from someone.

I'm saving my terraformers for the sole purpose of still being able to make col 22x planets after 2200
Right now terraformers are easy to get, finding people selling Qse and rt is much harder.
I'm patient since I enjoy making these types of planets.

NPC all you can before 1200 and you lose the stryll seekers.
You're welcome.

Oh, i wasn't fully aware i lost them then :/ thanks for bringing that to my attention.

eh, ya 80+ ranks past 1200 and just now reading this that I lost those.. son of a ....... sigh..

I noticed this also and made sure I was prepared: Stryll Seeker (Uses Left: 612). I also only do scan runs when I have purged everything except my owned plus unpurgable planets to maximize each use.

Thanks also for this topic as it was something I was wondering.

I'm only rank 644 but the loss of Stryll Seekers concerns me. I'm fairly balanced between pvp, npcing and missions but I might have to increase my npcing at the expense of missions. What rank do the Sha'din Shockfighters disappear?

I still see shockfighters @ rank 3005

Thanks Hall. I hadn't contemplated the possible loss of them until this:

that was just listed there as it is an npc drop that i know that i would miss if i stopped getting them. there are many other drops that i would NOT notice disappearing.

Couldn't agree more. I don't tend to hold many in cargo (similar number to what you posted) and your comment had me worried that maybe I should be saving them up rather than using them on every npc run.

Well I don't NPC much at all and...

Shockpulse Charger (Uses Left: 372)

they build up slowly.

What would be the just enough number of stryll seekers to hoard prior rank 1200? Also, at what number of free spots in planet list you scan?

I do purge 100-150 planets, what is approx 6-7 weeks of collecting purgers (doing purger missions occasionally to slower my rank up).

Any info about being Uldri while have hired Talth player to do the uplifts? Or something similar tested and compared in final result over some time?

EDIT:
PS: Thanks Tree for this topic, interesting reading.

Self control is more important than saving a large quantity.
I can only guess that most people won't rise higher than 200k arti.
At 200k arti you are capable of purging 700 planets every other week.
So every other week you need 1 stryll seeker to do a scan run.
That's 26 a year.
Add a seeker for every time you choose to do a scan legion mission and you could reasonably survive on 50 seekers per year.

I think there are a lot of people who prefer to scan every time they purge 100 planets and you'll burn through your seekers quickly if you do.

In regards to uldri vs talth, I'll talk to my consultants and we will get back with some information.

Update since I'm almost to 2100 now. Been very busy with last semester of college so its been a very slow process.

I am currently at a loss for what to do with all my rank points.
I am currently unsure on what to do with my ap growth.

My unbuffed ship stats.
40k energy
165k attack
115k defense, with aerlen ~150k
365k hull
187k shield
3810 deck space
190k research/hr
69k mining
210k arti (solynia boost), with excavator 230k

So rank points issue. I don't need more attack, I don't need more defense, I don't need more energy, I really don't need more scientists.
My attack
- I don't care how much you buff your base defense, when I hit it I will be hitting for about 400 per hit
- For Pvp there is no significant advantage given me should i add another 50k tac. Killing big ships like myself is an energy game and a game of finding them offline or using a pile of emps. The average ships I kill in about the same time if I am buffed or unbuffed.
- NPCs, I min hit them without any buffs on
- Planets, I can't remember the last time I had less than 90% invasion chance against a planet

My energy
- I've never run out of energy in the last year.
- I don't need energy to autorank on bases, there is just no chance to hit a base longer than an hour in EotS.
- I don't need energy to autorank on base donations, our base level is maxed.

My defense
- I am not fun to kill. Go ahead and ask around or try for yourself.
- Most people killing me use emps so defense doesn't help me much.

So I could continue to just toss rank points into tac and maybe next year I will move up to do at least 500 per hit on any base despite defense.
I could add scientists just for the sake of increasing my crew faster to make raiding me that much harder but thats a waste really, there aren't more than 5 people outside eots who could call me an easy raid.
I could add defense just bc there are more defense % mods on my ship so adding helms actually increases my strength score faster. I currently buff to about 700k strength so it might be fun to shoot for that 1 million mark.
I could add engineers just in case I decide to be really nice one day and leave my legion to upgrade someone's base for them.


My ap growth.
I have 230k ap and I have incredible ship growth. See above for reasons why I'm not overly excited about getting even stronger.
I have more terraformers in my cargo than I care to admit to you folks. Maybe the minions will start getting all the nice planets I make/scan.