taltherian...you passively boost your artifact production. Need I say more?

yes but with drannik, you can get a terraformer in less than 40 hours and its even better.
today, i got 2 data optimizers, 4 purifiers, and 1 terraformer from an hour of npc.

yes. but its so much easier to autorank with drannik. and still interested in other chains.

Drannik also depends on your level and attack a lot. I'm currently a Drannik to make the Seeing Red medal more bearable, but it basically just keeps my attack the same as if I was a buffed Taltherian.
Because I hit the damage cap on a lot of NPC's without being Drannik, it wouldn't actually be that helpful - I'd kill Sha'din Chargers in two shots regardless. At low levels, Drannik is a big help, but it becomes less so as your attack increases.

Drannik also depends on your level and attack a lot. I'm currently a Drannik to make the Seeing Red medal more bearable, but it basically just keeps my attack the same as if I was a buffed Taltherian.
Because I hit the damage cap on a lot of NPC's without being Drannik, it wouldn't actually be that helpful - I'd kill Sha'din Chargers in two shots regardless. At low levels, Drannik is a big help, but it becomes less so as your attack increases.

True but it is also useful for the following medals:

-If you want something done right...: Disable 30 non-player 'Boss' enemies (10+ rewards) by yourself, without alerting them to your legion.
-Can't get you out of my mind: Activate a Neural Interface while you are a member of each unlockable race
-Hacker vs Hacker: While a member of the Hacker profession, disable 900 ships from the 'Sha'din Coalition'.

You're probably right that one will cap a lot however, I have the potential to 1 shot Sha'din Chargers as well as Dark Runners so it might be worth it. Gotta cycle through so I'll let you know.

All that being said, I do agree what it is a good mid-level race.

The main thing I've noticed though is that being a buffed Drannik at rank 820 would be overkill - can't one-shot Chargers due to rank limitation (2.5X rank is damage cap, meaning I max out around 2k damage of their 2.2k hp), and already hit cap on enemies like Tyrants, Fab Plants, and such. Not dissing Drannik at all, but more offering a warning - if you're a high-level Drannik, it might be hard to tell that your bonus is overkill because you've been hitting caps for a while.

At 1080, I can get lucky and 1 shot Sha'din Charger (9.8 xp/energy) and Dark Runners (10.4 xp/energy) but not 100% of the time.

The issue it seems is how damage is calculated. It doesn't seems to scale well when you get towards the top. What I mean is when I was not drannik, on a Rogue Data Analyzer, I can hit for the cap most of the time. As a drannik using a crux, I can still only hit the cap for most of the time, even though I have 51% more attack. I see the same thing on fab plants, 51% increased attack doesn't seem to be a big enough increase to always hit the cap.

I'm note sure if this is how things were planned or Dan just didn't expect people to be getting this strong. Either way, I think there is an error in the way damage is calculated.

I will agree that Drannik, however, seems to be a great MID-rank option for hardcore NPC players. It loses its advantage once you get into the high-rank (800+) range though.

I don't know... I'm starting to like the 1 hitting NPCs. I just found a third one-capper, the Mylarai Extractors.

rank?