... there are people that have rifts and didn't have to spend money? who are these people and what sorts of sacrifices did they make to the RNG to curry such favor?

Before the drop rate changed.

So do you just log on and kill a few people then wait the day for energy to recharge and kill more?
I'm curious about the playstyle here.

Side note. I have found enough QSE for the dyson and 2 rifts. I'll likely find enough for the 3rd rift before I cross 2200

Up until around lvl 70 I would pretty much do that (by a few it was more like 10+ each day), because I wanted to get a lot of reds early for Dominions. That also involved hitting any boss NPC's and bases all the time.

Now I am working on a few missions, but generally don't do them because the XP to rewards is to much, so you level to fast. I am working on getting kronyn. I check BT and hit any good targets that appear but not as religiously as I did in the early levels. But until you reach around 150-200 the good NPC's are pretty lacking. So just working on upgrading my badge related modules.

I limit my leveling by the amount of energy I have, this kind of slow ranking playstyle suits me because I am working full-time. So I can build up my energy supplies while I am at work.

Kronyn to make research plasmas?

Pretty sure there is no other reasonable use for the race.

I love the look of the ship design. I am going to freeze again when I get it, and build up all my research planets, so I can finish off a few strings of research. Will have around 5k arty production + 80k a day from base, so plenty to keep me going for a bit.

thats what i did, all my rp planets are 15x or greater now

This is very interesting. I know someone who also slowranked for a ridiculous time like you did. They dont have a crazy rift like you do, but DO have ridiculous production stats for a low rank. Maybe I can get him in touch with you and you guys can compare stats.

Im curious to see what advantages and stats a low rank has when they have access to massive pools of resources (in your case, the rift)

That would be cool.

If you do it right you never really have to worry about being disabled. If you get to insane and keep a good Hull/Defense/Size going on you are extremely hard to disable and you are no longer a common target for PVP badges, you are not worth the energy and effort.

The real reason to slow rank is if you want good PVP stats, other then that you can just be a higher rank working on slightly lower rank goals. I slow ranked at such a low rank because I wanted to research for defense/attack modules, since a breeze will disable you at that level. After that you just slow rank to keep up your good stats and freeze again if you have a good reason too, eg you stats are getting poor or you get something that will allow you to use energy without ranking like kronyn.

Personally I feel that up to lvl 100 you should really dedicate yourself to badges because they become increasingly hard to acquire and you are just throwing away the best opportunity you have. Also it keeps you coming back to play all the time, which keeps you active and makes the game a lot more fun.

you'll find thats not the case once you get to higher ranks, people will disable you regardless, once you've invested so much into something you may as well see it thorugh.

True but that will mainly happen when you stop making leaps in defence and hull. That's why I am working on getting kronyn, so I can freeze again hopefully with a good AP going and build up my tacks and helms.

While I agree with the first part of your statement (focusing on badges up to rank 100), I have to disagree with the next part - at almost rank 500, I find getting red badges to be much easier than before: the amount of energy I spend per disable hasn't changed much for the past ~200 ranks, but I have a larger energy bar, which means more disables possible per rank.

Most definitely.

I have found that players rank 500 and above are more likely to be halced and/or online ("online" seems especially true with players who have good ships), so you have to employ a bit more strategy. But once you adapt your PVP style to the environment, it's no biggie. I personally find it more fun and challenging than ultra-low-rank PVP.

i just fire a crap ton of emp's and go to town