ok so if you were take 1 player for each race, start them all off rank 1 (even unlock able races), assume their are 0 other players in the universe.Which race comes out on top? you can choose whatever profession for that race you wish, however can not race change. for unlock able races they may do your mission as normal but effectively already have the final unlock given to them. Who will be the best ship after 5 years? (amount of time the game has currently existed)

there are many assumptions here that wont apply to actual gl, but...

i think with your conditions the clear winner would be talth excavator.

we already know that arti is the key to strength in this game, and that combination gives you the most of that.

Yep, so many assumptions and variables, especially based on playstyle and what rank you expect them to have attained after 5 years.
For instance, I'm still quite a way off 3 years but my Rank 1601 ship doesn't seem particularly weak.

So if I had to choose one and could never change, assuming I played just the way I always have, I would go for Litheor Explorer.
Given I've mainly been Litheor ever since it became available to me, I expect I could do as well, if not considerably better.

I think Excavator is the only profession that is without a doubt "good."

Fixer and Explorer are "arguably good" or "situationally good" (though an Excavator will have more hull than Fixer and more scans than Explorer due to higher AP).

Then there are professions like Spy, Hacker, Governor, Saboteur, Raider, or Guard, that aren't much good at all (you could argue that some are situational), but can still be fun to play as without screaming to everybody: "Hey, I've got a terrible ship! Unless you only want raids, hurry up and disable me before somebody else does!"

Finally, there are professions like Biologist, Builder, Merchant, Miner, Physicist that are simply terrible.

So, basically, what races can be Excavator? Aerlen, Konqul, Kronyn, Litheor, Taltherian, Vygoid.

Now, get rid of Kronyn and Vygoid, because they are crap.

In the galaxy you describe where there are only 15 other ships, Taltherian Excavator is going to come out on top, because you're going to need to make more of your own planets. Litheor shines more via invasions, trades, Enum crystals, and planets that are already pretty good. I dunno how long it will take Talth Excavator to pass Konqul in attack and Aerlen in defense, but over time, it's inevitable.

In a more crowded galaxy where there are plenty of ships to rank Thraacti on, bases to get Enumeration Crystals from, etc., I think the Litheor Excavator will come out on top.

to many varibles, just take legion missions
as Taltherian Excavator, you wont be able to do

The Ardyne Sabotage, Task 1: Repair Gateway Nexus Pylons and get Ardyne Gateway Link (Boosts Planetary Production by 2% for 3 days, + an additional 1% for each other Nexus link you control up to a max of 6% bonus) on all your project planets
and without gateways, you only get the basic version of Ardyne Transfer Conduit (size: 1, artifact: 1, mining: 2, research: 1, cloak: 200, limit: 1. If the planet has a gateway nexus link (from Task 1 of The Ardyne Sabotage) when this is built, this structure's bonuses are doubled. ) from the followup mission

etc etc etc, lots of difrent races and professions are needed for medals legion missions
so sometimes you even need to be a terrible profession, to get the medal / Legion mission task you want


sure you will proberly have a good artifact production if you stay Taltherian Excavator for 5 years
but my bedst guess is you will be a lot stronger if you use the 10+ Sphere of the New Era you should be pick up during those 5 years, to switch betwen races and proffessions and to get as many medals, special systems and Legion mission rewards etc with as few race changes as posible.

Zol spy.

There is no such thing as a best race and each race has its own use for the purpose anyone requires for the time being.

Whatever race someone uses, there is a purpose to use it temporarily or for tasks.

There is only the most used race in the game and that varies on the person playing and depending on their goals and preference.

The taltherian is most used, but that does not mean it is above all other races in purpose because other races are still used the same amount of time as the taltherian race.

Anyone with any race can become strong if they put the effort into increasing their growth rate on their ships and with planet trades, people do not have to worry about what their race is if they are good at increasing their productions and constantly trading planets for better ones.

I fail to see how this will be. Explain this please.

Extra AP = extra purgers = more scans

explorer only really results in an additional flat number of scans one time(increases a bit when you get new mods.)

Theoretically no one ever wins....AP is king and all is subjective....and sugary water isn't always the best seller.. but it does quench your thirst.

Yahbut the question here was if you could only be *one* race for 5 years.

It still doesn't matter what race anyone uses for 5 years as long as they are efficiently growing their ships with artifact production.

Everyone can grow their ships efficiently at their own pace if they do it right with any race just by increasing their artifact productions rapidly, faster than those who use the taltherian race ability. If they can seek large quantities of artifact production without the need of the taltherian race, they can be any race they want.

what stops that taltherian from using the exact same methods of increasing production, ON TOP of the talth ability.

magic

Ban Hammer.

Nothing at all, but taltherian sort of becomes negligible if you're raking in half a dozen terraformers a day.

race and profession bonuses are for the weak

It depends... Many of the good planets you want are going to have AP as the lowest resource. Talth lets you gets AP to equal to the highest and allows you to maximize the terraformers you are getting.

this definitely does NOT match my situation.

of my 243 planets, excluding toxic/irradiated and storage planets, the total number of planets with AP as the LOWEST resource is ... ZERO.

as i close in on rank 1000, i am actually tempted to go back to mylarai to keep evening out my planetary richness. planet data optimizers can cover the research side so i am probably done with kronyn. after that, i'm going lazuli, so taltherian won't happen for me until at least rank 1200.