mine sucks,
rank 104, 715 research
760 minerals,
and 415 artifact,
you seem to be doing pretty fine.

I am a builder and hope to stay one when I do the race change. Though I am emptying out my minerals a lot as is.

Edit: Though I keep hearing people with 20k artifact production an hour at my level that is the part that makes me worry lol.

mine sucks,
rank 104, 715 research
760 minerals,
and 415 artifact,
you seem to be doing pretty fine.

As I am feeling like I am behind on my production I am posting this to in part to see if it is true.

I am as of the moment rank: 265

Minerals 1698 units / hour
Artifacts 2228 points / hour
Research 4574 research / hour

I am also working towards Taltherian so once I hit that my arifact production will rise a lot lol.

Rank 311 Vygoid Excavator NPC hunter.

Mining 5294
Research 7762
Artifact 5300

No free planet slots. Total is about 18k. Plentary Quality Index over 230. I have the last tier of planet structures available which helps.

When I do a scan blitz I burn a lot of energy. I also do scan blitzes fairly regularly. I haven't even got continum analysers yet but have 493 scanned from over 2000 scans. The advantage of using the second lowest tier of scanners is they cost a lot less. I can do a scan blitz every 30-50 ranks as long as a I get a few star chart purgers from artifact. I don't think there's much value in the star chart purger mission at lower ranks. The energy could be used for extra scans. This is the basic way to get better planets.

Kill NPCs. It's an easy way to boost production. Use any planet artifacts on the largest planet and save all drops from TO Troop carriers for the mission. As an added bonus NPC killing needs high attack which makes invasions easier. Mine's 3777 without artifacts (that's without the invasion bonuses). I think I can get to about 5500 with all artifacts apart from mutagenic cartridges. (my legion has access to crux amplifiers).

I have 3 toxic very large toxic planets at 15x megarich mining, a 15x v.massive research planet, a 15x exotic, 8x v.massive artifact, a 7x megarich artifact v.large gaia, a 5x arti large gaia, a 5x arti tiny and 8 other megarich or above planets. I've never bought a planet. All of the planets above 5x megarich were helped to be made using stuff from NPCs (Scouge ships dropped artifact production boosts ages ago).

I've stayed Vygoid Excavator but for my strategy builder is better. The 20% research bonus means I should get through most of the research quicker and the excavator bonus...every time I get ship bots or rescued prisoner I think it's worth it. My plan was to go Vygoid Builder now I've got access to better weapons tech and later on go Drannik Builder because my ship costs a lot to run. 1.2 million a day. Planet invasion and structure costs are also pretty high now. I've been pushing my mining up so I can afford better generators and a full light thetacron weapons battery. Just got one and 7 heavy null rays right now.

Rank 236

Artifact:1480
Mineral:2945
Research:4856
3 more planet slots available