Hi all,
Has anyone a clear view on what is faster to level taking a Human or taking a Drannik race?
Fedex

I would say Drannik; the attack bonus is much larger than the experience bonus of Humans would be, at least if you focus on NPCs. Also, because you don't need to get as much attack, you can get more Engineers.

it depends on how you're playing the game

humans get a 1.1x multiplier on XP gains

drannik get a 1.4x multiplier on attack when hitting npc's, but keep in mind npc's have a max damage cap i think at 2.5x their level... with the right guns and buffs, a human should be able to do just as good

i'd just go human if those were my only two choices being considered and i was doing it just to level fast

What is the dmg level cap. both from max attack on my side as well as max dmg on NPC side? Has anyone the exact formulas for this? Thx.

cant recall it exactly, but Binary Man has done several tables on the 'best' race to be. at first it was between inergon and human, and inergon won. then inergon lost to drannik after the update a couple months ago which dropped the xp ratio of the star chart purger mission. so definitly go with drannik, as binary man is well over level 1000, and definitly knows what hes talking about.

Do you happen to know which old post that was from binary man? and around at what level he switched to Drannik?

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7267

and i know he switched after flamehawks appeared, so the ratio still applies to the bad NPCs...

We believe the formula is tanh((randomization*attack)/(5*defense))*damageCap. For NPCs, the damageCap is 2.5 times their rank.

I would do human because it's a 10% exp boost on everything you do.

human lost out to inergon in the initial analysis. humans may get an xp boost, but because inergons have more energy they can do more missions which allow them more xp. if youre smart about how you do missions you can level almost twice as fast as a human.

Go drank, with the ability and by using buffs you will rank fast.. All so the drops from npc will help you a lot. so even if there close in exp boost you will go better with npc killing, in my opinion.

well as a human, with a neural on, I can rank up once a day at rank 116 with 640 energy (I spent rank points on engineers early on (have 277), good and bad)

Base npc xp is 2.1 per energy used (just for hitting), the variable part is how many shots vs. xp kill bonus. As drannik, you get about 30-40% more on the kill bonus due to less shots to a point, which can yield about 4.0 ratio overall. Inergon may be better if you are doing mainly missions and adding energy all the time, but Drannik is the endgame race (you can also do Konqul/Excavator for an AP boost when your attack is high relative to npc defenses).

lol, well, im inergon. its all a matter of preference, but i have to actually try not to rank up more than once a day. i tried to gain a few quick levels to install another thruster, and i ended up ranking 3 times in one day (at rank 330+). i really want to rank once every 2 days, so thats why ive been doing alot of missions, but if i need a boost all i need to do is npc hunt with a neural and some attack buffs, and i get 90% of my xp required for my level completed.

but listen to binary man. he is one of the top ranking players in this game. he ran the numbers, and knows what hes talking about. drannik is the way to go. especially if youre going for rank over the alternatives.

Why is Inergon better then Human at the beginning for leveling? Maybe I get the math wrong but assuming 300 energy and a mission of 2xp/energy i come to identical results for the initial energy return after leveling:
Inergon: (300*1.1)*2=660 xp
Human: 300*(2*1.1)=660 xp
The recharge speed is identical and the energy spent from these recharge clearly favors the human who then gets 10% more. Can you explain what calculation error i make here? Thx.

Well also once you are done with all the useful missions, or the ones you want, you are left with the purger mission at 2.0 ratio which you can only do if you have excess energy after hunting npcs. What's more important is that npcs yield planet upgrades as well as high xp, drannik directly decreases the shots needed and thus increases how many you can kill. If you are spending most energy on npc, then it's at or above 10% more xp, so drannik is best when most missions are done, but I ran Inergon through my mission phase.

Yes, Human seems better because you get the bonus on the charged energy too. But if you are running an energy build, you are basically trying to not be charging at all between ranks. Given the xp is the same for both on the rank up energy refill, Inergon will complete 10% more missions due to the increased energy which lets you get them done faster, or just lets you take more actions in general. Human also does not have builder while Inergon does, which could be important if you run high tech.

but humans have the miner profession, get some good mining planets and if half you upkeep is less than 10% of you mining income, a miner will pull in more income.

keep in mind that unless your mining can make up for approx 9.2 billion extra per day, builder is definitly the better choice. i only make 2.4 billion per day, and without builder wouldnt be able to afford my ship.

If you can't afford upkeep without builder you are over building. I stopped being builder because I wanted a "useful" profession choice. I find it to be a crutch. The easiest way first of all is to drop a weapon's tier from quasi to heavy theta, that saves 6b upkeep, but here :

weapons - chosen: 2.1b (max 8.2b), no quasi
shield - 330m (max)
def - 2.5b (max)
hull - 800m (max)
generators - chosen : 650m (max 1.5b), no proxy reactor
relay - 180m (max)
cloak - chosen : none, but 3.0b is max (you cannot hide from max scan anyway)
scan - chosen : none, but 1.2b is max (install, scan, sell, once a month with a lot of purgers)

max upkeep (billions): 17.71 (someone reported about 18.1b)
selected minimal upkeep, cost/benefit: 6.56b

These are values without builder. If you are > rank 500-600, mining quality is maxed so you need about 1000-1200 mining/hr for 1b income/day, adjust accordingly. Just so you know the miner bonus of 10% with about 10k mining/hr is about 1b/day, which is almost certainly less than 1/2 upkeep from builder at that point.

*facepalm* I'm rank 117 and my mining is already 920! I would assume a rank 500 would have that much mining production multiplied to the power of 6 or something, which is 64 times my mining!