Here is some information that I wish was immediately available, and consolidated into one place when I was Rank 1, but I found out through the course of play. This is designed to help starting players with a short checklist of helpful advice.

Very, very, very Important: do NOT spend ANY Galactic Points. Play for a while, and decide if you like (and want to KEEP) your starting choices. The reason for this is that if you decide to re-start, you can, but you lose EVERYTHING, including any Galactic Points you've spent, which will NOT be refunded. Once you spend them, they're gone forever. If you don't like your first start, you can re-start without losing anything vital. The option to restart is under "Help" at the top middle of the playing screen.

Limits of play
-Energy: Besides the social interaction aspects, this game is all about Energy usage. You only get so much, and you're always going to be short, unless you're Bill Gates, and can afford to buy unlimited Recharges (with real world $$), so expend your Energy wisely, to advance fast(er).

1) Gaining Experience: You can't Rank up without Experience, so carefully review your Missions, and look at (and figure out) the Experience/Energy ratios for each one. Good missions for newbs: Octafari Distress(2.6 Exp/Energy), Border Patrol(2.3 Exp/Energy)
- tip: Windows has a built-in Calculator (under Accessories)
- tip: Humans get 10% extra Experience, also there is a rounding addition, so that if the mission gives, say 55 Exp, Humans get +6 to that (61! it's not huge, but it adds up).
2) Planets: you can only have one(1) planet/4 Ranks, so pick the best/largest you can.
As to "best or largest": Just my thought, I would say Largest, so you can build more Structures for the size available, but with Best you get more production percentage, so I'm not really sure. Someone better experienced can tell you better.
*with an eye towards this goal, planets have 3 things you need, Mining, Artifacts, and Research.
- Mining will get you a cash infusion every so often, and some Exotic Matter, which you won't need until higher Rank.
- Artifacts get you artifact points, which in my opinion gather too slowly at low level to bother with.
- Research you will always need, and badly. You need to get better technology for everything, and without Research Points you can't get it.
- My advice: get Research planets, leave artifacts alone until higher Rank. Join a good Legion, have a Legion mate at higher Rank give you some operating capital to get you started so you can leave Mining alone, then concentrate on Research planets until you get to higher Rank, and re-adjust later.

**Tips & Advice**
THE MOST HELPFUL TIP: Find and join an ACTIVE, friendly Legion immediately that will help you at your earliest levels with Credits, advice, planet scans, artifacts, etc. Go to the Forum, Topic: Legions, to see who is recruiting, what/who appeals to you, etc.

Next most helpful tip I've found: after Ranking up, expand your ship with 1 Cargo pick, and 4 Deck picks. You'll need the Cargo as you go along, and you'll always need more Decks.

Next most helpful tip: Concentrate your Research on the Advanced Power Systems chain: this will get you more Max Energy and better Recharge, to get Energy faster, keeps you playing more, and gaining more Exp, which equals:
1 - more Ranks, which means more planets(giving more Research), and more available Missions
2 - more Deck space (more Max Energy, better Recharge, better Weapons, Defenses, Hull, Scan, & Cloak (and other "junk" to fill your ship with)
After Advanced Power, try to get Planetary Construction chain, to get better buildings on your planets, relying on your Legion to give you planet scan(s), and then maybe the Advanced Sensors chain, not necessarily to get planet scans themselves, but some Missions will unlock with higher Scan rating (or number of scans) on your ship.

Next most helpful tip: If you mess around with (power) Relays, be sure you know what you are doing. Unhook them just before you Rank up, and make sure your best Power cores are installed, THEN Rank up, use some of your Energy, and re-configure.

Stuff I've discovered:
Mouse-overs: If you mouse over at the top of the screen: the word "Energy"(next to the yellow bar), word "Shield"(next to the blue bar), the word "Rank"(in middle), and the Research icon(on right side under Credits), you can get some useful in-game info.
Top middle of the screen: Forum/Help/Credit/Terms :
Forum: find a good Legion, lots of much needed advice, player trading, etc. Visit often !
Help: has some useful information, plus links to the Wiki and the Forum. In the Forums, go to the Beginners Hub, and read Aggross's Game Guide for more info.

That's really all you need when you start, the rest will come with game experience, so it's time to play, and have a great time !!

PS: If I missed something, I'm sorry. This is all I've found so far.

BE VERY PICKY WITH YOUR PLANETS, RESEARCH SCANNERS TO FIND MORE PLANETS. WEAPONS TECHNOLOGY SHOULDN'T BE THE FIRST THING TO RESEARCH, ALL NEWBIES DO THAT.

SAVE YOUR ENERGY CUBES FOR EMERGENCIES.

BE A VYGOID EXCAVATOR, I RECOMMEND THIS FOR BALANCED SHIP.

NEVER PUT YOUR RANK POINTS INTO CARGO

What's your reasoning for this ?

There is already a guide. So no need to make a another

Yeah. There's a guide, there's a Help screen, there's a Wike, and there is a LOT of info.

I was trying to help the brand new Rank 1 player decide what to focus on, until they are higher Rank, and have assimilated all of that info.

Thanx for your input.

Join an legion which have Base and research production. that's help you alot !

Dragon good for you for wanting to help. Albeit a rank 1 may have trouble stumbling on to the forum. I know when I first started out, I had a mentor, so it was easy sailing. But my mentor shared with me MANY stories about trial and errors, things he wished he had known dozens of ranks earlier, etc. Your guide is a bit, skewed, like all on decks and cargo is one way to go, but I am rank 135 and I only have 160 decks. And what was mentioned earlier, do NOT spend on cargo, especially in the beginning. IF YOU ABSOLUTELY must later on for room, fine, but just sell stuff to make room. ENGINEERS will ALWAYS be there for you, thats MY thoughts for spending those early rank points. Good luck Dragon! And thank you for adding to our forums!

Ejjakai
Undertakers Incorporated

You need decks, small ship option for a strategy is a very bad strategy.

Oh Also the formula for planets is Rank/4 +1.

Please don't tell me what I need. I've been using the "small ship strategy" for quite some time with great success. I have exactly what I need for the style I wish to play. I noticed in your signature that you're a rank 139, come find me in game and we can test my strategy.


But as I said, all decks is ONE way to go. It's not the only way. Just like picking Sillixx over Konqul.

Ejja

I dont do all decks, I slow rank, and I put 2 engineers with 3 decks. Small ship strategy worst strategy there is, also havent update the sig in a while, Im level 150 and Heavy Titan

Even better.
Ejjakai
139
Konqul Fixer
160 decks.

Come find me.

Wow. Love how a thread intended to help us youngin's get our sea legs rapidly spiraled into gauntlets being thrown down. Hehehe.
I guess derails are what make forums so much more entertaining though, eh? Aaaaaanyway....

I always like to hear multiple perspectives as I continue to form my own opinion....which is what brought me to this thread. I think that's important for players to do at any level, particularly in a game of strategy like this. On that note, I have also skimmed over Aggross's Game Guide and his Basic Strategy Tips.

Fellow newbies, please keep in mind: there is no "one size fits all" approach to the game since much also depends on each individual player's style, preferences, etc. So, even if I don't completely agree with everything DragonflyKenley (or anyone else who posts tips in an effort to help) posts...given my own personal game style, I do appreciate the opportunity to consider a different approach and definitely appreciate the sentiment. It's also helpful hearing why others may or may not agree. (Understanding why one suggests you do or don't do something is far more helpful for me than simply being told what to do.) So, huge kudos and many thanks to those of ya who continue to offer up your insight and advice!!!

And just in case other newer players like me stumble upon this thread... I included link to Aggross's Guide and his Strategy Tips above because I found them to be helpful reads. I know others in this thread alluded to there already being other guides out there (and I think the guide is actually a sticky) but just wanted to make sure fellow noobs have some of these other great resources at their fingertips.

If anyone else has other helpful tips and/or suggested reading, please feel free to share with us or point me in that direction. As for any (other) battle challenges, I'm a huge fan of putting theories into practice to test them...not just talking about them...so I'd be curious to know the outcomes!

Thanks and Happy Hunting!

Thanks Naedesu, that's very helpful. And Newbies need all the help they can get. I'm Rank 72 now,and I STILL need help.....

Galaxy Legion is a complex strategy game and different people get different things out of playing it.

Some people just focus on missions. Others hunt NPCs or do PvP. As someone said earlier there's no one size fits all approach.

But....as a general rule the stuff about focusing research on energy is correct. I'd also say focus on scanner tech and planet production structures to get better planets.

I started as a Human ..Raider or something...can't remember...then switch to Vygoid Excavator before rank 100 and I've stuck with it even though I'm rank 365 and hunt a lot of NPCs (I should be a Vygoid Builder for my NPC killing ship but getting higher artifact production is really hard).

Early on mining isn't important and artifact production isn't worth it. Research is important though. As a general rule I would say make sure your research fills your rank cap in 8 hours (if you login to GL before you go to sleep and when you wake up like I do) or however long you sleep. That's the minmum. Mine fills in less than 6 hours.

Totally agree with not putting rank points into cargo but some players stow ship parts and swap them in as necessary so if you play that way then it makes sense. As a general rule I would say ship decks and engineers are what rank points should be used for.

Remember that the top player put all his rank points into energy. I put most of mine into ship till I got to massive levianth then chucked rank points into energy (and a few into tactical officers). It worked for my strategy of killing NPCs. NPC killing is a good way to get ahead in the game but isn't really possible below rank 100. well...I guess so. Not tried it.

I was about rank 1700 when I reset, so I know a lot about energy builds. I also have that list of mistakes that I wanted to avoid this time around. There are two main styles of play depending on what you enjoy; people like me just want massive production and the best planets (like as many 15x as possible), but don't care about pvp; we npc a lot because that's about all that's viable at high ranks. The other type is the pvp'er , who wants to maximize their ship's power for its rank.

For the energy build, this is what I am doing:
1) Start as human or inergon, because building ranks = more planet slots = more research. Human has a slight advantage in using their bonus on charged energy as well as rank up energy, and being able to milk high xp missions for longer. Research buildings (more RP) and generators (more energy) mainly. Milk the Octafari mission (2.6 xp ratio) until rank 50-60 when it's completed.
2) RP getting pretty good now ? Run glaviz mission set for a few, use it to become vygoid excavator. This is the best resource bonus race. That RP bonus should help you tech up.
3) Get more artifact focused now to build the ship up. You will still be doing missions until say rank 200-300, then your RP is high enough to get you some weapons/hull to do NPCs. The xp is generally better on npcs than missions. You can keep race or change to Konqul Excavator when you have "enough" research; use this to hunt more NPC planet drops to upgrade stuff, while maintaining ship growth through artifacts.
4) Until you reach "combat mode" , you want to get mostly engineers and maybe 1 deck per rank. Focus on module efficiency (output per size) rather than trying to fit everything. You will rank faster than everyone else, have more planets, thus get more AP/RP sooner, feeding back into the cycle. Eventually bots will build the decks for you instead of rank up points.

For the pvp build:
1) Konqul is often the best choice. Prof could be builder or excavator or fixer depending on your specific build.
2) Mix of RP/AP planets, you want to get through the tree for weapons and hull especially so you can maximize your decks; you will want to have 1 deck / rank to minimize your damage cap and load up on tac officers because it uses no decks. Your tech will slowly build, and if you have artifacts, prisoners will build up your attack.
3) If you want to focus on kills and low rank, attack people lower than yourself since you will give less xp, and they are likely to be weaker and less likely to be able to counter attack.

Drawback of low rank build is less planets. If you go energy build, and go for high rank, you can grow faster but pvp will be a lot harder until you have "ridiculous" stats and artifacts.

Ranking wise, I personally do a middle of the road thing myself. I generally blast through 4-6 ranks a week (depending on how things go), then slow to like 2-3 to let my modules upgrade and my credits restore (Taking planets, upgrading modules, etc. takes its toll). Like everyone has been saying though, it really is up to your personal preference of play style.