Hey guys,
Here are my basic stats:
Rank - 198
Ship size: 1000
Ship Build - Konqul (+10% attk), Builder (Upkeep +-50%)
Daily upkeep - 207.5M
Weapons - Light null rays (7), Heavy Anti-proton(1), and other weapons from artifact drops
Energy - Isomorphic Repeaters, Intra-D Collider - Mark II (I just finished researching `Intra Dimensional Colliding`, so I can now buy the Mark IVs, but they are too expensive for me right now)
Hull - Merged Nexus Armor(5), plus a couple of artifact drops

Since I hit rank 190, I found it really hard to keep my credit amount up, and sometime took damage because I didn't have enough credits to pay my daily upkeep. So I quickly started grabbing planets high in mining, and things are finally looking a little better now that I have my Mining up to 1913 per hr.

I just want to know how you big guys (rank 200+) manage your credits. When my ship was smaller, I used to uninstall and reinstall weapons and energy reactors alot (when i ranked up, recharge my energy, scanning planets, etc...). Now if i keep doing that, I'll have to pay 100s of millions eventually to repair the item that I keep uninstalling/installing.

QUESTION:
*How do you guys manage this? (do you still uninstall/install?)

Next QUESTION:
Recently I found that I've been getting hacked a lot, and not disabled. Some of the guys that are doing this could easily disable me (rank high 200s and low 300s). Is this coincidence, or do the big guys see it as being too expense to risk a fight?

Any tips would help.

firstly, trading helps a LOT but if you want a steady income, around 2000 mining should get you that 200 mil plus a couple of hundred mil extra per day.
Secondly with the hacking, it helps a lot if you have an insane conbat rep, guys dont hack as much if they are gonna get disabled and raided in return.
With scanning, its unlikely that you will be able to install all your scanners without taking off something, i usually take off defence because it takes off the most space per mod, but never energy because i usually refill while scanning so its a waste.
With ranking, always unnistall the relays, the 100 mil is worth less than te energy you will save over a few rank ups

I'm a level 110 (Sillix Explorer) with an upkeep of 23 mill/day.

My planets provide me almost 1400 minerals/hour which at my level converts to roughly 23 million/hour (20-25). That obviously multiplies out to 550 million/day.

My question is slightly different to the original one. When would this amount of minerals stop being sufficient to keep my ship ticking over? I'm obviously saving all my credits for more expensive things later on (my upkeep is so low because I equip a lot of the good npc and badge items that have a much lower upkeep than researched items), but I'd still like to keep my credit balance in the high billions when I hit 200+.

Don't upgrade everything you research. I usually do a whole technology before I upgrade anything on my ship. This saves money in the long run. I only did this for planet structures up to +10. +10 and +12 are really expensive to retrofit.

Got through all your planets and upgrade to the best production structures. Also make sure you research deep into the planetary production tree.

Trading is a good idea and it's something new to learn about the game. It's a good suggestion. I prefer NPCing. You will get Toxic Purifiers and CTP.

Obviously more mining planets is important. I found myself invading more mining planets at rank 200-250 because my ship repair costs were getting really high (I do heavy NPCing). Some missions offer useful stuff to boost mining production too. Octafari Hydroshiters and Mylarai Strip Core Mines all offer worth while boosts to mining production.

It gets a lot harder to manage credits at higher ranks. At lower ranks research is probably more important. (artifact is also important and most so at higher levels where research becomes less of a priority).

Go builder. I haven't. I stayed Excavateur for about 500 ranks but it was pretty difficult and I must admit my ships not very good right now. The best tech costs a lot in upkeep and often doesn't offer a massive practical bonus. Builders can afford to install the best tech and manage the upkeep easier.

Wow. Nexus? I'm running 5 mk3 neutronium, and I'm researching fermonics because I'm lacking hull.
Admittedly, I'm running antiprotons, but guns are the next on my list.
Rank 217... And my upkeep is 338.1M. I could easily manage 500M with repairs from NPCing. I'm A zolazin sab too.

My advice:
Get your mining up. It's the only long-term solution. 2177/hour is mine, and I'm coping fine.
Only get mk3/4 modules. skip the interims. They just cost extra credits/minerals in the long run.
Upgrade things one at a time. When I've researched Heavy nulls/perfect fermonics, I'm upgrading 1 module a time, not all 5 at once. I then check the next day to see if overall I gain or lose out on upkeep. If I'm still gaining, I upgrade the next one. If I'm making a loss, I up my mining before upgrading the next one. that way, credits don't spiral out of control.
Reach rank 200. Seriously. The amount of KU and Ad I'm getting has nearly doubled since reaching rank 200.
Join a good legion who can help with emergency funds.
Sell any modules that you can recover, IF they're uninstalled and will be for more than 10 days. upkeep= 1/10 of the buy price (I think), and you pay upkeep on uninstalled modules.

Oh and hacking... I look on my BT. Poor reps get disabled - I know they'll go down easy, and won't retaliate. Higher reps get a hack. Bigger guns get a hack. It'd take too much energy to disable them, so I just hack them. I can use the badge and RP anyway.

Best defence is to just cloak up. can't be found, can't be hacked. I get all I need from special modules.

upkeep is 1/20 the original cost

By your level you should be able to start NPC hunting pretty well. Get Very Large Toxics and upgrade them with Toxic Purifiers, I've got nearly 20K mining just from my Toxics that I've been upgrading (I'm rank 917 though).

definately what he said, I started NPCing at rank 100 and I've gotten many planet production boosters, 8 planetary data optimizers, 12 terraformers, and 16 toxic purifiers, getting me 2 maxed out toxics
Also, look out for mining planets, practically half my total planets are mining planets, accounting me 4.3k mining an hour, which is a lot, unfortunately, I can't collect it all before it caps on school days

Okay, I am rank 390 Right now.
I had a good enough upkeep and planning to get Heavy Thetas by Rank 220. Here is what you should do
GO BUILDER! The 50% less will be extremely vital.
NPC RUN HEAPS! This will eventually gain you more Blade Harvesters, which equals more mining on toxic purifiers.
BUILD UP ATTACK! You want to kill NPC's quickly and more efficiently.

Another tip is to sell a couple of planets that you wouldve taken yourself. This will build up your income.
Have a good legion that can give you credits if you ask (Dont be afraid, but don't do it all the time)

I was Builder until rank 350, when I had enough mining (8000+ At that point) to afford to be fixer. This ultimately means less 200M repairs for me.

Rank 712, Konqul Excavator.
Daily upkeep: 10.8B

Just keep on working on getting and improving your mining planets. Even with my upkeep, I still come ahead almost 6B credits a day.
The only things that I uninstall are my relays, when I'm close to leveling.
As Mitchell mentioned, shoot lots of NPC's, Blade Harvesters help greatly with mining production.

Thank you guys for all the great replies and tips. This helps a lot!!!
Since I created this post, I've reach rank 200 (thanks to some extra energy cubes).

I've already made changes to my ship and started increasing my mining. Before I barely had enough credits to take care of my upkeep and repairs. Now I have way more than enough.
I was also able to upgrade to the Intra-D Collider mk IV reactors.

I thought that uninstalled devices were not included in my daily upkeep, but after reading the replies here, I found out that isn't true, so I quickly dropped the 2 big @zz scanners that I had sitting in the cargo bay

My Non-player kills is up to 1188, so I'm already up on that one, and I keep preaching to the guys in my legion to do them as well. The next highest guy in my legion is ranked 155, so I've had a couple of elites I had to take down on my own.

Anyway, enough rambling. Thanks guys!!!

Lol, I'm level 110 with only a 6.7mil upkeep

lol... My ship is very full.

Size Class Dreadnaught
Weapons Heavy Singularity Launcher x3, Dominion Cannon - Mark III x3, Dominion Cannon - Mark II, Vortul Blast Phaser x2, Crimson Auto-Phaser x2, Prototype Mech XV
Energy Singularity Core - Mark IV, Surge Plexus x2, Drannik Power Core x2, F.A.T.H.E.R. x2, X Conduit x4, Omicron Injector
Sensors Decryption Quad-Frame x2, Sha'din Supercomputer, AI Supercomputer
Hull Nexus Armor x4, Protean Armory x3
Shields T.O. Harmonic Pulser, Q-Phase Battery Array, Harmonic Resonator
Cloaking Zolazin Jammer x2, Gamma Channeler
Defenses BM50 Convoy Shuttle x2, Dark Ring Thruster, Thrust Stabilizer

The only things hiding in my hold are 2 Singularity Cores - Mark IV, 1 Stryll Hunt Sensor, and 1 Psionic Amplifier.

I could only imagine what my upkeep would be if I didn't have so many specialized items.