I've seen quite a few of these Dark Iso-Runners and I love how many I've been seeing, what I DON'T love is the MASSIVE defense value these things have.

I'm rank 303 with 8 Heavy Null Rays and quite a few other things, and these Iso-Runenrs have TWICE my Attack as Defense. That's just ridiculous!

Putting all my best weapons and using all my attack boosts in, I still only get around 4880 attack, opposed by the Iso-Runner's 7210 defense.

OK, sure I COULD pop a Saboteur, but I've been running low on those (did Dan change the drop rate or just keep adding things and not raising the drop rate of those things we'd LIKE to be getting?)

Seriously, I'd rather not have to pick between popping an artifact or spending ~350 energy for every Iso I run across to get the artifact required for a mission.

Is this a glitch? did Dan put in the wrong defense value for these things? Or did he WANT us to spend significant resources for each STEP of this mission (not even each COMPLETION)

Yes, the mission and its requirements were intended to be very difficult.

Yeah, I'm glad I haven't finished Crystal Inferno yet; I'll wait until I have significantly more attack (or really want an Irradiated planet).

OK, fair enough, I just wanted to be sure it was meant to be either 1/4 my energy or a (somewhat) rare artifact.

I was hoping it was otherwise, but I can live with it if that's the intent.

Trust me an improvement on toxic is massive, these are tough for a reason... hehe

11500 hull
Attack 6380
Defense 19240

what is the actual result of an irradiated planet? is it size 1 resource 2? or size 2 resource 2? or size 1 resource 1?

1 size, 2 res, like most similar buffs

Binary can i ask what your in game name is?

The wiki says Irradiated planets get a passive attack bonus as well. Is that correct?

Yes.

300 Attack, 300 Defence passivly.