Intro:

Let me begin by thanking Dan for such an incredibly versatile and addicting game! Most people I know who have played it were hooked instantly. The graphics are stunning, the storylines are engaging, and the action can get intense. However, what seems to attract and retain most people is the awesome ability to customize your ship. You are the captain and you have full control over your destiny. Will you build a brute force killer? Will you focus on the cloaking modules and strike at your enemies from the dark? Will you make your ship a flying brick wall and see who has the stamina to cut you down? From the moment the game opens up, you are faced with choices. Everything from your race to your profession is a command decision you get to make; and each one will bring you closer or move you farther from your intended goals. No one can decide for you. This is greatest thrill of the galaxy. You have more than one way to "win" the game.

Debates:

If you have spent any time on the forums, you have no doubt seen the many posts where people argue ship designs and concepts. The most classic debate is how to allocate your resources; both in terms of rank points and planet production. You will see "Decks vs Crew" discussions, "Defense vs Attack" talk, "Hull vs Shields" statements and many many more. There are posts about acquiring small planets with excellent resources vs taking only large planets with decent resources. Why there are even posts about whether you should defend your planets at all or simply maximize the resources you can get from them. Again, it all comes back down to the freedom of the player and what goals you want to achieve in the game. It is completely your choice. All this brings me to another frequent debate you can find on most facebook games- “Fast Ranking/ Leveling vs Slow Playing.”


Basic Overview:

For the purpose of my discussion here, I am going to take these two complex ideas and water them down to their basic elements. I know there will be many more ways to look at this, and I look forward to having the community share their thoughts, but here are your basic ranking options-

Fast Rankers want to get bigger than everyone else in the game. The desire is to be the first to make whatever new discoveries the game holds… the first to complete missions for example, or the first to make a break through in the Base Labs. The desire is also to be able to stomp anyone smaller than you or to prevent anyone from stomping on you. Be warned though, Dan has done a great job of balancing this game. I encourage you to read the topics that teach about the misconception of rank and pvp ability.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6125

Slow Rankers want to get stronger than everyone else in the game comparative to others around their same level. The desire is to build a ship that is hard to be destroyed. Be warned though, Dan has done a great job with the alert system in this game. Sooner or later, you will attract the attention of a much bigger, much stronger ship and your decision to lay low in the ranks will cost you.

You should also be aware that BOTH options leave you vulnerable to being accused of “farming.” If a big ship hits someone way below their rank too frequently, they are looked at as being dishonorable. They are simply sucker punching the little guy. Likewise, if a slow ranker hangs around too low for too long, it will look like you are just killing “noobs.” They are simply sucker punching the poor, new, inexperience players to the game. Both options can be viewed as “stat chasers.”

More Pros of the Slow Ranker

Since this is the route I chose and since it is the purpose of this topic, I will offer more bullet points on this design. First, a word or two about me. I am currently ranked 156. I started playing in March of 2010 (Galaxy Legions officially went online in Feb 2010). It took me a year to get to rank 100; all on purpose. I decided long ago, I was going to “win” the game by building an armored hacker. Everyone I talked to said that if you hack, you will get shot all to pieces. I wanted to defy the conventional wisdom. I wanted a ship that could hack and maintain a low death count. As of this post, I am number 2 on the hacker’s board with 3687 and I have suffered only 20 deaths (at least half of which came from extended wars not related to hacks I started; but rather fights in defense of the legion. And, 2 of them came from me hitting someone else’s Omicron Mines at low ranks…LOL)

The play slow option allowed me to-
1. Learn the game (what does what, where and when)
2. Learn the players (WHO does what, where and when…lol)
3. Build a legion of slow rankers (a strong community adds sooo much more fun to the game)
4. Build a supply of minerals so that I could always pay for my next module advancements (a good legion with deep pockets makes this one less of a need, but still, it was the plan starting out)
5. Build the armored hacker using the daily rewards and artifact production (ship bots= more space for hull, bracers= more hull, etc)
6. Not feel rushed, panicked, or worried about “losing” energy or research (thus more time to spend in real life and off of facebook!) More peace of mind


How To Build A Slow Ranker

Well, the first and most obvious thing to do is to NOT research or add energy modules. Remember, you are making a game play decision. The same way some folks decide to fly without all 5 scanners equipped, or the same way some people decide to fly without maxed cloaking, you are making a decision to fly without (or with limited) energy modules. Don’t forget, you can always rank run later if you like. The same way some players decide to replace hull with more shielding after a certain rank, you can chose to speed up or slow down at any time. Chances are you have a cargo full of energy cubes and tri matrix (because you haven’t been trying to burn them this whole time). I know one person who has 63 cubes and 22 tri… they could pick up 85 ranks over night anytime they feel like it. And, if you are a really long time player, like me, you probably have a ton of Neurals and RSLs too. I will write more on the “how to build section” but for now, I have to get to work…LOL.

Thanks for stopping by and good luck with your ship!

+1 and a truly great post.

Great job. Definitely I'm for slow building strategy and I think it worked for me. This is the best choice for working person, like me. Can't wait to see ''how to build section''

+1

Obviously, this game allows for the mix of the two extremes. Slow rank - to research the modules - alternating with a short fast rank spurts. Anything is possible.

another +1 here... currently a slow ranker... possible rank freeze within next 5 - 10 ranks.

Sticky love this

Awsome job!

Slow ranking is the way indeed!! If you have good enough of an arti income, you'll gain rank points as if you're ranking everyday anyway!

Even doing what I have done and take the middle road. Mostly leveling threw my recharge rate. There is something that is kep to the two main and the middle road.

Your amount of artifact production. More you make better off you are, fast rankers get more planets faster, slow rankers have more time, and middle of the road types want to make there own high artifact planets. All three might want to do it, but there are keys to each style.

+1 for KingJuggernaut

As you said, "we can customize our ship, and be our own captain... have fully control over our destiny"

I always been a slow leveling PvPer, I enjoy the challenge going against bigger ships

Don't know if this maybe the best or not!? Currently at 173 rank building width & depth Hopefully by rank 185, all my gears will hit the max limited

(Non-Buffed)
Sillixx Fixer
Size Class: Leviathan
Space: 1509 / 1513
Attack: 2412 (8 main affordable guns)
Defense: 2638 (3 main affordable Dampeners & 3 main Thrusters) *need one more of each
Hull: 5274

P.S. I definitely understood if I switch from 8 affordable guns to 5 expensive guns will probably increase my attack by 10-15%, same for the rest of my gears.

+1
I'm in the high 300's and recently decided to go slow.

The reason for this is to continue to collect NPC's drops that you no longer have access to after you rank up.
the best I personally feel is:
Rescued Stryll Prisoners which I believe ends at rank 600.

Agreed. Well thought out. I do a mixture of both styles. I'll rank fast for a few levels, then slowly for a few to make sure research stays up.

Sticky please! This is a great thread for new players. +1!

Thank you all for the kind words. If this does meet with Dan's approval and become a sticky, I would hope that more of the Fast Rankers or even Blended Rankers will offer their pros and cons. It would help a new player to have a better perspective on the game options available. It is also fair to say that slow ranking is the minority view. I would figure that at least 65% of ships push for quick ranks. Another 25% decide to do a little bit of both. But less than 10% of ships/players intentionally grind it out.

Slow ranking is absolutely a legitimate play style just like the small ship build. There are 3 things players will never have enough of: tactical officers, engineers, and deck.

The small ship build focuses on tac officers completely and gains massive pvp advantages but gives up rank speed and modules.

The slow rank build focuses on deck and through modules can be successful at every aspect of the game at the same time but needs high research & income to support it. This build gives up income per hour in exchange for success at almost any action you want to do.

The fast rank build focuses on engineers and needs high artifact income. Fast rankers hope to overwhelm the advantages of the other builds by claiming enough ship bots and rescued prisoners to make up for the points spent in engineers not actually making their ship stronger.

Most players will probably find themselves switching between the various strategies every once in a while. I started out as slow rank then switched to fast rank. Now I'm seriously thinking about changing to all tac officers from this point on for a while.

agreed! its informative and useful, the only suggestion i can make is to introduce newbies to the technical jargon.

What parts in particular? I don't mind making the edits if it makes it more understandable.

Well written. Even though I went the fast ranking route, I found this to informative and insightful.



2 of those three are true. I have 250+ ship bots gathering dust in my cargo hold since all they do is increase my dmg cap.

+1

Thank you Frail. If you have a moment for friendly debate, please list why the Fast Ranker option is better to you (or at least the route you chose). And good word about the decks... I have heard you should only push to add about 2200-2300 decks from rank points; after that you should put those points into crew because your artifact production will carry you the rest of the way to being a 4,400 + Collossal Galaxy Destroyer.

You've done a pretty good job of describing me.

What I wanted out of the game was the ability to be competitive against anyone else playing the game, including cc warriors. The path I chose was dumping rank points into engineers and adding to decks when needed.

The main purpose of this was to get more resource production which kind of feeds itself. More minerals equals more credits to colonize more planets. More research equals reaching higher building structures quicker to get more resources and to reach higher energy research quicker to rank quicker to colonize more planets to get more resources. More artifacts equals more prisoners to rank quicker and etc etc etc.

When I first started playing, everyone recommended going heavy decks route. Here is a link to a post I put up 7 months ago advocationg going heavy engineers. viewtopic.php?t=2580. You'll notice that King Juggernaut replied to this post bringing up the option to slow play it.

The fast ranking option allowed me to-
1. Be involved in a small community of players (let's say top 50) where most people know or know of each other.
2. Having a lot of engineers, I never have to wait for energy to build up to do something. Gives me the freedom to fight npcs whenever and for as long as I want.
3. I get to look at Dan's ship and see if any new modules are coming out and if not, I can threaten to disable him .
4. Having more planets allows me to get more excess artifacts which I can give to legion mates who might be short on certain ones.
5. Having more planets allows me to have a larger research total in which I can waste on the CT lab.
6. Since credits received from daily reward increases with rank, I was able to get 56 bil once (down side is that it barely covered the expense of invading a planet then putting buildings on it).
7. Build a ship which is competitive against anyone in the game.