1. I'm keeping decks low after reset. 500 decks should do it really, you are using rank pts for energy and attack, only 2 things not otherwise AP upgradable. Max the heck out of AP. If you are growing hull/def fast with AP, you can slowly boost decks, maybe. 1 deck / rank might be optimal since I think that's the alternate calculation if your decks are too low, for the maxdamage.

2. Engineers primary, excess can go to energy and a bit to tac, just cause weapons hit a limit with low decks. Once you are growing faster than matched npcs, you are set.

3. Mission npc = fixed, lower attack to get max XP out of it, also it does low damage as you grow. So it raises overall npc farming XP, although it drops rare spawns by some fraction. I have to analyze how much that is true, but I think if you have 3 common matched + 3 mission you think you'd get 1/2 the planet drops. However, mission npc also means high xp = more excess for tac or energy, beyond 4.0 ratio even.

4. match npc gets easier at higher rank, if you match their def growth with your attack growth, cause their cap grows linear but their health grows as square root function. Note: tech collector always sucks xp wise.

5. Yeah, no mining except the irradiated planets (first thing I dumped was mining). Enough RP for decent techs but mainly to hit 47m RP for RP->income to get more planets. AP->RP through droids is too slow, but after say 30k RP you are good to let it ride and do 100% AP. Make 15x planets, and get v.massive gas planets for stuff unless you got a booster like a gamma (then QSE and use it).

6. 4.0 ratio I am pulling with even tech collectors perma. on , but with neurals only. A natural 4.0 IS hard to get without mission NPCs. To be more precise at rank 1500-something, lets consider commons as the main part of this:

4.0+ with neural at high rank (less shots on matched):
Charger = 2 shots(30xp) / 5.1 xp rate
Runner = 3 shots(35) / 4.43
Hawk = 7-9 shots(30) / 2.85
Tech collector = 6-8 shots(20 yuk) / 2.67

Average: 3.76, so the +15% of neurals puts me over (4.33). Tech collectors are not forced unless you do 82+ missions. Run no scan while hunting.

Mission:
Chron Shift Carrier 4 shot / 4.10 xp rate
Drannik Archivist 8 / 3.98
Rogue Data Analyzer 6 / 3.77

6 NPCS (not tech collector) average = 4.038. Now, with guaranteed 5 rank pts/rank, you hit it. With some extra from prisoners and modules, you definitely got it. Data analyzer is worth the RP bonus even though the XP is a bit lower. You get 1/3 less rare drops, if what I think is the effect is true, but 10% more XP. In extreme cases, you can get the matched shots even lower, but it takes a lot of excess tac and high rank.

i stopped adding decks at 298 and i have found it to be perfect all around so far