Finally beat 71

[tygarimew]

It took me two months.
This has been the hardest level to beat thus far.
I am probably doing something wrong but I don't know what.

Ship
2 Laser Cannon
2 Bomb Launcher
2 Missile Launcher
2 Continuous Generator
1 Deflector Shield
Advanced Synth Station
Resource Refinery

Crew Masteries Missing
Sleeve Storage
Shard Link
Research
Base

Crew Upgrades
Ranks 390
Engineering 1999
Acumen 1943
Proficiency 2025
Ingenuity 2302

Synths
Several Ultima's Infinite
Working on Ultima Conductive Alloy
Will infinite in a few days

Shards
Red Synth 6
Pink Power 6
Orange Warp 6
Blue Crew 6
Green Flex 6
Link Green Orange

All Challenges Complete

Research e68-e70

Compute Levels
3.22e21x Damage and Shield
Everything Capped except 1.1 Cap+++ which is 23 per sec

[Syiss]

I think you've definitely made a few mistakes, mostly in your choices of what to unlock with your crew mastery points. But first a few other things.

I don't love your ship layout. I don't know what the laser cannons are doing in a build that clearly is getting its primary damage from kinetic. You'll benefit from the two "all damage to shields" bonuses, but you get nothing from supportive routing which is the more beneficial perk imo. I guess it lets you run the laser boost as well, but you're only getting a moderate fire rate boost to your kinetic weapons from that.

My build for 70-75 was:

1 Disruption Charge (full support mode, only there to disrupt enemies)
1 Beam Laser (primary damage)
2 Charge Lasers (full support, and specced for fire rate, they are here to pop barriers and boost the range of my other weapons, but they do a bit of damage as well)
1 Gatling Laser (secondary damage, but also good at popping barriers on faster enemies)
1 Laser Cannon (full support mode)

1 Bulk Generator (probably should have switched to continuous, but Bulk works okay as long as you slot in the automatic shield boost module)
2 Deflectors (both set for max bonus proc buildup)

Regarding your utility slots, you should be switching these out via retrofits multiple times per Prestige, its unclear from your post whether you are doing this. I like to start out with the Computer Lab and Resource Refinery at the start of each Prestige to farm up salvage and build up my compute multiplier. Depending on my other goals for that run, I'll stay in this configuration for maybe 1-6 hours. Combine this with setting up your Crew to boost salvage and compute bonuses as well.

At this stage of the game, the Research and Synth utilities are completely useless unless you are also specced into those aspects with your Crew at the same time, so focus on one at a time, retrofitting and resetting your crew once you sort of cap out what you can accomplish at your current progression level. Same thing with Base progression. Combine the Research or Synth utility with the Reactor which should be able to give you some significant boosts by this stage.

Now back to your crew mastery choices. You should have unlocked Mastery 2 for each crew member by now, but if not go get those points, they shouldn't take long if you just focus on them and nothing else for a prestige. If you have already used them all up, I would suggest using some AI points to respec. You are really going to want the Research and Base masteries as these will basically boost the progressions of all your other systems. For reference when I hit sector 72 I had e103-104 in all unbound researches, to give you an idea of how far you are behind in just that aspect. You didn't mention your base progression, but I suspect you are far behind where you should be there as well. My choices for masteries went Sleeve Storage > the four XP gain ones > Crew Max > Warp > Research > Base > Synth.

Just as a final note, I've sort of mentioned this at different points already, but its important to specialize at this stage of the game. This has been somewhat true throughout the game, but Crew ratchets this up to the next level. The amount of progression you can make in a specific system, such as research or compute, by fully aligning your crew, active modules, v device, and reactor bonuses is so bonkers that it makes it pointless to try to work on two different things at once. You should pick a thing to focus on, get everything aligned on that one goal, progress it as far as is reasonable (this may just be a few hours, or an entire day or two, depending on the system), then reconfigure everything to focus on something else. I went in a sort of pattern (always starting each prestige with some time spent on compute/salvage) of Synth+Warp > Research > Base > back to Synth+Warp, mixing in a bit of time here and there to farm Shards or focus on crew levels/ranks at various points. For reference I went from sector 69 to 75 in about 5 days.

[engineer1888]

if you have completed all the challenges then it is worth using a mastery reset to replace the compute and energy mastery upgrades with the base and research ones. Pushing those as high as you can will push everything up.

as has already been mentioned, pick an area and focus on it until you can't push it any higher. Right now I would say you want to that with research first, then probably bases. those can get you a ton of improvement in most areas if they are currently lacking. There is a decent guide for how to lay out bases for maximum output. Getting especially base 1 and 3 improved will really help.

[Lunix Vandal]

I notice a couple big things from your stats:
- Compute, Synth, Resources, and the Module Slot are four of the weakest Mastery Upgrades you can pick up pre-74, and you have all of them. IIRC the game gives you a free Crew Mastery Respec consumable around this point -- it would be well worth reconfiguring to get the Shard Link and Base upgrades. Sleeve Storage is usually recommended as one of the first upgrades, but since you already have all your Mastery 2's it might not be worth it at this point.
- If something in this game is worth doing, it is worth focusing on to the exclusion of everything else, especially once you have access to the third row of crew upgrades. The Stats & Info menu is your best friend, since it can show you both breakdowns of where all your stat multipliers are coming from and if there are any you forgot to apply. It won't tell you the best way to spread out your skill points on each crew member, but the rule of thumb is to split them as evenly as you can between all the skills that boost the thing you're working on.
- If *anything* in this game is going to take "a few days" to finish even when you are fully focused on it, it's not worth doing *at all*. There is 100% something more productive you can be working on.
- Speaking of which, your Research is *very* far behind. Even without the Research Mastery upgrade, you can (and *should*) get over e103 in all six Unbound Researches around this point in the game. This will give you almost x100 Synth Speed and even bigger increases to the other five stats that Research boosts. You didn't share your Bases or Warp skill tree, but I'd bet they're also lagging behind.
- You should "almost always" have the Battle shard equipped. Doesn't matter which slot, just having Battle VI equipped will let you park 1-2 sectors ahead of what you can comfortably do without it thanks to the x100 damage-and-shields boost it gives. This is particularly relevant for Crew XP -- being able to farm 1 sector higher is the same boost as having a "free" Crew Shard VI linked to *every* slot.

For builds and build order for advancing past this point, check out terry's guide to early-midgame: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3031062172
and Chebeck's guide to S69-74: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3109943320

[tygarimew]

Alright i respec'ed my research and raised it all to e93

[76561199215865625]

definitely not supposed to take 2 months

research: e93 is very low for sector 71-74(dont even know how you managed to reach 71 with e70). preferably try to get it to e103-106 before doing tasks
shards: dont try to synth and warp at the same time. materials engineer shows you that already.
compute: 1.1cap+++ needs to be on 1040/sec or it may as well be doing nothing(and dont try to do compute task without a maxed compute levels booster module)
synth: if a material takes more than a few hours to infinite, dont even try to synth it at all. forget about it until you do some other things

make sure you are using 3rd row crew skills right, or things will take 50x longer than theyre meant to

[Dragoonend]

So my only question is what is your warp drive at and your bases at. Cause those two can help u with everything else

[tygarimew]

I have most of the warp drive e27 upgrades.
Missing some of the higher rank points and energy boosts.

Base 1 - 4e18
Base 2 - 7e9
Base 3 - 7399
Base 4 - 369

I did a reset like i was suggested on my masteries. dropped
Compute Mastery, Synth Mastery, Resource Mastery, Module Mastery

I picked up everything else except Sleeve Storage Mastery.

It was asked before about my crew masteries
All mastery 2 except one which is mastery 3,

With the new changes i raised my research to e98.

[best bulliet target]

if you've read chebecks guide then you'll hav noticed the next big thing might be bases.

most seem 2 Oom out (order of magnitude) except your syth that's what i nearly call dangeoursly low. But good job on raising your research.