How do you manage planets?

[In-Bread Dog]

New player. Mostly figured out other systems and mechanics, but I still have no clue how to manage planets/colonies and can't seem to find any good guides on how to do so.

[Cerodil]

What exactly are you asking?

How to determine what to make a planet focus on?

How to control the jobs that pops are preforming?

Or are you asking about planet stats like amenities, housing and crime?

[Cinnamoon_dragon]

Basic rule: build new facilities only when you have an unemployed population. You pay for the maintenance of each building, whether someone works there or not. A lot of unprofitable buildings can easily start a spiral of bankruptcy for your empire.

You can specialize your worlds, for example in resource extraction or science, and typically you want to get one science world as soon as possible.

[ChaffyExpert]

Basically spam minerals then specialize tbh.

[mr_bman]

Build districts over buildings. Build buildings when you have enough districts to take advantage of the bonuses a building will give you. Always have at least one stronghold on each planet so they'll put up a fight instead of immediately surrendering if you get attacked. That'll buy you time. Don't make too many specialized planets. Have your starter worlds making a little of everything so combined they put out a lot of everything. That way if you lose some worlds in a fight you're still producing some of everything.

[Kyle]

homeworld = science (and maybe some unity), second world is food/minerals, third is alloy & minerals. By the time I've got my third I know if I'm going for an early war, no neighbors, or whatever circumstance I find myself in and just go full speed into war, science, or unity while living on the razors edge of bankrupty on minerals, food, and energy.

After a decade or two of sitting on that edge you'll have the groundwork laid to conquer the galaxy (peacefully or otherwise), spend 2 decades doing it and get bored and just start over because the AI just couldn't keep up.

[CrUsHeR]

Specialization is the key to success.

Likely it doesn't seem like a huge difference to change a colony designation now; however the bonuses from specializing carry through your production chains.

Example a research planet with a couple of mining districts may seem like no big deal - but if you instead have a mining panet where pops only produce minerals with the appropriate bonus, a factory planet with reduced minerals upkeep for artisans, and a tech-world with reduced consumer goods upkeep for researchers, the difference becomes very significant.

So basically, every planet only needs the minimal infrastructure:

1) Robot Assembly (replace with Clone Vats if going for Genetic Ascension)
2) Gene Clinics for pop growth, habitability and basic amenities
3) Optional: Holo-Theaters for extra amenities

Everything else should only support the designation of the planet.

One exception are refineries for strategic resources. While there is a separate designation for these, they take up a lot of space in the build slots, and planets are generally too valuable to only have 9 refineries. In turn, the mineral / food / energy planets have a lot of empty build slots. So it makes the most sense to use every free slot on worker planets with refineries.


Then there are some special cases, i believe some of these require or work better with some of the DLCs.

Example i mostly play Megacorp empires, these do not produce energy or consumer goods from jobs. Instead you generate this through trade value.
So a dedicated Trade colony should be one of the first things to set up.

Void Dwellers, Shattered Ring and perhaps other origins also won't work with the standard specialization strategy. In particular with Void Dwellers, the habitats just can't do one thing, due to the way how the orbitals work.

[CrUsHeR]

Also one general tip: Do not build too many jobs in advance, unless you really know what you're doing and why.


There is one common "trap" for new players, where they constantly find themselves lacking certain resources. As response they just build new jobs.

However, you actually are limited by the number of pops, so simply creating new jobs will only worsen the problem by increasing your upkeep, and lacking other resources instead.

In particular for specialist and ruler tier jobs; since workers will always promote their stratum and leave their worker job behind, this can tear some further unfixable holes into your economic wallet.



Basically there's a lot of trial and error here for new players; as you'll see here on the forum, different players also develop their own different strategies, so whatever strategy works out in the end is valid.

[mss73055]

I specialise from the start: basic resources +25%, then factory/forge for -20% materials.
This way I not end up waiting for angry specialists to demote.

I automate when I get annoyed with clicks, or during the first war.
Automation needs a steady income of minerals. Automation should not undermine this income, thereby cornering your economy.

Keep in mind automation tries to maximize short term growth. You ever got to do the long term planning yourself.

Notice how you instantly can flip ordinary planets from consumer goods to alloys and back. You need a convenient amount of these planets, so you can appoint them as the situation requires.

[monkeypunch87]

Or, different method, in my opinion good for a new player: Reduce the amount of planets in the setting and don't specialize your planets, balance them out so every planet can stand on itself without any deficit. It works for like 1000 game hours now for me.
You can do specialization in the endgame, if you desire it.

[Angelis Mortis]

Probably be best to watch a streamer or look on YouTube for game-play videos. It looks overwhelming to a noob but you quickly get the hang of it once you figure out the economy.

I'll give you brief shakedown of the economy.

Energy = powering buildings paying maintenance on fleets/armies
Minerals = building planet structures like districts and buildings.
Alloys = Ships, stations and mega-structures
Research = Advance tech
Unity = advances culture (empire wide buffs)
Influence = political decisions (wide range of buffs and actions such as making claims on territory or treaties and internal political actions. Also needed to build new outposts that claim new territory)

So if you look at the tool tips when you hover over things you should see associated production and maintenance costs. A good rule of thumb focus on minerals, energy, food, alloys until you get a good solid base and better feel for the nuances. Minerals are pretty much the fundamental needs as they build all the other producers. By the time you feel comfortable with these basics you will understand the more specialized ones such as motes, crystals, gas, zro, living metal etc.

Tooltips while not exhaustive are pretty good and should help along the way. Best practice play vanilla small game as Terrans and just fart around and learn from your mistakes until you feel comfortable. Shouldn't take more than one or two short games.

[corisai]

Originally posted by mss73055:

I specialise from the start: basic resources +25%, then factory/forge for -20% materials.

Second this. Of course sometimes RNG Jesus hates me and I'm forced to use mixed colonies up to midgame as my planets are total crap but I'm trying my best to specialize from day 1.

Bonus look small but really helping to start snowballing.

[corisai]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

1) Robot Assembly (replace with Clone Vats if going for Genetic Ascension)
2) Gene Clinics for pop growth, habitability and basic amenities
3) Optional: Holo-Theaters for extra amenities

Holo-Theatres instead of Gene Clinics since midgame. Clinics need ~75 years to pay off.

As for robots - your another option is to play plants. And overall for non synths/cybernetic empire robot assembly is not THAT good, especially with scaled pop growth.

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

In turn, the mineral / food / energy planets have a lot of empty build slots. So it makes the most sense to use every free slot on worker planets with refineries.

Except food as you can build Hydroponics. If you are not running Catalythic - it more then worth to have a very few dedicated Farm planets (rolled a natural bonus to food production) and fill them with Hydroponic Farm instead.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by corisai:

Holo-Theatres instead of Gene Clinics since midgame. Clinics need ~75 years to pay off.

That's a pretty weird fallacy.


The gene clinics give their habitability boost instantly, and pops grow 10% faster than without (20% after upgrade)

The jobs are never wasted, as you can seamlessly replace them with whatever else you want.
And building a holo-theaters is overkill, in fact my megacorps never need even one of those since happiness / amenities are already capped with just the gene clinics.

Additionally, the medical workers increase organic pop assembly substantially (cyborg and bio)



TBH same like your ideas about fleet equipment, it seems like you missed several major updates

[Geoff]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Specialization is the key to success.

I go with generalization. As a soft rule, I don't allow myself to build two copies of the same building on one planet.

To the OP, a couple of tips.

First, planet management doesn't require a ton of micromanagement if you're playing as a free civilization. Build the infrastructure and your pops will move themselves to find jobs that suit them. More authoritarian government structures tend to require more micromanagement of your worlds, so free civilizations are easier to practice on.

Second, aim for surpluses at the national level. Make sure you have and maintain a stockpile sufficient to run for a few months (and later years) in deficit. If you have sufficient reserves, then you have plenty of time to correct any production shortfalls as they arise.

Third, overbuild your capacity. If you're struggling with consumer goods (most common source of struggle for players starting out), then keep building factories until you have more than you need. You can go to the "population" tab of your planets, expand the specialist job tier, and then turn off factories you don't need. So if it's a major thing you keep running out of, don't quit as soon as you're back in surplus - keep developing a bit until you've got more than you need and just keep the extra capacity idle until you need it.

Fourth: focus on overprooduction of the simplest items first. In the early game, that's food, energy and minerals. In the early game, I try to get myself up to a surplus of 100 each in those three categories. It's tempting to overbuild a bunch of alloy foundries and civilian fabricators, but its easier to promote a miner up to an artisan than it is to demote an artisan down to a miner job. So try to have more miners than you need. When you're adding research capacity, ramp up your consumer good production first - pick a target surplus, pick an overshoot target, when your reach the overshot then start adding research capacity (if you've overbuilt in anticipation you'll already have the jobs and just need to reopen them to your pops).

[corisai]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

The gene clinics give their habitability boost instantly, and pops grow 10% faster than without (20% after upgrade)

After early-game it doesn't matter for 99% planets - you're either have a 100% habitability or planet is not worth the efforts (due how to pop growth scalling is working).

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

The jobs are never wasted

2 pops being medics compared with 1 entertainer (would be enough for ages for many new colonies)? Definitely wasted.

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Additionally, the medical workers increase organic pop assembly substantially (cyborg and bio)

Still takes ages to pay off itself.

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

TBH same like your ideas about fleet equipment, it seems like you missed several major updates

Nah, we are playing on different difficulties. It's clear because you don't know how brutal PD of FA/AE on GA :)