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« on: December 30, 2018, 01:21:26 AM »
Value lies, and is being removed from the planets column next build iirc, or at least replaced with class which is generally a better measure of usefulness.
Things to consider would be:
Firstly, Hazard rating MASSIVELY affects your colony's profitability. I made the mistake of settling a 250% volcanic world as a partner to a more reasonable terran planet in my first game of this patch and it generally was just an anchor on everything. It got a high value rating because of ultra rich ore and rare ore veins in addition to having vast ruins but the income from exporting ore wasn't that much higher than the cost of the mining facility itself. Another colony of mine with fairly meagre ore reserves generated about the same profit because the upkeep on the mines was much lower.
Secondly, know that for fulfilling industry/populace demands with in-faction supply, each colony only considers the LARGEST source of any resource. If said source can't meet a need then it's made up for by out of faction imports (if it can). You can have a single planet with a farm producing food for your entire faction, or a single source of rare ore. Doubling up on production is a good idea as if a colony can meet its own needs for something it can export it for profit but otherwise you can skip putting in multiple instances of low-profit industries. In my first game I settled a low hazard tundra world with trace volatiles, producing 8 units. All my other colonies have fuel production with synchrotrons requiring 6 units of volatiles and they both make a ton of money and ensure that there's large amounts of fuel to grab at those colonies when I visit while doing exploration runs to distant planets
Thirdly, planetary ruins are cool because you get access to tech mining, which can produce a lot of useful goods for very little upkeep. Going from the above point however, once you build an industry that produces a superior quantity of a resource that techmining provides (metal, machinery, fuel, supplies), then techmining's production of that good is stripped from consideration.
Given this I would consider that the first planet you colonize should be low hazard rating and has a wide variety of resources, even if they aren't super high ones (so poor ore/farmland/whatever is fine), with techmining being a very neat bonus as it will allow you some flexibility early on. For your subsequent colonies low hazard should still be the primary concern but you don't need to dismiss a planet because it can't farm or has no ore or whatever. You just want low hazard and for it to be the BEST at providing some resource, or for it to have a resource that usually isn't found on low-hazard worlds (Like volatiles, they don't show up on terran/arid or other "habitable" planet types). That way you can have a "main" colony which has the important industries and every other colony is just a boost to income or a safe port for exploration.
Location's also kind of handy because if you can get a planet close to the central cluster it's less travel to go back to home base after expeditions to the outer systems. Plus accessibility is higher.