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[SCC]

Part I: Planets

As far as I know, there are 5 distinct types of planets: rocky (ice/metallic/unstable), irradiated, barren (bombarded/desert) and volcanic; arid, desert, terran eccentric, terran, tundra and water; toxic, cryovolcanic and frozen; gas and ice giants.
Barren planets seem to have little draw. They can only have ore, rare ore and ruin deposits. They typically also are hardly habitable, at the very best having just thin atmosphere. Why would you colonise them, if just about any other planet does what they do and does it better?
Habitable planets in general are kind of good, except they can have literally every possible condition in the game (with even volatiles being possible, if rare, to occur), on top of typically having the best hazard ratings. On one hand, it makes them very valuable. On the other, it's kind of cheap that these planets can get everything they need, as well as the fact that arid, desert and tundra planets aren't really any worse than terran planets. I think water planets have some special conditions and buildings, but I haven't gotten to checking them out yet.
Toxic, cryovolcanic and frozen planets are the volatiles+ores planets. I think they tend to be equal or worse in hazard rating to barren planets, but I wouldn't care about it. It's better to have one planet for both ores and volatiles and one free, than to have 2, even cheaper, for ores and volatiles separately.
Gas and ice giants give volatiles. Only. No unique buildings or anything. Nada!
This means that, with the right setup, all you really need is a planet with volatiles and/or ores, a habitable planet that has what the other doesn't and a planet with the best ruins you can find, for these sweet sweet blueprints.

Part II: Industries

Space port and Megaport are fine, but the fact that they can be raided and your accessibility completely nuked is outrageous. A player that doesn't pay attention, doesn't care or is outright tricked by the game (as was I, when Sindrian Diktat sent 2 expeditions in one, but I managed to defeat only one of them - the one that went to disable relatively unimportant mining, and let the space port one through) will have serious trouble in the following months - especially if they're unprepared. These buildings shouldn't be a target of raids until much later. Unless the planet has only one money-making industry, disabled space port is as powerful as raiding all the other industries at once.
Farming is okay. I don't have much to say about it. It's nice that it starts without any demands, then creates one for heavy machinery as it expands. It's one of the better starting industries, as nobody minds that one and it makes decent money.
Mining might be a little too versatile. Ore, rare ore, volatiles and organics all at once? Other than that, it's useful to start up your colony, even if it attracts the ire of Persean League or Sindrian Diktat.
Refining is better focused than mining, but still useful and profitable. I like it.
Tech-mining produces a wide array of useful resources, but it eats a bit into the heavy industry. I wish that size 3 colony didn't actually give any resources or just one of them, with selection and amount produced expanding as the colony grows and there are more explorer and scavengers.
I haven't had the occasion to check out aquaculture yet. All I know it's bugged and it uses heavy machinery from the get go.
Fuel facility is straightforward and useful. It's a nice thing that you need a synchrotron core to make lots of fuel.
Light Industry is situational. Normally it produces consumer and luxury good from organics (wish it used more resources), but if you have free port enabled on a colony, it also makes recreational drugs. The second option is way better, as drugs make twice as much money as both types of goods combined, if not more. If you try setting up a light industry on a planet without a free port, you're more likely to lose money than not.
Heavy Industy is pretty good. Maybe too good. Not only there is little heavy industry in the sector, its output can be increased by an upgrade, a special item (which itself has a better version) and a typical AI core! It's not hard to become pretty significant player on 4 markets at once, which makes this very profitable industry, on top of giving several other benefits, like enabling faction doctrine and custom production, which significantly increase your fighting capacity.
Commerce is fine, though I wish it did something else than add 1 stability. It feels a bit cheap, since so many other things also increase stability.
Ground Defences and Heavy Batteries are ok. Space stations are pretty cool to fight together with, instead of against, though I wish I could outfit them myself. Patrol HQ and Military Base are also sufficient, though they feel a bit redundant, since all types of defences increase stability, and space stations and military installations at the moment do the same (fight in space), though the former is more useful if you're fighting the raids off yourself. High Command, I assume, does nothing and is merely a place holder. Planetary shield is kinda bad, since it doesn't create any demand, doesn't increase the global market value, but I guess it stacks with ground defences.
Waystation does increase accessibility a bit, but I doubt it increases it enough. It increases colony's profits and creates some demand for other colonies to fulfill, though, so I think it might be worth it. It also might give you an edge, if you're trying to one-up competitors.

Part III: the suggestions

Barren planets, or rather all planets without atmosphere and significant seismic activity, should have waystations replaced with more effective "mass drivers", for the same price.
Gas giant colonies, if you plan on making them more unique, could be colonies on an orbital ring around the planet. They could have hazard rating equal to 100% for calculating maintenance of structures that don't do anything with the planet itself (like refining, which you can build on any planet you want), but the actual hazard rating would count for structures that reach into the planet itself.
I would like to see some system-wide conditions, which could be built on any planet in the system, which could give incentive to settle an otherwise unremarkable planet just to be able to benefit from the condition. Stuff like metal asteroids or ship graveyard.
It would be nice if there was more stuff to build on stable locations. One of them is a non combat space station, where you could do even as little as just store cargo and ships. Myself, I'd like to see waystation changed to a space structure like that as well, so that additional accessibility requires some sacrifice.

Tech-mining, as said, I'd like to give less resources and more interesting stuff.
Light Industry could use some other resources than just organics, as well as suck less.
Organics could stand being used in some other way as well, like a unique item-requiring industry producing synthetic replacement organs legally. I imagine pirate or some other raids would try to get that shut down.
Heavy industry could perhaps become split into military and civilian parts or something. I just don't feel comfortable with how easy it is to become an industrial powerhouse and how few planets even have heavy industry. Alternative could be prioritisation of certain branches at the expense of others.
I would also like for planets to reach 6+ population to have some special requirements. Awaking cryosleepers could be one of them. Just how many people are unwilling to live in colonies in the core?

The biggest suggestion I'd like to make is to change how planetary slots are limited. Limit the slots based on the colony population and planet size; each level of population could grant one slot and planet size could also give one per size increase. For example, +1 on small, +2 on medium and +3 on big planets. This would mean that you can't just build 10 industries right after plopping the colony down, but rather have to specialize, look for bigger planets or wait for the colony to grow.

[RedHellion]

The biggest suggestion I'd like to make is to change how planetary slots are limited. Limit the slots based on the colony population and planet size; each level of population could grant one slot and planet size could also give one per size increase. For example, +1 on small, +2 on medium and +3 on big planets. This would mean that you can't just build 10 industries right after plopping the colony down, but rather have to specialize, look for bigger planets or wait for the colony to grow.

+1 for this. It feels really weird that I can build a fully-industrialized colony with full Military Base, Orbital Works, fully-upgraded space station, etc on a brand-new 3-population colony. It also means that no tough decisions have to be made about what industries to build on each colony, right now you just figure out a decent build order and do that for every colony (minus any industries with specific requirements that a particular planet doesn't meet) - it might as well be automated for you and you just allocate money towards general monthly "colony development".

[SCC]

I forgot about one thing, about adding a new industry... Alex, let us build a post office so that we finally may stop doing errands every time we change our base of operations!

[Megas]

Water world adds +25% to hazard rating (and possibly minor accessibility penalty too), and aquaculture needs machines, but it will yield tons of food even with poor farmland condition.  It is generally a good world to colonize if it has everything else.

My primary colony is a water world.

EDIT:
Commerce is useful for 1) as a second stockpile of supplies, crew, and fuel when your colony is small and 2) convenient place to sell your vendor trash at your home.  Like Tech Mining, once industry slots get full and your colony is big, Commerce is less useful than others.

The best part of Heavy Batteries is the stability bonus, which is great either for income or as a roundabout +1 to max colonies.  Defense bonus is... a bonus.

Waystation is nice for the accessibility bonus.  Also, it lets your colony stockpile even more commodities, which is nice if your fleet is a bottomless pit and eats thousands of supplies and fuel.

Accessibility and stability are very important stats for colonies.

Military Base is a big upgrade over Patrol HQ, in that Military Base produces marines, while HQ does not.  What I want to know is if upgrading from Military Base to High Command is worth it.  All I see is slightly better defense bonus which may not be worth the extra upkeep.

[mitthrawnuruodo]

I was about to suggest something similar.

The size and nature of the planet should dictate how many building slots there are. To balance it player should be able to (and need to) build certain buildings multiple times. Like space 4x games basically.

What we have now is a good starting point. But 4x games have already solved this particular design challenge. StarSector should simply extend their colony building aspect.

[SCC]

Water world adds +25% to hazard rating (and possibly minor accessibility penalty too), and aquaculture needs machines, but it will yield tons of food even with poor farmland condition.  It is generally a good world to colonize if it has everything else.

How much of that is by design, though? That bug that increases aquaculture production doesn't appear fixed in the changelog.

Military Base is a big upgrade over Patrol HQ, in that Military Base produces marines, while HQ does not.  What I want to know is if upgrading from Military Base to High Command is worth it.  All I see is slightly better defense bonus which may not be worth the extra upkeep.

It has a bigger demand, so it might be possible to make more money by exporting more resources yourself. Otherwise, unless it spawns more fleets, it's a place holder.

[Schwartz]

Have you had much luck with tech mining? I found a planet with a great number of ruins and started tech mining. Got basically nothing but 5 metals & 5 supplies per month. I understand that it yields resource icons on the planet where it's mined, but the stuff being sent off-world is in actual inventory items? Meaning 5 supplies is nothing.

[SCC]

That's as far as my luck goes. Tech-mining can be useful at the beginning, since it's still a source of fuel and supplies, but it tends to draw Sindrian Diktat's or Persean League's ire because of the metals. For actual rare items, it's not very useful. And that is haul from "vast" ruins.

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[Megas]

Tech Mining is a classic crutch or beginner industry.  At least on vast ruins, it yields much more than what industries on small colonies can churn out, but unlike most other industries, it does not grow bigger.  Assuming you have other industries, they will catch up when colony size reaches 5 or 6, and tech mining becomes obsolete after all the rare items are sucked dry.  Think of it as linear warriors and quadratic wizards, where tech mining is the warrior and other industries are wizards.

When I tech mined, I got some rare items, mostly mod specs and various weapons, maybe a blueprint or two as well.

The biggest problem with Tech Mining is they will attract enemies from Diktat or other major faction.  If you can deal with them, then tech mining is good until your other industries catch up.

@ SCC:  I do not know, I only found one water world which happened to be disgustingly rich from other resources.  Its only two problems were high hazard and lack of volatiles.

[Gothars]

The biggest suggestion I'd like to make is to change how planetary slots are limited. Limit the slots based on the colony population and planet size; each level of population could grant one slot and planet size could also give one per size increase. For example, +1 on small, +2 on medium and +3 on big planets. This would mean that you can't just build 10 industries right after plopping the colony down, but rather have to specialize, look for bigger planets or wait for the colony to grow.

I was thinking along very similar lines. The almost instant and omnidirectional growth of colonies

a) does not make for challenging colony building, since few decisions have to be made.
b) does not encourage the construction of specialized and interesting colonies.
c) draws too much ire from other factions, since you are threatening all the markets at once. The constant "expeditions" (what an euphemism) are really annoying after a while. I'd like a way to stay under the radar!
d) and thus leads to a quick and sudden abortion (or at least interruption) of the fleet roaming phase (exploration, bounties etc.).

I think that a limiting factor would improve both the inherent challenges of colony building, as well as temper the military challenges that result from it. Fledgling colonies should just not be a major player in interstellar trade, unless you purposefully specialize on one especially vulnerable segment of the market.

Speaking of, "limit" is the one side of the medal, the other side is "specialization".

player should be able to (and need to) build certain buildings multiple times.

That would be one way, or maybe just allow to "focus production" in one industry. Mh... maybe allow to rearrange the tiles via drag&drop, and their position determines their priority? Like the old fleet menu, where position determined access to crew etc. I'm just brainstorming here^^"

[Megas]

The constant "expeditions" (what an euphemism) are really annoying after a while.

That is why I call them invasion fleets, because they are Space Invaders.  Kill them before they touchdown and end the game, or your colony (through debt) in this case.

They are most annoying if my defenses are not yet strong enough to stop them.  More so if I do not have a battle station to lean on.

[Algro]

I think that a limiting factor would improve both the inherent challenges of colony building, as well as temper the military challenges that result from it. Fledgling colonies should just not be a major player in interstellar trade, unless you purposefully specialize on one especially vulnerable segment of the market.

Add me in as someone who supports limiting colony buildings, the ability to dump money and forget should be just a placeholder for a better 'colony management mini-game'.

Drawing from other colony sims like Civ or Stellaris, maybe a 2D grid should be implemented controlling how the maximum land the player can use while some land are blocked out by 'conditions' that the player must overcome to enlarge their colony. The grid will provide the opportunity to implement bonuses to structures beside one another giving the player a challenge of min-maxing.

But if Alex wants the game to be more simple, just implement colony size/ planet size structural limitations as everyone said before. A good bonus to this would be more planet/condition specific structures and structures that have additional benefit when constructed on the same planet.

[RedHellion]

Drawing from other colony sims like Civ or Stellaris, maybe a 2D grid should be implemented controlling how the maximum land the player can use while some land are blocked out by 'conditions' that the player must overcome to enlarge their colony. The grid will provide the opportunity to implement bonuses to structures beside one another giving the player a challenge of min-maxing.

I feel like that's going further than Alex was intending for colonies, as you said I think he's trying to keep it a bit simpler so that players who don't like strategy games don't feel like they have to learn/play one inside their space RPG if they want to have anything to do with colonies. I think it's the same reasoning why we don't have fine-grained control over AI-controlled ships in fleet combat, which (although it annoys me a bit when the ship AI does stupid things) I can understand. Then again, I'm a big fan of strategy/tactics games like Stellaris (less so Civ), XCOM, Homeworld, etc too. I just think Alex is going for more of an RPG with some strategic aspects ("Mount & Blade in space with a bit more empire-building detail, and exploration") than an RPG that turns into a strategy game late-game, or a strategy game with RPG elements ("Stellaris but you are also the admiral of your primary fleet and captain of its flagship, and can do side missions").

I think just adding a limiting factor for how many industries could be built on a planet given its size and current population (in which case maybe space ports are free, or don't count towards this limit, since they're generally always needed no matter what else you have on the planet) as seems to be the consensus so far would help. Though I do also like the idea of some industries having synergy when built on the same planet, to encourage planet specialization (for instance, some kind of bonus for having your refinery located on the same planet as your mine - whether it's an upkeep cost decrease due to re-use of similar machinery or lack of shipping costs/risk, or something else).

[Alorex]

I'm sure Alex will be happy to know the economy does not need to be rewritten again. As much as i would love to see the resource complexity of Distant Worlds: Universe and the production chains of the X: series, I'll save that wet dream for X4 foundations.

We have a decent start of a foundation but it's not yet enough to support the house. So here are my suggestions to improve upon what we have. I don't even care for credit if used, I just want an amazing game.

I have a simple philosophy with my suggestions. It's okay to NOT have all your colony's demands met within a limited extent. Say 20% before you start getting hammered with penalty's. This should apply to all factions, this way you will have some breathing room when setting up and you wont receive such harsh penalty's and hostilities when your just starting out. Unless your going just for that.

Planets, Resources, Production. These are the 3 areas that need MORE and refinement.

New Resources.
Rare Metals (formerly Transplutonics)
Platinum's (ore)
Refined Platinum's
Hydrogen (tried to find some unnecessarily complex name for it but, it is it's own thing apparently)
Armaments (formerly Ship Hulls & Weapons)
Basic Ships. (formerly Ship Hulls & Weapons)
Advanced Ships
Exotic Goods


New Industry's
Weapons Manufacturing.
Required to manufacture of Basic Weapons from blueprints (but not ships as they will be given generic out of your control load-outs until Heavy Industry is built)
*requires - Metals, Rare Metals, Volatile, Refined Platinum's

Pearl Farm. (Ocean Worlds Only)
Ocean worlds are as miserable to live on as they are beautiful. As such they a higher demand for luxury good exist. The Pearl Farm produces a large amount of Luxury goods and some Exotic goods from the planets ample capacity for pearl clams.
*requires – Basic Ships, Crew

Coral Farm (RARE - Ocean Worlds Only)
An Ocean World covered in a myriad of dazzling colored ocean coral. Building this farm will allows the creation of Exotic Goods.
*requires – Advanced Ships, Crew

Basic Ship Components Plant (formerly Modular Fabricators)
Required for the manufacturing of basic fighter blueprints.
It doesn't get much more basic than this unless we're going old school retro. This basic modular construction facility produces Basic Ships in great numbers.
*requires – Metals(high), Rare Metals(low), Refined Platinum's

Advanced Ship Component's Plant
Required for the manufacturing of all fighter blueprints. It's expensive however.
*requires – Metals(low), Rare Metals(High), Refined Platinum's, Organics

Zero G Shipyard. (Orbital Habitat Only)
Insanely expensive to build and operate but well worth the cost. This “RARE” facility allows faction ships to be purchased at greatly reduced cost as well as allow a faction to field large fleets quickly. Serves as an empires primary means of fielding fleets in times of war. Though still possible without, this grants more flexibility. Reduces D-mods. Benefits from a Nanoforge.
*requires – a ridiculous amount of resources. To many foreign imports will make this very expensive indeed.

Space Academy (Orbital Habitat Only)
Provides a base increase in the quality of Officers as well a a turnover in crew and marines.
*requires – Supplies, Basic Ships, Advanced Ships, Armaments

Officers Academy
Provides a significant increase in the quality of Officers. (allows for more officers with reduced D-mods)
*requires – Supplies, Basic Ships, Advanced Ships, Armaments

Asteroid Processing (Orbital Habitat Only – Must be build along an asteroid belt)
A complex facility allowing the processing of ore's in zero-g. Launching and coordinating mining fleets as well as offering a place for enterprising freelance miners to try they're luck at making a fortune.
*requires – ore's, Machines, basic ships.

Advanced Zero-G Processing. (Orbital habitat Only – upgraded from Asteroid Processing)
A massive facility handling the logistical nightmares of exploiting an entire star-systems untapped resources. Extensive refinery's for the processing of ores to vast storage space for gasses and organics.
Sends out mining fleets to every corner of the system. From planets to asteroids, it will all be brought here for processing and or distribution.
Resources produced based on whats present in the system as well as what's brought in by the returning fleets. So place this down where it will do the most good. It's comes with a cosmic upkeep cost.
*additional requirements – Supplies(massive), Consumer Goods, Advanced Ships, Crew.

Gas Giant Extraction Facility. (Orbital Habitat Only)
With out fuel the universe does not move. This facility ensures a steady supply of our life blood.
A specializes facility to extract the valuable gases of a gas giant.
*requires – Machines.

Extensive Gas Giant Operations (Orbital Habitat Only – upgraded from Gas Giant Extraction Facility)
Doubles the flow.
*additional requirements – Advanced ships. (it's a gas giant, basic wont cut it in that kind of gravity)

Changes to existing Industry's
Orbital Works
Now requires Rare Metals(in place of Transplutonics) Platinum's and Advanced Ships.

Refining
Needed for Refined Platinum's (duh)

Orbital Stations and so on.
These beast of burden will require basic ships at the start and advanced ships when fully upgraded.

High Command
Will require LESS Basic Ships but need Advanced Ships.

Megaport
Requires Advanced Ships. -2 growth and -20% accessibility without this demand being met.

Fuel Production.
No longer uses Volatile but Hydrogen now.


PLANETS & MORE

Orbital Habitats.
It's frustrating that I cant build these nor colonize these.(unless im stupid and completely missing something?) There are a few in my current game that are (Abandoned) because they got the *** kicked out of them too much, yet I can do nothing with. A lot of love obviously went into them yet I can no nothing with them.
Let us build them. Let us colonize or destroy them. Where applicable, or profitable.
Orbital Habitats should start with a neutral “0” accessibility. They're already in space so I cant see a reason one would have a negative number.
Also Gas Giants should ONLY be cognizable threw Orbital Habitats.

As you've noticed I added Hydrogen to the line up. It has been considered for many years the be all end all fuel. It super plentiful all throughout the universe. Especially on GAS GIANTS! It bothers me that these beast of burden are complete trash here.

Basic Gas Giants
No longer provide volatile but provide minimum +2 hydrogen and on very rare occasions +4

Frozen Gas Giants
Provide a minimum of +2 Volatile and occasionally hydrogen as well.

Water Planets.
*Have a good chance of having hydrogen. It's terrible horrifying byproduct is pure H2O after all. Plus our own oceans are full of the stuff.
*Have a significant increase in domestic and luxury goods demand. It's hell down there in rapture, but its an opulent hell.

Forest Planets.
Due to the unique composition of this planet the domain seed ships left it a verdant world of deep forest. A harsh and beautiful wilds of towering trees and picturesque scenery.
Forest produce more Food and Luxury Goods. A small addition of Exotic Goods. +2 Colony Growth
*RARE Mega Flora Condition
The trees of this unique world have gone berserk, reaching impossible heights and density giving birth and an ecologist wet dream within the vast myriad of mutilated ecosystems. The beast that roam ths world are as diverse magnificent as they are deadly.
+3 Exotic Goods +3 Colony Growth

Red Desert
Due to the presents of impossible amounts of red quartz the sands of this world and a shocked blood ruby red.
+2 growth. Higher demand for Luxury, and Exotic Goods.


Additional notes.
The Population & Infrastructure of your colony should always have a demand for luxurious goods such as Volturn Lobster and Luxury/Exotic Goods. Ocean worlds to always have a demand for Basic and Advanced Ships. All of which increase drastically in demand depending on the planets size and income. The more wealthy a planet is the more they should want as more and more people become wealthy.

Not full-filling all of these needs to an extent wont harm too much, but seeing that they are met means more profit for you.

All this is an attempt to create a need for more than 1 or 2 colonies that would be self sustaining. This forces players to search out places to plop down colonies to supply specific goods to the more industrialized core world/s as well as giving players a reason to consider searching for those better place to start they're empire while balancing cost with demand.

A good example of this would be the Advanced Zero-G Processing. A means to actively exploit an entire system. An enormously expensive facility to maintain that could produce a stunning amount of resources. But if the market is unable to handle such a gross saturation then those goods dont get sold and you'll find yourself bankrupt in no time. You also must consider the distance to the core worlds markets and how dangerous it would be for those fleets to reach you. They will most likely stay within there own sphere, ignoring you for the cheaper, closer supplier. Or at least that how it should work.

The biggest suggestion I'd like to make is to change how planetary slots are limited. Limit the slots based on the colony population and planet size; each level of population could grant one slot and planet size could also give one per size increase. For example, +1 on small, +2 on medium and +3 on big planets. This would mean that you can't just build 10 industries right after plopping the colony down, but rather have to specialize, look for bigger planets or wait for the colony to grow.

By the gods of gaming! We NEED this.

player should be able to (and need to) build certain buildings multiple times.

Or upgrade them to produce more like with heavy industry.

[RedHellion]

I'm sure Alex will be happy to know the economy does not need to be rewritten again. As much as i would love to see the resource complexity of Distant Worlds: Universe and the production chains of the X: series, I'll save that wet dream for X4 foundations.

We have a decent start of a foundation but it's not yet enough to support the house. So here are my suggestions to improve upon what we have. I don't even care for credit if used, I just want an amazing game.

...

All this is an attempt to create a need for more than 1 or 2 colonies that would be self sustaining. This forces players to search out places to plop down colonies to supply specific goods to the more industrialized core world/s as well as giving players a reason to consider searching for those better place to start they're empire while balancing cost with demand.

As mentioned, the planet "slot" limitation (if implemented) would already force colonies to have only a subset of possible industries built on each especially if the number of potential Industry buildings increases. I do agree the game should try to force players away from entirely self-contained colonies that can do everything even as they grow, but at the same time I don't want to see this get too close in complexity to the kind of high-learning-curve game that Distant Worlds or the X series are: dozens of goods/materials that need to be sourced separately required to make anything, long and complex production chains, etc. Expanding the variety and purpose of industries and resources can be a god way to force meaningful colony development decisions if it's done in a conservative manner so that everything still adds interesting gameplay rather than just being "make work" to artificially increase resource complexity.