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[vorpal+5]

It seems I can fulfill the needs of my colony by just dropping some trade goods (150 food, 150 organics), etc. What is confusing is that it's not consumed really, after one month or two. So how needs work exactly, because the wiki is a bit light on this. What does one need equals, in term of trade goods I deposit?

How can I get past negative growth in a 200% hazard colony? I just dropped it to have a storage space ...

How many colonies can I have?

[Mrtophatcat]

Colonies get traders from the core worlds (or from your own faction) which help fulfill the needs. The goods you drop off are only used when those traders don't make it to the colony so after the first few months they are likely getting everything they need from traders.

Honestly 200% might be too much to make people move there without hazard pay or cryosleepers. I only ever colonize planets with 100% hazard or less and never have problems with population. The only other thing I can think of is that your colony is really far away and that might be causing issues.

I think (I don't know I only ever get one colony) you can personally administer 2 colonies but can have as many as you can handle.

[Worldtraveller]

For just a single colony, I would go with a habitable world with Farming and Light Industry. That can get to self sufficiency, but won't make a lot of money, usually before the population reaches 5.

Once I have that colony up and running (I think the normal other industries I put on my first planet are Military Base/High Command, and Commerce, which brings in the $$$).

For a 'complete' colony setup (5-6 colonies, depending on whether I want to deal with having Heg issues by having an Alpha core running one), I like the following:
Cryovolcanic if available (for volatiles, and ores/rare ores. If you can find one with all three, that's gold!) or a gas giant for just volatiles. Maybe add refining to this world, but I try to save that for....
Volcanic with no atmosphere for mining of ores, and refining with the artifact. This world will eventually get Orbital Works.

If you can get everything you need with just three planets, that's super lucky. I usually wind up with a minimum of 4, and usually just get 5 because by the time I'm ready to consider that 5th colony, all my other colonies are generating a total of ~$100k/month each and adding another $100k is just gravy.

You can personally administer up to 3(?) colonies without suffering any penalties. There's technically no limit though, to the number of colonies you can administer. You can hire up to two additional Administrators, who become worth the investment of $20k/month at some point, depending on the colony. AIs can be installed in colonies and get really great bonuses, and I haven't had any go rogue on me, but I think that's a potential?

[Megas]

You need Hazard Pay, which will be expensive.  Free Port is also good for income and population, but will aggravate H and Church, which is not a good idea early when player is not ready to fight expeditions.

Accessibility is important.  Try to colonize close to core if possible.

Cyrosleeper is nice, but even if it is in a system you can colonize, you only get a partial bonus (up to +25%, like another Free Port) unless someone produces 10 organics in the sector.  It is sizable, but as not as big as people think without having Organics 10.
 
I prefer not to exceed 150% hazard on non-habitables (player will need at least one for fuel planet with synchrotron, and probably another for resources).  Up to 200% is acceptable if there is a good reason (high resources, need big fleets from Cryoarithmetic, ideal location).

Player can personally govern one colony with +2 stability bonus, two at no penalty, three at -2 stability, and so on.  Player can eat a -2 stability from three worlds no problem as long as he does not stack both Commerce and Free Port.  Four starts to get painful at -4 stability, not something to do for long-term.

Personally, I prefer not to exceed two worlds, but I will go for three temporarily if I need to.  Not a good idea to rule too many yourself unless you get Industrial Planning for yourself.  Eventually, you will get admins with IP (human or AI cores), but unless you want an Industry capstone, you want to avoid taking IP yourself.

For human admins, stick with unskilled ones at first, then upgrade to IP ones when you need them and colonies start producing enough income to pay for their upkeep.

Most players who are into colonies eventually grind Ordos for alpha cores and stick them in everything, and do not care much about inspections or Pather cells.

Dropping commodities in colony resources means they consume it if they have a shortage AND using stockpiles is enabled (which is disabled by default).  Otherwise, it just sits there doing nothing.

[vorpal+5]

Thanks, I missed the button, I'll look harder.

And what is the equivalence between "miss one good" and the goods I deposit? Is it also exponential, i.e. if they miss one food, it means 10 food used per month, while a lack of 2 foods would mean they want 100 ?

I need this 200% colony, it is strategically placed to reduce the chore of equipping ships, storing stuff for free, and being protected.

[Candesce]

And what is the equivalence between "miss one good" and the goods I deposit? Is it also exponential, i.e. if they miss one food, it means 10 food used per month, while a lack of 2 foods would mean they want 100 ?

Depending on your colony's accessibility, it's possible for the implicit background traders to be unable to supply it fully, which results in various penalties based on just what you're short of. Accessibility is treated as being much higher if you've a different colony producing the goods your first colony needs, rather than having to ship from the Core, but this usually isn't necessary for, e.g., food, organics, other critical stuff, unless you've put your colony really far out, are at war with major factions, or your spaceport hasn't finished constructing yet. Building waystations and upgrading the spaceport to a megaport will increase accessibility; so will turning on Free Port, but that comes with its own issues.

Sometimes explicit, actually-extant trade fleets will show up at your colony; if they get blown up, you'll take a temporary penalty to the supply of whatever resources those fleets were bringing.

As to knowing exactly how much will be burned from the stockpiles to buy off those penalties... I don't think there's been much research, beyond "highly impractical to do for any resource the colony doesn't produce for itself." If your primary concern is the economic hit, I don't think burning stockpiles is net positive.

[vorpal+5]

Ok. It seems I'm presented with a great deal of know-how but there is no doc about this gameplay, except the wiki and tooltips, and learning it from experience... Thanks in any case...

[Brainwright]

Generally, colonies are not productive things in themselves and don't require much overhead.  From a game design perspective, they're more a way to get players involved with the political side of the game.

That said, supplying your own goods to fix shortages is much more expensive than it is worth, as one unit of supplies shortage can equal 200 supplies.  The penalty to income you get from the shortage is much less than the 20000 credits need to fix one unit of shortage.   It gets worse with other commodities like metal ore, which can be over a thousand for one unit of demand.

Placing a techmine on a habitable world, or a mine on a super volcanic world with ultra rich deposits can greatly reduce the burden of fleet and officer costs.  I usually try to make one colony as soon as possible for this reason, not just for dropping off rare loot.  Administrators are not going to be worth it until you're making at least 60k a month, and most of that is going to be because of the planet's population, so around size 5 or so.

[Phenir]

I need this 200% colony, it is strategically placed to reduce the chore of equipping ships, storing stuff for free, and being protected.

Do you? There are several abandoned stations in the core worlds that you can store stuff in for free. Those don't let you modify "requires docks" hullmods but otherwise there's no reason not to use them instead of burning a hole in your pocket just for storage space.

[vorpal+5]

The colony I established on this 200% rock generates 2000 credits per month, from the population minus the starport. It costs me 85k in personnel and materials.

I was using Asharu, but it is not my property, so stock there does not report in the tooltip when you hover over looted/bought weapons, so I never know how many of them I have, which is mightily inconvenient.
I need to dock on the Asharu planet to edit dock hullmods, as you say.
My ship/mission provider is Kesteven, in another system, not convenient either.

[vorpal+5]

I was checking one of the core world, and something I don't get ...
Producing 7 supplies (Orbital Work with Pristine Nanoforge and a +1 bonus), in need of 8 (High Command).
yet it says the colony is profitably exporting 7 supplies. That's weird?

Sorry I can't manage to grab the screenshot with the tooltip active

[MuleDriver]

... , so I never know how many of them I have, which is mightily inconvenient.

Stellar Networks might help you somewhat with this:
"Storage board (formerly Stellar Logistics) displays all cargo and ships stored among all Storages. It allows displaying a unified view to quickly check what is available, and per-location view to find out where."

Though you have to access it from the intel screen, not from the inventory or refit screen, but it's better than nothing I guess ... .

[wodzu_93]

Regarding the screenshot - colony needs do not block exports. Exporting 7 supplies while needing 8 still brings in money. Basically, that colony can supply other colonies with 7 or less supplies demanded, but it needs that extra 1 for itself.

In practice, only effect of partially fulfilling the colony demand is not getting the upkeep discount. If you can completely cover commodity demand with your own faction exports, you get a reduction in upkeep. Managing to cover 100% of colony needs by in-faction import gives you x0.5 modifier on upkeep.

[vorpal+5]

Thanks, I realized indeed that as many things are exponential in the game, a need of 7 is probably ten time lower than a need of 8 and vice versa.

Now my next question is, can I spam colonies, even if they are not very productive? I know I can only administer directly 2, so what will happen if I'm way over the limit? Dire penalties to the point each loses money? The initial population can generate a few thousands, so it's not nothing plus it's a fuel stop for my fleet (I play with a far too vast universe, can't help)

[Candesce]

Strictly speaking, you can personally administer as many colonies as you can found. You just take a -2 Stability hit to ALL of them for every extra colony you're administering.

... In practice, that means those colonies aren't going to be making you money and will eventually collapse; you want to keep Stability at least 5. But you can certainly go over two personally administered colonies. Two is just the point where your colonies have the same base stability as ones administrators are managing for you.

If you want to paint the entire map blue, you can also assign Alpha Cores as administrators, if you don't mind severely ticking off the Hegemony. That's technically unlimited.