Colony

The player can establish colonies. These can be useful for profit or building specific new ships & weapons.

Colonies are a new feature added in version 0.9. The older dev blog post on colonies has some information that has changed slightly but is generally still an excellent reference.

Low hazard worlds are valuable

How to colonise

• Visit an uncolonised planet
• Survey the planet
• Create a colony interaction option will become available
• Have the required crew & materials of 1000x Crew, 200x Supplies & 100 Heavy Machinery, which are all consumed in the colonisation process.

• Warning: It is easy to have insufficient crew to meet your fleet's skeleton crew requirements after losing 1000 crew building a colony so plan ahead. Mothballing the crew transports after colonising can be helpful. The crew transports can also be stored on the colony.

Targets for colonisation

Low hazard rating
Yes it is that important.

Good generally targets for colonisation are roughly in order; low hazard rating worlds, worlds with desirable conditions, or worlds with strategically important locations.

The quality of survey data is a decent abstracted measure; if you get Class IV or Class V survey data then have a serious consideration of that planet.

Low hazard rating is the prime determining factor in whether a colony is profitable via its impact on ongoing maintenance costs and extra growth rate. Which conditions are desirable is somewhat subjective & based on dynamic market conditions. Ruins can be a nice albeit temporary prize.

Exploration

Exploration for colonies is mostly about finding low hazard rating worlds. These are most likely around yellow, red & orange stars that are medium size or the inner planets of dwarf sized stars of those colour. Low hazard worlds can exist elsewhere but these are most likely.

Unclaimed Core worlds

Some of the Core Worlds are unclaimed by any faction, which are worth checking out because they might make high accessibility colony targets. Placing a colony in a claimed system will see it glassed in short order by that faction without extraordinary player effort but unclaimed systems are fair game. You can check for unclaimed systems by going into Intel screen, Planets tab and using the Unclaimed option. If you are physically in the Core Systems then sorting by distance can be helpful.

Penelope's Star

Penelope's Star it an unclaimed star system along the southern edge of the Core Systems with multiple planets. It's proximity to the core worlds make them excellent colonisation possibilities depending on their specific conditions.

Note: There is currently a bug in v0.9a-RC10 where all of the planets in Penelope's Star are 100% accessibility and also have no conditions. This will be fixed in the next patch.

Duhzak

Duhzak system has less planets as Penelope's Star but it is worth checking out.

Profitable colonies

High population, low hazard rating

Mouse over the Credits/Month and hit F1 for a detailed breakdown of profitability

Making a colony profitable means keeping costs down and income high.

Costs occur from industry maintenance, which is significantly impacted by hazard rating so low hazard worlds are desirable to keep costs down. If you do colonise a high hazard world consider limiting the number of industries there.

Income can be gained from raw population and from exports. Population is a major factor, since it generates a lot of credits on its own. High population can also factor into large production output.

It is also well worth considering growth incentives when the colony population is still small. The cost of the incentives rises sharply with colony population size however the return on investment for small population colony can be exceptional.

Stability can potentially be a big factor in profit if it drops too low.

Please note the Tips & Tricks section may contain more niche profitability advice.

Some common misconceptions are that your factions needs to produce what your colonies require. This is not necessarily true. If you have a Spaceport and the colony accessibility is not dramatically low then the Core Worlds can import what your colony needs. Imports are free.

Profitable Markets

Exporting can be quite lucrative but consider your production industries carefully as some provide only a tiny return on investment or are situational.

Good markets to break into have either few suppliers & large market worth or have few large suppliers and large demand markets with shortages. Sometimes it is better to put money into population growth in order to set up a bigger production industry later, if a small production supply now will generate a trivial return on investment.

If you note single planets making a big difference to the market then you may wish to consider a Raid. For example the Sindrian Diktat capital of Sindria is generally the only large supplier for fuel, with many large demand markets. If a raid were to disrupt their fuel production then an upstart fuel production colony would stand to make amazing profits.

Harvested Organs

The Harvested Organs market has one notable biggest supplier who also has terrible defences, often ~100 ground strength, total. You can export Harvested Organs for profit by having a colony set to Free Port & having a decent amount of population. Raiding Nomios in the Arcadia Star System to disrupt either its Spaceport or Cryosanctum will suddenly see you with effectively a monopoly supply in a big demand market.

Hazard Rating

The hazard rating multiplies the maintenance of industries directly proportionally. I.e. a 200% hazard world will pay double maintenance for everything. As a good rule of thumb;

• 150% hazard or less - can turn most industries into a profit
• 200% hazard or more - primary resource extraction only (not refining)

Population

Population is measured as 10^X where X is the population "size".

Maximum population size is always 10, regardless of other factors, although not all colonies might be able to naturally grow to that size without growth incentives.

Growth Incentives

Growth Incentives cost credits and provide for additional population growth. The ratio of credits to benefit becomes linearly worse as the colony population increases. It can provide an excellent return on investment for a smaller size 3 or 4 colony, due to the extra credit income from higher population & the production bonus to industry.

Conditions

Planet conditions

Known after visiting the planet or performing a Remote Survey. These primarily relate to the hazard rating of the planet.

Resource conditions

Known after performing a survey. Primarily relates to available primary resources for exploitation.

Colony conditions

These can occur after a colony is established.

Industries

Colonies can support up to 12 industries each. Industries commonly have commodity outputs, as well as other impacts on colony stats or special features like defence stations or patrol fleets. They have an upkeep cost and often require commodity inputs.

The output of commodity-producing industries is primarily based on colony size, adjusted for planetary resource conditions and any applicable skills.

Colony threats

There are various threats to colonies, which can occur for both player colonies & colonies of other factions. These cause intel popups with a distinctive sound when they begin and can be reviewed at any time in the Colony Threats section of the intel screen.

Pirate Activity

Pirates are preying on shipping to or from this colony. This will cause a malus for the colony, scaling with the percentage of shipping pirates successfully interdict.

Pirate bases

There have been signs that pirates are targeting shipping and colonies in this system - from port inspectors being pressured to turn a blind eye, to inconsistencies in cargo manifests, to other increased criminal activity. The pirates most likely have a base somewhere relatively nearby.

Pirates may establish a base in an nearby system and launch raiding parties to intercept trade convoys, causing a stability malus. The more trade convoys they destroy as a percentage of total convoys the more the stability malus. Pirate bases are usually located fairly close by although bases a fifth of the way across the sector map have been reported.

Pirate bases can be located by a opportunity to talk to a grizzled spacer in the bar, by directly locating the system & then planet the base is orbiting or by the base already being known. Once its location is known then the intel screen will update with the location and arrow.

Breaking infrastructure can be a useful tactic to locate the exact location of a base in a system, as a fleet will be re-tasked with taking a look at it, often coming from at or near the station. This can also be useful for luring a fleet away from the station so it can be quickly destroyed or raided to cause disruption to reduce the size & quality of its fleets.

Please note that glassing all of the pirate faction planets will not stop pirates or pirate bases from spawning.

Economic retaliation fleets

Having an envious amount of market share for a commodity may trigger a faction to send a fleet to disrupt a colony. Reputation loses are negated for attacking these specific fleets, although other regular traffic from that faction will still trigger reputation changes as normal.

Please note that once the system informs you the expedition has failed, attacking these expedition fleets will cause reputation loss. You may allow them to disperse without issue or further threat from that particular expedition.

Economic retaliation fleets can be dealt with by bribing them, using reputation to pull strings, directly interrupting their staging, defeating them in space or defeating them in ground defence. Bribes start at 100,000 credits. The staging ground is automatically known. You can change the response to the event by using the Response button on the event, via the intel screen.

Hegemony AI inspection

The Hegemony sends an AI inspection fleet to search for & confiscate any AI cores found. Ordering your faction to resist the inspection will instantly make the Hegemony hostile when the fleet arrives.

Removing AI cores after the event has triggered but before the fleet successfully inspects the colony will leave trace evidence of AI core use. This will avoid the cores being confiscated but will instead disrupt all industries, a -20 reputation hit with Hegemony and a stability malus.

Hegemony AI inspection fleets can be dealt with by bribing them, using reputation to pull strings, directly interrupting their staging, defeating them in space or defeating them in ground defence. You can change the response to the event by using the Change orders button on the event, accessed via the intel screen.

Luddic Path cells

Luddic Path cells may form on colonies that are most interesting to them and are population 4+. The notes on various industries has how much Luddic Path cell interest they generate, if any.

Luddic Path may install terrorist cells in worlds not sufficiently following their religion. They begin as sleeper cells with no immediate effect.

Active Luddic Path cells, triggering smugglers to bring them material from a relatively nearby Luddic Path base. If enough smuggled material reaches them then will perform an act of terrorism, disrupting an industry and causing a stability malus for quite a while. Intercepting & destroying the smugglers is one way to stop this from occurring. Luddic Path bases are similar to pirate bases and are not the same as Luddic Path colonies.

Destroying the relevant Luddic Path base currently supporting the cell will disrupt its activities for a time causing it to be dormant. Eventually the cell may start receiving new support from another Luddic Path base, triggering a new intel warning and updated entry. Particularly aggressive cleansing of Luddic Path cell bases may result in the cell finding no bases to support it, causing it to dissolve.

Locating a Luddic Path base can be difficult as it can potentially be quite a long distance away. Already known Luddic Path bases will automatically update in the intel screen and specify if they are supporting that cell. The base can be located by directly locating it, via rumors in the bar or via the smugglers themselves. If you detect smugglers near the colony then you can mouse over their fleet to see their flight plan or manually tail them back to the base. This is considerably more difficult if there is significant unrelated smuggler activity.

Please note that glassing all of the Luddic Path faction planets will not stop Luddic Path cells nor Luddic Path bases from spawning.

Breaking infrastructure can be a useful tactic to locate the exact location of a base in a system, as a fleet will be re-tasked with taking a look at it, often coming from at or near the station. This can also be useful for luring a fleet away from the station so it can be quickly destroyed or raided to cause disruption to reduce the size & quality of its fleets.

	A successful sabotage operation requires a smuggler to go from the Pather base to the target colony, and you could actually stop the event if you attack the smuggler (and locate the base if you tail them back). But neither is exactly easy to pull off.
–Alex

Glassing

Threats are not normally directly fatal to the colony but rather loss of items, credits or colony stats. This is not the same for glassing or bombardments which can destroy a colony outright, including all items in storage or plugged into industry. Fortunately this only occurs when settling a colony within a system claimed by one of the other Factions.

There is a specific warning on the colonise information screen if this planet is within a claimed system. You can also prospectively check if a planet is not within a claimed system by using the Intel screen, Planets tab and Unclaimed option.

Colony Defences

There are two dedicated industries for defence and a number of other factors. Population size is a significant & frequently overlooked factor boosting colony defence.

Patrols

Constructing a Patrol HQ on your colony will cause it to automatically and regularly spawn patrols consisting of ships and equipment that you have previously learned from blueprints. These patrols will attempt to safeguard the system the colony is contained in, as well as the immediate area around any hyperspace exits. They will also resist any disruption expeditions or raids on their home colony. By default, patrols will comply with the Hegemony AI inspection, although they may be ordered to forcibly resist the inspection if the player so chooses.

The size and quality of these patrols partially depend on the doctrine settings the player has set. The player can also prioritize specific ships, equipment, or fighters to make up the majority of the fleet if they so choose.

Colony size provides a scaling bonus to fleet sizes, with larger colonies providing significantly larger patrol fleets. At the maximum colony size of 10 this is a +250% bonus to fleet size.

Having an administrator with the Fleet Logistics skill at level 3 will grant a +25% size bonus to spawned fleets at the colony that administrator is governing.

Colony stability provides a scaling malus or bonus depending on how far it is from the baseline of 5. At 10 stability it provides a maximum bonus of 1.25x to fleet sizes from that colony.

Installing an Alpha AI Core on a Patrol HQ, Military Base, or High Command will provide a bonus of 1.25x to fleet sizes from that colony.

Not having any in-faction or local production of ship hulls will cause fleet sizes to be scaled to 0.5x (half). This is caused by having neither an orbital works nor a nanoforge installed at the colony, while also having no other owned colonies that can export ship hulls to it.

The orbital works industry and nanoforges will also contribute to ship quality. The colony's stability, along with an optional setting in fleet doctrine are other factors in ship quality. Ship qualities below 100% will cause ships in spawned patrols (and custom production) to have D-mods, with qualities further below 100% having more D-mods on average. For example, a ship quality of 95% will have an average of 0 D-mods per ship, although some ships will still have one. Some ships may have even more than one, although this is is unlikely.

It is unknown if ship quality over 100% has any effect.

Ground Defences

The strength of the ground defences affects the effectiveness of raids and other ground operations against the colony. For worlds not owned by the player, it also increases the amount of fuel required to bombard it.

Colony size provides a scaling bonus to ground defences, with larger colonies providing significantly larger values. At the maximum colony size of 10 this is +700 to the base value.

Colony stability provides a scaling malus or bonus depending on how far it is from the baseline of 5. At 10 stability it provides a maximum bonus of 1.5x to ground defences at that colony.

Construction a Ground Defences or Heavy Batteries will provide a 2x or 3x multiplier to ground defence values, respectively. Installing an Alpha AI Core at either of these facilities will provide another 1.25x multiplier.

Constructing an Orbital Station will provide a 1.5x multiplier to ground defences (as well as +1 stability which may provide further benefits to the value). Upgrading to a Battlestation will provide a 2x multiplier. Upgrading to a Star Fortress will provide a 3x multiplier to ground defences.

As of 0.9, a story quest provides a special constructable industry which provides a 3x multiplier to ground defence values. Installing an Alpha AI Core at this facility will provide another 1.5x multiplier.

Defence Strategies

Eventually a big enough colony will practically demand all of the defence options in full but the build order for new colonies can have some considerations.

No defences at all is inadvisable. A colony that is close to the edge of the sector can often have some leeway, as the time for threats to arrive is often a little more than the build time for defences.

If you have one colony in this system consider building Ground Defences as sooner or later something will slip through the orbital patrol net. Do note that you will need to occasionally sweep the system of stragglers of failed raids, otherwise they may build up to problematic proportions.

Alternatively if you have multiple worlds in system (ideally low hazard) then consider multiple Patrol HQ as the overlapping fleets patrols may effectively prevent ground battles at all for a time.

Star system infrastructure

There are three different types of infrastructure that can be built in a star system.

Pristine versions of infrastructure provide a bigger bonus but can no longer be constructed. If these pieces of pristine pre-collapse technology are dismantled there is no way to get them back, although a Makeshift version can be built in its place.

Multiples of the same type of infrastructure will not stack their bonuses, although they do provide some resilience against losing the bonuses to enemy actions.

Infrastructure can be interacted with to Take control of it or to Break it for salvage, which will greatly anger the owner. In addition Comm Relays allow you to install comm sniffers, so you receive intel updates from this system without being present. Nav Buoys & Sensor Arrays can be hacked which confers the benefit of it to you & your allies as well as its owner, until the hack is detected & cleared.

System Infrastructure can only be built at special stable locations and there is no way to increase the number of stable locations.

You can claim existing infrastructure for the cost of 5 Heavy Machinery.

All types of makeshift system infrastructure cost:

• 100 Metal
• 10 Transplutonics
• 10 Volatiles
• 10 Heavy Machinery

Scrapping infrastructure will give back half of the build cost with domain ones giving back twice that amount.

	This otherwise unremarkable point in the surrounding vast emptiness is a local minimum in the star system's hyperwave field. The relative lack of interference makes it uniquely suited for the placement of hyperwave-tech-using structures.
–Stabe Location In-Game Description

Comm Relay

Provides a stability boost to all allied colonies in this star system. Also enables global market info for in-system colonies and sector-wide intel updates.

Makeshift Comm Relay can be built and provides +1 stability.
This is effectively +2 stability, as it also negates a -1 malus from not having a Comm Relay.

	An imitation of the Domain-era counterpart, constructed using what passes for the state of the art in the Sector. Nonetheless, a makeshift comm relay is capable of facilitating faster-than-light comms between star systems, even if the transmission speeds are less than ideal and the occasional phantom comm streams picked up give nightmares to even the most seasoned operators.
–Makeshift Comm Relay

Domain Comm Relay cannot be built and provides +2 stability.

	A Domain-era technology used primarily on the frontier, this is a hyperwave communications array which transmits and receives data between star systems at faster-than-light speeds. The rapidly pulsing hyperwaves suitable for FTL data transmission have been shown to damage DNA so these relays are always stationed away from habitats.
–Domain Comm Relay

Sensor Array

Provides a sensor strength boost to all allied fleets in this star system.

Makeshift Sensor Array can be built and provides +400 sensor strength.

	Built using the best technology available in the Sector, a makeshft sensor array is nonetheless capable of passively monitoring the entire star system and has a transmitter capable of real-time, faster-than-light data transmission to friendly fleets within. The data is useful to supplement the regular sensor readings made by fleets.
–Makeshift Sensor Array

Domain Sensor Array cannot be built and provides +700 sensor strength.

	A Domain-era technology, this is a super-high-resolution passive monitoring array with a transmitter capable of real-time, faster-than-light data transmission within the star system. The data is useful to supplement the regular sensor readings made by fleets.
–Domain Sensor Array

Nav Buoy

Provides a stability boost to all allied fleets in this star system.

Makeshift Nav Buoy can be built and provides +2 maximum burn speed.

	Built using the best technology available in the Sector, a nav buoy monitors the in-system hyperfield and is capable of transmitting its findings to friendly fleets in-system. The data is often somewhat unreliable but still useful in making on-the-fly drive field adjustments.
–Makeshift Nav Buoy

Domain Nav Buoy cannot be built and provides +3 maximum burn speed.

	A Domain-era technology, a nav buoy monitors the in-system hyperfield and is capable of transmitting its findings to friendly fleets in-system. The data readings are pristine and of great use in configuring drive fields.
–Domain Nav Buoy

Resource Stockpiles

Resource Stockpiles are a place where a colony can optionally pull resources from in the event of a shortage, if that functionality is enabled (off by default). The player can also add or remove from it.

Any commodity that colony produces will also build up a fallback supply in it's Resource Stockpile. The player can also optionally add to this stockpile. These different sources are combined for simplicity but they are tracked individually behind the scenes.

A colony or player removing resources from its Resource Stockpile will take from the amount the player has deposited first and this is free. If this runs out then the amount the colony had added can be removed, at a charge of a percentage of the commodity base price. This charge is applied against monthly income.

The Waystation industry will cause the colony to stock up on all sorts of commodities and in greater quantities.

Colony Administrators

Every colony must have one administrator, which is the player themselves by default. There is a limit on the number of colonies the player can personally concurrently administer before all colonies you administer receive a stability malus. Freelance administrators can be recruited for this task; they are acquired similarly to officers by hiring them on market comm boards, or rarely by rescuing them during salvage operations.

Administrators have zero, one or two of the three skills that benefit colonies (Fleet Logistics, Planetary Operations and Industrial Planning). They cannot level up and will always remain with their starting skills. Administrators with more skills have a higher salary.

The player can directly manage two colonies and have two administrators (other than themselves) by default. The Colony Management skill allows up to four personal colonies and three administrators.

Other, more exotic options may also exist.

Tips & Tricks

• Tri-Tachyon bars will often have loan sharks, which can provide a lot of early capital if you want to start a colony right now and are relatively certain it will be profitable

• Volcanic worlds are often a good fallback supply for ore & rare ore however their commonly prohibitively high hazard ratings means they should not be a first option

• Attempting to build up diverse colony on a high hazard world is a trap. The multipliers on hazard rating will quickly stack up with the multiple industries. Specialist outposts on high hazard words can be okay, even good if well supplied by nearby colonies

• Multiple colonies are often preferable in order to boost production efficiency across multiple industries while avoiding stacking too many industries on high hazard worlds

• Use Gamma AI Core to reduce demand for inputs that have shortages. If demands are met consider not using Gamma AI Cores, as this will expand the total market size slightly & therefore raise profits.

• A commission doesn't stop you from founding colonies; they will still be your own. It's like having a Letter of Marque while also being a colony governor. Commissions can notably help with having enough reputation to avoid threats from that faction.

• On a Free Port colony consider an Alpha AI Core on Population & Infrastructure. The supply of Recreational Drugs & Harvested Organs is often quite restricted so the extra +1 production from the core can make a lot of credits.

• For rimward operations consider a pop-up colony with a Spaceport & Waystation.
  • This can act as a local resupply station for commodities, in particular the otherwise hard to locally source Crew. If you have ship production available elsewhere then you can also set the pop-up colony as the Production gathering point in the Command -> Custom Production screen, causing new ships custom built to be automatically shipped to the rim. When finished in that area it is easy to abandon the base provided it has not grown in population

Map Seeds

MN-8098129844475783506

South of central space filled with dangerous pirates and competing factions, Tiamat holding two worlds, one rich in metal, while the other,perfectly habitable by human life. Ruins of old colonization efforts can be found, but their residents gone with time. Whether or not they disappeared due to treachery, AI raids, pirates, or internal strife, These planets await those who wish to exploit their valuable resources.

Change History

• Adjusted how stockpiling at player-owned colonies works
• A quantity of resources produced locally is added to the Local Resources submarket
• More if it's not being exported due to, say, low accessibility
• Taking these results in an at-cost charge in that month's income/expense report
• Can be taken "for free", but their base value is deducted from player's monthly income
• Added a setting to let a colony use these to counter shortages
• Costs considerably less than taking the resources directly
• Resources can be brought to the colony and put in Local Resources manually
• Using or taking these does not result in any cost
• Local Resources submarket tool-tip lists stockpile growth rate and limits
• Monthly salary for unassigned colony administrators reduced to 10% of base

At least two versions out of date. Last verified for version 0.9. Please refer to Version History and update this page.