Colony

The Eventide Colony Spaceport.

Colonies are player-owned settlements on planets within the sector. A colony can serve many purposes: they can produce goods for the player to take at just-under open market price, they act as useful storage areas or markets away from the Core Worlds, or they can simply produce lots and lots of credits.

Colonies were added in version 0.9a. An in-progress blog post is available at dev blog post on colonies, containing some information on the workings of colonies, though the information contained is partially outdated.

Low hazard worlds are valuable

Colonization

Creating a new colony is fairly simple; all you need to do is find a suitable planet, survey it, and bring the required crew and materials. Care should be taken about the large amount of crew required, as it's easily possible to end up far below the required skeleton crew for your fleet.

The full process of colonization is as follows:

• Locate an uncolonized planet, not currently settled by you or a different faction. It's possible to colonize planets in the core worlds, but that would usually lead to the colony being quickly destroyed by the faction that claims the system in question.
• Perform a full survey of the planet.
• Explore the ruins if there are any.
• Bring 1000 Crew, 200 Supplies, and 100 Heavy Machinery, then press "Establish a Colony".
• Optionally, rename the planet, then confirm your choice. The name can be changed later.
• If it's your first colony, you will be also prompted to choose a name and a flag, and set grammar rules for your new faction. These can also be changed later.

This will immediately create a size 3 colony on the planet with a Population & Infrastructure industry and begin constructing a free Spaceport, to be finished in 15 days.

Choosing a Planet

The hardest part of setting up a colony is locating a planet suitable for the player's goals. Different types of planet tend to hold different traits, and can vary in their rarity both to locate at all and in which resources they appear with.

One system vs multiple systems

There are certain advantages and disadvantages to focusing your planets in the same system, or spreading them far apart.

The advantages of colonizing a single system are:

• It's easier to protect the colonies in one system. If a planet is a target of a large attack, fleets launched from other planets can help defending it. This does not help against convoy loss, however.
• Only one pirate or luddic base needs to be dealt with at a time.

The advantages of colonizing multiple systems are:

• More freedom to pick good planets based on their resources and conditions.
• Once Hyperspace Topography is advanced sufficiently, colonies will reveal slipstreams in a certain radius. Spreading them out reveals a bigger portion of the map.

It's worth noting that in the old versions, such as 0.9.1a, the general consensus was that it was much better to colonize one system. However, the later introductions of various Category:Special Items, Hyperspace Topography, and changes to Colony Crises‎ made multiple systems more appealing.

Hazard Rating

The Hazard Rating of a planet dictates how much an industry or structure costs to run each month, as well as affecting the rate at which population grows. Planets with low hazard rating are generally preferable, though certain hazardous conditions have their own benefits, and the presence of rare resources can outweigh high hazard rating.

The base hazard rating of a planet is 100%, modified by any hazard conditions present. The lowest possible value is 50%, for a planet that is habitable and has mild climate, though such planets are very rare. On the other end, the hazard rating can be as high as 500%, though most planets will be under 300%.

The hazard rating is a direct multiplier of the monthly upkeep cost of the planet's industries and structures. While harvesting industries such as Mining have relatively low upkeep, production-based industries such as Heavy Industry can potentially eat into your profit heavily, or even run a deficit if placed on a high-hazard planet.

The hazard rating also directly affects the population growth rate of a planet. For every 25% the hazard rating is above 100%, the population growth rate will be decreased by 5 points, and vice versa for a hazard rating below 100%. This, however, can be countered by using hazard pay, which gives a bonus equal to the hazard penalty plus five points. The cost of it is 1,000c per month for every point it gives, so a it will cost more on a planet with a high hazard rating.

For example, Population & Infrastructure has a base upkeep of 10,000c per month on a size 3 colony, so:

• A planet with a hazard rating of 100% will maintain the base upkeep of 10,000c per month. The hazard rating would have no effect on its growth. Hazard pay would provide +5 growth and cost 5,000c per month.
• A planet with a hazard rating of 75% will decrease the base upkeep to 7,500c per month. The hazard rating would give a +10 bonus to growth. Hazard pay would provide +5 growth and cost 5,000c per month.
• A planet with a hazard rating of 250% will increase the base upkeep to 25,000c per month. The hazard rating would give a -30 penalty to growth. Hazard pay would provide +35 growth (12 + 5) and cost 35,000c per month.

Planets with a higher hazard rating are also more costly to survey.

Resources

Main article: Market conditions

All planets contain resources that can be harvested by extraction industries. These can be a major factor of the worth of a planet in terms of income, as some planets contain an abundance of materials such as Volatiles and Food, whereas others can barely provide even a paltry amount of Ore.

The presence and amount of resources on a planet dictates the baseline for much of that resource a given industry can extract, or whether or not that industry can be constructed to begin with (e.g., a planet with no farmland cannot have Farming).

Monthly upkeep of your colonies is reduced if some or all inputs are supplied in-faction, being produced on the same or a different colony. The maximum reduction is 50% if all inputs are supplied. For that reason, it might be worth colonizing planets with good resources to supply other planets, even if the hazard rating is high. Note that produced resources are not consumed - one colony that exports 6 food can feed an unlimited number of colonies that require 6 or less food.

Each resource has an abundance level, from -1 to +2 for food, volatiles, and organics, and from -1 to +3 for ores and rare ores. This number is added to the production of the associated resource if the industry that exploits it is established.

	Food	Ores/Rare Ores	Organics	Volatiles
-1	Poor	Sparse	Trace	Trace
+0	Adequate	Moderate	Common	Diffuse
+1	Rich	Abundant	Abundant	Abundant
+2	Bountiful	Rich	Plentiful	Plentiful
+3		Ultrarich

Like all market conditions, they are static and do not change, though the amount the colony produces will increase with the population size and can be further improved with story points and special items. Having rich deposits is a positive factor, but even a poor quality deposit can be a good source of income with enough investment. This is especially true for mining, since one industry can produce organics, volatiles, and both types of ores at the same time, as long as a deposit is present - a colony with three sparse resources can be much better than a colony with one rich resource.

Base accessibility

Though it can be improved later through a variety of methods, the base accessibility of a planet is a crucial statistic in considering the viability of a colony there. A colony's base accessibility mostly depends on the system's distance to The Core Worlds, and can be seen when establishing it. The further a colony is from the core worlds, the lower its accessibility will be. Accessibility can be improved by various buildings and improvements, but the distance plays a significant role in colony's profitability, especially early on.

Overall, the base accessibility of a colony is not a hugely important factor because of the large number of bonuses available, but it's still worth considering on a colony meant to make money.

See below for more information about accessibility.

Star system infrastructure

Main article: Objective

An independent makeshift comm relay

There are three different types of infrastructure that can be built in a star system, each offering specific bonuses to its owning faction: comm relays, nav buoys and sensor arrays. These can only be built at stable locations at a cost of 15 heavy machinery, 30 metals and 5 transplutonics. Some star systems contain Domain-era infrastructure, which has more powerful effects but cannot be built.

The player can hack these assets, take control of them, or break them for resources, although the latter two actions will be considered hostile acts.

Each star system has 0-3 such objectives or stable locations. New stable locations can be created by interacting with the systems star.

Colony stats

Size

A colony that is 10% grown.

	Colony size is an approximate measure of the population level. A colony one size larger has many times the population.
–In-game description

The colony size is an important factor in all aspects of a colony's function. It affects the base income and base upkeep of the industries and structures built in the colony, and is the most important factor in the number of produced commodities. Colony size also affects the size of patrols and military fleets created when the colony has an appropriate building.

Colony size grows as dictated by the colony's growth rate, which shows how much progress the colony makes towards the next size per month. This value is modified by a variety of factors, and can be positive or negative. Negative growth rate will cause the colony's progress towards the next size to slowly return to 0%, but it cannot cause the colony's size to decrease. Once growth reaches 100%, colony's size increases by one, and the progress resets to 0%.

The growth rate is dictated by the amount of growth points a colony has, and the following factors affect the total of those points:

• Accessibility: +1 for every 10% accessibility, rounded down, or -1 for every 10% below 0% accessibility.
• Instability: -1 for every stability point below 5.
• Hazard rating: -5 for every 25% hazard rating above 100% or +5 for every 25% below 100%. No effect at 100%.
• Free Port status: +5, increases to +25 over 365 days.
• Spaceport: +2.
• Megaport: +1 per colony size).
• Decivilized Subpopulation: +1 per colony size.
• Hazard pay: counters the hazard penalty and gives extra +5.
• Larger, non-hostile markets in the same system.

The effect of growth points on the total growth rate decreases as the colony size increases, leading to a longer time between size increases as the colony's size grows. The maximum size for a player-controlled colony is 6. Sizes up to 10 exist in the game files, but the largest colony in the sector is size 8 Chicomoztoc, controlled by Hegemony. The smallest size a colony can be is 3.

Colony size affects how many industries can be built in it, starting at 1 at size 3, and adding one more for every extra size up to a maximum of 4 at size 6.

Non-player colonies have a growth rate and may appear to grow if it's positive, but their size will never change.

The actual approximate population of a colony can be determined by using this formula: $P=10^{n+g}$, where P is the population, n is the colony size, and g is the percentage of growth between the current population size and the next population size, expressed as a decimal fraction, e.g. 50% growth=0.5.

Accessibility

	A colony with high accessibility is able to import and export more goods, and can claim a greater market share for any commodities it produces and exports.
–In-game description

The accessibility of a planet affects most factors of the colony's use as a population center and as a market power.

The income from exports by a given colony is directly tied to the accessibility, as it multiplies the colony's market share in each export commodity, and therefore export revenue. For example, if two planets produce 5 units of ore but planet A has 150% accessibility while planet B has only 100%, planet A will have a 50% larger market share (subject to rounding).

The amount of resources that can be exported and imported both in-faction and cross-faction is also tied to the accessibility. For every 10% of accessibility a colony holds, it can export or import one additional unit of each resource to and from other factions respectively (rounded down). In-faction import/export capacity uses the same value but with a bonus of 5.

So a colony with 79% accessibility can import/export 7 units of any given resource cross-faction (79% divided by 10 is 7.9, rounded down to 7), and 12 units in-faction (7 units from accessibility, plus 5). This can affect a colony's ability to produce or export to its maximum potential; a colony producing 5 Food can only export 4 cross-faction with an accessibility of 49% or less, for instance. This is rarely a problem for a fully developed player colony, but can be a factor if the colony is small, very far from the core, doesn't have a megaport and a waystation, or if the player is hostile to many factions.

Accessibility is modified by many factors:

• Planet's proximity to (positive) or isolation from (negative) other colonies.
• Hostilities with other factions (based on the number and size of factions with hostilities).
• Planetary conditions:
  • Low gravity (+10% accessibility)
  • Heavy gravity (-10% accessibility)
• Free Port status (starts at +5%, increases to +25% over 365 days)
• Colony size (+10% at size 5, then another 5% per additional colony size)
• Structures and industries constructed on that colony.
  • Spaceport (+60% accessibility, or +80% when upgraded to Megaport; having neither results in a -100% penalty).
  • Waystation (+10% accessibility).
  • Story point upgrade in spaceport/megaport and waystation +20% accessibility each.
  • Alpha core in spaceport/megaport +20%.
  • Fullerene Spool in spaceport/megaport +30%.
• Alpha Core administrator's Hypercognition skill grants +10%.
• Pirate activity (-[10~50]% penalty based on severity based on pirate base's level).
• Piracy respite (from resolving a pirate crisis): +10% or +20%.

Stability

	The colony's stability is a measure of the strength of the local government and its ability to effectively muster and leverage the resources of the colony.
–In-game description

The stability of a colony is a number from 0 to 10 that affects many stats of the colony. Stability below 5 provides sharp penalties to the colony. Colonies with extraordinarily low stability for an extended period of time are may become "decivilized" - this effectively destroys the colony and creates decivilized population condition on it. Currently, the time period required to start decivilizing is 16 months at 0 stability (the math is a bit more complicated, but most of the months need to have 0 stability), then there is a 10% chance of decivilizing each following month. Colonies belonging to other factions can also become decivilized, though some are protected from it.

Stability, like accessibility, is affected by many factors:

• Base value of 5.
• Comm Relay in the system: -1 if no relay exists; +1 if faction controls makeshift relay; +2 if faction controls Domain-era relay.
• Domestic Goods demand exists and is met: +1.
• Luxury Goods demand exists and is met: +1.
• Certain buildings and industries:
  • Patrol HQ/Military Base/High Command: +1/+2/+2.
  • Orbital Station/Battlestation/Star Fortress: +1/+2/+3.
  • Ground Defenses/Heavy Batteries: +1.
  • Commerce: -3.
• Alpha Core administrator's Hypercognition skill: +1.
• Decivilized subpopulation market condition: -2.
• Free Port status: -1, increases to -3 over 365 days.
• Active Luddic Path cell: -1.
• Pirate activity: -1 to -3.
• Food shortage: -1 for every unit missing.
• Recent unrest: -1 for every point of unrest.
• Population & Infrastructure and Orbital Station (or upgrades) story point improvement: +1.

Stability has the following effects on the colony:

• Every point of stability below 5 reduces colony income by 20%, down to negating all income at 0 stability.
• Every point of stability below 5 reduces growth rate by 1.
• Stability affects fleet size, multiplying size by a number scaling from 0.75 to 1.25: $0.75+Stability*0.05$.
• Stability affects ground defense strength, scaling from 0.25 to 1: $0.25+Stability*0.75$.

Income and upkeep

Each industry and structure in a colony has an upkeep cost that needs to be paid every month, and many industries either produce commodities that will be sold to generate income, or generate income naturally. On the first day of every month, income and expenses of all colonies is totalled and either added to or removed from your current credits, along with fleet expenses, commissions, and such.

The total sum of a colony's income and upkeep can be seen in the colony screen, and detailed info can be seen by hovering over it and pressing F1.

Income

There are two ways for a colony to make money. First is direct income generated by buildings. Currently, the only building that generates it is Population & Infrastructure. This money is added to income directly.

The second is through sales of commodities. Crew and Marines don't generate income, and neither do illegal goods - for the player-controlled colonies it means that Recreational Drugs and Harvested Organs don't generate income, unless the colony is a free port.

For every commodity that generates income, global market value is calculated by summing up demand on all non-player colonies, and multiplying it by a static number that depends on the commodity. All producers of that commodity compete for the market; every colony takes a percentage of the market proportional to its production amount multiplied by accessibility.

For a simplified example, food has a value of 1,000c. If the total demand in the sector is 100 units, the global market value will be 100,000c. If only two colonies produce food, that income will be split between them. If colony A exports 5 units and has 140% accessibility, and colony B exports 8 units and has 75% accessibility, then A controls 7/13 of the market, and B controls 6/13, thus A will earn ~54,000c per month, and B will take the remaining ~46,000c.

Since the market is limited and your own colonies don't increase it, having multiple colonies produce the same commodity provides diminishing returns. In the same vein, reducing competition (e.g. by disrupting production facilities or spaceports of competing factions) can massively increase income, especially on markets with near-monopoly such as Fuel.

Upkeep

Every single industry and structure, including Population & Infrastructure, requires a monthly upkeep. The upkeep varies based on the industry or structure, and also increases based on the colony size.

Upkeep is further multiplied by the hazard rating.

Installing an Alpha or Beta AI Core into a building or industry reduces its upkeep by 25%, in addition to other effects.

Finally, upkeep can be decreased based on how much of a colony's demand for commodities is fulfilled in-faction, by the production from the same or other colonies. The reduction scales linearly based on the percentage of the commodities that is supplied in-faction, up to a maximum of 50% if all imports are in-faction.

Note that you are not directly paying for your colony's imports. The only impact of imports is the upkeep reduction from in-faction supply. Counter-intuitively, reducing imports by installing AI cores can sometimes increase upkeep: if the commodity is supplied in-faction, reducing its import will make the in-faction fulfilment ratio worse.

Colony buildings

The most defining characteristic of a colony is buildings that are placed in it. There are two types of buildings: industries and structures. The player can build as many structures as they can afford, but the maximum number of industries is limited by colony size. Buildings take a varying amount of time to construct. Only one building can be constructed at a time, but multiple can be queued up. Some buildings can be upgraded to another building. Buildings continue to function while they are being upgraded, and don't interfere with other constructions.

A building can be downgraded or shut down for an instant 75% money refund.

Colony size	Industries
3	1
4	2
5	3
6	4

Population & Infrastructure

Main article: Population & Infrastructure

Present on every colony, Population & Infrastructure is a special structure that provides some interactions with the colony in general, limited production of commodities, basic demands, and minor money income.

Structures

Structures are buildings that, for the most part, don't produce commodities, but instead enhance the colony in some other way. The full list of the structures is:

• Spaceport → Megaport
• Waystation
• Ground Defenses → Heavy Batteries
• Orbital Station → Battlestation → Star Fortress (three different types)
• Patrol HQ (upgrades to Military Base, an industry)
• Planetary Shield

Industries

Main article: Industry

Industries are mostly buildings that produce various commodities for export around the sector. They bring the bulk of a colony's profit. Tech-Mining, Military Base, and High Command don't generate money, but have other impactful effects, while Commerce doesn't bring money directly, but increases income of the colony in general. The full list of the industries is:

• Farming (requires farmland)
• Aquaculture (requires ocean surface)
• Mining (requires at least one of Ore, Transplutonic Ore, Organics, or Volatiles)
• Tech-Mining (require Ruins)
• Refining
• Light Industry
• Heavy Industry → Orbital Works
• Fuel Production
• Commerce
• Military Base → High Command (upgraded from Patrol HQ, a structure)

Each industry has unique aspects to them that should be considered. Some are useful for you directly, some are just profitable but depend on planet properties, items, competition and your other industries and some have unique uses.

Colony Defences

Patrols

Constructing a Patrol HQ on your colony will cause it to automatically and regularly spawn patrol fleets. More, larger patrols can be generated by upgrading to a Military Base or High Command, at the cost of an industry slot.

A Patrol HQ will maintain two "light" patrols regardless of colony size. The upgrades will introduce "medium" and "heavy" patrols, with the number of patrols (especially the larger types) increasing based on colony size.

Patrols will cover the system the colony is contained in, as well as the immediate area around any hyperspace exits. They will resist any disruption expeditions or raids on their home colony. If an objective is captured by a hostile faction, local patrols will recapture it.

There are two main colony stats affecting patrols, Fleet Size and Ship Quality. Fleet size determines the average amount and value of ships in the fleet, so you get bigger, better and more ships, while ship quality determines the average amount of D-mods your ships have (and is also related to what ships and weapons they can use).

Stations

Stations provide a concentrated amount of space-based firepower against hostile raids and expeditions, especially when supported by the player fleet, and are much more cost-effective for defending a single location than a Patrol HQ. If destroyed in battle, they will be replaced for free after 1-3 months. Like patrols, a station's armaments depend on the blueprints known to the player.

Ground Defences

The strength of the ground defences affects the effectiveness of raids and other ground operations against the colony, and the fuel cost of bombardments.

The base ground defence strength is based on colony size, with larger colonies providing significantly larger values. At the maximum colony size of 10 this is +700 to the base value.

Colony stability affects defence strength. The multiplier ranges from 0.25x at zero stability to 1x at 10 stability.

Construction of a Ground Defenses 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. (This largely affects the player attempting stealth raids, as NPC enemies will destroy the station first before raiding.)

A story quest provides a special structure, which provides a 3x ground defence multiplier. Installing an Alpha AI Core at this facility will provide another 1.5x multiplier.

Ship quality

Ship quality determines the number of D-mods your fleet has on average. At 0% quality your ships will have on average 5 D-mods, with each additional 20% quality decreasing the average D-mod count by 1. Negative quality is possible. Do note that if a ship would roll to have a "negative" D-mod because you have close to or more than 100% quality it just defaults to no D-mods so when the info box says the fleet has an average of 0 D-mods, it is actually lower as some ships will still have D-mods until ship quality is 120%. For this reason if your ship quality is above 80% it is not really worth using your fleet doctrine to increase it any more.

Not having any in-faction production of ship hulls (i.e. Heavy Industry or Orbital Works) results in a -25% penalty to ship quality (due to use of low-quality imported hulls), and will restrict player fleets to a basic, limited set of ships, weapons and fighters (the player cannot use their own blueprints). Stations do not require heavy industry to use weapons or fighters from blueprints. Your selected fleet doctrine has no effect in this state.

Having a Heavy Industry on any colony will remove the imported hull penalty. Upgrading it to an Orbital Works adds 20% quality. Installing a Corrupted Nanoforge adds a 20% quality bonus, while a Pristine Nanoforge increases quality by 50%. Only the Heavy Industry/Orbital Works on the faction's largest colony counts. Your fleet's ship quality doctrine adds a bonus ranging from +0% to +50%.

For every individual colony, ship quality is affected by its stability, ranging from -25% at 0 to +25% at 10.

For the purposes of custom production, the quality from the player's best colony is used, and ship quality doctrine is treated as if it's maxed, giving +50% bonus. This means there is no need to manually change doctrine to avoid D-mods on custom production.

Fleet size

The colony's fleet size value multiplies the size of fleets it spawns, in particular patrols but also things like trade fleets and even expeditions.

The colony's fleet size value is based on colony size, with multipliers from the faction doctrine and the planets stability and hull shortage values.

• The base colony value is 50% at size 3, plus 25% for each size above that.
• Installing a Cryoarithmetic Engine will add 25% on a hot planet and 100% on an extreme heat planet.
• Doctrine multiplier ranges from 1 to 2, stability multiplier from 0.75 to 1.25 (at 0 to 10 stability).
• Shortages of ship hulls decrease fleet size proportion to the shortage.
• 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.

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 its 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; 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 supplies, fuel, volatiles, and transplutonics and in greater quantities.

Colony Administrators

Every colony has an administrator. By default, a newly created colony is managed by the player. If the player is only managing one colony personally, it receives a +2 stability bonus. Managing more than two applies a -2 stability penalty for every colony over 2 to every manager colony instead.

Freelance administrators can be recruited to manage additional colonies. They are acquired similarly to officers by hiring them on market comm boards, or rarely by rescuing them during salvage operations. You can hire up to three administrators. More can be found through salvaging, but only three can be assigned.

Administrators come in two varieties - without any skills with monthly salary of 2,500c and with the Industrial Planning skill with monthly salary of 20,000c. The hiring fee is double the monthly salary, and if they are not currently managing a colony their salary is reduced to 1/10. Administrators can govern one colony at a time.

Other, more exotic options also exist. Alpha Core administrators have no upkeep and do not occupy an administrator slot, allowing you to have as many as you want, so they become necessary if the player wants to colonize more than 4-5 planets. They always have Industrial Planning and come with a skill unique to them (and the mysterious administrator of Culann), Hypercognition, giving +10% accessibilty, +20% fleet size, +50% to ground defenses, and +1 stability. However, they draw attention of the Hegemony and the Luddic Path, and can be challenging to remove after being in control of a colony for some time.

Colony threats

Main article: Colony threats

A player colony will face various threats at times, depending on factors including its location, industries, and use of AI Cores. Some of these also affect NPC colonies.

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 or don't care about your reputation with Tri-Tachyon.
• Use Gamma AI Core to reduce demand for inputs that have shortages.
• 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.
  • If you wish to colonize worlds within inhabited Core systems, commissions are a good way to accomplish this. Holding a commission permits you to establish colonies in systems owned by the commissioning faction. Once your colony reaches size 5, the commission may be safely resigned without consequence. Colonies that are at or over size 5 will not be the subject of eradication efforts (as doing so on a population of that size would clearly be genocide).
• 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
• A "humane" way of dealing with enemy colonies is to put them through the same pain they put you through. Keep an enemy colony at 0 stability long enough and the planet will decivilize and no longer have a colony.

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 impacted by hazard rating, so low hazard worlds are desirable to keep costs down. If you do colonize a high hazard world, consider placing manufacturing industries elsewhere. More significantly, upkeep is affected by the fraction of demand supplied from in-faction sources (up to 50% reduction), so as you make your faction self-sufficient costs go down.

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, but the return on investment for small colonies 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 your colony can import what it needs from the Core Worlds. There is no direct cost to imports, although in-faction supply results in lower upkeep costs.

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 commodity markets to break into have either few suppliers and 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.

Profitable commodities

• The Harvested Organs market has one notable big supplier who also has terrible defenses, often ~100 ground strength, total. You can export Harvested Organs for profit by having a colony set to Free Port and having a decent amount of population. Raiding Nomios in Arcadia to disrupt either its Spaceport or Cryosanctum will suddenly see you with effectively a monopoly supply in a big demand market. Be careful not to decivilize them, however; the cryosanctum is lost when Nomios is destroyed.
• Light Industry is barely profitable on its own, but a Free Port allows production of Recreational Drugs which are quite lucrative.
• Heavy Industry has low profitability; it is useful primarily for removing ship quality penalties and allowing in-faction ship production.

Defense 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 HQs, as the overlapping fleets patrols may effectively prevent ground battles temporarily.

Having a Military Base or High Command is also advisable, especially so on a high-population colony. While Patrol HQs can only field 2 small fleets, both Military Bases and High Commands will increase fleet size and count based on the colony's population.

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

Only up to date for version 0.9.1. It is likely still broadly correct but not verified for the most up to date data yet. Please double check the Version History