Matress_of_evil wrote:
Do NOT colonise a planet that is smaller than average size, even if it is your first planet. Anything smaller is just a waste and you will really regret it later on in the game.
Really? Even a small planet that is 48X mega rich?
I'm thinking there are exceptions to everything, especially since later in the game artifacts are available as you go along that can increase the size of planets. However, you should know that the reason for skipping on colonizing any less-than-desirable planet is because you only get so many planets total (depending on your level) and you can't get rid of them once you've got them without spending 5 galaxy points each (real money). So if you fill up your planet bin with garbage, you won't be able to empty it without paying.
More detailed how-to for planet colonization:
After you have successfully scanned a planet, click on the planet's picture of the scan to view it. If you've already x-ed out of the scan, then go to the planets tab and look at all the planets you've already scanned. It will have a picture of the planet, and five other columns about it: name, type, size, best resource, and control.
You can click on the name to view more details about a planet, but first look at some of the other columns.
Skipping "type" for now, size varies from very tiny to colossal. As you saw by matress of evil's post, many people think anything less than average is a waste of time. This really only depends on your own tolerance. I look at it this way:
1. Because less than average planets are less desirable to many, they are less likely to get invaded and stolen (yes, this can happen).
2. The smaller the planet, the better the resource(s) have to be.
Best resource will tell you whether the planet is best used for mining, artifacts, or research. Here I agree with matress of evil: Skip over anything that is less than "abundant." I'll go one further: I personally would only take a massive or larger planet that was only at "abundant." A very large planet would have to at least be "very abundant" for me to want it, for instance. But that is me and may not be you. The critical thing is to not get desperate to have a planet, any planet. You aren't going to be kicked out of the game for not colonizing one or anything.
Control tells you whether someone else has already colonized the planet. If they have, you will also see an icon over the planet's picture. "Unoccupied" tells you that you're free to colonize it yourself. Enemy planets will have to be invaded, which costs extra (and you can expect the original owner to fight to get it back). Legion planets will be off limits for you to colonize since these belong to other people in your legion.
If you click the name of a planet, you will get a pop-up of the planet information. In addition to a "colonize planet" button (or "attack planet" button if it is an enemy planet), you will see some tabs. Unoccupied planets have a resources tab and an actions tab. The resources tab tells you the availability of all the possible resources on that planet. Under "production" it will say none; however if you hover your mouse over the little blue question mark, you will see some additional information: Availability bonus and development bonus. The availability bonus for an average resource is 0%. Anything less than average will have a penalty applied to it (sparse is -25%). Development bonus is tied to how long the planet has been colonized. If it's been 5 days or longer, you will get a 100% development bonus. Before that it is 20% per day for the first five days.
There is a wiki entry with more on planet statistics here: http://galaxylegion.com/wiki/index.php?title=Planets
