Biobawls's Colony Guide

Welcome to my guide on Colonies. I've been checking out some of the other guides on colonies and have found them to be way out of date or very vague on certain subjects. I plan on making a modern and comprehensive written guide on how to set up and profit from colonies. I'm going to go over some of the finer details while trying to explain my methods of streamlining the process of setting up colonies so you can do them in a timely fashion.

Understanding the Basic Concept of Colonies

The basic idea of colonies is to make money obviously. We will create high suitability colonies and then sell those colonies commodities. By selling large amounts of Baobabs, Nuclear Waste, Microchips, Entertainers and other commodities we will make a lot of money. The other reason we want colonies is to obtain Peasants for other reasons that are not related to colonies.

Getting Started

To get started in colonies you will need at minimum three characters. If you do not have three characters then work with a teammate or start leveling some alts. You will need a Station Mastery character, a Colonial Administrator character and an Extraction Expert character.

The Station Mastery character should drop defense kits to protect your other bases from players, AI and termites. Consult your team as most teams have a building standard that outlines the minimum amount of defenses you need in a galaxy to keep it safe. I would recommend at minimum two ada T20 kits. One kit will be augged for DPS and one kit will be augged for HPS.

The Extraction Expert character will extract all of the commodities we need to sell to our colonies. An EE30 character will extract commodities 660% faster than a character with no Extraction Expert. It is important to understand what kind of Extractors you will be wanting to use. Right now the best extractors for things like Baobabs and Metals are Fusion Extractors. They are easily built and you can purchase the blueprint in Blue Photon Processing. You will have to build them each uni since they decay on universe reset. One build of an extractor will produce ten extractors. The only exception are the fermium extractors which produce one extractor per one build. So if you want 628 metal extractors you'd build 63 Fusion Metal Extractors and you'll end up getting 630 extractors. You cannot equip a higher tech extractor on a lower tech base (you can't equip tech 16 extractors on a tech 14 base for example). In my opinion the T16 Fusion extractors are the best and that is what I use.

It's important to understand how the math works for extractors. There is a bug in the game and everything extracts 30% faster than what the extractor claims. I've had this confirmed by an admin. A tech 16 Fusion Tree Cutter will produce 34,560 Baobabs every day. If the base is owned by an EE30 character you will get:

34,560 x 1.3 x 7.6 = 341452.8 Baobabs per day.

An EE20 character:

34,560 X 1.3 X 5.4 = 242611.2 Baobabs per day.

An EE27 character with two bases that have 27 T16 Fusion Tree Cutters equipped on each base:

34,560 X 1.3 X 6.94 X 2 X 27 = 16,837,217.28 Baobabs per day.

The Colonial Administrator character will boost the suitability of our colonies as well as increase the amount of commodities that our colonies buy. A CA30 character will raise the suitability of the planet by a factor of 2.5x. It is absolutely important that your highest level character is your CA and it is highly recommended that your CA character is level 3000 so it can get CA30. The amount of time and money saved is pretty big if your CA character has CA30. The meta right now is to use tech 3 kits for your CA character. This means a CA character with Station Management 20 and Station Research 5 can do up to 25 colonies. Since your CA bases are so low tech they will have pretty poor hull space. You'll want to make Station Extension Y's for your colony bases so they'll have enough hull to hold the commodities you will sell to your colonies.

Finding a System

So before we start, we will need a system to build in. Work with your team to figure out the best way to find and claim a system for yourself. Since we are doing colonies, we would prefer systems with more planets. I would recommend trying to find a system with at least ten planets, but you can find planets with a lot more or a lot less. Remember that if you find a galaxy you like you will have to link it up with your team HQ in order to own the system. Owning a system is very important in wild space because it prevents other players not on your team from dropping kits and drones in your system. You can only own a system that has an adjacent system that is owned by your team or you have an HQ or an outpost in that system you are trying to own. You can buy HQs and outposts in Free Market.

Scanning your System

We will want to fully scan and document our system before we build on anything. The only scanner that can detect all the resources in the game is an ENIAC Planet Scanner Omega. If you do not have one, ask a teammate to scan your system for high tier commodities that may be undetectable with other scanners. There are some circumstances where the resources on a planet may be more valuable than a colony. Since our CA base uses a base slot on a planet, sometimes you can make more money with an extraction expert base than a CA base. Let's value a 107% colony at 250mil/day, a 115% colony at 325mil/day and a 125% at 400mil/day. We will get into what that means in a while. Let's look at some examples:

Example 1:

You find a planet with a Little Gold. You drop a base on the planet and figure out that you can equip 4 Gold Extractors on the base. Your EE character has EE26. The market price on Gold is 7,300,000 each.

0.665 x 1.3 x 6.72 x 4 = 23.23 Gold per day. Gold is valued at 7,300,000 each so this base will produce 169,000,000 credits worth of gold per day. A colony would be more valuable.

Example 2:

You find a planet with A Bunch of Psion Icicles. You drop a base on the planet and figure out that you can equip 15 Psion Icicles Extractors. Your EE character has EE30. The market price on Psion Icicles is 98,000 each.

This extractor is weird because it shows extraction rate per day as 9e+01. This is a fancy way of saying 90 Psion Icicles per day.

90 x 1.3 x 7.6 x 15 = 13338 Psion Icicles per day. Psion Icicles are valued at 98,000 per so this base will produce 1,307,124,000 credits worth of Psion Icicles per day. It would be best to fill the planet up with EE bases and not build a colony.

Understanding Suitability and Terraforming

Every Colony will have Suitability that will be dictated by the Gravity, Temperature and the Climate of the planet. The suitability will dictate the maximum population, the amount of resources a colony will buy and how fast a colony will grow. We want as much suitability as possible so our colonies are as profitable as possible. We are able to Terraform in order to raise the suitability on our colonies. Look at the Terraforming Project Blueprints wiki page in order to understand more about what's available for terraforming. When you build a terraform, it will give you an item called Pre-Fabricated Terraform upon completion. You then take that pre-fabricated terraform to the proper colony and equip it as a blueprint. Then you can build the terraform on the colony station. There are three levels of each terraform. For the purpose of this guide we will sort them into tiers. A T1 terraform takes 1 day, a T2 takes 2 days and a T3 terraform takes 3 days to build on a colony. You will have to build the T1 first in order to start the T2 terraform and you will need to build the T2 terraform to start the T3. Each terraform may be locked to a certain climate, temperature or gravity. For example, you cannot use a Heavy Gravity terraform on a Low Gravity planet.

Let's look at heavy gravity terraforms:

Gravity Controller Experiment Planetary Blueprint Is the first level of terraform for a heavy gravity planet. I refer to this as Tier 1 or T1. Gravity Controllers Planetary Blueprint is the second level of terraform for a heavy gravity planet. I refer to this as Tier 2 or T2. Maximum Gravity Controllers Planetary Blueprint is the third level of terraform for a heavy gravity planet. I refer to this as Tier 3 or T3.

Again, in order to build a T2 terraform on a planet, you must already have a T1 built on the planet. If you forget what terraforms you've built on the colony then just scan the planet with a planetscanner.

There are two terraforms that you can build on any planet and should be built first because of how cheap they are. These two terraforms are Orbital Habitats and Sensible Living Projects.

So, let's see some examples of planets and what kind of terraforms you would use. We are going to assume in all these examples that our CA character has CA30. If your CA character does not have CA30 then get leveling! From here on out we are going to abbreviate the climate, temperature and gravity of a planet. For a Heavy, Temperate, Noxious planet we will call it H T N. For a Low Frozen Terran planet we are going to call it L F T.

Example 1:

L F T - 56% base suitability. CA gives 150% increased suitability so our suit with a CA30 character is 140%. Suitability is capped at 125% so this colony requires no terraforming.

Example 2:

H T N - 37% base suitability. With CA30 we have 92% suitability. After the Orbital Habitats and Sensible Living Project terraform we have 107% suitability. The T1 heavy terraform gives 10% suit and the T1 nox terraform gives 5% suit. With these four terraforms we have 122% Suit. So we decide not to use the T1 nox and instead use the T2 heavy. This brings our suitability to 127%.

Terraforms used: Orbital, Sensible, T1 and T2 Heavy

Example 3:

L B N - 28% base suitability. With CA30 we have 70% suit. After orbital and sensible we have 85%. T2 Low gives 15%, T2 Blist gives 20% and T1 Nox gives 5%. These terraforms give +40% suit which brings our suit to a perfect 125%.

Example 4:

N B G - 25% base suitability. With CA30 we have 62% suit. After orbital and sensible we have 77%. We can't terraform normal gravity planets and we can't terraform gas planets. We can only terraform the blistering. T3 blist gives +30% suit. After these terraforms we have 107% suitability and cannot go any higher.

I have conveniently calculated what terraforms to use on each planet.

Colonies that require no terraforming:

N T T

N T N

N T G

N F T

N F N

N B T

L T T

L T N

L F T

H T T

Colonies that require T1 terraforming:

L F N - Orb, Sensible, T1 Low

L B T - Orb, Sensible, T1 Low, T1 Blist

H F T - Orb, Sensible, T1 Heavy, T1 Frozen

Colonies that require T2 terraforming:

N B N - Orb, Sensible, T2 Blist

L B N - Orb, Sensible, T2 Low, T2 Blist, T1 Nox

H T N - Orb, Sensible, T2 Heavy

H F N - Orb, Sensible, T2 Heavy, T2 Frozen, T1 Nox

Colonies that require T3 terraforming:

N F G - Orb, Sensible, T3 Frozen

L T G - Orb, Sensible, T3 Low

L F G - Orb, Sensible, T3 Low, T2 Frozen

H B T - Orb, Sensible, T3 Heavy, T2 Blist

H B N - Orb, Sensible, T3 HEavy, T3 Blist, T1 Nox

Colonies that require T3 terraforming, and are below 125% suit after max terraforming:

N B G - Orb, Sensible, T3 Blist. Max Suit 107%

L B G - Orb, Sensible, T3 Low. Max Suit 115%

H T G - Orb, Sensible, T3 Heavy. Max Suit 107%

H F G - Orb, Sensible, T3 Heavy, T3 Frozen. Max Suit 115%

H B G - Orb, Sensible, T3 Heavy, T3 Blist. Max Suit 105%

Pro tip: You do not need T2 or T3 Nox terraforms. Don't build them!

Building and Growing Colonies

There's two ways to build and grow your colonies. The first method is pumping and the second method is just seeding all the colonies evenly. The pumping method means that you takes all your peasants and start the biggest colony you can on a planet that requires no terraforming. The colony will grow quickly and reach 1bil population. As the population of the colony increases the colony price of peasants will decrease. Once it hits 1-2bil population you can start buying peasants to seed your other colonies. The second method is seeding all your colonies evenly. Some colonies will be slowed down for a couple of days while the terraforms finish but otherwise this is a lower effort and usually a little less profitable method. Make sure to sell your colonies rations and keep them properly fed. A colony that isn't buying rations will grow slower or sometimes even die. I sell my rations for five credits so the colony can be well-fed. A colony usually buys 800 rations every two hours.

When building your colonies you will want to use the Compact Colony Blueprint which you can buy at Earth Central in Sol for 1,000,000 credits each. This colony blueprint is ideal because it uses less metal and rations than other colony blueprints. You'll need one blueprint per colony. You'll want to multi build your colony builds so you can get the biggest discount available. If you don't know, if you build more than ten items in one build you will get a return on the materials you used on that build.

On a 125% suitability colony your population will double roughly every two days.

A colony with 1 mil population will take roughly 7 days to get 10mil population.

A colony with 10 mil population will take roughly 7 days to get 100mil population.

A colony with 100mil population will take roughly 7 days to get 1bil population.

You are not going to make very much money until your planets hit at least 1bil pop. You are also able to start buying peasants from your colonies at 1bil pop. I would recommend you have at least one million peasants per colony so it can grow in a decent time frame.

Making Money

So now that we have our colony bases down, our terraforms done and our colonies seeded, we will want to start making money. We are able to trade with our colony through our trade bay. A colony will buy from the cheapest trade bay on the planet so if you have multiple bases on the planet, make sure the bases aren't competing with one another. The four main commodities to do are Entertainers, Microchips, Nuclear Waste and Baobabs. We can also add in Workers and Promethium if we have spare rations and prom available to sell. A colony's price on a certain commodity will be lower if that resource is avaliable on the planet. For example, a planet with a Bunch of baobabs will have a low baobabs price and it may not be very profitable to sell baobabs to that colony. I always sell my commodities for half of the STARTING price. These prices are as follows:

Nuclear Waste - 437 credits

Baobabs - 700 credits

Entertainers - 542 credits

Microchips - 131 credits

These commodities I would do a little different pricing, but I do not sell these commodities to my colonies because I send my prom to team prod and I don't have spare bots to do workers. I would probably start workers and prom at these prices and then adjust accordingly:

Workers - 400 credits

Promethium - 30,000

A fully grown colony will buy 20,000-22,000 of the first four commodities per tick on a 125% suit colony. A tick is every two hours. So let's figure out how profitable a perfect colony is:

437 x 21,000 x 12 = 110,124,000 per day from Nuclear Waste

700 x 21,000 x 12 = 175,400,000 per day from Baobabs

542 x 21,000 x 12 = 136,584,000 per day from Entertainers, but we have 45,612,000 credits of expenses so we only profit 90,972,000 per day

131 x 21,000 x 12 = 33,012,000 per day from Microchips, but we have 1,260,000 credits of expenses so we only profit 31,752,000 per day

Total profit: 408,248,000 per day for a good colony. We can make a little more if we sold prom and workers and could bring that up to 500mil or maybe more.

We don't sell Metals, Space Oats or Silicon since almost every planet has them so the prices are garbage.

You can try to fine-tune commodity prices, but I feel like fine tuning colony prices takes a lot of time and doesn't really help very much. The faster we can set up colonies then more time we have to set up more of them or do other things in game.

How much is the above colony worth? Let's do some math. A uni is at minimum 4 months long, so 120 days. If it takes 28 days for your colony to terraform and grow to 4bil+ then we can assume we will have 92 days where we are making 408mil per day. So that means this colony will profit 37.536 billion credits over a universe if you did not have to terraform it. A system with 10 planets could yield you 300bil over the coarse of a uni! It is important to terraform and grow your colonies as fast as possible so there's more time in the uni for them to make you money.

Special Colony Commodities

Sometimes when you scan a planet you'll see it has something along the lines of a Bunch of Trobbles. These are special colony commodities and you obtain them by buying them from the colony and then selling them to your other colonies for a small profit.

Ruins

Some planets will have ruins. When you build a colony on the planet the colonists will slowly uncover items that once belonged to ancient races. You can purchase these items from the colonies. Some of these ruin items are very valuable. The most common ruins are Faranji, Vazaha, Bule and Mzungu. The rarer ones are Paxian, UrQa, Kikale Mzungu, Unt Faranji, Bule Abadi and Goalagoay Vazaha. You can't get Mzungu items from a Kikale Mzungu ruin and you can't get a Kikale Mzungu item from a Mzungu ruin. Usually Faranji, Vazaha, Bule, Mzungu and Paxian ruins will have at mimimum two items and can have up to around 12 items. Paxian, UrQa, Kikale Mzungu, Unt Faranji, Bule Abadi and Goalagoay Vazaha ruins will only have one or two items. We can purchase ruin items from the colony by adding the ruin item to our trade bay for a higher price than the colony price. There is currently no way to speed up extraction. Usually you buy about one or two items per day. If you set your trading bay up to buy multiple items then the colony will flip-flop on what it sells you. Make sure you put enough money in your base to pay for what you're buying.

Calculating Maximum Commodity Usage

We will need to calculate our ability to extract enough commodities for our colonies. We know a fully grown colony will buy at most 22,000 baobabs per tick. Let's say we have 31 colonies.

31 x 22,000 x 12 = 8,184,000 maximum Baobabs per day.

31 x 44,000 x 12 = 16,368,000 maximum Silicon per day.

31 x 22,000 x 12 = 8,184,000 maximum Nuclear Waste per day.

Woah, why are we needing twice as much silicon as baobabs and nuclear waste? Well, you will need silicon for both entertainers and microchips. Refer back to the beginning where I explained how to calculate the amount of resources your EEs are extracting to make sure your EE bases can keep up with the resources your colonies are buying.

Calculating Your Minimum Factory Count

So we still have our 31 colonies that we used in the above example. We will sell at most 22,000 Microchips to each colony. How many Microfabs will we need?

31 x 22,000 x 12 = 8,184,000 Micrchips per day. There are 86,400 seconds in a day. A Microfab produces a microchip every 15 seconds. Therefore one microfab will produce 5760 micrchips per day.

8,184,000 / 5760 = 1420.8 microfabs minimum. Just set up 2,000 microfabs and you'll be fine. Dont forget that workers will need microchips, so if you want to sell workers you'll have to double your microfab count.

Logistics

I would always have a central hub that all of our trade is based out of. We will import silicon, rations, baobabs and more into our base and our bots will move these resources to the colonies. On this hub base I would equip all my factories. Now one problem is that when we ship the commods to the colonies the credits will accumulate on the colony bases. No one wants to fly to thirty different bases to collect a paycheck. So I set up my hub base to sell our commodities for the same price the colony will buy for. The colony bases will buy and sell our commods for the price we will sell to the colony for. Our bots will run resources to our colony bases in between each tick and will fill up the base. In this scenario, the colony will never sell to our base because the base is never buying since our bots will fill up our base between each tick.

Talking about bots, I use Dark Freighters augged with one Calypso Augmenter and one Speedy Sup. Capacity. I also use Levi+ slaves augged 2 Exc. Capacity. Equip speed shields on them and good engines like Dhatri Yantras, Antu Zrggas or Rhino Charges. I always have my fourth and fifth characters on my accounts to be Merchant Fleet Master so they get a huge bonus to trading bot stats and they are able to move resources around much much better.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading my guide. I hope you found this information useful. If you have any questions or suggestions you can contact me in Discord. Now go get rich!