Colony

Colonies are one of the most basic things to the game. Without colonies, there would be no ruins, no Emp runs, and alot less cash flowing through the economy.

Setting Up

The first thing you need is a base on a planet. After you have your base well established and it has a trading bay that can sell your colony upwards of 500 rations per hour, you can start construction confidently. Obtain a colony blueprint from an AI space station and add it to the blueprints section of the station. Basic colonies take some credits, a couple thousand rations, metals, and peasents to build. Once completed the colony is automatically set up on the planet and a colony tab will be added to the base menu the next time you dock.

Keeping Your Loyal Colonists Alive

Be sure your base is set up to sell rations to the colony and if your base buys rations from an AI station, make sure that the price your base pays for rations is lower than the price it sells them for, or else the colony will sell all it's rations to you and starve. Also make sure that your base will not sell ALL of its rations to the colony or it may do so and die from starvation as well.

Adding to your Colony

You can set your base to sell peasents to your colony if their natural growth is too slow for your liking. To do this, put peasents on the station and set the trading bay to sell them for less than the colony's buying price (shown in the "Colony" tab in the base).

Trading with your new Colony

You can set up any commodity to sell to your colony and the colony will buy the goods. The ammount they will buy depends on the population of the colony, the price they are willing to pay, and the suitability of the colony.

Ruins

Ruins are ancient objects found buried somewhere on the planet and will occasionally crop up when you least expect them. They range from extremely valuable to worthless, so consult someone before paying too much for something your don't know about. Once a colony uncovers something, you can add it to your trading bay's menu to check out the stats. Every class of item except augmentors can be found in ruins, from commodities to ships. There seem to be a limited number of items of each ruin that they find, and a single planet may hold as many as six but as few as one ruin item. Not all planets have ruins though; planet scanners can be used to discover them, but only the most powerful will show the really rare ones.

Tips

Suitability, Suitability, Suitability... Suitability affects many aspects of the colony, the higher the suitability rating, the better. The Colonial Administrator skill raises the suitability for any colonies owned by that character and can be very useful to that end. If you are selling stuff to your colony that you don't want AI to come in and buy, make sure to set your base to Team docking priveldges. Suitability Is NORMALLY 100% (Normal Temperate Terran) now it is taken down by 25% if it is Noxious, and 50% if it is Gaeseous. It is Taken down 25% if it is Frozen, and 50% if it is Blistering, and If it has Light Gravity it is taken down 25% and if heavy gravity taken down 50% These stack so a Planet thats Heavy Gravity (-50%) and Gaeseous (-50%) and terran is 25%... a Planet thats Noxious (-25%) Temperate and Heavy Gravity is 37%

Colonies: A gold mine?

Colonies can be used to make loads and loads of cash if used properly. However, it takes loads and loads of experience to even know where to start with that and loads of cash to start a colony that will make money.