I recently invaded a very large icy planet planet with very rich resources. And by invading I mean just taking it, it was not defended at all. I put one planetary shield on the planet. Later the next day it was attacked but the guy failed at invading. I feel I should also mention my legion bonus was 80% and he was in a legion by himself. Shaken up by that failed invasion attempt I decided to fortify it a bit more in case he came back with a mutagenic cartridge adding an interrogation center(+200def) and 2 more planetary shields along with 2 Hypersphere Habitats. Today even with 2 legion mates guarding it and a Vortex Deflector. He still decided to attack. I don't know if he was just testing my defenses or what, but he still shows interest. I plan to use a mass surface melter on this icy planet, however I really don't want to lose this planet after I use such a limited artifact such as that. An ultra rich research very massive planet is quite attractive in the eyes of the enemy.

My relevant stats are rank 102 combat rep: insane
His relevant stats are rank 113 with 666 scanned attack power. Combat rep:laughable

I would suggest u wait till rank 120, unlock Aeon Moon Chain, Grab the planet flux, and then melt it...
U r not that far away rank wise, and 15k energy(if u wanna waste a good flux) or 25k energy(to get first unlimted flux) after that shouldn't be too hard.

Frankly, A VM artifact planet(after melting) is probably worth selling, and being in his own legion, he might just sell the planet~

I have another solution for you. You know that Aeon Moon mission Uy was talking about? After you finish it and get your three planet fluxes, a new mission unlocks that gives you temporal flux orbs. They work just like the planet flux, but can only be used on planets that haven't been attacked in the last week. Best part is the mission can be completed an unlimited number of times.

My advice is to brick the heck outta the planet for now. Eventually he will loose interest when he sees insane defensive stats you have on it and stops attacking it (at least for one week) Then temporal flux it!

A couple of other things to consider: he may join a legion and A) Open it up as a "free for all" for any of the legion to invade, or B) Enlist the help of a couple of saboteurs to knock down defenses. Or he may simply sell the planet location to someone else. Hope for the best or assume the worst, the choice is yours...

What mission grants surface meters? is there a required rank you have to be at?

I suggest bricking the planet tell you get a temporal fluxes, then use one if he hasn't attacked in the last week. saves you planet fluxes which can be hard to get.

The Pawlacite Thaw
is the one that gives melters

and yes, temporal orb is better than flux if the guy stay off it..
But then again... if the owner is anything like myself.....
he's gonna poke the planet once a week.
So u have to waste a real flux on it if u want any real production out of it.

Also, I strongly suggest waiting until its a 15x or more to use the melter on it. The extra 2x production that you cannot get by any other means is huge...then, if you decide to spend money on the game, you can always Rift it, for a very nice rift planet

err... NO
rift should be done on high aviliablity but small planets.
melted planets should be the last thing on that list because they are the ONLY one that is possible to get to mega colossals.
gaias, crystals etc are all better choices in that aspect(and being possible colossals, they are also not the best choices)

and u know if he can afford rift, he can afford fluxing his newly made mega colossal oceanic...

Im sorry, you are thinking of the Mission Exotic. That you want to be done on a small planet, because it will always end up a massive, 13x
Rifts, add +15x to any planet, and make it Mega Colossal. So, if you take a 15x Icy, (not getting greedy and puting Em Crystals on it to take it to 20x) melt it, you have a 17x planet. Rifting it makes it 34x, and worth the financial investment-- you essentially have 2 excellent planets in one now, that are as big as they can get, and require 0 defenses

No, you are wrong
because rifting a 17x very tiny and rifting a 17x very massive is NO DIFFERENT
with that said, gaia seed along with some others can ALSO make 17x planets, but those tend to be smaller than the AT LEAST VM planet we are talking about here.
Which means, if you rift this planet, you end up with a 32x MC and a 17x god-knows-how-big, while if u rift something else, u can end up with a 32xMC and a 17x at-least-VM

and at-least-VM is likely bigger than god-knows-what-else

I for one have quite a few average sized or so terras which if res was boosted and turned gaia would be much better canadid for rift than the icy(soon to be oceanic) in question