Planet Colonizing Guide

Here is some valuable advise I wish I had starting this game. I learned the hard way when it comes to planets. These are tips I believe would help everyone who plays Galaxy Legion. I'm going to explain about planets and how they work and how to make it benefit you at a low rank so when your a higher ranks you will be set. Planets are a bit confusing once you first start and now with bases there's more going on to learn about. Hopefully, everyone can take at least one tip from this to help themselves or someone else to become a SMARTER player. We all colonized planets we regretted later. Let's fix that!

Planet Resources

Minerals- Minerals are essential to a ship. You have a daily upkeep cost you must pay or your ship will be rendered useless or you wont be able to buy any nice new tech for your ship or planets. Mineral points get converted into $$ in the game called credits.
Artifact- Artifact points help any ship on the battlefield, just to beef up your ship, increase your scan, or making your self invisible. Not just you either you can use artifacts on enemy planets to bring down it attack, defenses and to make invading easier. You can use them on your own planets making them a fortress of traps, attack and defense. Using them on yourself you can raise your scan, increase hull and shields, raise attack, defense and invasion, hide, or to keep from being attacked over and over again. Used on enemy ships does the opposite, they will drop their stats making them easier to kill or you remover their boosted artifacts off them. The higher you let the artifact bar fill the better chances you have to get rare and a lot nicer more effective artifacts. Some permanently increase your ships stats and research.
Research- This is the straw that breaks the camels back. If you have no research you should just reset your ship to rank one and rescan for new planets. Being a rank 100 with Laser Cannons 15+ attack each isn't cool. You need research to increase our modules output on your ship. In turn you will have better attack, defense, hull etc. If you get massive amounts of research early in the game you can build a great ship in no time. If you have little to no research you will be crying people smack you around and steal your planets cause you can't efficiently protect them or yourself.

Planet Production

All planets will produce at least one or more resources. They all are different though. Planets are NOT created equal and this is where the differences can break a person getting several bad planets.

Production Values:

Extremely Sparse -75%
Very Sparse -50%
Sparse -25%
Average 0%
Abundant 25%
Very Abundant 50%
Extremely Abundant 75%
Rich 100%
Very Rich 125%
Extremely Rich 150%
Ultra Rich 175%
Mega Rich 200%
1x Mega Rich 225%
2x Mega Rich 250%
thru
28x Mega Rich (Mission based max)
thru
50x ish Mega Rich

Planet Size

Planets vary with how many structures you can add to a planet to get resources. The smaller the planet the less structures can be added. That being said unless its a high output planet it will cut how much production you can get. Larger the planet more structure space is given to add more attack, defense or cloak. Also this game is geared to get you to sign on often how often is up to you but instead of loosing much needed points you can only colonize planets Large or better to get decent amount of space to store your hourly income, will allow you more offline time without thinking you need to sneak on at work to dump your research points. Smaller the planet less you can save and the more you have to log on thru the day to not loose any points.

Planet Sizes:

Very Tiny
Tiny
Very Small
Small
Average
Large
Very Large
Massive
Very Massive
Colossal
Mega Colossal- It's made when you upgrade a Very Massive Icy with a Mass Surface Melter


Planetary Defense

If you have already have gotten a small planet you know not to add attack or defenses in hope a noob will come by and steal it and think he got away with it. Your Large or better planets NEED to have some protection in some form. There is 4 main ways to protect a colonized planet. You should go around to your nicest planets and flux probe them to plan your structures accordingly. If your only person who scanned it Cloak it only, Flux Probe weekly/biweekly. If you stole it put up equal amounts if not more defense and then more population. Don't forget to ALERT and GUARD it. If someone else scanned it add just attack structures more scary it looks more they leave it alone. Now, the 4 ways to save your planets from invasions!

Artifacts- Great way to empty cargo a bit also. Flux probe your best planets. Add traps to planets been scanned or stolen within past 2-3 wks. Add Longevity Serum, attack and defensive artifacts on recently invaded planets. Use them to even help make a planet easier to hit or invade. Above all SAVE Planet Flux's for your best planets! Scan it to see if anyone else had if no one in the legion gave you the planet, flux it to not even let someone get tempted to take it. If someone in legion gave it to you they could help guard it if they saw it under attack while clicking on legion controlled planets if they see its under attack and they gave you the planet they will still have the guard option or if it gets stolen you can steal it back before they can get it guarded. Also, the person in the legion could use a Star Chart Purger to remove them from its scan as a less costly way then wasting a Planet Flux.
Attack Structures- The higher on Weapons you research the better the attack structures get. The cost to them vary but always only take up 2 structure space. Some NPC will drop planet items which should be used on largest planets like the Toxic Purifiers and Terra-formers. Some should be put on your best planets to add lighter structure and get extra attack bonus.
Defensive Structures- The highest of your shield research will determine what planet structures you can build. Again, they only take up 2 spaces. Again NPC items can be found. The best defensive artifact and most expensive is a Planet Flux.
Hide it- You heard right! Hide it behind some dusty boxes by researching Steath technology. If you Flux Probed your nice planets find they are clear of being scanned, then keep them that way. Why add attack and defense? Add ONLY cloak keep it out off every ones scan. I say only cause if your rank 100 and a rank 500 just scanned your planet you think your 2000 attack and 3000 defense will survive someone with over 15000-20000 attack/defense and near infinite artifacts? No. If he can't find it, no need to defend it. Artifacts can help hide planets also.

Artifact Structures

These structures are the ones you get cashing in your Artifact Points. Good way to clear out cargo space using them to update planets. They are great structures they either offer 2 points to two different resources or it gives 1 resource point and one special ability (more cloak, population, or attack and defense). Most of these structures take up 1-2 space. They are better on a planet then anything you can research space wise so think twice about scrapping them. Most you can add only 1 or 2 of each per planet. Some can be collected thru missions. They can give planets passive abilities that DONT take up space on a planet. Like a Eruption Channeler gives a Volcanic planet 50 passive attack. Most of these cannot be sent or traded.

Special Artifacts

Terra-formers will increase the production to all your planets resources by 1 level. EX: Takes a Abundant planet to a Very Abundant planet. They also increase ALL the resources on the planet so find a planet with all Mineral, Artifact, and Research. Extremely Abundant or better would become Rich. Use on your largest planets you can to get maximum effectiveness out of it.
Toxic Purifiers increase Toxic planets (only Toxics) mining output by 2 EX: Average planet can become Very Abundant or Rich can become Extremely Rich. They are dropped from few NPC's. Use these on your largest planets to get best bonus.
Quasi-Special Expander increases the size of a planet Massive or smaller by 1. EX: Large planet would become Very Large. Use these on your best production planets to get the maximum bonus yield.

If you save several up which would take awhile both are RARE artifacts to get. Better chances buying with Galaxy Points. But saving up several of each and using them on one planet you can make a planet almost 28x Mega Rich or better. How most Dyson's, Toxics, and Crystals are made.

There is 2 artifacts you can use to raise the production of Research and Artifact by 2 permanently.
They ALL can be purchased in the Trading Tab. Green Button.
One that isn't is received thru the Collective Theory Lab Makes a Volcanic planet a Demon planet. Some missions can turn your planets into something else. EX: Ice to Oceanic or Metallic to Dyson.

SET STANDARDS!!!

I really get bitter when I see people alerting Small and Tiny planets. Worse when I see a rank 100 colonize a Tiny Research Rich planet. You will shoot yourself in the foot doing that larger the planet longer you don't have to sign on to dump your cache. I learned hard way on my own about planets. I know the problems of the several Small planets we think to be "nice" to find out after rank 100 they hold us back from nicer better producing planets. So you leave it unprotected hoping someone takes it. Every one made that mistake planets are not clearly explained when you have the tutorial walk-thru. I will not colonize certain planets now cause of it. I will only colonize Extremely Abundant planets or better. BUT! I will not colonize a Large Extremely Abundant but I will a Very Large Extremely Abundant. I'll only colonize Large or better planets now only. Hate to say it guys but "SIZE MATTERS!" Only Time I would take a Very Large planet with under Extremely Abundant is if it is a Toxic where I can use Toxic Purifiers on it. If someone done this from day one they would have an outrageous production output by rank 100. If there was a button I would disable being able to alert planets smaller then Average under Extremely Abundant thru out the legion. People have to work 2x as hard to get rid of one planet you made the mistake colonizing. Most will pay $3 cash to abandon few colony's. 5 Galaxy Points per Abandoned planet. I will make one exception on colonizing 2 or 3 bad planets on purpose but they would be Massive Gas Very Sparce Research to make a Vault planet. Explained below.

Vault Planets

Vault planets are ideal for people who cap on their total production values real fast. There is 3 artifacts that can be used.

Mineral Storage Tower- Limit 5 per planet- Increases production capacity by 2000 units.
Artifact Warehouse- Limit 5 per planet- Increases production capacity by 4000 points.
Research Data Archive- Limit 5 per planet- Increases production capacity by 2000 points.

What you do:

Get ONLY the planet type I mention for best results and to save your Galaxy Points you would spend on the Tower, Warehouse, and Archive from being stolen from you. Get a Gas planet Massive or larger only and Research only Very Sparse (worst you can get yes). Add 5 of the structures on it then put only all attack or all defense you can on a planet previously scanned by another ship. If Flux Probe says no one scanned it load every remaining available possible structure as the best cloak you can to keep it a hidden gem.

Think about what you would do with 3 Massive planets.(You can own more then just 5 of each just only 5 per planet. Some will have 4-5 Research vaults so they can work 8 hours without loosing any research points.

Mineral Storage Vault- 5 on a planet allow you to store 10000 more minerals then you normally can.
Artifact Vault- 5 on a planet allow you to have 20000 more artifact points then you normally can.
Research Vault- 5 on a planet allow you to have 10000 more research then you normally can hold.


Final Note.

This IS the short version to what I feel EVERY ONE should know about planets. Some can argue some of my opinions but they are just that. This is my take on how to become a powerful player. More I sat and thought more the complexities of planets came to life. There is a lot of things not heavily gone into details like how to make a Large Extremely Abundant Metallic into a Colossal 28x Mega Rich Dyson. Its happening daily! Again this is just the easy version.

You forgot a planet size: Mega Colossal
It's made when you upgrade a Very Massive Icy with a Mass Surface Melter

Also, some limits:
Terraformer or Planet Data Optimizer: Can only upgrade to no higher than 15x
Toxic Purifier: Can only upgrade to no higher than 16x (15x cannot be upgraded higher)
Quasi-Spacial Expander: Can only upgrade to Very Massive
Kronyn Data Cube: planet data optimizer without an upgrade limit

Also, there's a 2nd CT-Lab planet upgrader: Phasic Chain-Ionizer
Changes a Gas into a Plasma (which strangely allows for population buildings)

Thanks I corrected it!

Well Done. Nicely Explained. you migh want to put into beginners too. I Wish i had this when i started

Good idea

I prety much do as your suggesting with a few small adjustment.

Only small planets I take and 1x+ mega terras.

I am willing to take a slightly sub-par planet if I know I can make it better.

I have many other things (like max out pop within seven spaces). I wont be cloaking my planets much till I get the best cloaking building lol.

+1 very well written. Excellent info and advise. thank you for taking the time to post

So, I guess I'm the only one who disagrees; at a lot of points the grammar makes this difficult to understand, and there are a number of errors.



This is not true; the amount of mineral and artifact storage you get is the same no matter the planet's size (500 minerals per planet, 1000 artifacts per planet), and your research storage is based on your rank, not your planet (150 times your rank).



Are you saying the Purifiers and Terraformers affect the Attack you get from structures? That's not true, but it's difficult to discern what you're saying.



This isn't necessarily wrong, but is a point of contention; if you can't defend your planet from someone it's likely you can't very well hide it from them either. It mostly depends on your research levels (such as if you research a lot of cloak but few weapons and shields), but most researched cloak structures don't seem worth it, because you need to use more space than the planet's worth to get the benefit of a higher level of research (because they're not all the same size). As I said, it depends on your research level, but it seems best to rely on special structures and passive cloak for cloaking planets and not researched Cloak structures.



None of these structures give Defense, and they all take 1 space. Artifact structures also don't give Passive stats, they're structures.



I would also recommend using them on Artifact planets, because there are no other artifacts that increase the artifact abundance on a planet.



I think you meant Gaias, Crystals, Irradiated, Demon, Plasma, Sentient, and some Oceanic planets are made (though again, it's hard to say if that's what you were talking about). Let me explain better: there are some special artifact which upgrade a planet, and these will let a planet go over its usual maximum stats. The usual planet increasing artifacts (like the Terraformer and Expander) will only take a planet up to 15x (or 16x) Mega Rich and Very Massive, but the artifacts to make the planets I mentioned (The Gaia Seed, Gamma Crystallizer, Isolytic Irradiator, Thermionic Intensifier, Phasic-Chain Ionizer, Planetary Sentiox, Octafari Hydroshifter, and Mass Surface Melter) will expand a planet past these limits, letting you make 17x Mega Rich and Colossal planets.

You also forgot the Planet Data Optimizer, which increases the Research on a planet by 1, up to 15x.

Awesome work. I think a lot of new player will fined this help full.

very well put ferrus

There's a small thing bothering me...



and...



Attack on planets fails for a couple of reasons. First, it's is slightly cheaper, if less useful, to research shields and get defense structures. Take a second and compare the research trees and the values on the structures. To get the regionnal shields, it costs you about 40k research total. To get the same result from an attack structure, it requires near 160k research, four times as much!

Second reason, orbital mass-disruption artifacts will lower a planet's attack by 30% while ion storms lower defense by 15%. Defense can't be lowered as much!

Third reason, defense buys you time for alerts, guards, and using artifacts if you're lucky enough to catch the invader red-handed. Attack will scratch paint jobs but unless you stack it on top of defense, pop will go down fast, giving your attack structures fewer shots at the invader. Sure it counts against invasions, but do you really want it to get to the point where the attacker hits the invade button?

Final note, I wouldn't put too much defense on your planets. Sure, losing planets is annoying, but it will happen eventually regardless. Then ask yourself, is the decreased amount of ressources worth the unknown lenght of time you will hold the planet? Essentially, if you can't keep the planet for at least twice as long as you would have kept it with fewer defenses, it is not worth halving its production. Not sure if that last one is clear, but hopefully you can figure out what I mean.

Otherwise, agreed, good guide!

Would you regard 15 mass shields as too much?

Depends, is there any recent attempt at invasions involved? You could want to stack defense on a planet after an attack until you can flux it...

In general though, yes, I would regard as far too much.

At higher levels attack has the advantage, if you have Darkmines. On your best planets, stack attack structures with Darkmines and you'll be better off, even with the Orbital Mass Disruptor, and then give them passive defense to slow the enemy down. I know people think defense will slow them down and buy you some time, but if the planet's tough they can just use a Bio-Vaporizer to kill half the population, and most attacks come when you're offline where no amount of attack or defense will buy you enough time to save the planet (unless you're getting no resources from it).

There was when I put them on there (they were regional shields at the time) including legion bonus I get 9.5k defense - which is nice. I still get over 300 units across the 3 resources from it though.

This Post Needs To Be Bumped and Locked
I cannot believe it hasn't been done, this is pivotal info.

All the good information here is right on the wiki: http://galaxylegion.com/wiki/index.php/Planets The rest is either false or poorly written.

+1 the wiki explains this far better.

++1
so it does, stupidly I have read this, many times, but pointed my noobs to this thread.
-1 my memory
-1 my leadership

but then again his post was

Planet Colonizing Guide you wish you had starting this game,

I wish I had had. But I guess I could also in hind sight wish that I had read and committed to memory the wiki and forums, my new bibles.

Unless there is some multiplier to planet cloak that I don't know about, I cannot see the point of cloaking a planet at all.

When anyone does a scan blitz they will be equiping their best and biggest Sensors as well as deploying artifacts to increase their Scan rating even more. An average Rank-100 player can easily get to 1.5k+ scan (common artifacts alone will add over 250 plus +15% to whatever the Sensors produce) - someone who is Rank 200 or 300 I would guess could be reaching 3k or 4k Scan.

This means that unless you can get your cloak-rating for a planet up above those levels of 3k to 4k cloak, the only people that you are going to be cloaking your planet from are players who are lower than Rank-100 who you can more easily defend against anyway.

Am I correct - or is there something I have missed?