I found 2 that I think are the best yet, and am curious for some feedback.

Very large gas planet with extremly sparse artifacts and rich research, or Very massive gas planet with very abundant research.

I know the first one has better resources, but will the size of the second make it worth it?

the very large/rich is slightly better than the very massive/very abundant. not by much though

If you fill all available space with the +1 mining structures (don't build artifact structures on either one), the Very Large planet will give you 28.5 resource points per hour when you first colonize it and 57 points per hour when it peaks after five days (plus any race/class research bonus that you might have). The Very Massive planet will give you 17.25 points per hour to start and 51.75 per hour after it peaks (plus bonuses). Normally, you want the biggest planets you can get simply because there is room for more structures, but the bonus is so much higher on the Very Large planet (100% compared to 50%) in this case and there's not a huge difference in size (57 and 69 building space) so the Very Large will give you more research points over time. They are both decent, but if you have to pick one I'd start with the Very Large...

edit: Agross beat me to it..

yeoman, with ur nifty math skills you could probably make a little spreadsheet showing which planet/resources is better. I know my limitations ;P Something like that would help the newbies out tremendously

Thanks for the help. I had figured even with the very sparse artifacts their I might as well build one station for them, then focus research. I the higher resource value makes sense to be the best choice. Thanks for the feedback.

I actually made a little spreadsheet to figure it out but I don't really have any place to put it where it can be shared. Any suggestions?

google docs

I tried using the Google Docs conversion option to make the file visible online, but it doesn't seem to like my spreadsheet so I'll just give you a direct link to the download page for the Excel version.

This sheet includes the information for all planet sizes and resource availability that I have seen posted on these forums. It only has the planet structure/building sizes for the first two levels since I have not seen those posted anywhere and I only have level 2 researched so far..

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BzaR7xkBfITVYzIyYzE1MWYtYTE0ZS00MGE3LTgzOTYtZWEwZmQ0MmQ4MTYy&hl=en

Never build anything of any resource thats under "Average", anything below that actually lowers the amount you get from 1 point of production.

nice excel post. I got it up and running on google docs, but can't get it to share publicly. although from what i have heard there is supposed to be a way to do this. for those that have problems picking which planet/outputs I highly recommend downloading his .xls file and anytime you can just put in your numbers and it will tell you which is better.

/agree

here's the link to view the spreadsheet
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key ... jN1E&hl=en

you can't edit this copy, but you can FILE > "make a copy" to your own Google.com/docs account, or FILE > "download a copy" and then edit

i love google/docs

i posted a level 1 building productions spreadsheet and guides in the strat section for those that want