Colonization for Beginners

The basics

Almost any system body (planet, moon or asteroid; perhaps even comets?) can be colonized (gas giants are an obvious exception). In this tutorial, I'll assume you're colonizing a planet, although the process is identical for all system bodies. You don't need actual colonists to live there; a colony might consist of only a single Deep Space Tracking Station (DSTS) and serve as a listening post.

Before you can ship anything to a planet, you need to mark it as a new colony first. Right-click the planet on the map, then select "New Colony" from the populations sub-menu. Your new colony will now appear in the Population window (you have to close and re-open it to see the change).

Different populations can co-exist on a planet. They could be aliens, or a genetically modified species under your control.

Colonies can be abandoned at any time. Click the "Abandon Colony" at the bottom of the Population window. Everything you leave behind will be lost and cannot be recovered later.

Mining Colonies

If you haven't run out of precious minerals, you will do so, sooner or later. Time to dig for more.

First, make a survey of all the bodies in the system, then identify your most urgent mineral needs. In the Minerals tab on the System Map, you'll see all surveyed bodies, their mineral content and accessibility (1 means optimal mining rate, 0.1 is worst). Find one that contains a good and accessible amount of the required minerals (50 tons isn't worth mining), then designate it as a colony, as described above.

Also pay attention to distances. If you choose an asteroid several billion km from your industrial center, expect long travel times.

Now you need to ship some mines there. If it's a planet with a low enough Colony cost, you can use normal mines, like on your home planet, operated by colonists. But it takes time for the colony to grow and you'll have to build infrastructure for them. Also, most worlds are unsuitable for habitation. So build a few dozen automines that don't require workers and ship them there. You can do that yourself, by creating repeating orders for a group of your freighters, or let the civilian sector handle it (see Commercial Shipping).

Note that a mine or automine, like most installations, weighs 25,000 tons. They can be shipped in parts of 5,000 tons each, but that takes a lot of time (and fuel).

The third option is Asteroid Mining, which is possible only on asteroids, not planets or moons, due to their higher gravity. You just need to build ships with one or more Asteroid Mining Modules and send them to the asteroid. No further orders are required. They will slowly mine all minerals and deposit them on the surface, where they themselves (if equipped with cargo holds) or other ships can then pick them up and and ship them home.