What rule of thumb do you use to decide what 'type' of world a colony should be?

[AegonTheUnready]

My capital system became my manufacturing world by default because it had the most population. But now I'm thinking I should the capital and turn it into a forge world. That got me thinking about my other worlds. My initial 3 colonies are now sort of 'suburban' with a mixture of resource, light manufacturing and refineries, population 30-40 each should I close down all the buildings and move the workers back to the homeworld to work in factories?

My problem is I hate to see empty building slots. But maybe not every slot needs to be built?

How do you guys decide what to build and where? How do you decide when to steer a colony towards mining, rural, resort, farming et cetera?

 

[Ncc 1709]

i only top up building slots when there's a job shortage, otherwise it will pull pop away from the basics like ameneties, tech, mines, food.

 

[WhapXI]

More or less depends on available districts. Raw resource districts tend to get priority when building up planets. When there are no more desirable districts to construct, then I begin to urbanise the planet.

 

[Apophenia]

The way I plan there are basically Mineral worlds, Food worlds, Alloy worlds, Consumer Goods worlds, Research worlds, and Energy worlds (trade usually). At the beginning of the game my home world is usually a Alloy, Consumer Goods, + Research world while my colonies are a mixed Mineral, Food, and Energy worlds. Once I have more worlds and the buildings that one type of production I begin to specialize further. What resources are on the planet usually determine which type of planet it is with low deposit planets becoming a Alloy, Consumer Goods, Research or Energy world.

Also I never build a building unless I have unemployed pops and need something on the planet that is not a district.

 

[AlanC9]

It doesn't really matter what you do on the capital. It always gets the capital +5 Stability/ +10 Amenities bonus, and can't be a forge world, tech world, etc.

But in general, yeah, you want the high-end production workers concentrated on worlds of the same type.

 

[Theter]

If planet size < ressources districts added, then refinery world. Else city planets (alloy cg. Or science)

In games where market gets crazy its more like planet size < mineral + food districts

 

[Slynx]

lots of red squares - forge world
lots of green squares - farm world
others - trade world or ecumenopolis.

I don't build science focused worlds or energy producing worlds at all.

not sure about the other special worlds (slave, tourist and etc). they looks great in flavor. but I think they are meh mechanically.

 

[anamiac]

Generally I look at what kind of resource districts are the most plentiful. If it's close to the total number of districts, then I've got a resource generating world. IE, a size 18 planet with 15 possible mining districts is a great mining planet. After getting all the standard buildings I'll build exotic gas refineries and just enough trade buildings to get my jobs to 80.
If it isn't close then I've either got a research planet or a alloy/consumer planet. For example, suppose I have a size 18 planet with 5 energy districts, 4 mining districts, and 6 farming districts. I would build a few districts and a few basic buildings, but then the rest is going to be housing and Alloy/Consumer Goods.

I see no reason not to put alloy and consumer goods both on the same planet, as the bonus building ups production for both. I wouldn't put research on that planet though, research gets its own planet.

 

[Razor Feather]

I usually make planets that only have a small amount of resource districts or have a moderate amount spread equally among each type into urban worlds that end up either being research focused or turned into ecnomopoli later on, with more resource rich worlds becoming rural planets with a handful of cities as needed to allow me to fill all the building slots with refineries.

Consumer goods and alloys are generally spread out with a new building being made wherever it fits until I get arcology project, then I just move all manufacturing to ecnomopli and replace the standard factories with research, commercial zones, or refineries depending on what sort of planet it is.

Also I'm not sure why but I've never really had issues with too many pops becoming specialists from filling every building slot as soon as possible. Sometimes I need to move workers from one job to another, usually off of minerals and onto food, but the specialist/worker ratio never feels like much of an issue, and immediate building makes managing things easier and gives more immigration pull, which works well with my xenophile egalitarian playstyle and many migration treaties.

 

[Derp]

all my planets start out as resource worlds because districts are available immediately while buildings are incremental

which ones stay as resource worlds is based on a variety of factors like
- does it have 6+ districts in at least one resource
- does it have planetary modifiers that improve a resource
- does it have a high resource district:size ratio
- will my resource income sink too low if I urbanize this world

i also tend to semi-urbanize mediocre resource worlds

the one exception in 2.2.4 is the bugged blank worlds; for obvious reasons they're city planets from the start

 

[roman566]

Early on there is not enough space to specialize so each colony is a jack of all trades. Then I get Ecumenopolis and Habitats so each colony is basically a mining/generator world. In the late game, I fill empty slots with fortresses to boost naval capacity.

 

[OrigamiPhoenix]

Early game, you really can't specialize.

But once you can, it really depends on how many city districts you get:
A planet with few city districts can be turned into a refinery world to supply rare resources or a fortress world if it's in a strategic location to take advantage of the FTL inhibitor.
A planet with a lot of city districts can be turned into a tech, manufacturing, or trade world. (Or, you know, turned into an ecumenopolis)

Late game, when you're comfortably producing all of these things, that's when you start filling up worlds with resource silos and strongholds to stockpile for the crisis.