Owning a few planets is now free, but growing an empire carries a cost. Starting with your fourth planet, each additional world adds a daily upkeep drain to every planet you own — a slice of its colonist population plus a burn of its fuel, organics, and equipment stockpiles.

The curve. Your first three planets pay no upkeep. Beyond that, the marginal drain rises linearly with each extra planet, so the heaviest cost lands on the biggest holders. There is no hard planet cap — you can expand as far as you’re willing to keep them fed and staffed.

Automation lightens the load. A planet running Auto-Sell or Auto-Patrol receives a discount on its upkeep, so automating your worlds is the cheapest way to stay big. The discount is capped, so automation softens the pressure without erasing it.

Zero-population worlds are exempt. A planet with no colonists already produces nothing, and it doesn’t decay either.

Upkeep runs on the existing daily production tick and behaves identically in The Void and The Abyss.