Best Beginner Planet Setup

If you’re building your first planet, keep it simple: pick a planet that makes money without demanding huge setup costs.

Best First Choice

K-Class (Desert) — easiest beginner money planet

• Best for: fuel ore production
• Why it’s good: fuel ore is always useful, easy to understand, and easier to sell than a highly specialized planet plan
• Sweet spot: about 20,000 colonists

Good backup: M-Class (Earth Type)

• Best for: balanced fuel, organics, and equipment
• Why it’s good: flexible if you want a little of everything
• Sweet spot: about 15,000 colonists

Avoid as Your First Planet

• U-Class — very low, melange-only production after 1,000 colonists; not a practical first income planet
• C-Class — weak overall production
• O-Class — strong organics, but the huge colonist cap makes it a slower starter planet
• L-Class — useful later for fighter-focused play, but not the easiest first passive-income world

Where to Build It

Your first planet should be in a sector that is:

• Dangerous (required for Genesis Torpedo use)
• Not too far from your normal route
• Close enough that colonist transport isn’t painfully expensive
• Preferably somewhere you can revisit easily to withdraw produced resources

Beginner tip: A “good enough” nearby planet is usually better than a “perfect” distant one.

What You Need Before You Start

Try to have:

• 80,000 credits for the Genesis Torpedo
• Extra credits for colonist transport costs
• A decent supply of fuel ore for colonist transport
• Enough survivability to revisit the sector later

Beginner Setup Plan

1. Launch a planet

Go to a dangerous sector and launch a Genesis Torpedo.

2. Hope for K or M

• If you roll K, great — that’s the easiest beginner producer.
• If you roll M, keep it — still a strong first planet.

3. Start colonizing right away

Open the planet and use the Colonize tab to move colonists onto it.

You pay:

• 5 credits per colonist
• 10 fuel ore per sector distance per 100 colonists

4. Aim for an early target, not perfection

Good beginner colonist targets:

Planet	Early Target	Strong Target
K-Class	5,000–10,000	~20,000
M-Class	5,000–8,000	~15,000

You do not need to fill the planet immediately.

5. Let it produce

Planet production runs daily at 8 AM UTC.

Resources stay on the planet until you return and withdraw them.

6. Reinvest the output

Use early production to:

• build up your trading bankroll
• fund more colonist transport
• deploy fighters for defense
• save toward your second planet

First-Planet Goal

A strong beginner goal is:

• One K- or M-class planet
• 5,000+ colonists quickly
• 15,000–20,000 colonists over time
• enough local defense that visiting it doesn’t feel suicidal

Defense Advice

A productive planet attracts attention. Once it starts mattering, defend it:

• deploy sector fighters
• consider storing planet fighters
• work toward a citadel later (citadel upgrades take multiple production days once started — resources are spent up front and are non-refundable)

Don’t overinvest in defense before the planet is actually producing something meaningful.

Best Beginner Summary

If you want the shortest version:

Build a K-class if you can, M-class if you can’t. Put the planet somewhere you can revisit easily. Get a few thousand colonists on it fast. Keep growing toward the planet’s sweet spot. Withdraw production regularly and use the profits to snowball.