So planets are inefficient. Like, extremely.
They do tend to pay out a bit more once you get enough workers in them, but even then, it's kinda on the extreme end of being inefficient.
Compare them to stations and it's night and day...
I mean, cost wise;
Stations;
-COST-
CP - 45
Credits - 375,000,000
carbon - 15625
stone - 16250
ice - 1875
iron - 2500
metals - 2500
gold - 315
diamond - 190
(His list doesn't add the 565 turns in, or the 440 turns and 274,965,125 credits to mine it up, but I think that's because, for the latter, it talks about donating for the resources)
Compare that to a planet;
CP - 38
Turns - 38 + 958(If mining)
Credits - 3,750,000,000 + 598,295,000(If mining)
Carbon - 62500
Stone - 53125
Ice - 625
Iron/Metals - 1565
Gold - 1250
Diamond 315
Sooo yeah. The startup costs are really high, but that's kinda expected since, from what I can tell, planets are meant to be more lategame than stations.
But that's kinda an issue.
A planet with 27 billion workers put in(As well as the segments and credits to get that much) brings in 76m an hour, or 1.82b each time you unload it.
That doesn't mean I've put in 27billion in order to get it back every 2 weeks, it means I've put in nearly
60 billion in, as well as 10-14k segments.
"Well that's not so much once you get the ball rolling"
Maybe not, but consider a mine. A single mine in a decent place, with no work put into it, will bring ~187 million an hour. Baseline. If you decide to put some work into it and micro it using replication, you can get 380 million an hour.
So using the resources to make 4-6 stations, and not doing ANYTHING ELSE, brings around 750 million an hour(if 4) or 1.1 billion an hour(If 6). Microing them bring 1.5 BILLION an hour(if 4) or 2.28 billion an hour if 6.
So a planet is not nearly worth it compared to that, due to the shear amount of segments(And thus turns) you have to dump into it.
It has the benefit of scaling(As far as I can tell) exponentially with colonists...but the scaling comes too late to matter. Even when dumping trillions into it(I had 4 quad in one a few months back, not a huge massive amount, but if it's not efficient by that point there's no use...) it takes
forever to get your amount back...and by that point doing encounters will bring you far more back for less opportunity costs.(Simply credits for the ships, and turns for the encounters)
For one to be worth it, you need a lot of time. You need a lot of segments, a lot of tech, and a shitton of turns.
And rounds simply aren't long enough.
Final thoughtsSadly, Iunno really how to fix it other than a general "Make rounds longer" or "Make them give more money back". I think though, easing up on the cost of increasing the colonist cap might help. I mean, it costs 2.25b+500segs to add 1b colonists to a planet... Maybe increase the gain with 1 expansion to 50m instead of 10m? Or even up it to 100m?
TL:DRPlanets take too long to be worth it.
Rounds are too fast for that too long to happen.
Thus Planets aren't worth it.