I was afraid that it would be hard for the corp to formalize Planetary Interaction. But, I think I've found a way.
I also thought I would hate Planetary Interaction because of how much babysitting it might require. I was pleased to find that colonies can be not only maintained but completely rebuilt from regions away. Storage is so plentiful that I don't need to fly out to low sec and pick up my wares every third day. I can wait a week, or even two.
Not only all that, but I'm liking the way one builds colonies. It is a little bit of a click-fest, but it is interesting. I kind of would like some sort of way to tune ships like this.
On the initial release day, I set up four colonies. I rebuilt two of them.
There are a few things that I learned that wasn't obvious to me before I got involved. I watched StevieSG's YouTube tutorial. I should've done more research before hand, but I didn't.
Some of the things I've learned:
Just because you can't see them, doesn't mean they aren't there.
I have seen as many as eight installations on one planet. 'Course, I may have counted one more than once. But they don't show up readily. I turn on a scan, then slide the heat map so the whole planet is white. When I find a little spot, I look around for the command center. When I click on it, the entire network and all the buildings show up. They weren't there before.
Storage is important. Don't over do it.
While I can build a storage facility, the spaceport alone holds as much as two storage facilities. Since I can edit my colony from regions away (that's right, regions away you can rebuild the entire thing), I wait to build extra storage. No need to build it if I don't need it.
Plan. Plan. Plan.
There are several levels on which I plan. One is just deciding what I want to create as an end products. Some of the P3/P4 items I use in my T2 production. Some of them I want to build some items that are built completely from planetary products.
I have to decide which items to source from which planets, which items I want to haul to another planet for a more reactions, and so on.
Another thing to plan is how the buildings are to be laid out. This is very important for each individual colony. Laying the paths out wrong can cost another extractor or two.
Links can be upgraded, and messed with.
I didn't know this to begin with. As I was routing products, I exceeded the capacity on a link. When I clicked on that link, I found that they can be upgraded. That helps a lot.
When routing a good, the route will always take the fewest number of links. Even if there are two links to the destination, the product wont' route if one link is over capacity. While it can be upgraded, sometimes it is worthwhile to build the longer links first. Route as many goods as that set of links will hold. Then build the shorter links. Then route the rest of the goods.
Examples
This is the part when I want to introduce pictures.
This is a crazy web of links. There is no real need for links set up like this. And links consume resources.
This one does have the web, but there are links that aren't needed. There is no need to link everything to the hub. Link buildings to the building closest to them. Goods can be routed through other buildings.
The extractors here don't need a link to every destination. Items can be routed through other buildings.
This is an example of one of the ones that I rebuilt. There are a few things that I'd like to change, but here you see how linking and routing can be done to save powergrid and CPU.
Here though, I could drop the storage facility. I could also have brought everything closer to the CC to use it as a route point.
Also, having the facilities outside of the storage means that the link between the facility and the storage gets used three times. It causes congestion.
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