Planetary exploitations are one of the most micromanagementish features in the game, so it would be great to make it as streamlined from usability standpoint as possible. There are a few basic things that can be done to improve it:

1. Display an exploitation icon on system screen (or show it's type in some other way - highlight the name with correspoding FIDS color, show a colored dot next to the name etc.). Currently a user can guess exploitation type from the name or look it up in the tooltip, but it's an additional effort.

2. Display exploitation bonus for the current planet in the tooltip or in some other way. Searching list of 5+ bonuses for the planet type and general planet bonus is a struggle.

3. Show exploitation level on it's icon. New exploitation types are dirrect improvements of older ones and it would be helpful to see which exploitation is the most effective at the moment and if I missed to research any of them.

4. (further improvement of 1.) Allow to select exploitation types for planets on the system view. There seems to be enough space for it.

I like all of these recommendations, but what I want most is to skip the colonize planet step or to integrate it into choosing an exploitation. I hate having to order the colonization a planet, then a turn later having to go back and choose an exploitation. I think that you should simply choose an exploitation on a non colonized planet and pay the colonization fee automatically or not at all (it is really very minor).

I'm fine with it the way it is.

Agree with OP on all points. Planet exploits should be more accessible from the system screen, would really round out the system UI.



edit: Also agree with Zougla about colonizing and having to go back to the planet afterwords. It's very clumsy.