Hi there! Since the Dysharmony expansion fairly radically changed some of the base balancing on planet types, and also a few key technologies have changed since the last time I saw one of these, I decided to do some number crunching to find out which planet types are actually the best for each of the FIDS types. What I found is... eye-opening.



I included each planet type's base FIDS value and base population cap to determine the base value of each planet type.



Then I included all improvements that produce per population, per planet effects (so for example, I included Heavy Isotope Refineries' +2 per Pop on Lava, etc... but not the +10 to the system). I also included all elements that increase population except for Crowded Planets (which has bizarre effects in that it makes Medium planets the worst, but otherwise has no effect on which -type- of planet is best), and the +1 population per explored moon, since that has nothing to do with planet type, only with whether or not it has a moon. I also assumed that the optimal Exploit exists on the planet for each FIDS category. This means the Total FIDS is an overestimation, and should be taken with a grain of salt (since you can't actually have all four Exploits on a planet at the same time)



If you're curious, here is the base Excel file I created (I had to compress it to be able to attach it, since it's not in the allowed list of file types, though .doc is... weird.) Anyway: Endless Space Planet Analysis.zip

You'll need a pretty good idea of how to use the Sort & Filter function in Excel to get the most use out of it, but in summary, what I found that interests me is the following:



Jungle and Ocean are now better for almost everything than Terran.



Food: 195 per turn on a fully developed Huge Terran, Huge Jungle, or Huge Ocean

Industry: 195 per turn on Huge Jungle, 156 for Terran or Ocean

Dust: 208 Terran, 195 Ocean, 182 Jungle.

Science: 156 Ocean, 117 Terran or Jungle.



So pretty clearly, if you want both Food and Industry, build Jungles. If you want Food and Science, build Oceans. I personally don't think the 8 extra dust for a Terran outweighs the 39 extra Science or Industry for an Ocean or Jungle personally, so your food worlds should always be Jungle or Ocean, IMHO.



HOWEVER...



Gas giants are now the bomb.



Every single Helium Gas Giant, for example, produces more science than any other planet in the game. By a lot.



Science: 240 Huge Helium, 180 Tiny Helium, 156 Huge Ocean. That's enormous.



With the Sophon's signature science bonus technology (which gives varying bonuses to Class IV and V planets), that difference is even more pronounced.

So, for a science powerhouse system (with good science bonuses from Artifacts, Resources, Anomalies, etc), I would suggest one Ocean to support the population, with the rest filled out with Helium Gas Giants.



For Dust, the difference isn't quite as pronounced... but still notable.



Dust: 280 Huge Hydrogen, 234 Huge Desert, 210 Small/Tiny Hydrogen.



Every other planet type and size, other than Huge Desert, produces less dust than a Tiny/Small Hydrogen Gas Giant.

So... you can probably guess that I'd recommend a Jungle (Or a Terran if you really, really want that extra 8 Dust), supporting a solar system of Hydrogen Gas Giants, for your dust powerhouse.



Manufacturing is a trickier question...



The same analysis yields similar results:



Industry: 288 Huge Methane, 220 Huge Tundra, 217 Large/Huge Lava, and 216 Tiny/Small Methane



So again, all else being equal, a Jungle supporting a bunch of Methanes looks best for your main Industrial centers.

However, if you take into account the technology that converts 100% of excess food into Industry, a Huge Jungle in a population-maxed system now produces 364 Industry (195 food - 26 to feed the people, +195 Industry). And that's before doubling up on the extra System-based production, since it would get both the System's bonus Industry -and- Food.



So for a pure ship production Forge System, all Jungle, all the way, once you have that Food Conversion technology, is definitely the way to go.

The only tricky bit comes if you produce population-consuming ships (troop transports, etc). Because then, as soon as one ship is produced, you'd lose that extra industry until the population is replenished (and on a system of 6 Jungle worlds, that could be a long, long time). Unless I'm mistaken, and the people get to have their excess food and eat it too? If someone could clarify that, that'd be great. More succinctly, does Adaptive Industrial Systems' 100% Surplus Food to Industry conversion only happen at max population? Or is it always on once built? If the latter, then it's really simple, and Jungles are the best industrial base once you have that tech. If the former, then maybe a blend of Jungles and Methanes would do the trick.

Nice analysis, I was just going to do some tests to compare, you save me some time, thanks!

AFAIK The Food to Industry conversion turns off while the system is growing. Though replenishing one population won't take that long for a 6 Jungle system.

Where you basing your changes from these charts? If so, maybe someone could update them. But even with changes in Disharmony, I use these planet order to help build and populate.



http://www.manapool.co.uk/endless-space-strategy-guide/



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