You can get a planet three ways. Capture an unowned one, create one with a genesis device or attack someone else's planet. My suggestion is starting out is to capture an unowned one or create your own. Another big hint is build your planet near or in an upgrade port. Once you start filling with colonists you will see the closer the upgrade port the better. If you have built in an upgrade port your turn cost for moving colonists onto your new planet is 2 turns, shouldn't it be every where else, even the closest sectors will cost you at least 4 turns to move colonists so you will find good upgrade ports are a premium sector to build your empire in.
Name Planet - This allows you to name your planet. This is handy when tracking which planet is making you the best production and if you happen to get an embezzler.
Build Base - This is the first thing you will need when you create or capture a planet. You will need to transfer 10,000 goods, ore and organics to the planet. Cost is 10 million credits for a base so you will need to transfer that as well. You can also let your colonists produce the goods, ore and organics, but that will take longer
Transfer - The transfer menu is how you load and off load cargo to your planet. It is also the place you transfer credits, energy, fighters, torps, spies and dignitaries to the planet.
Upgrade - The upgrade menu is very similar to the ship upgrade menu. Each item you upgrade is highlighted below so you know its true use.
Repair - Once your armor is damaged and you try to upgrade you will notice a repair over certain levels. You will need to repair the damage done before you upgrade. Planets not repaired will operate at the damaged level instead of full strength. Always make sure you repair any damage or the next attack you may very well lose the planer.
Destroy Planet - Sometimes if your an attacker and you took a planet you can't afford to keep it or to defend it, so you take a pirate mentality and take anything off the planet you wanted and then destroy it. You must have a genesis device in order to destroy a planet.
Production Percentages - are the percentages of colonists that will do a particular job. Some jobs will require more percentages of the population to maintain the levels of commodities you need to keep your planet safe and healthy
Max Credits - This is the maximum credits you can store on the planet. Note: The closer to max credits a planet is the higher the credit production. So be sure to keep your planets close to max to get the credit production bonuses.
Spies - By putting spies on your planet it helps you in two ways. First spies on your planet will help hunt any dignitary that has decided to steal from you. Then if your planet is captured and player didn't clean the planet of spies the spies will try to do the following:
One this to remember about spies that were on a planet that was captured. They will retain the cloaking value of the planet when it was captures. This cloaking value is what is used when the owner of the planet tries to clean spies off it. You can also try to place spies on an enemy planet. The cloak value of the spy you place on the planet is the value of the cloak tech of the ship that placed the spy on the planet. The spies cloak value will not change when you upgrade the ships cloak or change ships. The only way to change the cloak value of a spy you placed on an enemy planet is to go back to the planet, retrieve the spy with a ship that has a HIGHER cloak tech and then place the spy back on the planet.
Dignitaries - You can place dignitaries on your planet and they will enhance the planets performance by doing specific jobs. The Jobs are as follows:
Armor Points - These are not automatic and have to be generated. To generate armor you must have maintain a minimal of 10,000 ore and goods. Once that level is reached you will generated armor points based on your overall tech level of the planet.
Purchase/Upgrade Cargo Ship - Once your planet has built up a nice supply of commodities you may want to sell them. You can either haul them yourself or you can buy a cargo ship for the planet. Cargo ships work by picking up the commodities off your planet and trading them with the ports you set up in the auto trade menu.
Auto Trade - is where you set the ports you want to trade your commodities too. Note: The ports you enter must be a port that is BUYING that commodity. You can't sell goods at goods ports or ore ports to ore ports. However you can sell goods to ore ports and ore to goods ports. Auto trades will only trade extra commodities over the 10,000 unit threshold. Auto trades do not happen automatically they will happen several times throughout the day depending on server settings.
Clean for Spies - This allows you to try to clean your planet for spies. if you see someone has tried to send spies to your planet in your logs, its time to do a cleaning. Also when you capture a planet you might clean for spies as well, there is nothing that sucks more than if you get a spy on your ship
Team Cash - If the server allows it your team mates can take cash from your planet or put cash on the planet. It will appear in your logs and the team coordinators logs when this happens so be sure you can trust your teammates. Also you can toggle this option off on a planet by planet basis
Landing on the planet - Once you build your planet it becomes your safety zone. You can land on the planet and hide. Keeps your ship out of the sector so other players won't know what you have exactly if they happen to wander into your sector. Landing on your planet actually helps in your planet defence as well. Your fighters and torps on your ship will join with the planets to help in your defence when attacked. Also if you are landed on the planet your population will not declare independence.
Planetary Independence - Planets have a chance of going independent approx every 24-36 hours. Planets that are unbased will go independent the most often, however there is also a chance with low tech level planets. The higher the overall planet tech level, the less likely they will go independent. Any planets that do go independent will use the resources to put out its own sector defence and upgrade its own defences to prevent you from taking it back.
Planetary Disasters - Currently these happen once a planet reaches about 90% of the max colonists that a planet can hold. Currently a planet will hold 100 mill colonists + 5 mill extra for every avg tech level, so max for a level 10 planet is 150 mill colonists.
In the future there will be many more disaster possibilities. So keep your eyes peeled.