research icon on planet...

[oninowon]

The one with the red nuclear icon not the flask icon. How do you take advantage of benefitting from that planet? Is it as simple as choosing innovation when colonizing such a planet? Also, are only some tech opened when you obtain a research point (again not talking about science points)?

[Darvin3]

The icon indicates you can build a research institute on the planet in question (even if the planet could not normally support research centers). You should always build a research institute on any planet can support it because opportunities to build them are quite rare. The innovation automation behavior will prioritize the research institute very highly (should be the second building after the obligatory factory), but if you use innovation automation on a world that can't normally support research centers it starts behaving weird and will actually industrialize the planet (which you do not want because it causes a population explosion that massively increases food consumption). Unless you're flush with food, it's worthwhile to micromanage the world in question by setting it to mineral automation then manually queuing up the research institute.

[oninowon]

Cool! Thanks, for the heads up! I did set those planets to innovation and will watch both planets more carefully and micromanage when necessary. Both planets also have a rare metal (starts with "R" I believe) so I have to see if I can take advantage of that also.

[Darvin3]

Cool! Thanks, for the heads up! I did set those planets to innovation and will watch both planets more carefully and micromanage when necessary. Both planets also have a rare metal (starts with "R" I believe) so I have to see if I can take advantage of that also.

Yeah, that's pretty common; the types of worlds that are likely to have rare resource deposits also are more likely to have research institutes. If it's reidium you're looking at, there's a fair chance we're talking about a super earth planet. In any case, research institutes (unlike regular research centers) don't block build spots for mining facilities so there's nothing stopping you from fully exploiting all the resources the planet has to offer, and you should absolutely do so.