Oh, it should also be noted that there is math involved (gasp)... the whole resource management thing.
There are six resources generated on each world; food, ore, water, energy, happiness, and waste. What follows is a brief on each.
FOOD-Without it, your people will grow hungry (duh). You will need three different food sources for your people to maintain their level of happiness! If you have less than three, every time you build something, your happiness will fall. Now, if you build five or more different food sources, everytime you build something, your happiness will grow. Keep in mind DIFFERENT food sources: you can't build 3 of the same famrs and expect neutral results, as that's only one type of food. For worlds where you are limited on food selection, you will need to upgrade your food producer to level 5 before you and build an extra type of food source.
ORE-There's only one type of ore, but you will need a lot of it, as ore is essence in the building of things; also, each planet has different levels of differing ore (don't worry, you mine what you mine)... some buildings require specific amounts of specific ore. This can be aided by building an Ore Refinery, which reduces waste output, and increase ore output (also increase specific ore mining, but you can't control what is mined). I like having two mines and one refinery, seems to work nicely.
WATER-Does this need explaining? YES! Not only is water essential for your farms, but also as a coolant for certain energy generator types and planetary defenses (as coolant). You will need water, and a lot of it, probably more than ore. There are many different buildings that can be, err, built to bring forth water... i recommend the Water Production plant; it may decrease your ore output, but until you can build an Atmospheric Condensor, this is your best option. Again, I like having two of them.
ENERGY-Different power plant structures will produce different amounts of energy (ie, a Wind Farm will produce less than, say, a Fusion Reactor). However, once you get your structures high enough, the amount of energy you produce is nothing short of amazing. Depending on what type you build, you will need differing amounts of structures; seems like the best is the Singularity plant (high yeilds, low waste production).
HAPPINESS-The happier your people are, the better things will be. Should your happiness fall into the negatives (by, say, -60K or greater), expect difficulty in building stuff; the less happy there is, the longer it takes to make things! Also keep in mind that some structures will rob you of happiness... no one likes living in a police state, and that's all I will say about that. Also, some sturctures will increase your happiness, some moreso than others. Happiness is all imnportant for the proper running of your world, as well as the colonization of other worlds.
WASTE-You really don't try to produce waste, it just happens when you build things, when they run, when someone attacks you with Scows or Bleeders... there are ways to counter this, though; build recycling centers! There is a center for each resource type except happiness and food (who wants garbage for supper? me! me!) that will automatically convert waste into whichever resource, as well as a recycling center which allows you to decide how much waste should be converted to which resource type. If you have too much waste, it will have a negative impact on your happiness (see above).
Now that that's out of the way...
1. If your recyclers recycle more waste than what is being produced, your people will go on strike / revolt, and lessen the effectiveness of a recycler. This is not good, as your waste then builds up, you'll have to do repairs, and balance the input/output.
2. If you build something that puts the resource generation into the negatives (it does happen), expect a possible destruction of a building and unhappy citizens.
3. When you build a resource structure, it'll tell you how many resources it will consume in its construction, and how much will be used in hourly upkeep. If you don't have it, you can't build it.
I THINK that covers resources... did I miss anything?
