I want to automate planets (infrastructure building part).

I see two systems:

1) Each planet has a specialization (food/industry/research), you set it and that's it. From now on it auto upgrades itself (based on taxation level and time).

2) There are several NPC "Corporations" (like: "Heavy Industries INC.", "Customer Electronics Conglomerate", "United Mining Corp.", etc) and you "give" the planet to one (they get a monopoly there). Then the planets produce/upgrade based on the Corporation that runs it (some invest in factories producing warp engines, some build more hydrofarms, some make luxury goods).

Personally, I like the Corporations better... But I'm not sure how exactly these should work (different resource types they generate? is there some automatic trade system or supply/demand system?)

All random thoughts on this topic are welcome :)

I wouldn't necessarily simulate a real economy -- it sounds like you want an invadin'-world and crushin'-rebellions kind of Emperor, not a wring-hands-about-why-the-volatiles-economy-is-stagnating kind of Emperor.

Overall, I like the direction your post is going to. Some sort of companies, not too complex or too realistic since it's not the focus of the game. Just a nice fun addition and an indirect way for the player to affect the economy of the empire.

My thoughts:

Originally I wanted a button to change/select specialization of a planet (food/industry/research), but... The traditional food vs industry bothers me. I mean, you have fertile and non fertile planets and what kind of decision is that? You need to build hydrofarms on your fertile ones proportional to your population (not much to decide)... I don't know, I like food and everything, but...

(this also bring me to a question how food production is handled if we go for the corporations model? would these corporations decide and the player has no saying on food production ratio?)

Also research, I think this should be done more abstract. Instead of research labs on planets the Emperor funds an "Imperial university" (organization) and then builds/upgrades various facilities (like warp engines testing site level 1, then upgraded to level 2), these would not be in any particular place (assumed those scientists can be evacuated quickly if needed) but some sort Empire wide organization with assets and funding (there could be even a "counter of scientist" you have :)). Also, I would use a model more like in Victoria2: Empire Under the Sun (or other Paradox's games), you can invest in education of people in your empire and then you get research points (it's also easier to balance since the number of planets and size of population does not directly and drasticly increase research).

I think maybe corporations should not deal with research... They would just produce goods & deliever services (food/mining/production/commerce/transport).

Companies will try to make money, but not necessarily do what they've done in the past or what's expected of them. Like the British East India Company was intended to be in the spice trade, but ended up focusing more on textiles, saltpeter, and opium. So if you give a company a charter to a ore-rich but barren world, they're gonna mine it even if they're otherwise in agribusiness.

Psychic beings that make your corporations rebel against you would be a neat alien threat

There can be little disincentives to letting corporations get too big, as well, like corporate inertia or corruption.

Maybe you can treat the corporations as characters with various skills like (Mining, Refining, Construction, Farming, Food Processing, etc.) and you could see this on their "character sheet". Corps with higher skill levels will be able to develop related industries faster, and more efficiently. These skills would level up over time as they develop industries related to those skills. The final yield of whatever is produced would be modified by your government's technology level plus whatever related patents the corporation has.

I picture the skill level as a combination of knowing how to get the job done, having trusted contacts for necessary hardware and manpower, having ships configured for transporting the goods, etc. As such, I think there should probably be a decay rate on corp skills if they aren't in use. If they get out of the business of food production, they'll lose touch with their original business contacts and have to renegotiate planetary scale dealings.

- Eck

Maybe you can treat the corporations as characters with various skills like (Mining, Refining, Construction, Farming, Food Processing, etc.) and you could see this on their "character sheet". Corps with higher skill levels will be able to develop related industries faster, and more efficiently. These skills would level up over time as they develop industries related to those skills. The final yield of whatever is produced would be modified by your government's technology level plus whatever related patents the corporation has.

I'm also thinking of simplifying the planets and making corporations more complex. Like no industries on planets, just generic factories. Then the Emperor (the player) grants a charter (monopoly) for a planet to one corporation. That corporation can use the assets on the planet (factories + resources).

You don't produce anything on planets (OK, almost anything :D), but instead produce "on corporations". So you have like 5 companies and 5 production queues.

To produce something (like ships) you need ONLY money (you sign a contract with a corporation to deliver it). But, the corporation require resourses, labour, etc and if they lack it they might ask for more money, do it slower or even fail to deliver in the worst case scenario. So, you care the most for the money, but also you care for your corporations because if they prosper you can get goodies from them cheaper and more reliably.

Corporation would have "technologies" or "assets", like if some have electronics factory and a shipyard they can produce space ships. I suppose there should be some way to influence how the corporations specialize.

Now, if the gameplay is too simple (I need to increase food during food shortages, I need to increase tech to improve my building capabilities, and I must spend everything else in research 'cause otherwise I'll lose), that could be boring.

Maybe like this: you need to care about food on strategic level only (how many fertile planets there are in the empire) and you have some single slider saying if you subsidy the food production and how much (also research in agriculture can boost it too). Then there is "food price" variable which is the amount of food you have in the empire / by population. It affects the population growth (cheaper food = more population).

Another way to look at it is to specify a project from a tech tree. Instead of spending research points on research, etc. you could just buy it outright.

Replace food and tech upgrades with actual mining efforts (I was just picking up from your first idea).

What do you mean?