Colonisation costs too low, but how much should they be?

I think You could mod the population Bonus to a negitve if the population is to low say a -90% build rate for 1-25 million pop and just step it down the down side is a domed tiny rock will never get a large enough population to get normal build rates.

Teddy, you should check out a mod called Proportions. You seem to be recreating alot of things its doing and you could probably use some of the same code/ideas.

I have some opinions myself.

Increasing colonizing cost:

I don't really see a problem with the cost being low.
I could accept x2, I would barely tolerate x3, but not x10.

Comparing the colonizing components to the space port.
colony components are 200k
space port is 1000k
So, tonnage per tonnage, the colony component already costs more than the space port does.

Also, it makes no sense to make a colony component cost close the amount of Stellar Manipulation components.

Making a little colony with basic infrastructure should not cost close to the amount needed to make an entire freaking planet.

Also, the problem with having a colony ship taking 1.2 years to make...
Um... I think we're adding weight to the wrong side of the balance scale here...
How many frigates could someone make in the time and with the amount of resources it takes to make one of these 'expensive' colony ships?
Player A is lucky, spends a few years building three colony ships, their few scouts have not run into anyone yet.
Player B is not so lucky, only built one colony ship, no other planets worth cost to colonize, builds many frigates to quickly explore and find planets worth colonizing.
Player A gets 2 years of Frigate production shoved down their throat a few months after first contact with player B, when B finds out they have a major advantage...

Let's not make SE V a prime canidate for 'tank rush' tactics...

Lowering population production:

Changing the production for small populations is not going to be very effective. With a homeworld with 4,000 million people, a simple cargo pod on a colony ship, or a small freighter, means a new colony will easily have well over 25 million colonists with little time/effort.
Also have to consider imigration. Even at 1% per year, with a planet of 4,000 million, that comes down to a few million per turn moving to other colonies if I understand the numbers correctly.

My PoV.
During initial founding of a colony, colonists will be unpacking all their supplies and equipment as fast as possible and get their basic shelters setup also.
People can actually build stuff rather fast when they aren't being paid to take 90% of their time goofing off and 10% of their time actually working. (capital punishment sounds like a good penalty for risking a race's survival just to have time to goof off...)

As is, a colony component has 80% of its 'space' for other stuff, likely supplies, and lots of equipment, tools, etc. A million people with proper tools and basic machinery will be able to produce as much as a small factory (space yard) that has a a few people watching over a bunch of construction robots and people using heavy duty construction machinery.

Even in WWII, a few hundred people could churn out whole ships or bases in a matter of a few months, should be an easy task for a million people of a more advanced race to get far more done in the same amount of time.

In the latest (currently unreleased) version of the Ground Combat mod, I'm trying an idea to make colonies more valuable. You see, in stock, there's no point dropping troops for a ground invasion - it's far more efficient to just glass a planet and recolonise it. I first tried increasing the cost of colony modules by 10x, but that just made the early game incredibly slow and didn't actually solve the problem in later stages when high-level space yards can still crank out colony ships quite quickly anyway. So what I am currently trialling is that most facilities can only be built on undomed colonies. You can basically build those that are required - resource extraction, space ports, resupply depots, intel and research - but if you want to take full advantage of everything (resource modifiers, space yards, support facilities) you need to get rid of those domes. Either through atmospheric modification if you manage to research that far, or better yet through capturing enemy population.

The point of this rather long-winded post is that there are ways to make colonies harder to build up to the point of significant economic contribution without playing around with resource costs of colony components.

To make colonies take longer to develop, all you have to do is increase the cost of facility construction (and reduce their maintenance cost proportionally). This will mean quick land grabbing with colony ships, but long development times.

If the net population growth percentage is positive, the planet is going to add at least 1M per turn, because that's the minimum "unit" of population.

-----
"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it /is/ a good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he.

and with migration you don't NEED to have people in your colony ship at all. It's more effective to load it with weapon platforms. Honestly.... I like it as is. Why?

eXplore

eXpand--

eXploit--

eXterminate

It forms TWO of the four Xs.