Economy:

Having a good economy is vital. Having a good economy consists of multiple components, including trade stations, planets, trade modules, and warp lanes. An economy is also boosted by artifacts, and blue stars.

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Trade Stations:

Trade stations are the most important part of a good economy. Trade stations produce the largest amount of credits compared to any planets. You can have a total of 3 trade stations. While the trade stations may seem expensive to upgrade, as soon as you hit a credit cap high enough to upgrade them it is recommended you do so. After upgrading it is a very noticeable boost to your daily credits, and you reach the cap much faster than before. It is also recommended to upgrade as soon as possible, as it produces credits, the earlier to upgrade it, the longer you can get the larger amount of credits, the better your economy. Whereas if you prioritize a module or something else at that credit cap, it delays your credit boost, making it harder to return to that credit cap, and providing no boost to your economy.

Here are the Trade Station levels and their corresponding credit amounts:
Level: 1 Upgrade Cost: 60,000 Shipment Value: 208/h
Level: 2 Upgrade Cost: 120,000 Shipment Value: 291/h
Level: 3 Upgrade Cost: 250,000 Shipment Value: 408/h
Level: 4 Upgrade Cost: 500,000 Shipment Value: 571/h
Level: 5 Upgrade Cost: 1,000,000 Shipment Value: 800/h
Level: 6 Upgrade Cost: 2,000,000 Shipment Value: 1120/h
Level: 7 Upgrade Cost: 3,000,000 Shipment Value: 1568/h
Level: 8 Upgrade Cost: 4,000,000 Shipment Value: 2196/h
Level: 9 Upgrade Cost: 6,000,000 Shipment Value: 3074/h
Level: 10 Upgrade Cost: 8,000,000 Shipment Value: 4304/h

Planets:

Planets provide credit storage, hydrogen storage, shipments, and passive credit and hydrogen income. There are 6 different planet types. Desert, fire, water, terran, gas, and ice. Each planet has its own specific strengths. Each type of planet comes in different tiers, increasing as you discover more of that type of planet. It is recommended that you keep your planets relatively around the same level, as to keep a nice balance between shipment income and hydrogen capacity. This also makes it easier to get a higher credit cap, as the upgrades will be relatively the same cost. If you are looking to specifically boost your economy though, upgrading planets with the largest shipment output, such as gas or ice, is ideal.
Tier 1 planets have a max level of 15, with a max credit storage of 35,000.
Tier 2 planets have a max level of 20, with a max credit storage of 170,000.
Tier 3 planets have a max level of 30, with a max credit storage of 570,000.
Tier 4 planets have a max level of 40, with a max credit storage of 850,000.

Desert Planets: Desert planets produce lower reward shipments and provide ample space for storing hydrogen.

Tier: 1 Max Planet Level: 15 Max Shipment Yield: 256/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 9,000
Tier: 3 Max Planet Level: 30 Max Shipment Yield: 752/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 29,000
Tier: 4 Max Planet Level: 40 Max Shipment Yield: 1678/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 39,000

Fire Planets: Fire planets produce decent reward shipments and give your Empire a small income of Credits and Hydrogen per hour.

Tier: 1 Max Planet Level: 15 Max Shipment Yield: 330/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 0
Tier: 3 Max Planet Level: 30 Max Shipment Yield: 953/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 0
Tier: 4 Max Planet Level: 40 Max Shipment Yield: 1974/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 0

 

Water Planets: Water planets produce decent reward shipments and give your Empire a steady income of Credits per hour.

Tier: 1 Max Planet Level: 15 Max Shipment Yield: 348/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 9000
Tier: 3 Max Planet Level: 30 Max Shipment Yield: 1003/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 29000
Tier: 4 Max Planet Level: 40 Max Shipment Yield: 2072/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 39000

 

Terran Planets: Terran planets produce regular reward shipments and give your Empire a small income of Hydrogen per hour.

Tier: 1 Max Planet Level: 15 Max Shipment Yield: 421/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 9000
Tier: 3 Max Planet Level: 30 Max Shipment Yield: 1204/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 29000
Tier: 4 Max Planet Level: 40 Max Shipment Yield: 2467/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 39000

 

Gas Planets: Gas planets produce regular reward shipments and give your Empire a small income of Credits per hour.

Tier: 2 Max Planet Level: 20 Max Shipment Yield: 612/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 19000
Tier: 4 Max Planet Level: 40 Max Shipment Yield: 2467/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 39000

 

Ice Planets: Ice planets produce high reward shipments and give your Empire a steady income of Credits and Hydrogen per hour.

Tier: 4 Max Planet Level: 40 Max Shipment Yield: 2763/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 39000
Tier: 4 Max Planet Level: 40 Max Shipment Yield: 2763/h Max Hydrogen Storage: 39000

 

Here is a full rundown on the specific types of planets, and their levels: https://hades-star.fandom.com/wiki/Planet_Stats

 

Planet discovery rate: Sector:

1 Planet: Desert (Tier 1)Fire (Tier 1)
Sector: 2 Planet: Water (Tier 1)   
Sector: 5 Planet: Terran (Tier 1)
Sector: 7,8,9 Planet: Gas (Tier 2)
Sector: 10,11,12 Planet: Terran (Tier 3)
Sector: 13,14,15 Planet: Fire (Tier 3)
Sector: 16,17,18 Planet: Water (Tier 3), Gas (Tier 4)
Sector: 19,20,21 Planet: Desert (Tier 3)
Sector: 22,23,24 Planet: Fire (Tier 4)
Sector: 25,26,27 Planet: Desert (Tier 4), Water (Tier 4)
Sector: 28,29,30 Planet: Terran (Tier 4)
Sector: 31,32,33 Planet: Ice (Tier 4)
Sector: 34,35,36 Planet: Ice (Tier 4)

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Planet Placement:

Once you get to the point where a planet is discovered every 3 sectors, you are able to influence the placement of your planets if you like. This works best with two scanners. One on the side you want with no planets, and on the side you want to have planets. For each sector you scan, that sector has a 50/50 chance to have the planet in it. You start scanning on the planet side, until you find the planet. Then, you scan the remaining of the three on the empty side. Keep in mind this strategy helps choose planet placement, but due to the random nature of the discovery, it can still be difficult to get planets exactly where you want them. 
Short range scanner guide

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Shipment Relay:

The shipment relay is powered by hydrogen and blue star fragments, which are won from blue stars. The shipment relay automatically delivers shipments from the designated sector. Depending on the level of the shipment relay, it lasts for a certain amount of time and delivers a certain amount of shipments per hour. The shipment relay is very helpful for delivering shipments automatically, but doesn’t provide any boost to the shipments. 

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Warp Lanes:

Warp lanes are connections between two sectors that make travel between the two sectors very fast. They can be very helpful to quickly deliver shipments, and can save a lot of hydrogen on travel. 

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Modules:

Cargo Bay Extension:
Cargo bay extension increases the total capacity of a transport, allowing it to carry more items.
Cargo breakpoints

 

Shipment Computer:
Shipment computer automatically picks up shipments if the destination is along your current route. Shipment computer is one of the most useful trade modules as it is the only module that provides a shipment value boost before delivery. However this boost can only be done once, so you can’t infinitely boost shipments. However, this does allow you to boost shipments for sorting. This works well on Trade stations. Trade stations have a large shipment value, so the boost increases the shipments by a fair amount. To get all the shipments and have them boosted, you need to send two transports to each trade station scheduling waypoints for one of them to head to all the planets with moons, and their moons, and the other to all the planets without moons. This is to automatically pick up and boost the shipments. Two transports are required because at a certain point you have too many planets, and one transport can’t have enough waypoints. After all the shipments are boosted you can deliver or sort them. Shipment Computer also boosts crystal shipments.

Trade Boost:
Trade boost provides a flat boost to shipments upon delivery. This module works well in combination with trade burst. Trade boost works well when you are delivering shipments with transports.

Rush:
Rush increases your transports speed per shipment to your next destination. This makes delivering shipments by transport a lot faster.

Trade Burst:
Trade burst provides a flat boost to shipments upon delivery after a certain number shipments have been delivered. This value is higher than trade boosts, but has a threshold requirement before it is activated.

Trade burst works well in combination with trade boost. Trade burst works well when you are delivering shipments with transports.

Shipment Drone:

Shipment drone becomes the most profitable method of delivering shipments later in the game. Shipment drone automatically delivers shipments to one destination at a time. However, the drone cannot cross sectors except by warp lane. The drone provides a boost to the shipments upon delivery proportional to the number of shipments it delivers to that planet. This can provide a massive payoff if you sort the shipments so that all the shipments to a specific planet are together, and any shipments offlane are taken care of in a different way. Offload: Offload automatically delivers all shipments on the equipped transport upon arrival at a trade station. This provides a reduced payoff, but in combination with sometime like trade boost, and/or trade burst, you can still make more than the base shipment value. This is not the most efficient method, as you do make slightly less than you would normally. However, offload does save on time and hydrogen. Shipment Beam: Shipment beam automatically loads the lowest value shipments from a specific planet/outpost. The amount of shipments loaded depends on the level of shipment beam. Shipment beam is good for quickly loading some shipments.

Entrust:

Entrust gives as many shipments from one transport to another as possible. The range increases the higher level. Entrust can be helpful for sorting shipments, but is more helpful in White Stars.

Dispatch:

Dispatch teleports the transport to the planet with the most items (shipments, artifacts, relics). The amount of time is proportional to the number of items at the destination. Time per item decreases as the level increases. This can work well to get to planets more easily, but is more helpful in White Stars. Recall: Recall instantly teleports the equipped transport to any trade station in the star system. This is good for returning or going to a trade station quickly without spending much hydrogen. Recall works well in combination with offload.

 

Dahlb has generously provided a link to his spreadsheet, which outlines things about economy and other parts of Hades Star: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y2G1LNClSbuoARaibobNvA59WZ_BidYe0t9-pkh3aEY/edit?usp=drivesdk

 

Feel free to add any comment for some update/better strategy/error etc