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Planetary Interaction (more commonly known as PI) allows players to interact with planets to produce materials. These materials are then further processed and used in the manufacturing of various other things such as Player Owned Structures (and the fuel that runs them) and Sovereignty Structures among other things.

PI can get very complicated, but from a top down perspective, it's very simple. For an alternative to this guide, here's a short visual guide in a little different format. The information between there and here may be duplicated, so feel free to skip the visual guide or just take a glance if you're going to read the wiki here.

There are 8 planet types:

• Barren
• Gas
• Ice
• Lava
• Oceanic
• Plasma
• Storm
• Temperate
• Shattered (this is a ninth, but useless)

Each planet has different materials you can extract and process.

There are 5 levels of PI materials: *

• P0 - The raw extracted product; called Raw in game.
• P1 - Product after one level of processing; called Processed in game.
• P2 - Product after two levels of processing; called Refined in game.
• P3 - Product after three levels of processing; called Specialized in game.
• P4 - Product after four levels of processing; called Advanced in game.

• Required
  1. Interplanetary Consolidation IV. (allows you to have more planets)
  2. Command Center Upgrades IV. (upgrades the amount of installations you can install per planet)
  3. I wouldn't train one to five without training them both, since they sort of multiply together. And it's generally better to make an alt on the same account with all skills trained to 4 than to train these to 5.

• Optional
  1. Planetology. (Shows you accurately where planet resources are concentrated)
  2. Advanced Planetology. (Same as Planetology only stronger, more accurate results)
  3. Remote Sensing. [allows you to scan planets from 'x' light years away (not really useful for this guide)]

I strongly suggest keeping your PI all in the same system. you don't want to be jumping your hauler around with your paycheck sitting in it right?

We're keeping this simple so using a single planet P2 production chain is the best way to go. You'll generally want to use something very similar to either the Standard Setup or the Navi Setup as listed below in Planet Setup Types. If you're doing something other than the P0→P2 setup, you should have a reason other than just money. Generally the only exceptions to this are Microfiber Shielding, Polyaramids, and Silicate glass for P2s, and production planets for P3s and P4s, which have alternate setups listed in those Planet Setup Types. The number of storage facilities can generally be adjusted to preference.

Make sure we own the POCOs you're going to use. You never know when another alliance will decide to change their taxes on neutrals to 99%. Also, you can't tell if they'll let you use their pocos until *after* you've already put a command center on the planet.

Also be sure that the planet you're going to use isn't horribly overcrowded (say, > 15 people). You can tell this by viewing the planet in planet mode, right click, and select “Show other Command Centers” or something similar. Look around the planet to make sure there aren't 50 pre-existing installations competing for your resources. Generally it's only extremely common systems, such as staging, that have this issue.

Here's a list of current TEST owned pocos.* * May not be current.

Let's look at the Standard Setup for this step by step.

1. Buy your command centers- each planet has a specific command center, for example. 'Lava planets' need 'Lava Command Center'.
2. Load your command centers into your ship's cargo and safely get it to your local POS or into a safe and cloak up. A basic t1 industrial such as an Iteron is good for this. Although when actually hauling PI, there are specialized t1 industrials for each race, such as the Epithal, that have dedicated PI cargo holds.
3. Start by finding a planet that has a good concentration of the two resources you want.
4. Find a spot where these two resources are fairly close together and abundant, and place your command center there. Upgrade your command center whenever necessary in these instructions. Your command center won't be used for anything, but it decides where your camera centers every time you look at the planet in planet mode.
5. Next to it place your launchpad.
6. Then place your 2 ECUs in a location as close to your launchpad as you can while still covering the spots you want to gather resources from (but do leave some room for other buildings, see Standard Setup screenshot).
7. Then place two or three basic processing facilities in a line in the direction of each of your resources, as close to each other as you can for the shortest links possible. We use this configuration so that the width of your processing facilities will cut down on the length of your link to your ECUs.
8. How many storage facilities you have is sort of personal preference. See the storage section for more. At the end of each chain of processors, put a P0 dedicated storage facility.
9. In a third direction put two or three (same number as your basics) advanced processors to make your P2s.
10. Link everything together as shown in the Standard Setup screenshot and set schematics for all of your processing facilities.
11. Set and place extractor heads for each of your ECUs. I start with one and put in as many extractor heads as I can until I get the out of power message, and then remove half of them (which will be used at the other ECU). I generally like to set the time to 2 days, 1 hour, 30 minutes (if you click just past the 'n' in extraction, you'll be close to that). This is as long as you can set it and still have 30 minute extraction cycles.
12. On your ECU click routes and route your product to your P0 facility.
13. On your P0 facility click routes, select the incoming product, and route that to each of your P1 processors.
14. Route your P1 processors to your P1 storage (launchpad in this case).
15. Route your P1 storage to your P2 processors.
16. Route your P2 processors to your launchpad.
17. Hit submit.
18. Verify that the routes on each of your P1 processing facilities have 1 incoming and 1 outgoing product. Ignore transferring products.
19. Verify that the routes on each of your P2 processing facilities have 2 incoming and 1 outgoing product.
20. Verify that your ECU is counting down and is routed.

More storage means more hands free and passive, but less efficient than if you maintain it daily. I prefer more storage because if I'm going to spend more time on PI, I would just use more characters and more planets instead of micromanaging individual planets more than I need to.

Theoretically, you can run everything from just the launchpad with no storage facilities. However, I find that things fill very easily with P0, meaning that while the facility is full, anything that is produced from anywhere else is thrown in the trash. Having your two P0s sharing a facility is viable, but even then I've found that it can get congested with your abundant P0 and leave your weaker P0 without space and end up throwing production of your weaker P0 in the trash. I generally recommend at least a dedicated storage facility for each P0, and a launchpad for your P1s and P2s. You can optionally add a dedicated storage for your P1s, or have your P0s share a facility.

Don't be afraid to just make and sell P2s. But if you want to go farther, this is how. This is going to require multiple characters (4-6) or buying P2s off the market to make it work. Don't forget you can always spend a week or two training a second character on your main's account or buy multiple character training to spend 2 weeks each training your blank character slots on your main account.

I find it convenient to produce up to P2s on each planet when possible. Wetware mainframes take a lot more P2s to make (9), but you can make each of the P2s on one planet. Self-Harmonizing Power Cores and Broadcast nodes take less P2s (6), but half the P2s needed require two planets to make. I've done Organic Mortar Applicators on one character before, but you really either want two characters for that or you'll need to buy P2s to really make it worthwhile.

Generally with these setups you're going to have a bunch of harvesting planets (making P2s whenever possible for convenience), and you're going to have a major factory planet that doesn't extract much, if anything. The tax rate on your factory planet is extremely important. Here you'll be both importing (paying half the rate) and exporting, paying the full rate of the finished P4, and this is after you've already been taxed exporting those P2s once. The tax rate on P2 harvesting planets is less important.

It's not a bad idea to have notepad open and take notes while you're figuring this stuff out.

See this P4 guide for further information and what kind of planets you'll need for each setup.

If your setup doesn't fall into one of these categories, it's probably not optimal.

The most common type of setup in all of PI. There are a several variations on this.

• Standard Setup This one is a pretty lucky setup. If necessary, you can drop to 4 basic processors and 2 advanced and use more extractor heads.
  
• Navi/Single ECU Setup This will require you to switch which P0 you're extracting and routing on a regular basis. It takes significantly more clicks, but it's more efficient. It saves on power grid by placing only one extractor control unit and swapping which resource it gathers often, allowing you to use more extractor heads on your one ECU. The basic factories here always stay 3 producing 1 P1, and 3 producing the other P1. There's no need to switch those. The key is to swap which resource you're gathering often enough that you never run out of either resource. If you need to squeeze every last drop out of the planet, this is the setup to use. Keep in mind that it's nearly free to destroy and replace your ECU.

• Needed for Microfiber Shielding, Polyaramids, and Silicate Glass
• Avoid this whenever possible. Some P2s can not be made on one planet and will require this.
• Setup

• Needed for Microfiber Shielding, Polyaramids, and Silicate Glass
• Avoid this whenever possible.
• Setup

• Double Setup (CCU5 required)
• Single Setup (CCU4): You can just remove half of your processors. I recommend keeping the storages and launchpads for tons of buffer space.

• Needed for Nano Factory, Organic Mortar Appliators, and Sterile Conduits
• Single Setup: If your P1 can be produced on a barren or temperate planet, you're going to do this very similarly to the no P1 required setup above, but replace one of the P2 → P3 production lines with an extractor control units and P0 → P1 processors.
• Shitty Diagram

• Material Diagrams
• Great Visual Ingredient Guide
• Planetary Interaction Resources
• Planetary Interaction Buildings
• Outline Ingredient and Amount guide
• Material Amounts
• List of Planets by System
• Handy chart of where to find raw materials
• Handy chart of general PI usage
• Handy chart of P4 Planet requirements
• Handy full chart of PI

• Industry Start
• Planetary Interaction (PI) Start (This Page)
  • Base Haver's P4 Factories
  • Base Haver's PI Guide
  • Planetary Interaction Resources
  • Planetary Interaction P4 Product Guides
  • Planetary Interaction Buildings
  • Planetary Interaction Scanning