researching planet colonisation at higher levels?

Did anyone ever figure this out?

Darren

Edit: for some reason I mis-read the date and thought this was an old post

I *think* that in stock, the only difference is the amount of cargo the colonisation module can carrry.

The most expensive cargo you can research!

It adds 40kt of cargo space per level.
More colonists means the faster a colony can build up the population and get bonuses to production.
Max level for the colony components is 10, or 400kt of space possible when maxed out.
Not exactly much at first, but when you get lots of spare research, it is something to consider getting up levels if you have sufficient advantage over your enemies with offense/defense tech, but I wouldn't put to much effort into it unless you have a major lead tech wise over your enemies.

Since you have all three, do what I do.
Take a large freighter, toss in all three colony components, and depending on ship level, 1-2 satellite bay and a few cargo bays.
I keep one or two handy for when my recon ships find a planet that is worth colonizing (such as a huge with right atmosphere, or a planet with ruins). I also have a cloak on it, to sneak past enemy ships, and have it carry a weapon platform, and a few sats, troops and fighters to defend the colony when it is made.

You don't really need the Sat Bays. If your launching the sats around the planet then let the planet do it. Colonies can launch units into space. You can use that valuable ship space for two more cargo bays which has more space.

Your lord and master (below Foamy) LordHavoc

At that point in the game I like the concept of a universal colony pod. Another mod Idea is to have additional levels shrik the size of the component.

SEV, more than a feeling.

I've often wondered what the point of that was. If I am not mistaken balance mod takes this out.
Good to know though.
Groovy Baby Yeah!

My basic colony ship right now has a pair of max level satellite bays, only 200kt less than if I went with 3 max level cargo bays. It's a well rounded ship design, made as much for survivability as it is to carry stuff, but it gets the job done.

I use sat bays in case of emergencies.
Be it to use sats to defend the colony ship if things go bad unexpectedly, or if some of the spare colony ships need to get rushed into service as population transports or satellite transports in an emergency, or sending them in a group, one to colonize, the others simply to carry extra stuff when I'm short on available freighters.