1. New planets immediately build 2-3 factories (and the hive if you're the Thalan). The factories are there to build research labs and/or colony ships depending on need. Global slider can be initially set at 80/20 production to research.
2. With Colonizer bonus, any planet can begin with a shipyard. The goal of the 3 factories is so that the newly colonized planets can spam out colony ships and/or research labs.
3. Once the factories are built, production on that planet will be changed from starship production to research lab production. Orphan the shipyards on the planets you want to build the research labs to get around the One Size Fits All Planetary production wheel so that the military spending on those planets is put into social production. On the border worlds, the planets will continue spamming out colony ships due to 100% military production.
4. The planets with the 3 factories in the interior of your civilization will begin spamming research labs and farms as need be.
In other words, the border worlds that have not yet built the 3 factories will continue to spam colony ships. The interior worlds that have built the 3 factories will orphan the shipyards and build research labs and focus on research.
As your civilization expands, your research base increases substantially. Your border worlds will build the colony ships for further expansion.
Once expansion is over, turn to 100% research. Since all of your worlds ARE IDENTICAL WITH 3 FACTORIES AND THE REST RESEARCH LABS (with a colonial hospital and a farm or two), your research will be stupendous.
Once that's done, and research is sufficient for your goals, destroy the research labs step by step. In the process, replace the labs with factories or farms for the spamming of military units.
The key is to replicate the Soviet model of economic development. TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL PRODUCTION WHEEL, EVERY PLANET MUST DO THE EXACT SAME THING. DOING ANYTHING ELSE IS SUB OPTIMAL.
