Hello all, been lurking here trying to put what I've learned into practice.
I wanted to finish a few more constructions before weekly reset but couldn't find the time. So here is my system income, stats, and map as of the today:
The unbuilt facilities on A 5 A are a surface civilian outpost and a second refinery hub.
For comparison sake I have two friends I've been building with nearby who have systems of similar stats of development who's systems I'll share below.
Friend A:
Friend B (ignore Hydrae Sector):
My main focuses for comparison are on system score and stat levels. We seem pretty confident that payout is determined by system score (modified by happiness) and I've seen suggestions that system score is tied to the system stats. But comparing our three systems makes me think there is more going on under the surface. Friend A and myself each have a score of 10 but Friend A made marginally more than me. If we look at our stats this is even more confusing. Combining Tech Level, Wealth, and Development Level (as I've seen some people suggest) she totals at 18 while I have 20. Perhaps the difference lies in either Development Level which her hers is slight her at 10 to 8, or the difference in Standard of Living / Security is being reflected as I sit at -3 and -2 respectively to her 0 and 1. Friend B on the other hand has a system score of 11 and made noticeably more. He has a combined Tech, Wealth, and Development stat line of 21.
There is also the question of what we built. I started with a Civilian Outpost while both my friends built Industrial. I think this might be playing a role as they both have Industrial primary economies while mine is still primarily a Colony economy type. I think its safe to say Industrial economies are more valuable than Colony, hence perhaps why Friend A's system is worth more than mine despite having the same system score.
That's my preliminary observations at least. I'll finish my surface civilian outpost in the next day and maybe even have the second refinery done before next week's reset so we'll see what that does. I'm really hoping to kick the Colony economy on it and start local production of CMMs. I'm also curious to see the effect of population. Mine should have a much higher population than the other two by next week based on our build queues.
Hope this information proves valuable to someone.