Well I am reading these idea, and I’m going to have to go realist on this thread. Planets at best in real life, are a source of rock, gases, liquids and in some but not all cases heat. Remember not all planets are thought to have a molten core. In Starmade the gases are non-existent, thou it would be cool to have atmospheres with our gravity fields. And I have a feeling that with the whole helmet thing it was at least planned at one point.
As for what advantages planets have over other stations, really its only gravity and if its present geothermal heat. Everything else can be done on a space ship. The laymen's idea that plants need an up is wrong, planets grow towards light, so as your light source is in a fixed direction they would grow in zero-g. Renewable resources like plants, actually require a fairly closed system to be renewable. People say they can always grow more next year, but really they need nutrients in the soil, water, carbon in the air, and light. These things aren't infinite, just vast in supply on earth, and most of what we use in growing a plant ends up back in the ground. In the end, star burn out and planet cores cool down too.
In context of the game, we already have infinite energy, just not infinite output. So geothermal is really no better than power blocks, same could be said of solar, or hydro dams. Plants might add an interesting economic dynamic if they were used in production. Maybe cotton, wool, leather, etc.
What is left is rock and gravity, which can be useful in themselves. Rock is handy for building for a natural look, and sun diving as hull plating. Gravity like planets tends to be glitch prone. It boils down to them being balls of nothing plated with rocks and resources on all sides. Not a place I would want to live.
