More Awesome Than You!

(Gotta say, the Dune reference made me smile.)

So I've reached space stage at last and it's... big. The game had me set up a colony on a barren moon already, implying that I'd start getting Spice from it right away (why else would they say to put it next to a spice geyser?) and I'm, well, not. So far, the colony I set up on a gorgeous T1 planet with blue Spice isn't producing any either. If I try and put factories in either, it tells me I can't do that until I raise the T-score.

Once I got the atmosphere generator and raised my blue-spice planet to T2, it still wouldn't let me place buildings.  :P and still said 0 spice/hour.

Is this normal game behavior or is something borked?

Spice production depends on factories.  It's exactly like income in the Civ stage.

You cannot place buildings on a T0.
You can place a limited number of buildings on a T1 colony.
You can can have quite a few on a T2.
You can completely fill a T3.
Turrets count.  You can fill a T2 city with houses, factories, and entertainment, but every turret you place will reduce the number of production buildings you can place by 1.

However, you must finish stabilizing the planet to qualify.  If the planet is T2 because of an amosphere generator, but you haven't placed all the plants and animals required, you'll still have the same restrictions as a T0.

 - Gus

Yeah, but there's the thing- my blue spice planet was a T1 to start with, but it won't let me place any buildings (I didn't save after trying to up it to T2 so I'm not worried about that yet.)

Do I need to fill in the niches that were already empty? I think it might only have had plants, not animals.

Edit: Yes, filling in the missing carnivore and herbivore niches (there was one native herbivore) did the trick. Though I have yet to find anywhere where blue spice sells for a decent price...