Ok I need to learn how to mod Skylines. I want to build this:
I want to have a really big space colony simulator. It starts with the landing site and simple dirt roads; at this point, all your supplies are shipped in from Earth at great expense, but your founders on Earth give you a stipend, plus a Science bonus. Then you build solar panels and power storage cells, which give you the energy to run a water filter and a hydroliser, producing hydrogen and oxygen. Now you are providing your own oxygen so your imports go down, and you're selling hydrogen to freighters, giving you independent income.
Next you build a small waste processor, which turns waste into biomass. Biomass then can be turned into food at hydroponics facilities. Now you have locally-sourced food, water, oxygen, and electricity. You can devote your stipends directly to expanding the science facilities, getting you more cash flow until you reach the limits of your existing infrastructure. Building the next level requires bulky and expensive materials, so now you designate mines for concrete, iron, and rare earths, and the refineries and machine shops. You build a set of habitats to provide workers, even though that means you'll be burning cash to import lots of oxygen and food.
Then Antibiotic-Resistant Staph breaks out in the new dorms. You have to wait for it to burn out, and you take a loan to pay for a new medibay.
By the time the infection is controlled, the loan comes due, putting your already taxed reserves in the red. You start tearing down the under-performing iron mine and selling it for scrap, but the grace period ends and you can no longer import goods. Your reserves of food go first, resulting in the new dorms (which are the least happy) rioting first. Solving two problems at once, you conserve oxygen by routing it to the earlier, scientist's dorms and cut off the new ones.
The population in the new dorms suffocate, resulting in a massive hit to your credibility and a serious happiness penalty for the whole base. Your population is now self-sufficient again, but you have to shut down a large portion of the science labs to send the technicians to work in the mines- it's slow going, but eventually you pay off your debts with a trickle of science and hydrogen exports, helped along by the fact you don't need to import anything.
Given your poor credibility, you now have to pay money to entice new colonists (if it was much lower, your existing colonists would start leaving unless they are too poor to afford transport). Considering the first generation of local born citizens are too young to work (and aren't educated), you need to pay the piper. You reopen a portion of the new dorms and bring in more citizens, and you set up a small entertainment district too, now that you have the resources to build more life support facilities. Things are looking pretty good; maybe you can make a bid to host an AI research institute at your base. Or maybe you'll open a refugee program and take on a large number of workers from earth for a one-time cash bonus.
---
The planet will have a thick but low-oxygen atmosphere and surface temperatures in the liquid water range. Other than that, I'm not sure. I think it should have native life- possibly on that respirates aresolized hydrogen cyanide for the pure death world aspects. (Basically, we can use the logging map to indicate how toxic/scientifically interesting a region is.) As to how we get there, maybe stargates? Something inexplicable is needed, certainly.