You'll have an ongoing need once you age up. This is where you research the synthesizers in the tech tree. I find that building out only homes in the colony to get credits for exploring the mines is fastest. For the goods you need, purchase them from the GbG or event stores if they have them. If you use the ores for both research and goods, it'll slow you down and if you add health buildings to your colony, you limit your credits. So go full credits on the colony, use AI Core to boost synthesizers, get your Eternal Market leveled and Ascended (huge special goods), and your Space Carrier. The more ages you rise through, the more the special goods get randomized, so just in Arctic everything is 100% promethium, but in Oceanic, it's now 50/50, then VF just keeps on with those two until you hit SAM then it's a 33 1/3 for which special good gets picked.