Three planets, each with a distinct biome and a distinct failure mode. The order you tackle them in is the order of the campaign, but knowing what each one punishes saves a lot of wasted rebuilds.
Lush and temperate, Daegus is where you learn the whole loop without being punished. Its one distinctive hazard is invasive alien root systems - hostile flora that creeps toward power conduits and buildings. The Security Office handles this, so keep one officer in that division rather than treating it as a nuisance to ignore.
Kourou has three biomes at once: frozen glaciers, volcanic badlands and superheated steamfields. It is the only source of organic material in the system, which makes it strategically mandatory rather than optional. Rift storms here also disrupt transporters and solar power. Two pieces of advice dominate the guides: upgrade life support capacity before you land, and replace Solar Arrays with Fusion Reactors, which do not care about the local sun.
Three hostile biomes, a chemically volatile atmosphere and poor visibility that limits the build grid until you deploy long-range sensor arrays. Unprotected modules corrode. Neral is where the game's systems all have to work at once, and where the Shield Emitters stop being optional.
Shield emitters protect buildings and crew from tetryon radiation, but they have a limited radius and cost a lot of materials. Crew can only survive briefly outside a shielded zone. The efficient layout is to cluster the buildings that matter and shield that cluster, rather than spreading out and trying to cover everything.
Rift storms are the game's recurring set-piece. You respond by routing auxiliary power, shutting down non-essential systems, shielding critical modules and making narrative choices. Storms have been reported to spawn mini black holes, and they expose ancient ruins and derelict ships - so a storm is a threat and an opportunity at the same time.
Harvesting biology yields seeds that must be replanted. You cannot strip-mine a planet. Treat the seeds as a resource to route back into the ecosystem rather than as loot, and your long-term options stay open across all three worlds.