Help with mineral distribution for colonies

[Rich.h (OP)]

Just started dipping my toes into aurora so not sure if this is covered elsewhere or not.  I have just setup my first new colony on Mars, also I have a number of automated mining colonies through the Sol system.  My mining colonies send mineral packets via mass driver to Luna, which then ships them to Earth.  Mars also has a few old automated mines from its days as a pure mining colony and thses are extracting the last few tons of minerals from the planet before being shipped out.

Now I am begining to build up Mars with all the basics however I'm confused on how it will get minerals.  All planetary structures require minerals as it shows clearly on the building tab.  But if these minerals are on Earth do I need to ship them to Mars for use or will they just be taken from a pool? Ideally I want to find an automated way to do this as manually having to ship them sounds like micromanagement hell once I hit 5-10 colonies.

[Erik L]

Each colony needs its own supply of minerals to create facilities at the colony.

[Nathan_]

5.7 will have a new "fill to reserve capacity" order to help automating keeping colonies supplied with minerals, but yeah, it can and will be micromanagement hell.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

There's little need for all your colonies to be manufacturing centers.  If anything, it's a bad idea, given how colony governors work.

Those that do have factories ought to be largely mineral self-sufficient, though it is possible to futz it.
 
The approach I like to take is to have mining colonies feeding into a major colony, which then feeds into the homeworld.  Freighters automatically ship most of the major colonies output back home, picking up the >reserve amounts.  Meanwhlie, the colony builds items (usually scanners, CFs, and mines) out of the reserve minerals.  Any minerals the colony doesn't have in its inputs are shipped out from the homeworld; I don't usually automate that. 

It's also nice to establish missile production plants on major extrasolar colonies.  One game, I based my old fleet out of a major colony using/manufacturing size 4 missiles while the new construction based out of the homeworld with size 6 missiles.