Having recently discovered Aurora (though I was a big fan of the Rigellian Diary over the years), I'm stumbling through my first real game after a couple of false starts. I would seem to be fortunate in that both Mars and Titan were suitable colony candidates (Mars x2 cost and Titan 4.xx cost).
While I have populations on both, and either have infrastructure in place or am in the process, but what do I do next? I got some automated mines on Mars, and will eventually get some on Titan so there is some local resource production. What, in general, should my next steps be? I'm sure once you get past a certain point of development, you can then specialize the role of the colony if needed, but what does the Aurora community consider to be the essentials for a colony to grow and thrive?
On a side note, when I settled Titan, I ended up with 2 colonies. One has all the people, and one has...nothing. However, I have two colonies show up in my summary, and I had two governorships created. What's up with that?