I decided to post here a question I've battled with since I started hosting TW.
How should you determine how many figs/shields/credits to put on alien planets when you edit them for a new game.
With scripts out there today planets are much easier to take than they used to be. If I don't edit the planets the game is over in hours. If I make them to beefy to give veteran players a bit of a challege then I get grief from those trying to compete, and if I make them to easy, the vets take them anyway.
What can be done to put the challenge back into the game?

Depends on the amount of turns and the type of aliens. As a general rule, in a lower turn game with high fig regeneration aliens, I usually let the planet take care of itself and just make it an L6. No need to add fighters or ore to the planet.
In a high turn or unlimited turn game I usually just max out the planet however if alien fighter regeneration is set high, there may be up to a million figs in the sector at full strength. This will make the planet very hard to take unless it's a full corp mothiing the cannon.

What I do with my alien planets is put half the fuel capacity on, and half the figs on with full shields. I set the cannon to 30% atmosphere and 10% sector. This makes it a challenge to take.

I wrote a script in the SysOp script pack
called Set alien planets

it fills ore , figs and cols based on turns in game
the higher the turns the fuller planets will be.

cannons are set same every time as well as credits on planet.
I dont put shields , seems the aliens take care of that all too well.
And I've even noticed they steal the creds from the planet too sometimes.

Its too bad the aliens cant turn on their PIG .. then I wouldn't have to set
planet defences so high.

btw , I could use more testing and feed back on the alien planet setting script.
That way I might get it calibrated for all sysops feel of the game.