Colony rush help

As many planets as possible, so long as you don't go completely broke.

Depends on your style of play and map size. If you seek a diplomatic or tech victory without any wars, more planets are definitely better. If you seek military conquest, limiting the number of planets can result in faster wins. The reason is that these close in planets are easy to conquer, and you get buildings and tech for free when you conquer. A military transport only costs a bit more than a colony ship...

For big maps, rushing factories on the homeworld is more effective than rushing colony ships. The reverse is often true on the highest difficulty, and smaller maps with fewer habitable planets. In either case, impulse drives are a good tech to have, though on many difficulties, Planetary Improvements is a better first choice to research.

Going brokeis the problem.Te more planets I grabthe worse it becomes.

You shouldn't be going broke.

Buy or build all your colony ships on your home planet and let the other planets grow. Try to keep your morale over 70% so they will grow.

Research Planetary improvement and Xeno Econ. Build some econ buildings on your planets along with the factories labs and entertainment centers.

If you are doing the right things, by the middle of year 2 you should be clearing well over 100bc per turn and you should never need to move your spending slider below 100%.

It should be a piece of cake on challenging. I think you still get an econ bonus at that level