[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

If you're not interested in a place of organic beings to live there's no reason to set up anything but scientific outposts and/or mining areas (if you can find anything worth transporting back to your civilization).

• Military installations if what you find is either of value to anybody else or represents a security threat on its own.
• Shell tourism operations. The transit time is light-speed and the clients are long-lived.
• The infrastructure to support all of the above: power, shells, maintenance, communications, in-system transport, refueling, and at least virtual spaces for off-duty infomorph relaxation. Ultimately the only thing you don't need is farming (and you might even need that, if you are using biosynthetic pathways for any production).