You start with:
- 2x Worker
- 1x Biologist
- 1x Engineer
- 1x Medic
- 1x Carrier Bot
- 45x Metal
- 35x Plastic

Important in the beginning is speed, because you want to get as much energy as possible from the first day, therefore start with big solar panel, energy collector and water collector. After that a mine, so your workers can already work. Then start with oxygen, etc.

So build with the start resources (in recommended order):
- Very large solar panel (7 metal)
- Large power collector (4+1 metal)
- Mine (2+1 metal)
- Medium water extractor (2+1 metal)
- Airlock (1+1 metal; 1 plastic)
- Small oxygen generator (1+1 metal; 1+1 plastic)
- Medium processing plant (2+1 metal; 2+1 plastic)
- Large canteen (4+1 metal; 4+1 plastic)
- Large bio-dome (5+1 metal; 5+1 plastic)
- Medium dorm (2+1 metal; 2+1 plastic)

That leaves you with 6 metal and 15 plastic, so you can invest into:

- 1 Big table, drinking fountain, meal maker (4 plastic)
- 1 Bed (1 plastic)
- 1 Wheat pod, 1 mushroom pod and 2 tomato pods (4 plastic)
- 1 Metal processor and 1 bioplastic processor (2 metal)

After this you should build landing pad (you need to produce 1 metal for that) asap and immediately set colonist to:

- 30% Workers
- 50% Biologists
- 15% Engineers
- 5% Medics
- 0% Guard

This is not the ideal setting, but the last thing you need is famine. Everything else is secondary. Most of workers’ and engineers’ work will be later done by robots anyway. I went totally without guards and used the airlock tactics. (more about it later)

After this you just need to grow and maintain flow. You need to hurry, so you cannot afford problems. You need to prevent them.

Power:

Always maintain 1 very large solar panel and 1 large power collector for every 25KW of consumption. Remember that nights are long (and full of terrors), so every KW of consumption consumes 500 from your power collector, therefore ALWAYS first increase power production and storage and build some structures.

Food:

You should always have one empty bio-dome ready in case of emergency. Remember that you have to prevent problem before they become anyhow close to danger. If your food storage is stagnating, it means that it will drop because there are constantly new people coming in. I went through the mission only with wheat and mushrooms with couple of tomatoes in the beginning. Later I produced lots of chicken. Have the storage all the time growing. Better having 1000 food than starve. Starvation decreases welfare rapidly and that will cause colonist inflow to slow or even stop.

Have 1 meal maker and 1 large table for 20 people.

Oxygen:

Surprisingly (at least for me) this was my main problem. I kept having oxygen level approximately 20 above my population, but proper distribution of oxygen is more important. Only the first oxygen generator should be small. All others should come in big sizes and make sure no building is farther than three structures from the nearest oxygen generator.

Dorm/Cabin:

Just one dorm and the rest should be cabins. I had 1 bed for 6 inhabitants. Later I built more.

Morale:

Since you want colonists to come, you have to maintain morale quite a lot. Have as many plants and TVs as possible and at least 1 large multi-dome per 100 people.

Prestige:

After you get stabilized grow and maintenance, have couple of signposts, pyramids or even monolith if you have resources. It will bring you more colonists. Towards the end try to have it above 800.

Metal/plastic:

There is no sense in storing the metal. If you have some metal, grow. I built the first mine even before airlock and oxygen and at the time of end I had 8 mines and 10 metal processors and it was just about to fit to my demand. With plastic I had quite opposite problem. At some point I got overwhelmed with bioplastic and starch and had to either build storages or pyramids.

Intruders:

Look at every single ship that comes to your landing pad or star port. There are no visitors in this challenge, so naturally every single visitor is an intruder. Once they arrive, close the airlock. (Have at least two!) When they reach it, they will go to the nearest airlock and don’t mind if you reopen the airlock two second after they leave, so it shouldn’t bother your normal outside/inside traffic that much. If you save and load, the pathfinding is recalculated so they will go to the nearest airlock from the spot they are at when you load the game. After having them enjoy some romantic walk on the moon for some time, they’ll die. Save often. If you miss intruders, just remember the time when they came and load the game. They will come at the same time.

Robots:

Build as soon as you can afford it robotics facility and build robots. It will significantly decrease med kit consumption (your workers won’t go to the mines that much) and happiness (your people won’t have to carry stuff that much).

So basically you just have to do quick beginning and then constantly control grid/charts/population/etc. I finished in 52 days and never turned landing pod and star port off. As far as I know you cannot get the Express Colony achievement this way, so you will have to do it again in some normal scenario.