one of the biggest shortcomings of the bot

I agree! There should be at least an option for colinazation.
Specify the position for the planet and have parameters for planet fields and temperature. If the parameters are not in range what is specified, than delete planet and redo colonization. It would be helpful, to send more ships for colinazation, than planets that can be colonized.
E.g. i have 2 free planet spots (4/6) but i have 12 fleet slots. so the bot can send up to 12 colonize ships until the 2 planets are found.

Allowing the bot to prioritize colonization with the following params would be ideal:
# Colonies per galaxy (equally spaced)
# Prioritize (size 7-9), (metal 8), (crystal/energy 1-3), (Deut 13-15)
or
# Manually add a static list of planet locations. Bot works down the list with an error if unable to launch colony mission.