Question about filling colony ships with citizens

from Stardock Forums
I'm a new and '/idiot/fool' player so please forgive thse questions but I need help as I have sent too many empty Colony ships to colonize planets. I'm using version 1.02. I want to know how to bring up the prompt that allows you to fill a new colony ship with citizens. I've only got this prompt a few times (by accident) during the game and most of the time I end up launching an empty colony ship. Also is there a way to add citizens to a colony ship after it has been mistakenly launched with no citizens on it? And, how come when I once colonized a planet with a ship with no citizens or soldiers on it, after a short time I had about 50 million people living on that planet. Also, a hint as to a good number of citizens to put on the ship would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for any help with these questions and my hat is off to the game creators, debuggers, supporters, and to this great forum. THANKS!
1,237 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Double click on a ship to launch it or click the launch button to the right of the orbit slots.

For colony ships and transports, this brings up a loading dialog.

Move the slider or use the mousewheel to change the number to the value that you want. Unless you're just trying to drain population, 500 is good for starting a colony but you have to keep in mind how many people are in your system at the time. You don't want to lower the population to the point where it hurts your production. Transports fill to the max capacity if you can. Colony ships you can't move back into orbit. Transports you can.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I've seen the 0 population growing thing before, when I was getting class 15+ planets from one of the United Planets issue. My guess is 0 million people doesn't mean no people at all. Perhaps its only a few thousand (the crew), who reproduce at a phenominal rate, or people from other worlds immigrating to it.
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
"Perhaps its only a few thousand (the crew) who reproduce at a phenominal rate"

lol... Maybe it's just my wicked mind.. but I just pictured 'Emanuelle in Space'
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
As far as the "0 million people" go, don't forget that the population meter only registers the taxpayers. There are still tax dodgers living there... I guess they boarded the colony ships hoping for a lower tax rate... alas, the tax rate is empire-wide! :D

~SDC~
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Well then those tax dodgers must have stowed away on the colony ship because the game didn't think there was any on it. LOL Thanks for the responses.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Hehe - good point: only taxpayers are eligible to be colonists (or invading troops) - the unwashed masses avoiding taxation can't get interplanetary visas!

~SDC~