[Captain Kwok]

Making Troops:

First of all, make sure you have researched troops. Next, go to the ship design window and create a new unit. Choose a troop size and add the components as if you were building a ship. You can now build troops. It doesn't matter about the target planet, troops can land on any planet type.

Capturing ships:

To board ships, you have to research military science and then ship capture. You'll get a component called "Boarding Parties" and add a few of those to a ship design. In combat, you can now board an enemy ship with no shields left...but watch out for self-destruct devices as they will destroy your boarding ship!

Now Analyze it:

Once you've captured an enemy ship, you can take it to a space yard and analyze it. You may be able to get new tech like Rock Colony etc, but racial techs like organic and temporal will be a mystery unless you've got those traits.