for a newbie

[jars_u]

"How does one load population onto a transport ship to move people around the empire?"

If you are going to colonize a planet for the first time on the menu/tool bar there is an icon that looks kind of like a white round bowl with green trim - if you click the ship then that icon then the planet it will load the population and start moving towards the planet to colonize it.

If you just want to trasport population from one planet to another move the cargo ship into orbit around the planet that you want to load the population from and there is an cargo button in the tool bar looks like a box with an arrow going up you can click on that and it will take you though a series of menu's on what kind of cargo to load - but I find it easier to click on the button that I think is to the left of that one which is a cargo inventory (not certain) button when you click on that a new screen will come up which shows your ship how much cargo space it has and what cargo is on the planet that you can trasfer between the two.

Hope that helps.

Jim