You have to place people on your colony ship
the coloniser component has a small bit of space for people but it is better to place an axtra cargo bay as well.
when you hit the colonise button and choose a world the ship will pick up people of the world that you are presently surrounding and than move to the world, However if you say to colonise something with a vessel that is not over an inhabited world or a world that already has the minimal inhabitance than your vessel will not be able to load up with any people.
The best way to be shure you have people on your colony ships is to manually load them first than move to the target world.
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CyC
L+++ GdY $!+ Fr+ C--- S* T!- Sf++ Tcp++ A? M++ MpM RV Pw+ Fq++ Nd+++++ Rp++ G
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CyC
The Person not the AI
L+++ GdY $!+ Fr+ C--- S* T!- Sf++ Tcp++ A? M++ MpM RV Pw+ Fq++ Nd+++++ Rp++ G
Thanks - now the seemingly random occurrence has a trend. Sometimes, I would just hit 'colonize' and point to a world - creating a world with people on it. Other times, I would move it first, then hit colonize from somewhere in empty space. No people. Thanks for the tip!
I think we all do that occasionlly. I did it Last night . I have been requesting a pop-up confirmation box such as "Do you really want to leave the planet without loading population?", but it hasn't made it into a patch yet.