Raising The Bar...

[dmm]

Poddu is totally wrong about the colony ships. Because, for example, sometimes my spaceyard is on a planet with O2 breathers but I want to colonize an H2 planet. I will colonize it with an empty colony ship, and bring a transport with H2 colonists. Or maybe pick up the H2 colonists with the colony ship. If the colony ship were automatically filled, then I'd have to jettison people.

If you want the colony ship auto-filled, use the colonize button. That's what it's for.