Making a new Colony

[Shudson66]

Ok what am I missing I have 2 colony ships. Several unoccupied plants a couple that our like my capital. And I can't get them to Colonize.

[HsojVvad]

You don't have the capaility to colonzie the planets. At the begining of the game you can only colonize continental planets. Then you have to research the next tech to colonize it. I think it's continental first, then marsh worlds then desert worlds. I don't think you can colonize anything else unless another minor race is already on the planet. Hopefully someone else can explain it better than me.

[idgar]

ORIGINAL: Shudson66

Ok what am I missing I have 2 colony ships. Several unoccupied plants a couple that our like my capital. And I can't get them to Colonize.

The type of planet you start on depends on the "Home System" setting, which affect the whole system as well. I guess the Quick Start choices (apart from "random") have a fixed setting for this.

Harsh: Desert
Trying, Normal: Marshy Swamp
Agreeable, Excellent: Continental

The Galactopedia shows which modules are needed to colonize which types of planets:
Continental: Basic Colonization module
Marshy Swamp: Enhanced ...
Desert: HostileWorlds ...

So if you start with a worse than Continental home world and basic tech you can't colonize worlds with the same type as your home world. Confused me when I ran into it the first time as well. [:)]

In addition to the tech some races can automatically colonize certain type of planets, including Ocean, Ice and Volcanic which are otherwise inaccessible.

[taltamir]

there is a button at the top that looks like a blue thingie with arrows point in... click on it, it lists all the planets you can colonize...
OR, zoom out, right click on a star system, select colonize and then the planet you want to colonize in that star system (Assuming it is colonizeable).