Colonization question

[gunny]

could someone fill me in on this. It seems rather abstract. I thought colonizing a planet was a mission you select for your starships. The option is there but it seldom lights up. But now all of my planets are connected by freighter routes, go into turmoil and so on. So were they colonized afterall without me choosing such an option?

[Tobias Smith]

Colonizing is a starship mission only available after you have researched colony pods or when you have found an instant colony artifact.

Your planets are connected by freighter routes only after you highlight a planet that is cleared of all artifacts and build a freighter for it at one of your colonized worlds. If an enemy destroys the freighter the world will go into turmoil. If an enemy destroys an inhabited world, all the worlds connected to it go into turmoil.

[drmant]

I normally use the "colonize planet list", which is found when you press the button on the top of the screen that looks like a planet. This will generate of list of planets based on size and type. To colonize a planet, make sure you have a ship selected, and then hit the planet button. Find your planet that you want to colonize and select it. Then, at the bottom of the "colonize planet list" window, there will be a selection to "send <ship> to colonize planet" or something along those lines. If you have an "Instant Colony" artifact on your ship, it will produce a colony with the max amount of cities and population for that planet (very useful).

If you don't have an "Instant Colony" artifact on your ship, the ship will be sent to a space dock and retrofitted with colony pods (which you must have had researched). The ship will then go to the selected planet and colonize it. The new colony will then have just one city and minimal population. This would be a good time to use an "Instant Population" artifact.