What to do with useless Colony Ships, with pop on board

Pilot the colony ships back to a planet, they automatically unload their population when garrisoned, then decomission them.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Can it be any planet? Can you therefore use colony ships as population "transports"? I've lost a lot of sweet planets, waiting to gain enough pop for a full load. Perhaps just send one for now, but always have a "transport colony" ship sending out pop later?

Successfully updated karma reason!

OsirisDawn

Join Date 09/2004

+30

Yes, can be any planet and it is useful to speedboost bigger planets.

Successfully updated karma reason!

As addition to the before mentioned pop transport, you could upgrade your colonizer to trader ship after delivering. ^^

Successfully updated karma reason!

You will lose fewer planets to the AI if you send lower population colony ships to them.

Also as mentioned above, old colony ships that have unloaded their population can be upgraded to other ship types (I like constructors or transports) if you don't need colony ships anymore. Just don't upgrade with active population on the ship.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting dansiegel30,

reply 2

Can it be any planet? Can you therefore use colony ships as population "transports"? I've lost a lot of sweet planets, waiting to gain enough pop for a full load. Perhaps just send one for now, but always have a "transport colony" ship sending out pop later?

Yes both military Transport and colony ships can be use to transport populations between your planets. I do it all the time. I mostly us transports for this job. I even have a transport I call 'The Bus'

Successfully updated karma reason!

ManiiNames

Join Date 03/2006

+27

So I can get out and capture planets ASAP, a lot of my colony ships only have the minimum 0.5 pop on board. And no I'm not using the colonizer etc traits.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Seilore

Join Date 10/2006

+154

I've got 2 colony ships that are useless. The other races snagged 2 sweet planets I was heading for, which left the number of viable planets to colonize to zero. I plan to take them over with culture starbase spam, but what can I do with these colony ships? I'd like to reclaim that valuable 6 pop.

Another solution is, if you're at war with that race (or going to declare war), bring them back to your space (area of influence) then upgrade them to transports (if able) population will stay on the ship and now be troops. Now you can return to those planets and conquer them

Successfully updated karma reason!