whenever i colonize a planet in a system i already control, the population gets redistributed between the planers. often in a dumb way. there should be a way to control that.



no planet should lose more than half their population.



or a measly one colonist should be sent to the new planet.



or there should be a way to transfer colonists between planets. to fix the horrible re-distribution.

Firstly, you dont need to colonize planets in a system if you already have one. There is an option(once you colonize one planet in a system) on the other planet menus to colonize without the use of a ship(not sure if this is what your talking about). My point, you dont need a ship.



You CAN control how many population are on each planet, simply by dragging them to another planet you control in that system. How far your cursor is counter-clockwise will determine how many colonists you drag(so if your cursor is at 9oclock, you will take all of them possible, if your at, say, 11oclock, you may only take 1-3, depending on planet size)



However, if the system is controlled by AI, it MAY redistribute them the way it thinks is best.



Id check if your using the AI to control the system, that could be the cause of derp pop placement.

Actually this happens even if you did not give the control manually to the AI.



For example you have 2 planets in a system, you've colonized first the jungle huge one on which you have 6 population, then you colonize the large barren beside it which can host 4 population. Once it's done, you expect to have only 1 population that travelled to the barren environnement, but fact is the AI actually happens to distribute more than 1, and you may end up with 3 people left on your terran and 3 on the barren, without asking for it.



I've never checked it this was actually an optimization of the system economy made by the AI (which would be great if it works) though. All I know is that this phenomenon happens where population migrates between planets in an "unexpected" way.

the population drag and drop method can get annoying too

though its mostly just because I'm clumsy but a lot of the time i end up opening a planet wind rather than dragging or dropping