Nub question, but I draw ferry route,then build several transporters, then order units into the ferry circle and nothing happens. Do I have to assign the transporters to the ferry route? do I have to assign the units I'm trying to transport to the ferry route? What am i doing wrong?

Sit both transporters and unit inside the ferry circle. As long as both are inside the rest is automagic.

lol ferry rings... sorry could not help myself

That is not obvious at all

Assign transports and units to the ferry route by right clicking in the circle. Unit assignment can be queued which means factories can use them as part of their queue as well.

If the UI was any simpler I'd be left with what I think is the failing of transport AI. I don't want random transports to be taken and assigned to routes as they may do stupid things such as fly through AA to get there or reveal to my opponent that I have transports.

could you not mark a circle red when there are no transports asigned to it, and green otherwise, and maybe use a transporter cursor when moving a transporter into a transporter circle, and maybe even show a small text next to the circle when no transporters: "assing transporters" or the like. ther must be more and better ways to solve it, without changeing the logic at all.

It looks like the drawing is done before anything else. Is that wise? It looks kinda funky when the circle is drawn on top of everything (including units).

Apparently this is what keeps happening:

You've done something to the widget because line 141 is whitespace here.