[taterbill]

You can click on the ship type column heading to sort by type. That way, you can make sure you have moved all your colony ships, transport ships, etc.

For that reason, I always create a ship type called "Recon", so I can make sure I move all them as well. Actually, I'm surprised that the game does not come with a stock recon type, as it just makes sense to forego weaponry for extra supplies and/or solar panels on your scouts.

You can also click on the Movement Ponts heading to sort by it. I sometimes use it to find ships with remaining points (usually early in the game, when I don't have many ships).

To manage all my Attack Ships, I have gotten in the habit of grouping all Carriers and Attack ships (and some other types) into fleets, even if it is a fleet of one. And I give all my fleets meaningful names, like "Attack Fleet 1" or "Sirius Guard". Then I show only fleets, not individual ships, and manage everything that way. It makes for a lot of renaming fleets as their roles change, but it does help with the micromanagement.

I use an approach similar to raynor's to manage planets. I prefix a "+" to each planet that has a ship yard, and a "z" to each planet when it can contain no more facilities. Then I sort my colony list by what is currently under construction, and scroll to the middle of the list where the "None"'s are. I can see at a glance what shipyards are idle, and what planets can handle additional facilities.

I would appreciate hearing anyone else's ideas for effectively managing ships and planets.

[This message has been edited by taterbill (edited 26 February 2001).]