[douglas]

You can speed up watching what happens in a single day in the stepped log by looking at another system, preferably one with nothing you can see moving in it on that day. This lets you see a before-and-after of any system by checking the system first, switching to another system, stepping the log, and going back to the first system. You can even do the switch while the day is playing, and it'll finish processing just as soon as the current ship's animation finishes.