Sentry

[capnq]

I rarely ever use the Next Ship button; I prefer looking at the F6 Ships/Orders list. When the Sentry order clears, I know an enemy has entered the system, and don't have to rely on spotting a new triangle on the Galaxy Map.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[Dragonlord]

I ALWAYS use the next ship feature (space bar) it is excellent! Especially when I have 100+ ships, and because I never use any ministers.

The only bug with it I sometimes run into is that it will not always skip to ships which are in orbit of a planet with many other ships, while it should normally go to that ship. (ship has no orders, no sentry). SOmetimes are multiple hits of space bar the computer "wakes up" and finds the ship.
BTW I use Sentry a lot too, e.g. to park a frigate in an empty system as an early-warning scout until I can get some satelites to replace it.

[CW]

The way I do it is to have whole fleets of auxiliary ships following my attack fleets, and they always have big stockpiles of satellites, mines and other spares. No wonder I never seemed to need the sentry command.