Back to planet renaming....I actually have a lot of fun with this. Originally I renamed all of my planets after different countries and tried to tie the nature of the planet to the country name I selected, i.e., a good production planet would be called Germany and a high PQ planet would become China or India. I got bored of countries and then renamed planets after cities, then in additional games I cycled through companies, fish, and universities. This was fun, but didn't really do what Tetleytea was driving at which was use the naming feature to identify what a planet is good at. Here is what I do now:
If the planet is meant to be an industrial planet I name it after a mineral, i.e. gypsum, talc, flint, shale, etc. If the planet has production bonuses or a manufacturing capital I name it after a jewel, say diamond, emerald, ruby, etc.
If the planet is meant to be an economic planet, I name it after a big bank (although there are fewer of them now!) like Barclay's, Wells Fargo, etc.
If the planet is meant to be a research planet I name them after famous philoshpers, i.e., Aristotle, Descartes etc.
If the planet is just a general planet I name it after a flower, i.e., lily, lotus, etc (don't laugh or my Wyvern dreadnoughts will annihilate your universe).
Finally, getting to Tetleytea's point of putting a specific bonus in the title, that is easy. Here is what I do. If the planet came with a research bonus, +10% from a ring and +28% from an evil option, then I simply call the planet Aristotle 38. That let's me know right away what type of improvement strategy to follow on the planet and what bonus I have there.
I highly recommend this approach. It makes information management fun and easy, and I continually change things up to keep it all interesting. If I get tired of using flowers maybe next game I'll substitute yummy desserts or something.
Anyway, my approach is to divide the planets into research, industry, economic, and general categories and then diffferentiate them by naming all planets of that class after a specific class of objects. Bonuses are noted by simply inserting a number after the planet name.
Give it a whirl, I think you will find it helps.
