Order of the colonies listed in the population and production window?

[Havan_IronOak (OP)]

Can someone explain what order this list is in?

I'm guessing that perhaps it's just sorted by population and nothing else. At least the secondary sort is clearly NOT alpha order.

When one has a huge list of colonies (including everything one is ground surveying)  the list seems relatively stable but very chaotic. Can someone fill me in on what I'm missing?

[Rich.h]

Look below the list, there is a check box with "group by function", make use of that and things become much much easier.

[Havan_IronOak (OP)]

OK...  That helped a bit.

Problem is I've got an experiment going where I'm manually doing ground based surveys to get empirical evidence as to whether the rate of finds is what's been reported. In order to do that I pre-selected about 150 bodies and made them colonies. Since they all have zero population they all appear in the other colonies category and that list is still pretty chaotic. Also, I'm not sure but it feels like the list order changes from time to time.

Once the high order is function, I'm guessing that the secondary sort is by population. Any idea if there's a third criteria?  Name would just make things too easy!

[db48x]

Once the high order is function, I'm guessing that the secondary sort is by population. Any idea if there's a third criteria?  Name would just make things too easy!

I'm pretty sure distance to the primary system body is in there; comets jump around in the list.

[Havan_IronOak (OP)]

I'm pretty sure distance to the primary system body is in there; comets jump around in the list.

That would almost explain what I've been seeing.   

No, wait...   You almost had me then I noticed Hale Bopp near the top of the list and I know that that's still outside my 2xPluto ring.

Grrrr...  And strict alpha order would be bad why

[Havan_IronOak (OP)]

I'm Still not understanding what order the list of colonies is in. Particularly within the "other Colonies" category.

I'm guessing that it's random to some degree. My reasoning is this.

I went to the bottom of the list and there were about 10 colonies that I'd established for Ground based surveys that I completed some time ago. No mines, no installations no teams, no nothing left so I wanted to abandon them.

The Bottom 3 were Margaret, Brunhild and Alkmene with Alkmene at the bottom.

Abandoned  Alkmene. Scrolled all the way down again.

The Bottom 3 were Margaret, Vanth, Kiviuq. 
Brunhild was still on the list but quite a number of others were now lower down.

[Rich.h]

I'm Still not understanding what order the list of colonies is in. Particularly within the "other Colonies" category.

I'm guessing that it's random to some degree. My reasoning is this.

I went to the bottom of the list and there were about 10 colonies that I'd established for Ground based surveys that I completed some time ago. No mines, no installations no teams, no nothing left so I wanted to abandon them.

The Bottom 3 were Margaret, Brunhild and Alkmene with Alkmene at the bottom.

Abandoned  Alkmene. Scrolled all the way down again.

The Bottom 3 were Margaret, Vanth, Kiviuq. 
Brunhild was still on the list but quite a number of others were now lower down.

I'm fairly certain that the main populated colonies are ordered by population size. I haven't checked but am guessing the other types will be ordered by the number of installations of the correct type, for example the number of mines, or number of terraformers etc for the relevant colony type.