Thanks a lot for the answers. And thanks for the game, Steve. Aurora is really a fantastic game, I don't think I have had so good a time since I learned Dwarf Fortress.
edit: When I hide civilian ship names, something funny happens: The game still makes space between my ships, as if the civilian ships were still there. Which means that I see a few seldom used ships parked close to earth, and my more active ships parked in different distances, some of them far away from earth. But this is just a minor cosmetic disturbance, as opposed to the semi-opaque blue wall of text, which was quite annoying. I'll be back with more questions and perhaps, when I get better, with a few suggestions.