Civilian ships deletion? / Replacement battalion ?

[Nibelung44 (OP)]

2 unrelated questions

Is it possible to delete (even with SM mode) a civilian ship? I just have too many colony ships and they load some 3 millions people from Earth and then dump them to a place supporting only a tenth of that.

Replacement btn: How do I use them? They are automatically weakened when a combat unit needs them?

[Prince of Space]

On the topic of unwanted civilian ships, I'm very protective of my TNE supplies, and I don't appreciate having the private sector raid Staurn's Strategic Sorium Supply with their undersized sorium harvesters. Whenever one is built I tractor it with one of my tugs, which confiscates the ship and gives me control over it. Then I scrap it, and if I'm feeling generous I subsidize the shipping line.

In principle this should work just as well for your colony ships, though it's easier to target sorium harvesters because they show up as a target for refueling purposes in the task group window. I've never tried to confiscate colony ships. I believe it was sometimes done in the days before shipping lines retired their old ships, for the sake of speeding up the game.

EDIT: Deleted  second suggestion that wouldn't work.

[CheaterEater]

Replacement battalion works like this:

You have two units on a planet, a replacement and some other combat unit. The combat unit takes damage in a turn. Next turn it is reinforced by the replacement unit, which loses its own strength in return. In effect they transfer units from the replacement battalion to the damaged unit.

[Nibelung44 (OP)]

Nice and automated, me like that. And the rpl btn grows back its strength by being on a friendly planet without hostile?

As for the trick of tractoring a civ ship to acquires it, it works, much praise and karma to you Prince of Space 

[Nibelung44 (OP)]

ghost fleet problem!

I deleted a civilian ship and now I get an error message about a failed order... it comes regularly every 2 days but the fleet and ship are gone... I'm a bit stuck ...  how I can  find this ghost ship?

[Prince of Space]

If the phantom ship is still on its shipping line's fleet list you might be able to select it and use the Clear Orders button. Or perhaps this would only work preemptively, clearing the orders just before you tractor the ship. How did you delete ship? I always abandoned it and set my salvagers to work on the wreck, and I never encountered this error.

[Nibelung44 (OP)]

The error went away after a few iterations, but your suggestion of clearing its order is a good one for the next time. I feared seeing this message for years to come!

I deleted it, so it leaves no 'trace', no scrapping/salvaging thus.

[Cocyte]

Civilian ships does appear in the "manual tractor" list of any tractor-fitted ship in the same location (you can find this popup menu list in the ship information window, the "miscelaneous" tab which also allows manual fuel and supply transfers).
As Colony ships and freighter usually takes a few days to load or unload, you've got a window of opportunity to just seize them and destroy them in whatever way it pleases you.

And for preserving the strategic sorium reserves, just ban the body (System information window).

[Black]

I wanted to try to tractor civilian ships but unfortunately it does not work for me. I am unable to target civilian colony ships.

Tractor Link tab in Individual Unit Details window only shows my ships but no civilians.

Any idea why I don't see those ships? I tried Space Master mode, but that didn't help. Do I need to be in Designer Mode to use tractor beams to capture civilian vessels?