You can name ships and planets to (almost) whatever you like.

For ships I used that to quickly know what I was looking at (as the graphical representation of your ships is the same for all ships with the same hull type). The format I used for ship names depended on what the ship was for. For fighting ships I would use:

<hull-type> <weapons> <version#> #<ship#>

For example, "BC DUC/PD 2 #18" is the 18th ship using the battle-cruiser hull (BC) and loaded with depleted uranimium cannons (DUC) and point defenses (PD), and this ship is currently based on version #2 of the "BC DUC/PD" series of designs. If I then research a new engine or armor or something, and make an upgraded design that's basically the same as the "BC DUC/PD 2" design but with the new tech, I'll then start upgrading ships as convenient, and rename them (e.g., to "BC DUC/PD 3 #18") at the same time as I issue the upgrade order. (That makes it easier to scan the list of ship names and see which ones are out-dated and could use an upgrade.) Other (non-fighter) names of design series that I use include things like "Repair/Supply", "Probe", "Gas Colonizer", "Ice Colonizer", "Rock Colonizer", "Transport" and "Medical", and I give them version #s and ship #s just like the fighting ships (e.g., "Transport 4 #23"). IIRC, I wouldn't even bother assigning ship #s, but the game requires the name of each ship to be unique.

For planets I generally stuck to using the original names the game gave them, but I would add stuff to the end of the name to "mark" the planet. For example, every turn I go through the construction queues to make sure that all planets that should be doing something are. But some planets I don't want to do anything more and I want them to just sit idle indefinitely -- those ones I add a "*" to the end of their name so they're easier to skip in the construction queue list.

Also, be sure to combine ships into fleets when appropriate -- that will reduce the amount of micro-managing you have to do. I give functional names to fleets as well. For example, "Jethanis East Fleet" is a fleet of ships defending a wormhole on the "east" side of the Jethanis system. If I'm planning on invading the "Olontra" system, I'll start piling ships into an "Olontra Invasion Fleet". If I decide to use a fleet for a different task, I'll change its name to reflect that. (That helps keep me from forgetting what it was I was planning on doing with them.) Even single ships can be a "fleet" so you can use the fleet name to represent its current task while the ship name still indicates exactly what kind of ship it is.

I did that with STARS, using an M for a mining planet, S for science, etc that way I wasn't spending all day going through the whole list if I wanted to upgrade something or get some extra ore.

Anyway back to the promo....

Delicious promo, some delectable games at a tasty discount!

I've been eyeballing the Disciples games and Darkstar One for a long time, what is everyone's thoughts on those?

Disciples (at least the 2nd one) is an absolutely excellent, gorgeous and clever HOMM-like, with its own specific 'feel' - the terrain transformation is a great idea. It's unfortunately off-limits for me (it's too tied to bad memories of the epoch I was playing it), but I can only recommend it for others, if you like this sort of gameplay.

Never played any of the Jagged Alliance games before, is JA 2 the best one to go with?

I'll probably pick up JA 2, Disciples 2, and Patrician 3. Which reminds me, I really need to get around to actually trying Sacred out, it's been on my shelf for months.

FInally nabbed Space Empires IV with half hour to spare :)