Can i determine the species that's on a colony ship in stellaris?
Yes, you can in the upcoming Clark patch. It's already available in beta in steam, and will go live in the following couple of weeks. Colony ship will show a pop that's on the ship - race, traits, ethos.
No, you can't check which ship has which species as colonists. But as you described, you can select the planet and click colonize on its interface.
Instead of remembering the ships name, just take a look at all the info there. It shows you all available colony ships, the species they carry, what the ship is currently doing and the habitability of said species on the planet. I find this much more comfortable to use and don't even worry about individual colony ships anymore.
This is especially handy when you build colony ships in sectors as those don't even appear on the ships list in the outliner.
So here is the step-by-step of how I do it:
- pause the game
- check every planet I want to colonize, hovering over the yellow or green globe will show you which species in your empire is best suited, make a note for each.
- I order the the appropriate colony ships
- Wait for colony ships to complete
- Select the colonize button in the planet interface and select an idle colony ship of the best suited species.