Pete,

At this point in the game, drag and drop is probably the easiest option. The key to keeping shaders hassle free in Carrara is planning ahead and heavy use of master shaders. As you model each part, create a new or assign it an existing master shader. Remember to assign each master shader a useful name (so you don't have a list of shader 1, shader 2, etc.) Now each time you update the Dirty Hull shader, it will change the entire spaceship.

Good luck,
Eric Winemiller
Digital Carvers Guild
3D plug-ins for Carrara
http://digitalcarversguild.com

Eric Winemiller
Digital Carvers Guild
Carrara and LightWave plug-ins