How do you name your ships?
 

Im not sure if this poll had been held before, but im curious.

Some people use some kind of a standarization scheme and name their ships according to their class/size.

Others get a list of names and name ships appropriately for their class (example from me - Earworm for a scout ship).

Yet others get huge naming lists and just randomly pick names.


What do you think is the best one? Which one do you use? Why?

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

I used to name them by class, but now I just avoid naming them unless I have to.

Escort Class were named after Rivers.
Frigate Class after Famous People
Destroyer classes, after animals
LC/CR/BC and BS/DR/BS aggressive names

Carriers after Presidents, and statesmen
Others after oceans, moutains, and made up names.

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

Me, i like naming my ships randomly. I get as large a namefile as i can (i have one for insects - at least 400 different bugs there, IIRC) or my current one after dinosaurs. Its interesting, and the other player would never guess what kind of a ship is that (what would Leafcutter Budworm or Two-Year-Cycle Hornworm tell you? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif )

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

Are you talking about the class name, or the name of the actual ship? I tend to use nonsensical names for my class names (with the exception of Colony Ships and Base Space Yards), since I will be able to recall what class does what in a given name.

I do not name my ships because I am too lazy. And naming a few hundred ships (let's say one thousand per game, including the reinforcements, and that would be in the low range) per game (quite a few of them) would simply take too much time. I cannot say I have the imagination to make up a few thousand different names either, plus planet names if wanted.

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

Used to name my ships with simple code, like CS-PT cMT *S*A*SD IV (civilian ship - pop transport, medium transport class *shielded*armored*selfdestruct), but it was too obvious. So I switched to russian codes:
НаселТранс-КСТ(б,щ,су) - I don't think it's easy to understand what does it mean for english-speaking people. The reason for using the codes is that I was never able to keep ramdomized or nonsensical ship class names in my head.

[ July 18, 2004, 11:28: Message edited by: aiken ]

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

Usually i give me ships a prefix E.G. EDF (Earth Defence Force) for military vessels. I then usually give all my ships a different name from 3 or 4 various design name files. If you name them as soon as they are built it doesn't take long. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

I've used all the methods you've mentioned. Thing is, I sometimes lose track anyway. With the pictures the same. the names really don't add much. Especially after multiple retrofits -- you really should rename with each retrofit, but I forget.

[ July 18, 2004, 13:05: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

I simply do not name individual ships, for one reason alone; time. I don't have enough time to do it for every ship, or even some of them. Because of this, I rely on what class of ship it is in order to keep track of what that ship is supposed to be doing.

For example, say I have a DUC light cruiser attack ship. I would name that class one of two things:

- Attack LC 1
- LC 1.12.12 (1.12.12 are the numbers of letters in the alphabet...therefore ATT for attack.)

Or, if this was a special class of LC, say one with phased polaron beams instead of DUC's, I'd name it either:

- Attack LC 1 (**)
- LC 1.12.12 (**)

See, my system is very simple. But then again, if I ever wanted to fool someone, they'd never expect it! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

Reverse Psychology is good for names http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I Once named my Attack Vessels "Uber Powerful Ships Here" in a game against my friends and then named my support ships "Weak Weedy Support Vessel Here". Upon entering the system i split the fleets into two to distract my enemy. My friend thought it was a trick and attacked the fleet of "Weak Weedy Support Ships" that to his dismay were ACTUALLY PDC/Supply ships, he thought i'd tried to trick him and they were my warships. It was a small loss when most his fleet were crippled by ramming and my fleet of actual warships (Uber powerful Ships Here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ) Took the system pretty soon afterwards. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[ July 18, 2004, 16:03: Message edited by: Raging Deadstar ]

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

When I did play I tried using code that would remind me of the design. After a while I gave up.
Occasionaly I would rename LC and BC class ships as Gryphin and try to track thier actions and life span. Even that got to bee too much.
Just lazy I guess

Wouldn't be cool if you could tag a ship and tell the game to keep track if it's movment and combat?

[ July 18, 2004, 16:22: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Not quite true:

I usualy call my ships : ' Blade Class-I Destroyer 0001 '
After construction I delete the 'class-I Destroyer' part in the name.

And then you will see this after clicking the ship :

Blade 0001
Blade Class-I Destroyer

so the only thing that will change in the name after retrofitting is the -I in -II or -III etc...

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

hello all together!

all your comments are very interesting and especially the method of raging deadstar is worth trying http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ...
for myself i like to roleplay my race a bit so that every ship of one class relates to my races world. all my ships are can be called after geographical spots, cities, races, etc.
for example all my escort ships are called 'Thrithing'. in the progress of the game i add roman numbers I-X to the ships name or if needed a identification code like 'aa'.

i think it is not useful to choose a design name which reflects a description of the ships equipement such as DN Polaron V or LC Sweeper etc. this will tell the enemy too much about the tech level or the strenght of your fleet.

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

But don't forget Newborn, that you can also use it against your enemy.

I wanna see the face of my counterpart when his planet suddenly explodes and only an 'LC Sweeper' is present in the sector........ http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

Without giving away my ultra secret naming system ( http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif ), I do something like this:

AAAA BB CC.DD

Where:

AAAA is an acronym for my type of ship that is reasonably difficult to figure out.

BB is the hull size (BB, DN, etc). Obvious, yes, but helps in sorting ship lists.

CC is a number which is incremented each major upgrade. In other words, if I have enough resources, I'll retrofit all 01 ships to 02.

DD is a number which is for minor upgrades and/or retrofit series. I will not normally retrofit ships for minor improvements, but I do want to know if the designs are newer.

Putting all this together, some examples would be:

LRCS CS 01.00 = local rock colony ship

PMSY BB 00.01
PMSY BB 00.02 = Planetmaker with spaceyard (to repair the emergency propulsion) on a Battleship hull, Versions 1 and 2 in the retrofit series leading up to 01.00.

For multiplayer games, I use a similar system, but for obvious reasons, it's more difficult to figure out.

Slick.

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

I only name the ship classes, and these with pretty obvious names. An enemy gullible enough to be fooled by 200 battleships named "minesweeper" entering his system is not worth the deception effort anyway.
With the single exception of one important ship type in a key situation that will perfectly fool an enemy who thinks he is smart enough to outguess me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif .

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

Well at first I generally look at the class of the ship then I name it accordingly for instance:

Escorts: (don't deserve names)

Frigates: (name the class and the first few ships after exploration kinds of things like Enterprise, Intrepid, Wanderer, Seeker etc)

Destroyers: I generally don't actually build dessy's until I get battlecruiser sized ships and then I only use them as fast torpedo boats and thus don't name each ship beyond the first 4 ships of the very first dessy squadron I build because they are just so easily mass produced.
Generally Destroyers are named after snakes like my current Cobra mk2 destroyers.

Light Cruisers: Tend to get names like Blackbird, Gerard, Providence, Starwing. thins like that.

Cruiser/HeavyCruiser: Tend to be given rather militarized names such as Undaunted, Indefatigable, Terrorizer, Intimidator, Oppresser. So on.

Battlecruiser/Battleship: Tend to get even more hardened sounding names such as Undying Wrath, Furies, Doomgiver, President, Undying.

Dreadnought/Baseship: Well dreadnoughts tend to get names like Imperial, Imperious, Liberator, Liberty, Acoma, Sabertooth, Tornado. While base ships often get multi-part names like, Sword of Heaven, Sword of Hell, Rightious Fury, Harbringer, Victory's Grasp so on.

Carriers: Tend to get named after modern day carriers depending on the empire I'm playing as.

Stellar Manip: They tend to get no names for individual ships but the classes get rather streightfoward names like, Starkiller, World breaker, Void bringer so on.

Repair ships: Almost always called "Repairing Light".

Medical ships: Well individual medical ships get names like "Mercy" "Hope" "Hand of Faith" "Eightfold Path" that sort of thing while the classes tend to get names like "Nightingale" and others.

Troop ships: Famous battles, famous infantry generals and famous invasions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif : For example "Alexander the Great" "General Patton" "Iwo Jima" "Normandy Landing" That sort of thing...

Well that's pretty much all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ July 18, 2004, 20:28: Message edited by: Starhawk ]

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

Besides using the word "wind" in a lot of names when I'm in my "wind naming" mood, I don't really have much of a convention besides labeling the ship hull in front of the name.

Sometimes, for fun, I tease the opponent with a name that one MIGHT be able to figure out...one of those, is naming a ship "Buffy". Buffy is a vampire slayer. So, the ship type is a "slayer" (or Sat Layer...get it?). Of course, naming a mine sweeper "broom" is a bit obvious http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif . I'd rather name one, "Pledge" (as in a product used for dusting...and dusting off mines is what a sweeper does).

Don't ask Mark the Merciful how he names his ships! I was thwacked by ships called names such as "Pork", "Pork rinds", and "Bacon". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

I tend to name all my ships individually - although I might get a bit lazy with repair, cargo, or supply ships.

I try to use names to match the race I'm playing.

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

I would do as such.

Class Name - Ship Name - Registry
Snake - Snake - ES 0001
Snake - Mohab - ES 0002
Harper - Harper - DS 0001
Harper - Clark - DS 0002

Snake t2 - Snake - ES 0001A (If Snake 0001 is still in service, or even destroyed.)

ETC.

Starwolf - Starwolf - DN 0001
Starwolf - Intimidator - DN 0002

Starhawk - Starhark - DN 0001
Starhawk - Rightous - DN 0002

On the Ship name it would read only

SWS Starwolf DN 0001

the SWS stands for Star Wolf Ship. I can change this to match any race I play.

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

I usually don't name each ship individually; I just use the class name with the number after it because there's just too many ships to come up with unique names.

Some space yard ships I rename so that they come up in an organized order in the construction list. The ships that I want on the very top of the list I rename with a * at the beginning of the name.

As for ship class names, depending on what I feel like, I use one of the standard name lists, or I might use:

1. Pokemon names: Gengar, Raichu, Lapras, Eevee, Mew, Lugia, Entei, Moltres, Togepi, Starmie, etc
2. Location names from RPG's: Wutai, Nibelheim, Ryuon, Roron, Kueri, Midgar, Landen, Kadary, Kohlingen, Reza, Kuran, etc
3. Zoanoid names from Guyver: Ramotith, Gregole, Thancrus, Gaster, Derzerb, Panadyne, Aptom, Vamore, etc
4. Angel and computer names from Evangelion: Sachiel, Shamshel, Ramiel, Iruel, Melchior, Balsathar, Sahaqiel, etc

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

When I'm up against a Religious Player (and losing, inevitably) I like to name the special classes I design for them things like Faithless, Apostate, Unbeliever, Agnostic, Atheist, or Heretic.

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

I tend to use a mix of random letters and codes. unfortunaly I tend to just use the same name and a simular code when I upgrade, and even when I upsize to.

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

I think there are players out there who use text to make little pictures for the names of thier ships. I think I took over for someone once who did this.

Maybe it makes it easier to see them, clearly.

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

Mine will usually will be named like:

eg.
PD17 = Point defense first design. Then subsequent upgrades will be PD3, PD45, PD12 in that order... or some random choice of number. I seem to be under the impression that it confuses the enemy, so they can never be sure that a CS114 is actually better than a CS13 (CS=Capitol ship) or something. I actually started out counting down from 100 or something, but even that seemed a little too predictable. Even the abreviations I don't keep the same... I just think them up as I go.

But hey regardless of my naming convensions I still suck at the game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ July 20, 2004, 05:44: Message edited by: Tigbit ]

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

Any race with scanner technology most likely will figure out what kind of ships you have really early on so code naming your ships is mute after time.

Here is a trick that I have seen a lot of lately.

Code name your Star Killing ships simply names like Explorer, Prince of Peace, Scout, Friendly, Observer, Scientific, Peace Onvoy, Friendship 1, and Trade Vessel.

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

I have different conventions for single player and multi.

Single player I'm lazy, I use names like "Ice colony LR slow II" or "repair III".
However I do tend to give attack ships more colourful names: My first uber-nasty attack ship design will inevitably be called Skybastard, because I like the sound of it. My first dedicated anti-fighter design will be called "black mage" in honour of 8-bit theatre.

Multiplayer I just use random names/ words. For some reason I always seem to be missing my names files when I play. In the pvkprop game I have a massive fleet of ships with randomly rhyming names: Mean, Keen, Green, Treen, Unseen, Clean, Stream, Beam etc. I'm hoping that's at least as confusing for my enemies as it is for me...

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

Except for colony ships (CL-R, CL-G, CL-I) i use HP Lovecraft mitolgy names, so then, Shub-Niggurath (aka the Black Goat with a Thousand Young) is usually the name for a fighter carrier or a troop transport, Baoht Z'uqqa-Mogg (aka the Bringer of Pestilence) could be used for a Plague Bomb Ship or a Boarding Ship. obviuosly, Cthulhu is seldom used and hides an minesweeper or so http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

^^ thanks freduk, the designames are in the pbw misc files anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

About the trick of calling "LC minesweeper PD3 CT2" a warship... well, when you see warping thru your warppoint a sum of 7x"LC minesweeper PD3 CT2" + 2x"CR seekers PD3 CT2" + one "CR phased CT2" is easy to guess that what you really have there: 7 warships + 2 minesweeper + 1 SY ship

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

I remember playing a plant race against my brother's magma race. I was kinda insulted when one of his fleets was comprised of new ships named "Hot Tea." As it turns out, that fleet single handedly glassed most of my border colonies before I could deal with it. I remember it made me mad every time I saw those ships. Mostly their effectiveness annoyed me, but the name was a slap in face as well.

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Thats Great, there's a quote i remember my friend once said...

"What happens if you Nuke Cthulhu?"
"He reforms 15 minutes later...and now he's radioactive!"

I plan to use this as inspiration for Organic armoured battleships that survive Capital Ship Missiles http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

I like the Lovecraft theme. Since I usually play with a few beers in me, I like to keep it simple. I just use typical Naval designation followed by the speed at which they travel. DD6 or CA8 And I only upgrade every 2 movement points. The exception is specialty ships like minsweepers or boarding ships, colony ships. Those I just name them for what they are followed by speed number. What few bases I make are named after female porn stars followed by how many repair bays they have. Vanessa Del Rio can take on alot of vessels.

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

I really like that FLX! It's good that some come up with a bit more deeper names than the average MALEVOLENCE, BLADE, CRUSHER etc.

I always name my ships after well known (well...) black metal bands and always use roughly the same names. Like for instance a repair ship will always be named Nargaroth and a minesweeper will always be named Godless North.
For specialized ships I use another name, and will remember it, for I thrive to play only 1-2 games at a time.

Most disliked is the FR-PD-0012 namegiving by me. It's so unimaginative.

Furthermore I'd like to add that if an opponent names his ship LC minesweeper mk20 I would still consider it can be either a minesweeper or a light cruiser attack, the trick mentioned before only works with, well, stupid people I guess.

[ July 20, 2004, 12:05: Message edited by: freduk ]

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

I do always like a theme. Some of the names files that come with the game are pretty good. I had a Dragonball Z file, but need to recreate it. I want Goku, Vegeta and Super Saiyan class warships...and a Yajirobe that avoids any fight it can't absolutely win! Another time I used wrestler names and nicknames.

My favorite has to be cheese names, but mostly when using an organic race from a gas-methane homeworld. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

Hello Taera & everyone,i use the the selected races files ship names.I name different hulls different names only.Example; all frigates have same name,cruiser have there OWN name.Example: Earthforce-LightCruiser named (Hyperion),when needed to upgrade it is (Hyperion a).Upgrade ship again it is (Hyperion b)& so forth.Its easyer this way,no longer i get confused.

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

Don't make the mistake I did.
In my first BPW game, (the ill fated Galactic Bash), I was getting my butt kicked. I named ships and planets and other things in various insulting ways. In my mind it was my people talking to his people. It was missunderstood and taken personaly. Ooops. We straightned that out and I renamed everything to somethng polite. I learned a real good leason.
Since that time I have always asked if the other person minded trash talk and have avoided anything worse that that.

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

I usually name my ships based on suburb or street names in my city.

Since I lived in Turkey for 15 months, sometimes I use Istanbul names, Turkish words, or made up turkish sounding names.

I'm not very creative with ship names, but I seem to get by....

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

best ships names are borg ones http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I tried that once; I found it too hard to keep my ships straight. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Usually my ships are just names from a name file or random names I think up with letters and such following to let me know what they are.

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

MY fleet flagship is the ISS Fyron, My chief reasearch vessel is the ISS Atrocities, I have a casino vessel--the USS Narf, oh wait a minute--no I dont have any ships named as such-heh http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: How do you name your ships?
 

Ships are named after what they do and are:
"Heavy Attack", "Light Attack", "Planet Maker"

then i add a "mk ###" to them (ie, Mk I, Mk II, Mk III, etc) to denote the Version of the ship (typically this is for upgrades or refinements).

I try to have only one of each type (heavy attack, light attack, boarding ship, carrier, troop transports, then the colony and stellar manipulation vehicles).

Fleets get either descriptive names (Defense Fleet Eridani for a defenisve fleet in the Eridani system) or demon names if thier attack fleets: Lucifer, Satan, Baal, Belial, Mephistocles, etc. Sometimes i'll use mythological names if i get bored (Balrog, Wolverines, etc).

Just a thought,
deth