Lack of Star Names
 

Unfortunately, it appears that MM repeated the mistake of having a systemnames.txt file with less than 255 names in it again (only 104, in fact). To this end, I've been looking for some sort of official listing of star names as a replacement. I found this site linked off of Nasa.gov:

http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/con...name_list.html

I compiled them into a SystemNames.txt and attached to this post for convenience. There are 292 names in the file, so more than enough to cover any sized map the game can support. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Lack of Star Names
 

I think what would be more appropriate than real star names (since they are mostly ugly ones, let's be honest) is coming up with another 150 or so names in the spirit of SE:V's current names. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Lack of Star Names
 

Oh? I think most of the stock names are pretty cheesy and ugly... Welshrok? Kinkara? Nooloom?

Re: Lack of Star Names
 

se5 needs something like this... http://www.rinkworks.com/namegen/index.shtml

(I like having options like Greek or Diverse Japanese... so games can be tailored beyond just having a huge random list)

Re: Lack of Star Names
 

Back in the days of SEIII (*lights pipe*) I had a systemnames file I got from somewhere with real names like Barnards Star and Epsilon Endrani as well as a bunch of made up names in the same spirit. This was a great improvement on the stock names, which are/were pretty meh.

Never did manage to find it again for SEIV.

Re: Lack of Star Names
 

I find that real names are just too "human-centric" with their Alphas and Betas and stuff - at least the stock ones sound kind of cosmic/futuristic/alien-ish without sacrificing too much pronouncability.

Re: Lack of Star Names
 

With the stock ones, the name doesn't even make an impact on my mind - I just think of "the crappy system I only colonised to make my empire look neat on the minimap" and "that one with three planets with brathable atmospheres". I prefer human-centric names - I'm a human http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif

Re: Lack of Star Names
 

Perhaps each empire/species should have its own naming convention for the stars... and maybe a system should get its name from the first empire to explore it.

As far as human centric names, I find constellation names tend to sound better than most star names. What I don't like with stock lists, is they tend to have entries that are clearly inserted for giggles, like: Alba, Musume, Mutara, Torchwood, etc.

Re: Lack of Star Names
 

I don't get it. Why are these funny?

Re: Lack of Star Names
 

back in the days of my old unfinished grit-tech mod, i imported a list of a few hundred names to use in my system names file.

now the problem with this, in hindsight, is that most of the visible stars in the sky are actually Galaxies. Not something you want to name your solar system. What you actually want, is a list of local stars, or names of stars in the Milkyway.

Now, the large problem here is that there are only actually 2-300 named stars, and theyre all either Latin or Arabic, and a miminum of 500 years old. SE has always had "cultural" design name files, so you might want to name your stars after something different entirely. This also allows you to have more than a few hundred names, if you want to introduce some more variety. or have really frikkin huge maps.

http://www.teapot.orcon.net.nz/maori_star_names.html

Re: Lack of Star Names
 

Just use names of ex-Soviet cities. Totally alien. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif It's amazing how much I know about cruddy little U.S. cities compared to how little I know about quite large cities elsewhere in the world. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif And I'm better than average http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif(er, in that regard http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif).

Re: Lack of Star Names
 

Not funny "haha"... but they are pop culture refs that are rather "clever-substitute" (an actress, a j-pop group, a Trek ref, and a Doctor Who ref.)

Naming stars
 

What would really be clever is to let human beings rename the star systems.

A little edit box.

Like in that other space game, but better. So you can spend some time on the galactic view renaming stuff.

Like "Bernard Nebula" or "Black Hole", or "Phong Home System".

I'm sure some programmer can figure out how to make that happen with multiplayer. I can, can you?

Re: Lack of Star Names
 

With SEIV I've created variants of the current systems.txt file (or whatever it's called), using planet names from Dune, planet names from the Foundation series (Asimov), planet names from the Star Trek universe and various RL "named stars" listings.

When I'm using planet names from my favorite Sct Fi novels as SEIV system names the systems then take on more importance in my eyes. It becomes "the battle for Horleggor," instead of the battle for some meaningless stock SEIV system name.

You can also use ancient city names, ancient diety names, etc etc.

Somebody suggested using small Russian cities. Heck, any country's cities will do. Turkish cities/towns, Central American/South American towns with Amerindian names, etc.
Creating new system name files is almost as much fun as creating new design.txt files. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Naming stars
 

Were you the one that found this bug ?

Version 1.08:
[...]
17. Fixed - The SystemsNames.txt file would crash the game if it had over 16,380 names in it.

Re: Lack of Star Names
 

Captain Kwok said:
I find that real names are just too "human-centric" with their Alphas and Betas and stuff - at least the stock ones sound kind of cosmic/futuristic/alien-ish without sacrificing too much pronouncability.

Did you actually look at the file? There are no alphas or betas.

Puke said:
now the problem with this, in hindsight, is that most of the visible stars in the sky are actually Galaxies. Not something you want to name your solar system. What you actually want, is a list of local stars, or names of stars in the Milkyway.

All of the names in the posted file are stars; no galaxy names present.

boran_blok said:
Were you the one that found this bug ?

Along with Combat Wombat, yes.

Re: Lack of Star Names
 

Combat Wombat could have found it by himself if it wasn't for the fact he has no working SE5 version. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Naming stars
 

Thanks, Fyron. This is just what I was looking for.