Fleet Naming Strategies

[Suicide Junkie]

When I'm playing against AIs, I only have three fleets:
-Alpha Fleet
-Beta Fleet
-Sleeper Fleet.

Alpha and Beta consist of a total of 6 ships which defend my empire, and the SleeperFleet is all of my old ships, mothballed at the training facilities & SpaceYard (I never throw anything out )

Well, maybe a third defense fleet, if the warppoints are against me.
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[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 26 July 2001).]

[disabled]

In most games that run 300+ turns, I have several fleets. I have the Home Guards, Northern, Eastern, Western, and Southern Fleets. I then have several dozen supply and support fleets that trail behind those. I also have planetary evac fleets in every systems.

I wish that would we could specify our fleet names from a pre selected Groups. Because I have fleets in different levels. Armadas, Fleets, Battle Groups, Task Forces, Support, etc.

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HADRIAN AVENTINE
pacea@solar-outpost.com
http://www.hyperionbase.com

[justjake73]

In replay to Puke:

You...can't.

Where did the the thought come from? You can only retrofit within the same ship size. Unless someone has been doing some ultra-heavy modding.

[Saxon]

The good fleets, with experience get outrageous names, like “Defenders of Justice” or “Children of the Nova”. The fleets that are just for convenience take the default names. That way I know which is worth keeping at a glance.

In PBE, I like to give names to my ships that will upset my opponents, like former girlfriends of theirs. Childish? Probably. Fun? Certainly. Of course, this only works for people you know well.

[Quikngruvn]

My naming strategy depends on the type of game I play.

Solo: Warships are named "[Size] [Retrofit Level]", e.g. "Destoyer A" or "Battle Cruiser C". Other ships follow a similar scheme ("SWP B", "Colony R/D", etc.). Fleets keep the default names.

PBW: I've been using the names of rock songs for my ships. It keeps the other player's guessing (lessee... is a "Mudshovel" more advanced than an "Even Flow"?). Fleets are the same.

Quikngruvn

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"That which does not kill you will make you stronger." -- Nietzsche

[Saxon]

Yep, I also avoid putting names to ships that will give very much away to human players. Then again, if you were feeling nasty you could deliberately follow a simple system, then switch it around at a key point and hope they get over confident.

Oh, the Evenflow is clearly the superior ship, it obviously has advanced energy weapons while the Mudshovel still uses projectile weapons. :-)

[Antonin]

I name fleets that consist of 10 or fewer non-capital ships (destroyers, frigates, escorts) 'flotilla a,' 'flotilla b,' etc.

Combat fleets containing capital ships and preparing to operate outside my empire I name '1st Banner Fleet,' '2nd Banner Fleet,' etc. Sometimes, though, I'll call them "Tumen," after the Mongol military unit.

As for ships, I call escort/scout designs "Far Star," after Hober Mallow's ship in Asimov's Foundation novel (I think it was Mallow's ship).

Frigate classes are Type I, Type II, etc, after the German U-boat types of WWII. I name frigates individually, 'Z100,' Z101,' etc, with the first digit corresponding to the class type.

I name Destroyer classes after German cities, and individual ships after German U-boat commanders, ie, IKD Hardegan ("Imperial Klingon Destroyer Hardegan").

I name Light Cruiser classes after Japanese cities, and individual ships I give Japanese family names.

Cruiser classes get Russian city names, and individual ships get Russian family names.

With bigger ships I get more flexible, partly because there are fewer of them and partly because I usually wind up surrendering before the game gets far enough to think really big. (I'm a newbie - but having fun even while losing)

My tendency is to call battleship classes after organizations in the Dune novels (Face Dancer, etc) and name individual ships after individuals in the Dune or Foundation novels ("IKB Duke Leto").

Dreadnought classes are named after types of celestial bodies ("Comet," etc). Individual Dreadnoughts get named after actual celestial bodies ("Jupiter," "Phobos," etc).

I try to be consistent so I can tell the type of any ship at a glance. Also, it makes for great sounding "press bulletins":

"Today, according to the Ministry of Defence, a task force consisting of the heavy cruiser Kirov, light cruisers Abe and Matsuoka, and frigates Z502 and Z133 delivered a heavy blow against an enemy grouping in the Proxima system..."

But there is just so *much* you can play around with; close examination of a map of west Africa reveals a *lot* of cities whose names would make great ship names.

One thing I wish the game had is a way to create and use ship name text files the way we do ship design name files. As it is, I have to keep papers next to my keyboard with all my potential ship names printed out.