How do you name your ships?

[Intimidator]

Originally posted by Arkcon:
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.

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...

[Newborn]

hello all together!

all your comments are very interesting and especially the method of raging deadstar is worth trying ...
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.

[Intimidator]

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........

[Slick]

Without giving away my ultra secret naming system ( ), 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.

[Roanon]

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 .

[Starhawk]

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 : For example "Alexander the Great" "General Patton" "Iwo Jima" "Normandy Landing" That sort of thing...

Well that's pretty much all

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

[Slynky]

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 . 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".

[Captain Kwok]

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.

[Atrocities]

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.

[Kamog]

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