I tend to go with the class name followed by the roman numerials of the current version, i.e. Guardian VII is my current ship of the line (it got me though the Drengi war and is doing well in the current Drath conflict), although its being replaced by the new Wolf I

I just give mine some violent sounding name with a revision number (Mk 2, etc).

What I've started to do is have a Class name followed by a summary of the ship's capabilities, for example:

Cargo 500p 7s 5r

is a people-mover that has a 7 speed and a 5 range. I tried "5.4r" but it won't let me put punctuation in the ship name. It's kind of souless, but I was having so many slightly different rebuilds (as miniaturization improved, for example) that MK 4 or MK 23 just didn't give enough info in the name.

I usually go with the naming scheme

Tiny hull: Fighter MK_
Small hull: Corvette MK_
Medium hull: Frigate MK_ if it is a fast ship with moderate weapons/armor, Destroyer MK_ if it is more biased towards weapons/armor then speed
Large hull: Light cruiser MK_ if it is again more balanced toward speed, Heavy Cruiser MK_ if it is more balanced toward guns/armor
Huge hull: Battle cruiser MK_ if it is more speed based, Battleship MK_ if it is more guns/armor balanced.

I generally just upgrade through out so most are still MKI, but sometimes I will do a MKII or even MKIII if I want some cheaper versions of ships. For instance I might have 4 Laser V and 2 defelector MKIII on a medium hull along with 2 or 3 Later model impulse or warp drives and label it Frigate MKI and later on make one with 2/3 Plasma MKIV, 2 Shield MKIII, and 2 or 3 later model warp drives and label it Frigate MKII. That way I can build a fairly cheap, slightly faster construction time Frigate that goes at a pretty fair clip if I want some cheap frontier fleet units and build a few more expensive MKIIs for core system protection and as my battle fleet.

Generally later on in the game, especially on a larger map where it is probably going to take me a long time to take it over then my forces generally look like the following later on in the game when I have conquered about 50% of the map (with lets call it 100 inhabitable planets total, me controlling at least 50 of them).

Generally I will have 30-40 Fighter MKI, 30-40 corvette MKI, 20-30 Frigate MKI, 10-20 Destroyer MKI, 10-20 Light Cruisers MKI, and 5-10 Heavy cruiser MKIs forming my frontier fleet. I generally do not garrison worlds with more then a single fighter just to stop a transport from slipping in and taking over one of my worlds and I do not count those forces at all. The frontier fleet is formed of course around my perimeter with it more heavily concentrated near hostile or formly hostile polities.

For my battle fleet I will generally construct 20-30 Fighter MKII, 20-30 Corvette MKII, 20-30 Frigate MKII, 15-20 Destroyer MKII, 10-15 Light Cruiser MKII, 8-12 Heavy Cruiser MKII, 4-6 Battle cruiser MKI, and 2-3 Battleship MKI. This is my core fleet that I keep on payroll even during peace. Generally if I haven't screwed up my frontier fleet is about on par techwise with most foreign powers and my battle fleet is at least a generation ahead of them. The frontier fleet is basically designed to keep my outer systems from getting rolled over in the event of war and my battle fleet is more or less a reaction force in that event. It is also my rapid deployment force for offensive actions if I see a major opportunity to take over a weak power.

In the case of war I usually just build up a huge fleet, especially if it is not a walk over in the first few weeks. I generally go for frigate and larger forces to construct at the opening of any war as I find the fighters and corvettes are primarily used for garrison work and as quick strike forces against lightly held worlds and undefended space stations...at least by that point in time in the game.

I will also tend to keep a transport on every frontier world and 6-10 in my core worlds as well as a reserve of 6-8 constructors. This way if someone declares war on me or I decide I don't like their face I can quick send in a Task force, setup a support military base, blast their forces out of any planets in the sorrounding systems, and land the marines and quickly size a sector or two from the enemy in only 2-3 weeks time.

Anyway, so I guess that was really beyond what you asked. I was bored, it happens.
-Matt

for non-combat ships:
[role]-s[speed]
e.g.: constructor-s2

for combat ships:
[hp or hull size]-b[beam]-g[gun]-m[missile]
e.g.: hp6-b3-m3 or medium-b3-m3

or if upgraded, i'd leave the the name and tack-on the weapon stats:
e.g. destroyer-b2-m3

with speed upgrades, i would add -s[speed]
e.g. destroyer-b2-m3-s4

i rarely (actually don't) add defence stats to the name but i can use gc2's system:
-b[beam]v[defence] (v for versus)
e.g. destroyer-b2v1-gv1-m3v1

not very creative. but a lot easier to determine what i need from a list at a glance.

Due to the alphabetical nature of the user ship lists, I make my ships called this-

A999 _________

where the blank is the type of ship, laser attack, fast construct, missile. Stuff like that. As I make newer ships I call them A998, A997, and so on and so forth. So that when I make a new ship, I dont have to scroll down to find it.

As far as naming individual ships go, I name the planetary defense ships specific to the planet they defend, so that I never do anything stupid with them. And then with all the ships roaming, I dont name them at all, unless they kill a bunch and have some EXP.

I'll often choose names based on a "theme" I'm trying to follow. Not always with success, but I try.

For example, I thought it would be nice to be the Klingons, so I had Bird of Prey, Vor'cha, and Negh'Var as names.

Recently, though, I've found that a military-style naming system works best.

I give them 1-2 letter abbreviations based off hull size and/or purpose. After that I give a number for each design. Minor variants of the same design may have a small lowercase letter suffixed instead of a new number.

For example:

An F1b would be the second minor variant of the first design created for the small (I call it "fighter") hull.

I never followed the game's names that much, "Fighter" and "Frigate" both start with F, so I use my own system.

After the military-style prefix, I usually follow it by a name. I don't have a good system for the names yet, but I'll try to find something.

I have recently stumbled across a page which includes the official naming guidelines for military aircraft, which I plan on modifying for use in the game.

OH, time I said hi! I actually got this game quite recently (yesterday), and I like it a lot! After trying it out on somebody else's computer, I went ahead and bought it for myself.

Now I'm spending more time designing ships and naming them than I am taking turns . The flexibility is great!

I have one problem, though: Sometimes I want to go back and change the name or description of my ships. Is there any easy way to do it?

Thanks.

I have an idea for the devs - How about some sort of custom ship manager so we can manage our custom ships even when we're not playing?

Or maybe I'm just getting too zealous over this whole ship customization thing . . .

But I do love the ability to create and customize my own ships .

My suggestions:
Assassin
TX Doomer
Eternal Flame

Hull size, type attack, type def.

example
H M Atk G Def

Eternal Flame

Is this a ship of the "Bangles" class?


I like my capitol ship classes to have non-agressive names, but with dubious undertones like "Peacekeeper" or "Liberator"

I like to confuse the enemy shipcommanders:
"Sir, a Terran Alliance Peacekeeper Battleship has entered orbit.."
"What? a what? we're not at war.. why is it equipped with 6 Black Hole Generator batteries?"

The Liberator class destroyers are obviously for "liberating" stuff.

"Yormageddon" and the "Arceanator" and the "Korxscrew"

Exellent names! I might adopt this naming convention as well if you don't mind.
"Sir, the Terran Alliance Battleship 'Arceanator' has entered orbit.."
"Ha, that's a coincidence, we're Arceans and.. and, why is he powering up his weapons array??"

Ps. I know there aren't real people in the game.

"Korxscrew"... brilliant.

I name my ships like "SCB-1B Scarab" and then the next generation would be "SCB-1C Scarab". Or the "MLR-3K Mauler" and then "MLR-4K Mauler"... etc.

Or sometimes I'll just be lazy and end up with the "lawlzscoutcube ftw!" which is just a square with some engines...