Starstriker1

Join Date 03/2006

Namegen for ships

Heres an idea: have pregenerated lists of names that ships are automatically assigned rather than the rather bland names they currently have. Allow players to specify or modify their own. Additionally, the names could be meant for certain sizes or types of ships, so that a Dreadnaught is going to have a more interesting and unique name than a tiny fighter.

This'd mean that instead of, say, Frigate M1-5 294, I might get something like "TESS Declaration". This would also add a ton of flavour to the AI ships, if lists were created for them as well.

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This is not a bad idea. Randomly generating names. It has been discussed several times. I do not believe they are going to add this, I could be wrong however.

I think we have the ability to change the name of each individual ship. I know that would be a bit tedious, but whatever works right?

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Mystikmind

Join Date 06/2004

+20

A curious idea indeed. I guess it makes sense to have enemy ships with unique names... i mean who would remember the germin battleship 'Bizmark' if it was just callet 'battleship 2020'?

Might be easier to keep track of enemy ships too and guage how long they have been around ergo how much experience they might have. It would be a tactical assistance

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I think we have the ability to change the name of each individual ship. I know that would be a bit tedious, but whatever works right?

That doesn't extend to AI ships, though, and it really IS quite tedious to name ships like that...

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I'm all for this, something that always bugged me. I have no problem naming my ships, just do it as soon as it's built, but the AI with it's generic names kills the emmersion. An extra option to the race details screen that defaults it to a certain name list. Not only name lists add to or remove from but also being able to add whole new name lists for our custom races... I really like this... if it doesn't get added maybe it's moddable?

Kyle

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I would also love to see custom naming implemented. It would not be hard to do, I'd imagine...Point the engine to a custom xml file containing the names...

If users want to create their own custom name lists (say you want to add your favourite scifi ship names into one giant list, just add them to the xml file, or, even better yet, allow the user to choose which 'dictionary' to use...It's a small thing but something that would definitely give the gamer more of a personal connection to the game...

I had a similar idea with custom planet names, but that would be harder to implement...

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It's one of the features I've alwayes liked from Space Empires. Have it put in just like in SE and it's golden. Makes it more fun for mods to... want a Star Trek mod? Now the Klingons won't have Vor'Cha 1974985837894983 but rather I.K.C. Korak! U.S.S. Talladega instead of Galaxy Class 45464864 LOVE IT!

Kyle

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I agree. It helps us mortals with a lack of inspiration at the moment, pick out a decent name for a class of ships.

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Well, it would be hard for the game to name ships, since even the largest ships are VERY expendable in this game. I don't think they would have had the Arizona memorial if the a battleship was as expendable as a fighter.

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That depends on the map and settings. Right now, I've got a 3 player game on a medium map against the torians and altarians. I've basically found that only my "Dominator" dreadnaughts stand a chance against the far large Torian military. As always, they focus on logistics and sheer numbers, so something that can absorb the damage, even in a 1 vs 15, has a chance of victory. Conversely, attempting to fight fire with fire by sending my technologically superior fighters at them isn't working too well. My problem is that I can't keep many ships on the field at once... they take too long to build and the torians eventually wittle them down even when they're in 3 ship fleets.

So, yeah, my capital ships are few in number and quite important.

Regardless, almost every ship fielded by a modern navy is named. The large ships are obvious candidates, but the small ones are as well. Besides, lets not forget wars like WWII, where thousands of "expendable" Flying Fortresses and fighter craft took to the air. The names might have been more casual and affectionate, but they were names nonetheless!

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When you think about nine races, each one would need individual name lists. That way you don't have a Drenj ship named the "Washington", or a Altarian ship named the "Flesh Reaver" (name that referance!).

So, with 9 races (and more coming) you would need a list at least 150 names long (so that you don't overlap too early in the game, and the way some play, that may still be far too few). Regardless of the map settings, you would need it to be workable at the maximum settings.

So, we are looking at a list that would easily be over a thousand names long. While it is a cool idea, I'm not sure how practical it would be to code it (just thinking of all the names would be very time consuming, unless they ran a name submission thing, but that would also take a lot of time to sort through entries).

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I hate to point out how other games do stuff, but Space Empires does this rather well by allowing the user to pick a particular text file. Where the files are just lists of potential names. Whether its states, state caps, USSR republics, birds, swords, is all a matter of preferences and personal taste to the user.

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allowing the user to pick a particular text file

This would be nice, but were you able to do the same for the AI ships in Space Empires? I do not know, never played the game.

If so, maybe the Devs should look into this.

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My first thought is, yeah, a text file for each race, possibly XML.

As for the shear number of names... well, if it comes down to it the developers don't have to lift a finger. They can just get the community to make a list for them.

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I don't think they would have had the Arizona memorial if the a battleship was as expendable as a fighter.

The memorial is not for the ship. It's for the crew lost aboard her.

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Also I think it would be an idea if you could assign names to only certain kinds of warships, so survey vessels would be randomly assigned names from the XML or txt list for survey vessels. (So it would be called the Hawking or Gallieo, as opposed to the Vindicator, or the Broadsword!) And warships of a certain class would also do the same.

However I wouldn't be particualry bothered about Tiny/Fighter vessels being given special names, or Transport vessels so maybe if this XML list or txt could be edited so that certain classes of ships would just be named as they are named in the original game.

Finally I'd also like a kind of prefix thing (the abreviation thing at the start of the ship that identifies nationality and service branch) at the race set up at the start of the game so that I can assign the prefix "HMS" or "CNS" or whatever I want.

(Also I'm not really bothered about the AI warships having names, as I'm quite happy with the current naming conventions for them as they are rather reminiscent of how a military might identify them without knowing that vessel's name)

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The latest game example journal reminded me: it'd also be nice for the AI to name ships things OTHER than "Drengin Frigate M6-1"... when they have unique names for entire classes of ships, as Draginol makes up for them in his game examples, that could be a relatively cheap way of adding more personality to each player.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2410

This is a good idea and in fact something I meant to play around with. Just didn't have the time to do it. I did go through on components and add flavor text.

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