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What are your ship naming schemes?

Mine are lame, so I need some good ideas!

Right now my ships are quite stupid.

Anti-Korx v1
Anti-Korx v2
Super Transport v1
etc.

Has anyone come up with a more colorful naming convention for their ships? For example, I spend a lot of time making an offensive juggernaut to counter the Yor who I'm at war with (3rd upgrade)... and then it ends up with the dumb name Anti-Yor v3.

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My shipnames have 3 sections.
First is the short name for the chassis or type. All tiny class ships start with T, all medium ships with M. Traders with Tr, troop transports with Tt, constructors with P for Pioneer, colony-ships with C.
After that a dash and the revision of the ship design. So "S-3" would be the third ship design using the small chassis.
After that the nickname of the ship. "S-4 Hubble" was used for a scout-ship. "L-2 Lance" was a large ship with a hugely powerful and hugely expensive main cannon. Special purpose ship-designs get names like "M-3 Yor", when they're designed to counter the Yor Collective, or similarly.
The only exception are huge hull ships, which recieve the later X. Those are one-of-a-kind ships, each of them with their own unique design. So no two huge hulled ships look the same. I'm a fan of Freelancer and I like to name my huge ships like the Rheinland capital ships. "X-4 Donau" has that ring to it.

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Hi!

What are your ship naming schemes?

lrg m32 s10a20 6 stands for large hull with 32 missile attack, 10 shields and 20 armor defenses, base speed 6.

troopAA 8 stands for troop transport with two advanced modules and speed 8.

BR, Iztok

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I've been trying to figure out the AI method, but I use one that I saw on this site late last year.

Noncombat ships have a 3-character name, with combat vessels having an extra 2 characters indicating loadout category.

Hull | Role | Agility | [Offense | Defense] | - Generation

Hull Class (ABCDFG):
Auxiliary (cargo)
Battleship (huge)
Cruiser (large)
Destroyer (medium)
Frigate (small)
Gunboat (tiny)

Role (ABCEFST):
Attack
Builder (constructor)
Colonizer
Explorer (range/sensors prioritized)
Freighter (trade)
Science (survey/range/sensors prioritized)
Transporter

Agility (Range/Speed) (0-9):
1 - short range, low speed (orbital defenders)
2 - short range, average speed (border patrol)
3 - short range, high speed (interceptors)
4 - medium range, low speed (sentries)
5 - medium range, average speed (flagships)
6 - medium range, high speed (escorts)
7 - long range, low speed (spies)
8 - long range, average speed (invaders)
9 - long range, high speed (harassers, probes)

Short range vessels don't have any support modules. Long range ones prioritize space for exploration or reach capabilities. The Medium ones are where you just have filler that you can stick support into. A similar scheme applies to speed; Low means no engine upgrades, high means they're prioritized over other components. If you're intentionally giving up defensive or offensive capabilities for a fast strike vessel, then it would get a high speed category. A ship that is balanced but also fast (either relative to the rest of your fleet or the enemy) would still simply be "average" speed in this scheme. I've put in parentheses the typical specialization ships that fall within certain range/speed categories are suited for.

Offense/Defense(combat ships only) (##):
1 - Beams, Shields
2 - Missiles, Point Defense
4 - Guns, Armor

An armored (4) ship equipped with lasers (1) and missiles (2) will have (1+2)&(4) -- 34. A ship with all three weapons and all three defenses would be 77. Some of the techies among you may be familiar with this kind of numbering scheme.

Generation:

User preference. 4 digits for decade/year/month (0107 for July 2225) will let you know at a glance the relative technology level of your ship design. Or you can just slap an A, B, C, etc. to the end as you upgrade to a new tech level.

So, your brand new medium-size strike vessel of September in 2231, designed for invading across a bit of a gap, armed with beams, armored with point defense and armor, only slight engine upgrades to keep the trip from taking too long would have the class designation DA816-0709. The two-month old troop transporters they're escorting would be AT9-0707.

Waiting at the edge of your range are the future orbital defenders, GA112-0511; fairly old gunboats, lasers and point defense, simply there to keep opportunistic transport ships out. They were upgraded scouts (GE4-0211).

If you arm ships that are not meant for combat, the XR#-#### scheme would just expand out to XR###-####, instead of reclassifying

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I stole the naming method from Croc411/Rabid_Monkey/the US Navy. They were using it when I first started playing. I made a few additions/changes but it is baically theirs. And if I find that when I am done and have made the ship too big for its class I drop an "H" at the end of the designator for "Heavy".

Designations are:
CRG (Cargo) - Cargo (Freighter, Sensor, Trade)
FTS (Scout) - Tiny
FTR (Fighter) - Tiny I have also seen PTR(Patrol)
CRV (Corvette) - Small
DD (Destroyer) - Medium I have also seen FR/FF(Frigate)
CR (Cruiser) - Large I have also seen the large used as Battleships
BB (Battleship) - Huge I have seen huge used as Dreadnaugts
CV (Carrier) - Carrier (Huge- Just visual effects.)

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My naming conventions are similar to those above but sometimes I deviate from the norm and use names from movies/literature, like the Pequod, Corsair, Serenity, etc. Other times I just throw one on like AC Warhawk or BC Terminator. I guess it just depends on my mood. Then there's always the typical names like the Quest and Endeavor. Sometimes they're corny, sometimes they're cool. I actually find it odd that some players have a hard time 'naming' their ships.

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I use the names of ships from Star Trek. Then I put the stats in the description window ie: Enterprise NCC-1701A (basic battleship) and in the description I put
240 242 9S 3.2R 3SR where the 240 is the attack stats (beam, missle, gun), 242 is defense, 9S is speed, 3.2R is Range, and 3SR is sensor range. That way I can see the stats at a glance and try to keep things straight. It works for me!

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My naming conventions are similar to those above but sometimes I deviate from the norm and use names from movies/literature, like the Pequod, Corsair, Serenity, etc. Other times I just throw one on like AC Warhawk or BC Terminator. I guess it just depends on my mood. Then there's always the typical names like the Quest and Endeavor. Sometimes they're corny, sometimes they're cool. I actually find it odd that some players have a hard time 'naming' their ships.

I usually add in the names and take out the numbers that the game sticks in there. But the actual ship class uses what I posted.

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If using the Terrans I give the ships navy designations - F-1, B-3 (F being tiny, B for bomber being small, FF for frigate for medium ships, DD, destroyer for large ships, and BB battleship for huge ships). Then I make up a name, trying to spread things out so they're not all American names. If I'm really feeling into the role-playing experience I will actually rename all of my ships from Medium on up with a unique name. Frigates are named for cities, destroyers for countries, and battleships for planets. So a frigate would be something like TAS Miami and a destroyer TAS Indonesia or whatever.

I name the classes "FF-23 New York" or whatever and then each time I upgrade I append the weapon strength, defense, and speed - so FF-23 New York 12M6A5 would be 12 missile, 6 armor and 5 speed.

For non-Terran civs (all the others!) I just make up a word for the ship and then in the description I explain what that means in the civ's language. I then add the informational stuff at the end.
So a drengin fighter might be called "Kethel 4B3" with a description of "The 'Kethel' or 'knife' is a small Drengin fighter."
Designing ships is half the fun for me, so I like to think about what kind of name that race would give their ship.
With the Yor I just use boring and informative alpha-number designations, for example.

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... not to double post, but I also wanted to mention that I once had a lot of fun playing as the "Imperium Terrestre." I modified the Terran Alliance to make them more militaristic and pretended they were the Roman Empire which had survived all the way to the 23rd century. I had a great time coming up with Latin names and designations for all the ships.
A fighter was "navis stellaris aggressor" and a defender "navis stellaris defensor". Medium ships were "navis stellaris pugnans". I named the huge ships (navis stellaris optima) for Roman gods - the NSI Jupiter was a fearsome sight to behold.

Have fun naming ships, it really adds to the game!

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Wow, some awesome ideas here.

I guess it may seem strange to some to care about the names of the ship, but I like to really immerse myself in the game. Basically it's like that for all of my gaming. So far the one thing taking me "out" is the lame names I'd coe up with. And since I love technical jargon the ship classifications above will be perfect.

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Apparently, I'm more one for plain names....mostly.

I make custom races, so my endevor is to make each one named differently to fit a style. For example, my custom race that likes warface has Assault Cruisers, Battle Ships, the Zepher, Podships, etc. Which my more peaceful race has things like Carrier, Outrigger, Outrunner, Intercepter, Striker, etc.

But then, my naming style is more based on the WingCommander universe style, where everything is clearly named. What's that? Why, that's a Carrier. What's that? Why, it's a Capital Ship.

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Great posts

I seperate the sizes into ship classes:

Tiny = Fighter
Small = Heavy Fighter
Medium = Frigate
Large = Destroyer
Huge = Dreadnaught or Battleship

Then I name 'em, give them a short alphanumerical string describing
their weapons and defense and a "mark" or version number, like

"Pegasus Frigate PDG1" (for Point Defense Gunship, version 1)

Its not a perfect system and I frequently run out of letters, so ideas here are great.

I like to name fleets also, in particular troop transports: "Charlie Company", "301st Spaceborne", etc -so they stand out from other battlefleets.

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Usually I'll have a name for the ship class dependent on the race (so for example my Thalan Battleships are "mantis" class) and then a coded designation for armament, defense, and engine type. So you end up with something like:

Ph6B2W3 Mantis

That'd be a Thalan Battleship armed with Phasor VI weapons, Barrier II defenses, and Warp III engines.

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I base mine roughly on the US Navy's hull classification system:

Hull Classification System

I add in an "Fx" class for fighters (tiny hull). Beyond the hull class, I make up some additional class name for color, and then add a version number at the end (I, II, III, etc.)

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I design a basic ship without any components for all the hull types and call that by the hull's name. Then, I upgrade that design into whateve I'm building. Cargo vessels are named after their designated purpose (colonizer, starbaser, miner, etc..), fighter ships are named differently, but with the same idea. A medium ship using phasors is named Medium Phasor.

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I name mine by ass size. You should see the fright on their faces when you have them surrounded by a bunch of J Lo's with Black Hole erupters.

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Well, first, I have a hull size to ship type pairing:

Tiny -- fighter (F) or recon fighter (FR)
Small -- frigate (FF) or recon frigate (FFR)
Medium -- destroyer (DD)
Large -- Cruiser (CA)
Huge -- Battleship (BB)

(I occasionally consider making the Huge hulls battlecruisers (CB) because the name sounds cooler. However, I've only ever managed to build one huge ship in any of my games so it's largely a moot point.)

For class names, I steal them from real ships usually. Four copies of Jane's Fighting Ships (World War 1, 1944-45, 1984-85, and 1985-86) sit on my bookcase so I'm rarely at a loss for names. The Stars at War campaign/scenario book for Starfire is also a good source for names, particularly if I don't want to play a race with human-like names.

I prefer class names like "FF1 Scythe" -- first generation frigate, Scythe-class. Upgrades to the class itself become "FF1 Scythe Mk 2" and so on. "FF2 Scimitar" represents a different class altogether. (I could simplify and just upgrade all the Scythes to Scimitars but I figure that its rather unlikely that an upgrade of the ship will also rearrange things like crew quarters, passageways, etc. It's a silly flavor thing.)

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i like to keep my alphabetically sorted, so i use prefixes, the first character being a letter.

B for battleships (huge hull)
C for cruisers (large hull)
D for destroyers (medium hull)
E for escorts (small hull)
F for fighters (tiny hull)
G for colony ships (the mnemonic being 'ground', where they land)
H for constructors (mnemonic: 'heave', what they do with SB parts)
I for transports (mnemonic: 'invasion')
S for frieghters (mnemonic: 'shipping')
V for surveyors and scouts (mnemonic: 'visualize')
X for any ships i build with the intent of giving them away or selling them

i then add a 3-digit number for separate models, because three digits is what i'm used to hearing in military parlance. the first digit generally indicates the most important technology level (weapons for combat ships, engines for everything else). so a fighter with plasma beams would be an F-2xx; a freighter with warp drive would be an S-3xx. the other two digits are mostly flavor; though i'll increase the number if i create a new model with more miniaturization or whatnot.

the last part is the 'soft' shipclass name, such as "Icarus" or "Cartographer." the type of names i pick usually depends on the alignment i've chosen. i usually play humans because i like their ship style the best, and usually as neutral. so i'm often using names from world mythology - Greek of course, but also Hindu, Nordic, whatever. good and evil names are usually so charged - "Liberator" or "Dominator" for example.

i only give individual names to ships that either gain several levels, or are produced in limited numbers. i've never named fighters or escorts.

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I typically play as a custom race, the Amazons, so all of my ship types tend to have names relating to females and/or Greek mythology (the exception seems to be constructors, which somehow wound up getting names bragging about how fast they were, in French -- no, I don't know why I did that, either). I also change the name of my leader each game to that of a different mythological Amazon, but that's another story.

The naming system is, I must admit, a bit of a mishmash by now, with goofy absurdist puns and allusions ("Ms. Ile Fighter," "My Little Centaur," "Raft of the Medusa") mixed in with goddesses ("Hera," "Artemis," and, perhaps my favorites, the Furies, Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, which specialize in Guns, Beams, and Missiles, respectively) and animals ("Tigress," "Lioness," and "Falcon" -- already a female name, since male raptors are called "Tercels").

Actually, for all that I may have seemed dismissive of silly puns and allusions, some of my favorite names involve those, for my specialty ships: My advanced freighters include the "Long Haul Sally" and "Mother Trucker" classes, and my new asteroid miners include the smallish "Clementine" and the seriously armed and armored "Molly Maguire" classes. Oh, and let's not forget my advanced survey ship, Dora, the explorer.

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Fighters - After birds or sea creatures (Falcon, Barracuda)
Bombers - After historical war fighters or weapons (i.e. - scimitar, Samurai)
Corvettes - Greek and Scandinavian Gods, etc.
Frigates - Cities states and provinces
Destroyers - Historic battles (Waterloo, Gettysburg, etc.)
Cruisers - Historic Generals and World Leaders (Zhukov, Scipio, Churchill, etc)
Battleships - Continents, countries and planets along with Star Trek names like Excalibur, Excelsior, etc.

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I name my ships much as I would name variables in a computer program. So I've got names like:

surv5ls3 (speed 5 surveyor, 3 life support)
cargweap7 (cargo hull, 1 of some kind of weapon, speed 7)
troop3x2ls1 (troop transport, speed 3, 2 troop modules, 1 life support)
advtroop5x3 (advanced troop transport, speed 5, 3 billion troops)
tiny1misssp2 (tiny hull, 1 missile, 2 speed)

etc. etc. etc.

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Fighters - After birds or sea creatures (Falcon, Barracuda)
Bombers - After historical war fighters or weapons (i.e. - scimitar, Samurai)
Corvettes - Greek and Scandinavian Gods, etc.
Frigates - Cities states and provinces
Destroyers - Historic battles (Waterloo, Gettysburg, etc.)
Cruisers - Historic Generals and World Leaders (Zhukov, Scipio, Churchill, etc)
Battleships - Continents, countries and planets along with Star Trek names like Excalibur, Excelsior, etc.

I really like your ideas there dogfish10. Thanks for sharing!

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Here is how I name classes:

TN - Fighter
SM - Heavy Fighter
MD - Frigate
LR - Battleship
HG - Dreadnaught

CV - Construction vessel
CS - Colony ship
MV - Merchant vessel
MS - Mining ship
TRT - Troop transport

These two (or three) letters represent the size/type of the ship, in ascending order from top to bottom. To represent the power of the ship, I then include the type of damage or defense, and the associated number. If it is a non-combat ship, I include additional information representing speed and range.

For example:

TAS LR-B22A16, where TAS stands for Terran Allied Systems, representing the owner of the ship. Therefore, this particular class is a Terran battleship with 22 beam attack and 16 points of armor.

A TAS TRT-6000S2R3PC is a troop transport carrying 6000 troops that is capable of traveling two sectors at 3 parsecs/week.

Individual medium, large, and huge ships receive specific names that fit into a theme.

I.e., TAS LR-Arcbird

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make it interesting small attack ships piranha-1a or falcon-1a upgrade them to a2a the a meaning attack a d meaning defense larger ships hawks eagles pike musky tiger shark etc. havent had to make a huge ship yet but i will figure it out

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What i do is very simple;

i design a ship and save it with no active components and call it 'HULL TINY' or HULL SMALL or HULL LARGE etc etc.

then i simply upgrade the basic hull whatever ship and give it a new name that suits my mood at the time. such upgraded ships usually get deleted next game but the hull shipa i always keep

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