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What do you call your ships?

What do you call your ships?

I'm just curious as to what you like to name your ships. Do you just give every ship of the same type a generic name. Do you ahve a unique name for each ship? Do you not bother at all? Trust me, I think this thread will prove more fascinating than it sounds...

Now, it may sound a bit anally retentive, but I like to give very ship I construct (unless its something like a troop ship that won't be around for very long anyway) its own unique name. Playing the Terrans, I would usually call my ships 'TNS *Namehere'. TNS stood for Terran Naval Ship, after an older game I play called Conquest: Forniter Wars, in which Terran vessels have the prefix TNS.

However, I switched to using TAS (which I assume stands for Terran Alliance Ship) after I saw 'TAS Explorer' and 'TAS Maker' in the second campaign mission.

I also give each ship type I create a class name. For example, the Sabre class corvette. For each new game I play, I would use whatever names I could think of for each class (resuing ones I had used in past games, or names of ships that had since been decomissioned or destroyed), starting with whatever the class name is (as such, my first Sabre class ship would always be the TAS Sabre). In the same vein, I usually call my inital survey ship TAS Earth, TAS Terra or TAS Sol.

So yea, in short, when I'm playing as the Terrans I give each ship I build or otherwise recieve a unique name with the prefix TAS. The first ship of each respective class takes on that classes' name. I was thinking of prefixing the names of my ships with ARS, ARV, ASV or ASS when I started playing the Altarians, but I lost interest in that when I found the tiny hull was messed up so nothing would attach to it properly.

What about you? How do you name your ships?
39,955 views 79 replies
Reply #76 Top
I used to use a code to remeber what the ship had, similar to many other peopel. But I've found that i generally only have like one or two medium sized hull ships in a game and like one large hull desigh. So i just give them regular names like Striker, Bane or Invader. If i upgrade the design i just add a 2 at the end.
Reply #77 Top
Personally, I don't bother to name Colony Ships or Constructors.

Starfighters tend to get created for for a squadron or wing (example: Werewolf squadron) and then get designations like "Werewolf Leader", "Werewolf One", etc. etc.

Since I like to proclaim myself royalty and choose Terran, I generally stick H.M.S. in front of all large ship names (anything bigger than a fighter) Generally I will name then after zodiac signs, typical mythological deities or beasts, etc.

Also a good source of names I find is David Weber's Honor Harrington series, a huge space opera with tons of star ships (a lot of which get blown up)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Manticoran_Navy
Reply #78 Top
I name them after spices.
The rarer the ship (usually most expensive) the rarer the spice.
I name my capital ships Saffron, for example.
Staple ships - Staple spices.
Colonies - Salt
Constructors/Fighters - Pepper
Ect...

Sometimes I name them after metals and/or minerals. Depends on how I feel.
Reply #79 Top
I will make the name practical, such as "Fighter" or "Troopship" or "Destroyer", followed by a model designation, such as AM-1, where A is the first letter of my race name (Anarians in this case, custom race), M simply stands for model, and the number indicates the generation; this is the first design of this ship, when I go to upgrade that ship the upgrade will have AM-2, and so on.

If I'm not being lazy and I want a fancier name, like "Dragon class Heavy Cruiser", I just put that in the description section, the name section would follow the same format as above, "Cruiser AM-1"