fleet naming algorithm :(

[Lemmy]

it sucks...no really it does, especially for someone like me with no imagination to name my own fleet. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif
at the start of the game each fleet you create is named after a letter in the greek alphabet, your first fleet is Alpha fleet, second Beta Fleet etc...
but when you make your 30th fleet, and i mean the 30th fleet through the entire game, while you only have one fleet, it's named Alpha Zeta Fleet or something, why not Alpha or Beta Fleet again http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif
and after the double greek letters, you get Alpha Fleet, that's right....with a double space http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/confused.gif
edit: looks like double spaces are deleted http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

ok, frustation is leaving....leaving.....and gone, that feels better http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

[This message has been edited by LemmyM (edited 22 August 2001).]

[Taqwus]

Any idea why letters are used instead of numbers? (Or, for that matter, system + number?)

Incidentally, after some point you get *blank* fleet name defaults. I ran into this in my Mr. Nice Superpower game, when I started putting Sentinel starbases in their own little fleets for the extra +20% training bonus -- I'd already gone through many names via groupings and regroupings, and numerous defense fleets stationed throughout.


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[capnq]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Any idea why letters are used instead of numbers?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>This is pure speculation on my part, but my theory is that fleets use Greek letters to differentiate them from ships, which use numbers, and planets, which use Roman numerals.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[dogscoff]

Why not have fleet names picked from a text file like ship names? That'd keep everyone happy.

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SE4 Code:
L Gd! $ Fr- C- Sd T!+ Sf-- Tcp-- A% M&gt;M+ MpD Pw RV Fq+ Nd- Rp+ G-
/SE4 Code
http://www.sandman43.fsnet.co.uk/se4main.htm

[dmm]

Just my personal bias, but I don't think you should ever have more than a few dozen fleets. Takes the meaning out of the word "fleet" if you have several hundred. Making a single ship/base a fleet just to get a bonus is exploitive -- the kind of thing I used to do to my brothers when we were kids, and they'd accuse me of "pulling a rule" on them.

I can understand the need for temporary "fleets" since there's no way to make battle Groups or task Groups. Naming them is easy: "temp". Or something like "ROC+T+E" for "rock oxygen colonizer plus transport plus (armed) escorts."