Refit & rename

[Ed Kolis]

If a ship hasn't been renamed yet (you know, like those super-roleplayers do, naming every ship individually), do you think the game should automatically rename it to the new class name when it is refit?

[Growltigga]

you mean people do not name each ship individually?

[Elowan]

I do name all my ships individually and what I'd like to see is a drop-down list in response to clicking on the NAME button. This drop-down list would display the contents of a text file shipnames.txt.

[capnq]

I typically only rename ships when I notice that two have gotten the same identifier due to refits, and even then I usually just renumber.

I've occasionally given a ship a name when it's done something noteworthy, or was put into a game fiction piece where it needed a name, but usually I don't bother.

[Baron Munchausen]

Now how can someone name hundreds of ships individually? It looks like there are people with radically different game styles here. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif If you only have 50 or so ships at a time during a game that's one thing. But the way some people play, with hundreds or even thousands of ships, there's no reasonable way to come up with individually unique names.

[dumbluck]

Originally posted by Elowan:
I do name all my ships individually and what I'd like to see is a drop-down list in response to clicking on the NAME button. This drop-down list would display the contents of a text file shipnames.txt.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Man, that's a really cool idea! But why does it sound so familiar?

[Captain Kwok]

I've had a couple of games where I have individually named around 500 ships. Fortunately they were all alien names...

[tbontob]

In addition to either the automatic renaming or the option to automatic rename is to have the ships listed under the fleet name in the ship/units display (F6) rather than have the ships separately listed and the fleets separately listed.

In other words, if a ship is assigned to a fleet, it would be listed under that fleet name rather than grouped with all the assigned and unassigned ships

It is a real pain to

[Elowan]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Elowan:
I do name all my ships individually and what I'd like to see is a drop-down list in response to clicking on the NAME button. This drop-down list would display the contents of a text file shipnames.txt.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Man, that's a really cool idea! But why does it sound so familiar?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ahhh ... because it's a good idea; one you've had yourself - as well as have had hundreds of others. Pity it didn't make it to Malfador. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

[Elowan]

The way I name my ships is name followed by designator and number, thusly:

Razzia MC-0001

(beneath that is the name applied during the design.) In DESIGN, I select from a design list that lists CLASS NAMES. Thus I would have a TYPE Name associated with a class name.

Hence a design might be:

Hull type: Cruiser
Design class: Missile Cruiser
Class Name: Aegis IV-cm (lvl4 - capitol ship missiles)

The NAME then ends up:

Aegis IV-cm 0001

then it's renamed to:

Razzia MC-0001
Aegis IV-cm &lt;-- this will show automagically in the list at a planet, etc.

My Dsgnname file looks something like this:

===============================
-- [Escort] --
Escort
EC-
===============================
-- [Explorer] --
Nebula
NC-
===============================
-- [Missile Cruiser] --
Aegis
MC-
===============================
...
etc and ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Works for me. Automatically keeps me in touch with possibly out-running my production since I have to pause whilst churning out ships.

[ August 12, 2002, 23:21: Message edited by: Elowan ]

[DavidG]

I think renaming a ship should definatly not be automatic since many people seem to name their ships. Having said that I would like to have the option turned on. The proplem with naming ships is that in some areas of the game only the name and not the class is shown which makes things confusing. (especially if you ungrade a fighting ships to say a supply or minesweeping ship) I think it would be fun to give ships names if the game kept stats for individual ships instead on just the class.