Favorite planet naming schemes?

granid · December 24, 2002, 19:06

What naming schemes do you use for your colonies?

My favorite is to use names related to the race I play. For example, with Darloks, I name my planet s various spy agencies: CIA, KGB, MI5, Mossad, etc. With Psilons-- research universities: Berkeley, MIT, Cornell, etc. Otherwise, just local towns, and then I try to match the type of planet; for example, I like to name a radiated planet a local town that has lots of power plants or pollution, or a poor planet a town that has poor neighborhoods, etc.

Urban Ranger · December 24, 2002, 23:41

Hm. I name the ultra-rich planets after precious stones. If it is red to begin with, then perhaps ruby or garnet. The rich ones "_stone," where _ is the original colour of the planet. Artifact planets would be some kind of research institute, and don't bother with the rest.

Yolky · December 25, 2002, 00:17

I name them after family and pets. Sometimes backwords so they look alien like.

Davor

star mouse · December 25, 2002, 04:19

I usually don't bother renaming most of my planets. I might rename the home world to something I like better. For example, when I was playing a custom race with the Sakkra picture (and a leader named Barney), I renamed the home system from Sssra to Dynos (as in Dinosaur world).

Where I like to employ a theme is with the ship classes. Small ships might get names of small animals like Lizard and Taipan. Titans might be named after large mythological creatues, like Leviathan and Behemoth. Refinements of an older design get names like Leviathan 2 etc. to make the ships easier to refit. If I run out of names in a theme, I typically resort to names like Punisher, Big Bastard and the like.

Urban Ranger · December 25, 2002, 05:11

Oh yeah. When I play the Klacs I call the capital planet Hive

Skanky Burns · December 25, 2002, 08:48

I name my systems after girls.

vmxa1 · December 25, 2002, 15:36

I am too lazy to name any planets.

moomin · December 25, 2002, 17:15

I gave up on naming systems long since, since you cannot re-name a system once someone else settled it... Makes the entire thing a bit pointless.

Yolky · December 26, 2002, 16:35

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
I am too lazy to name any planets.

I am suprised vmxa1. After reading you posts all the time I always thought you would have an interesting way of naming planets.

Davor

Urban Ranger · December 26, 2002, 22:42

Quote:

Originally posted by moomin
I gave up on naming systems long since, since you cannot re-name a system once someone else settled it... Makes the entire thing a bit pointless.

No big whop, just reminders of your glorious conquests.

Skanky Burns · December 27, 2002, 04:49

Just format all their planets in the system, and then reinstall your own.

/me thinks he has been on his computer for too long.

catullus · December 27, 2002, 05:20

I never (re-)name planets/systems.
But I try to have a useful ship naming system, for easy overview of ship usage and age (but not size).

Usage is determined by armament, of course. The Archer class is loaded with missiles, Beam class has standard beams, Bombers are self-explaining, of course. The Zip class have small, ultra-fast ships with beams. Pirate (or Privateer) ships have special systems for capture. I build an early slow-moving Defender class with missiles and missile-defence to station at newly-colonized planets. In MOO1 I had an Engineer ship (only a few of each in a fleet) heavily defended, and all non-lethal weapons with all non-lethal weapons I could cram in, especially that green goo that stops ships, computer virus, maybe anti-teleportation thingy. A great ship, often overlooked by the AI fleet, and renders their fleet defenceless against my killer Beam ships.

Using age subclass is for easy evaluation of what ships to upgrade (or scrap in MOO1), or what slot in ship list to update. Usually I give age in numbers 0-n, where number is increased by one for each engine tech I discover. If a ship is redesigned while no new engine has been discovered, I add a letter after the number. Sometime I use the star date of when ship was designed to show age.

So.
Archer 0 is my first missile boat, usually a cruiser.
Archer 0b is another missile boat, nuclear engines, but possibly armed with merculites. (Or having better armour, shields or something).
Beam 6 is a middle-game slugger ship (most often battle ship size), just like it's slightly newer sister ships Beam 6b and Beam 6c.
TeleBomber 8 is a miniscule late-game planet buster
And so on.

C.

The Mad Monk · December 28, 2002, 01:39

I have a rudimentary naming system. I leave the name as-is, but add codes to the end of it, depending on planet characteristics:

rich world present: In
ultra rich world present: Ind
2 food or better world: Ag
artifact world: Re
only world(s) toxic: Tx

String them together as needed.

bakalov · January 2, 2003, 11:17

Such naming schemes are useful in SP, but are completely inapropriate for MP as they give additional information to your enemies.

In MP I rename my HW with a star name that can occur naturally in the game and when an enemy sees me he can not be sure which is my homeworld

ravagon · January 3, 2003, 00:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
I name my systems after girls.

You mean the same as the way they name Hurricanes/Cyclones?

I hardly ever bother renaming. Occasionally I'll rename Sol as Earth, or some planet in the firing line will be called Warhead, but thats about it.

vmxa1 · January 3, 2003, 00:56

You should say use to name them after females. That is no longer PC, so they get names from all genders now. I am sure that is a major contribution to the world.

Urban Ranger · January 4, 2003, 00:01

Quote:

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
I have a rudimentary naming system. I leave the name as-is, but add codes to the end of it, depending on planet characteristics:

rich world present: In
ultra rich world present: Ind
2 food or better world: Ag
artifact world: Re
only world(s) toxic: Tx

String them together as needed.

That's for MoO 2 where toxic planets suck, yes?

The Mad Monk · January 12, 2003, 21:11

Yes.

aleion · January 12, 2003, 21:16

I name Systems off of girls/Star Wars

Gilgamensch · January 22, 2003, 09:08

In MoO1, I normally keep the name.
In MoO2, I used to name them just 01, 02, 03, .........
As the games are never lasting so long, why wasting thoughts on this. Espacially when you mix up the names, when starting a new game.

The system with in(d)/ag and so on I used only shortly. Doesn't help either (IMO).

For ships:
In MoO1 you are limited to 6 designs anyway, so why bother?
In MoO2, I stay with similar limits, I just upgrade the old ones ASAP. And mainly I just build few scouts, some rocket and afterwards it's gonna be the great beasts with HEF and beams.

So the main names used are like sc1, sc2 (to indicate the version).
Otherwise it is just doom1, 2, ......

OK, I know not a lot of effort

vmxa1 · January 22, 2003, 13:41

The only game I named my ships is SE3 and SE4. I felt it was useful there as I may have many versions of say cruisers. The names would let me know what the design was, such as CE-I2 or CE-C1 or whatever. Colony ships had more info including if they have pods. Sometimes I add a field for the number of engines.
CE-I2 is CE for naval designation for a light crusier and I2 is the type and level of the engine. This lets me know which ones were in need of a refit, when I could get to that. Cruisers had the most flavors as I used that hull for Planet generators, Star gens, and even repairs with flying shipyards.

Gilgamensch · January 24, 2003, 07:49

Correct, for colony ships I use naming, just that I don't send the wrong ship to the wrong planet (does it make it right??????).

So the name would be, Col Tundra, Col Rad, .........

Harry Seldon · January 24, 2003, 12:42

I name systems after cities in fantasy books I read.

Harry Seldon · January 24, 2003, 12:48

Oh, and I tend to name my ships by the level of firepower they have or the desperation I feel in my current situation. If I'm getting crushed and I'm running out of time, you're almost guaranteed to see a Last Hope battleship enter the fray or if I'm building the largest most deadly fleet in the history of the galaxy you'll probably see the Ultimate doom star cruising through the neighborhood.