How do you name your ships?

[The diplomat]

Do you stick with the default names like StrCrIF009, use poetic names like Avenger, or do you use some other naming system?

The default names are good short hand. Once you learn the system, they are very easy to understand, and allow you to quickly know everything about your ship. But they are not very memorable. On the other hand, poetic names like Avenger are not very pragmatic 'cause they don't say anything about the ship's type.

[Togas]

One thing I've added to the naming system is the engine type. Nothing like having 1 slow ship burden a whole task force of the latest warp engines. For example, I put "Fu" at the end of the name for ships with Fusion engines.

For system ships, I put a SS at the end instead.

--Togas

[Hydro]

System ships get a little “s” in front of their name. Warp ships don’t. Then I use the ship hull ID (frigate is FF, battlecruiser is BC, etc). I put in a letter to indicate mission in lower case: “g” is for missile boat, “L” is for long range, “s’ for short, “V” for carrier, “pd” for point defense. Then I put a dash and the number of warp: 1, 2, 3 (etc). If I have various updates I put a small a, b, c (as I go) after the warp number. I break the lower/upper cap rule if the name looks stupid when I’m done.

So, a missile DD with level 3 warp is: DDG-3; version 2 is DDG-3a
A BC-based carrier with warp 4 is: BCV-4
A battleship long range super death ship with warp 5 is: BBL-5
A light cruiser point defense escort with warp 4 is: CLpd-4
My third version of a CL system ship with long range weapons is: sCLc (I build very few system ships)

If any of you have played Star Fleet Battles or are familiar with military ship naming this will be generally familiar.

[Ghostbear]

Just thought I'd add that.

Anyway, I also use the naval nomenclature, but found I was ending up with ship names of

DDzzz47qqq102 etc.

Because you have to upgrade every 10 seconds or so.

GIVE US REFITS.

[vmxa1]

Funny Ghostbear.
I use DD type with an appending of a name or number for the engine speed. I may add another code to denote SRA/LRA if I am mixing and match with the same hull.

[Proteus_MST]

I use one or two leters which design the Hull Size, for example Cv for Corvette, B for Battleship, C for Cruiser-Types and the like which is followed by an S if it is a Warp-capable Starship.

Then follows a Name for the Ship Type, sometimes simple, for example just "Carrier" or Durandal sometimes more poetic, like "Katana".

At last there is a number (later a letter) indicating the Stage of major Refit wich the Design possesses.
It is mostly dependend on the Engine Speed, because I regularly tend to make major Refits on all Designs as new Engines evolve. If I make minor refits on a Design without changing the Engines (which rather rarely happens), I don´t increase the Number.

Normally I tend to build all my Taskforces with Ships which possess the same Refit-Number.

[Grumbold]

I'm a big fan of Ian Banks' naming policy, but there's no way that those will fit in the space provided. Effectively you are naming the class rather than the ship so its understandable.

I tend to settle for names like CV1, Stealth LR3, SysCarrier2 etc. Under most circumstances I upgrade all ships at the same time so it doesn't matter about engine speed or shield size as long as I form TF's out of all model 3's or all 9's.

[Main_Brain]

Levis :=)
my Levit.ShortRange
OrbMis. for the cheap destroyerdesign Defense
CrCar-obvious
BcPD -"
SuperCarrier-Superdreadnaught Carrier
the only thing numbered are the Colony ships (numbered after their number of Pods)
Tachidii Revenge-wont tell you :P