Design Names

[Fyron]

Roman numerals are limited to XV or XX

Not for custom ship names, which is what he was talking about.

[Krsqk]

Originally posted by Slick:
Then again, it is a great deception to use those names or acronyms against humans. Maybe your "Princess class Population Transport" looking so plump and vunerable there all alone on the warp point ***bats eyelashes*** is really your newest unnamed fully trained Violator class APB12 assault ship just waiting for juicy little ships to come by.

I got slammed like this several times in PBW until I finally started remembering to check the design class name. Of course, you can still name your attack ships "Princess," but I can see if the class and the design name match.

One other trick which has been mentioned elsewhere on this forum is to change the ship number. For instance, build a single "Plague"-class frigate and rename it to "Plague 0005." When your opponent sees it, he has to decide 1)If you really have biological weapons, and 2)If you really have at least 5 of them. If he's the accepting type, he may not even consider that you're bluffing. The same can work with just about any type of ship--it at least gives the appearance that you have more ships than you really do.

[Taera]

I've found my tactic for ship naming quite optimal - i have a nice file with ~1500 insects names which i choose randomly for any given ship - my upgrades go to like IV ror V, then i switch to a different name. Does knowing that that cruiser is called Appletree Aphid help you much? and those are completely random, i only have like one or two favorite early-game names.

[trooper]

It depends on the player. I generaly use the same name for a determinated ship function (mine sweeper, carrier, mine layer, pop transport, warp point creator...) and add roman figures for the Version. So I use about 30 names during a whole game.

[Rojero]

Taking a break from my shipset making...man i dont know if i can come with 100 names let alone 1000!

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Rojero:
Taking a break from my shipset making...man i dont know if i can come with 100 names let alone 1000!

One method would be to get (or make) a list of adjectives and another of nouns, then run every possible pairing.

Very Short example:
Adjectives:
Fast
Slow
Noisy
Quiet

Nouns:
Fox
Hound
Chicken
Mouse

Names:
Fast Fox
Slow Fox
Noisy Fox
Quiet Fox
Fast Hound
Slow Hound
Noisy Hound
Quiet Hound
Fast Chicken
Slow Chicken
Noisy Chicken
Quiet Chicken
Fast Mouse
Slow Mouse
Noisy Mouse
Quiet Mouse

The number of parings is Adjectives * Nouns; 4*4=16 in the example above. If you can come up with 32 adjectives and 32 nouns, you will have 1024 names available; 50 adjectives and 50 nouns yields 2500 possibilites; 100 and 100 yields 10000. This could simplify your naming problem somewhat. It would even be possible to build an Excel spreadsheet to produce them.

[Rojero]

Oh ok then that sounds like an excellent idea
I will try it right away

[PvK]

Originally posted by Andres:
AI will run out of names in a long game and start naming ships 'design 4002' if the list is not long enough.

Doesn't it loop and start re-using names but adding Roman Numerals to them?

PvK

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Taera:
I've found my tactic for ship naming quite optimal - i have a nice file with ~1500 insects names which i choose randomly for any given ship - my upgrades go to like IV ror V, then i switch to a different name. Does knowing that that cruiser is called Appletree Aphid help you much? and those are completely random, i only have like one or two favorite early-game names.

That is what I do, except that I use Tolkein based names files.

Originally posted by PvK:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Andres:
AI will run out of names in a long game and start naming ships 'design 4002' if the list is not long enough.

Doesn't it loop and start re-using names but adding Roman Numerals to them?

PvK

---

Unfortunately, no. It starts at design 0001 and goes from there. Create a game with an AI using a names file with just one name and see for yourself.

[ July 10, 2003, 08:09: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Andr�s]

Originally posted by PvK:
Doesn't it loop and start re-using names but adding Roman Numerals to them?

It does loop, but only 15 or 20 times, after that it runs out of names, so the list has to be long enought to prevent that.