Author Topic: Ship naming  (Read 5707 times)

Offline Pumpkin

  • Hero Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,201
  • Neinzul Gardener Enclave
Ship naming
« on: September 09, 2016, 05:37:21 pm »
I want to gather everything about ship naming. First, let just list everything that can be in the name.

* family (starship, guardian, etc)
* chassis (corvette, battleship, bot, frigate, etc)
* role (bomber, raider, etc)
* weapon (beam frigate, grenade launcher, etc)
* perk (armored ship, tractor platform, teleporting battlestation, medic frigate, Zenith paralyzer, etc)
* pseudo-perk (spider for engine damage, widow for paralyzing tractor, leech for reclamation, etc)
* race (prepended, sometimes only distinctive part: Zenith Starship, Spire Starship)
* upgrade prefix (new in AIW2)

I said elsewhere that I would support moving the race indicator out of the name (moved maybe somewhere in the ID card).

Family name sounds like a chassis, but as most fleetships' chassis are used as thematic only, that might be confusing.

I don't like the accumulation of upgrade prefixes. For items in Bionic Dues, that sounds fun and doesn't get in the way. But here I feel that would become silly and cumbersome very fast. My personal taste would be to not add prefixes when upgrades are added (but that would require another way of telegraphing that) or to limit upgrades at one per ship (but that's a whole other story).

Weapon and perk are important to "resume" the ship (teleporting leech clearly convey what the ship do). Role, also, but less technical (raider or bomber convey how the ship should be used). Chassis is currently entirely thematic but might be turned as technical indications (like all frigates have speed X, all corvettes have armor Y, etc).

Connected ideas:
* Merging fleetships and starships would solve the confusing chassis/family distinction. Other families (like guardians) might have the family name as a mandatory chassis, but they are faction-reserved families, so that might be okay. I don't know.
* Upgrades' prefixes have a big impact here.
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: Ship naming
« Reply #1 on: September 22, 2016, 10:22:42 am »
Generally I think it's more fun to have a bit of flavor to things, and keep things organic.
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline Pumpkin

  • Hero Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,201
  • Neinzul Gardener Enclave
Re: Ship naming
« Reply #2 on: September 22, 2016, 10:52:49 am »
Generally I think it's more fun to have a bit of flavor to things, and keep things organic.
:'(

Eh. Okay.
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: Ship naming
« Reply #3 on: September 22, 2016, 11:01:19 am »
It's just one of those things that has been part of AI War from the start, and would be a pretty jarring change for a lot of people, I think.
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline Pumpkin

  • Hero Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,201
  • Neinzul Gardener Enclave
Re: Ship naming
« Reply #4 on: September 22, 2016, 11:16:06 am »
It's just one of those things that has been part of AI War from the start, and would be a pretty jarring change for a lot of people, I think.
I believe that would be the perfect time to cast some order and coherency in the game. I'm a bit sad you don't consider improving that aspect (coherency -> readability -> noob-friendly). Anyway, as this will be "data-driven" and post-KS stuff, I guess that would depends on Freaking Volunteers. I think a design base rule from Arcen's voice to drive the FV crew in a common direction would be an easy way to make the final game a bit more coherent on that ship-naming point.

Anyway, nothing crucial here. At least pre-KS.
Pushing this into "ideas for maybe latter" or something, maybe?
Don't bother. I'll remember that when times will come. ;D

EDIT:
Just a quick note. This topic is linked to these:
* [STCS] Devices
* [STCS] Sentinels
« Last Edit: September 22, 2016, 11:17:38 am by Pumpkin »
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: Ship naming
« Reply #5 on: September 22, 2016, 12:05:46 pm »
All good. :)  We can certainly resume the discussion later.
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

 

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk