Hannable
Posts: 93
Joined: 11/4/2013 Status: offline
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Howdy, Beastro, quote:
Might be good to expand the list back further into the Age of Sail, making adjustments for eras (Frigates can be confusing because of the changing nature of their role and what exactly was being called a frigate). Yeah, I thought about going back to the Age of Sail, but two things stopped me. The first was that I didn't want the multi-national feel of the names list to be saturated with British, French, and Spanish names. Those three nations were so very dominant with a few other navies (Dutch, Swiss, and Russia), but Asia would have been left out completely as would Australia and the entire Western Hemisphere (the USA only built frigates, and many of those names were re-used later on). The second reason is just how big the list already is. Now, if the game chose random names from the list - or if it was easy to cut 'n paste lists to run them through a randomizer, I'd keep adding more and more names as I found them. But because of the way the naming works, it's highly unlikely anyone is going to run out of names unless you engage in a really really really protracted war. Besides, I think the game reuses names if a ship is destroyed, which I don't like. For instance, if a cruiser named Enterprise is destroyed, the next cruiser you build will be named Enterprise. I'll have to pay more attention to that. I remember I thought I would add a prefix to my ships, like USS, but if I built a cruiser and named it USS Enterprise, the game would realize, "Hey, there's no ship named Enterprise anymore" and name the next cruiser Enterprise. quote:
One thing to note is the near complete breakdown in naming conventions in the modern United States Navy. Now pretty much anything can be named anything and that means more and more things being named after politicians... The USN is a royal P.I.T.A. because not only do they like to reuse names, they won't reuse the name for the same class of ship. Thus you have WWII light and heavy cruisers being named after cities ... as well as the Los Angeles class SSN. So I had to make a few judgment calls. I figured ships named for cities should be in the cruiser category because a lot of naval buffs are intimately familiar with WWII ships - probably more so than modern ships (since they haven't seen combat). quote:
I'd ditch most SSKs and sub names as they're often hold overs from cruisers (the 688s being named after cities) and the old days of fish names. For the USN names, that's what I did. Modern subs are named after cities and states. I kept the city names in the cruisers category, and since state names would represent battleships and subs anyway, I kept those in the capital ship category. I didn't think fish names were appropriate for a space setting, so I didn't use those, either. Heh, maybe instead of fish names, I could have used names like USS Giant Kaltor. Heh heh heh. quote:
I'd include some carrier names as they were often taken from old battleships in the case of RN carriers, older ships and battles which played a key part in the USN and America history (like Lexington, Saratoga, Ranger, Enterprise) but they can be maybe mixed with carrier names). Surprisingly enough, there weren't too many overlaps with carrier names. The early Aegis CGs were named after Revolutionary War battles, but I think there are only five of those, the only names that overlapped with carriers. The later cruisers were named for Civil War battles with a smattering of battles from other wars (Anzio, Lake Erie, etc.) Since modern carriers were named after presidents and politicians (except for Kitty Hawk, Constellation, Independence, Ranger, Enterprise, Nimitz), WWII carriers tended to be named after Revolutionary War battles and Revolutionary War personalities. All except Shangri-La which was a sort-of joke referencing the Doolittle Raid. I suppose if you want to get technical, the two WWII carriers Lexington and Saratoga were laid down as battlecruisers but were changed to carriers due to the limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty. But nah, I decided not to get technical. quote:
Along with that would be integrating space age exploration, like Voyager, Viking, Mariner, Venera, Cassini, etc. This is a really good idea, a real head-smacking, "Why didn't I think of that?" idea. So yeah, I'll update this soon and include modern probes, shuttles, and some scientists too. We need some ships named Albert Einstein, Steven Hawking, and Michio Kaku. quote:
Maybe stick to the older names which reflected their relationship to the Marine Corp in the USN for instance, like the Iwo Jima and Tarawa classes while keeping the others for capital ships and carrier like the Wasp and America classes. I can't remember where I put the name Wasp. I know it's an LHA now and a bad carrier design during WWII (that's what you get when you try to cut corners). Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Newport, and others are included in Troop Transports. I really wasn't sure how many of those people usually build in a game, but when you include all of the other nation's amphibious assets, there's a lot of them. Capital ships I think have enough names for the time being, but if ever a time comes when the game randomizes ship names, I might restructure the list. Thanks for the feedback.
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