Ship Hull Designations

[Aelfric]

Hi peeps,

Just got into this game and only had three hours run so far, but one of the issues I personally found was to keep track of all my military assets. To solve this issue, I am considering to establish ship hull designations based on the ships' classes and roles similar to that of US Navy.

US Navy's ship hull designations can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_classification_symbol

I did the same thing with my ships in X2: The Threat and it was a big big help. In that game, each and every single of my ships had a hull designation so I could even tell the class, type, and role of an individual fighter just by looking at its designation.

I am thinking of using following system in Distant World:

[Ship class][Ship role] [Ship number]* [Name]**

* I assume whenever a ship of the same class and role (simply called 'design' in-game) is built, it will automatically given a three-digit number
** Name will only be given to destroyer-class upward

Examples:
- A destroyer for fleet escort role (more armor) would be called 'DE 002 UFS Hilarious'
- A strike cruiser (more weaponry) would be called 'CS 003 UFS Amsterdam'

I am wondering if any of you is doing the same thing.

[malkuth74]

First we need an easy way to actually disband ships, and or refit them. This part of the game is lacking.


In fact I tried to refit an older fleet my last game but gave up when they would not. Something is wrong and it was not because the places were full. It just was not working.

In the early game it was working though. They would take off and go to the nearest shipyard to refit. Late game I could not get them to do squat.

[Erik Rutins]

Do you have a save that shows this, malkuth74? Retrofitting seems to work here in all stages of the game so I'm interested in investigating why it's not working for you.

[Aelfric]

Sorry to bring up this topic, guys, but I'm still wondering how others easily and quickly identify their various ship classes. I tried to follow the method in the first post, but I found it to not work smoothly with how the game handles design names and I ended up manually naming my designs from time to time.

After getting some more hours playing the game, I found out that:
1) Upgraded ship designs are automatically given Roman numeral behind the original name;
2) Escorts, frigates, and destroyers are automatically named based on the following format: [design name] [design version in Roman numeral] [three-digit ship number], e.g. Titan IV 012 means Titan-class, fourth version, ship number 12; and
3) Cruisers, capital ships, and other utility and civilian vessels are automatically given a unique name.

I guess to make the best use of the automatic name assignments by the game and minimise micromanagement at my end, I'll assign a theme to each class. Say, all of my frigate ship classes will have the theme 'natural forces'. When I design a multi-role frigate, I'll assign the name 'Cyclone' to it. When I design an assault frigate, I'll assign the name 'Typhoon' to it. All of my escorts will have the theme 'melee weapons'. Say, 'Saber' for light escorts, 'Gladius' for heavy escorts.

Whenever I look at the list of ships and see Typhoon II 003, I know it's an assault frigate. I can easily take note of the themes I use on Excel.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm obsessed with being organised. I hope you'll find this as useful as it is to me.

Happy space-faring!

[Gertjan]

Lol

[DiggyDad]

ORIGINAL: Aelfric

Sorry to bring up this topic, guys, but I'm still wondering how others easily and quickly identify their various ship classes. I tried to follow the method in the first post, but I found it to not work smoothly with how the game handles design names and I ended up manually naming my designs from time to time.

After getting some more hours playing the game, I found out that:
1) Upgraded ship designs are automatically given Roman numeral behind the original name;
2) Escorts, frigates, and destroyers are automatically named based on the following format: [design name] [design version in Roman numeral] [three-digit ship number], e.g. Titan IV 012 means Titan-class, fourth version, ship number 12; and
3) Cruisers, capital ships, and other utility and civilian vessels are automatically given a unique name.

I guess to make the best use of the automatic name assignments by the game and minimise micromanagement at my end, I'll assign a theme to each class. Say, all of my frigate ship classes will have the theme 'natural forces'. When I design a multi-role frigate, I'll assign the name 'Cyclone' to it. When I design an assault frigate, I'll assign the name 'Typhoon' to it. All of my escorts will have the theme 'melee weapons'. Say, 'Saber' for light escorts, 'Gladius' for heavy escorts.

Whenever I look at the list of ships and see Typhoon II 003, I know it's an assault frigate. I can easily take note of the themes I use on Excel.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm obsessed with being organised. I hope you'll find this as useful as it is to me.

Happy space-faring!

Brilliant!

[Sarissofoi]

ORIGINAL: DiggyDad

ORIGINAL: Aelfric

Sorry to bring up this topic, guys, but I'm still wondering how others easily and quickly identify their various ship classes. I tried to follow the method in the first post, but I found it to not work smoothly with how the game handles design names and I ended up manually naming my designs from time to time.

After getting some more hours playing the game, I found out that:
1) Upgraded ship designs are automatically given Roman numeral behind the original name;
2) Escorts, frigates, and destroyers are automatically named based on the following format: [design name] [design version in Roman numeral] [three-digit ship number], e.g. Titan IV 012 means Titan-class, fourth version, ship number 12; and
3) Cruisers, capital ships, and other utility and civilian vessels are automatically given a unique name.

I guess to make the best use of the automatic name assignments by the game and minimise micromanagement at my end, I'll assign a theme to each class. Say, all of my frigate ship classes will have the theme 'natural forces'. When I design a multi-role frigate, I'll assign the name 'Cyclone' to it. When I design an assault frigate, I'll assign the name 'Typhoon' to it. All of my escorts will have the theme 'melee weapons'. Say, 'Saber' for light escorts, 'Gladius' for heavy escorts.

Whenever I look at the list of ships and see Typhoon II 003, I know it's an assault frigate. I can easily take note of the themes I use on Excel.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm obsessed with being organised. I hope you'll find this as useful as it is to me.

Happy space-faring!

Brilliant!

Rubin!

[Lord_Astraios]

Somewhat different that i use,  i only go by in example to my empire's name,  Black Dragon Empire,  in other terms BDC as in Black Dragon Cruiser Or BDD as in Black Dragon Destroyer,  and if i upgrade the class type,  i would go by BDC Excalibur MK1 or MK5 whatever version i have.  And sometiems i use this type of info to id  the ship, TD Capella Class MK3 as in Torpedo Destroyer Capella Class MK3.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Aelfric

Hi peeps,

Just got into this game and only had three hours run so far, but one of the issues I personally found was to keep track of all my military assets. To solve this issue, I am considering to establish ship hull designations based on the ships' classes and roles similar to that of US Navy.

US Navy's ship hull designations can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_classification_symbol

I did the same thing with my ships in X2: The Threat and it was a big big help. In that game, each and every single of my ships had a hull designation so I could even tell the class, type, and role of an individual fighter just by looking at its designation.

I am thinking of using following system in Distant World:

[Ship class][Ship role] [Ship number]* [Name]**

* I assume whenever a ship of the same class and role (simply called 'design' in-game) is built, it will automatically given a three-digit number
** Name will only be given to destroyer-class upward

Examples:
- A destroyer for fleet escort role (more armor) would be called 'DE 002 UFS Hilarious'
- A strike cruiser (more weaponry) would be called 'CS 003 UFS Amsterdam'

I am wondering if any of you is doing the same thing.

Well for our non-American friends out there, the US designations could be confusing. The United Kingdom, for example, tends to classify ships by function rather than by size as seen in the US system. This is why the UK Type 22 Broadsword class frigates (FF = ASW platform) is actually larger than the Type 42 Batch 1 Sheffield class destroyers (DD = anti-air warfare).

What I would suggest doing, which is what I did with MOO, is to put the role in the name by naming your designs FF Protector, or DD Shepard or CA Fluffy Destroyer of Worlds etc. This way, you have the designation that means something to you, but it won't confuse anyone by changing the designations in game.

[Aelfric]

ORIGINAL: Shark7
Well for our non-American friends out there, the US designations could be confusing. The United Kingdom, for example, tends to classify ships by function rather than by size as seen in the US system. This is why the UK Type 22 Broadsword class frigates (FF = ASW platform) is actually larger than the Type 42 Batch 1 Sheffield class destroyers (DD = anti-air warfare).

What I would suggest doing, which is what I did with MOO, is to put the role in the name by naming your designs FF Protector, or DD Shepard or CA Fluffy Destroyer of Worlds etc. This way, you have the designation that means something to you, but it won't confuse anyone by changing the designations in game.

That's what I originally tried to implement, although I made a slight adjustment to it. The first design of my escorts was called EP-1 Saber, which referred to escort-size (I treat 'roles' in description as 'classes' in practice), first version, codename Saber. When I upgraded it, it became EP-2 Saber. I also had FP (frigate, patrol), FT (frigate, torpedo, for assault role), and DD (destroyer, all-rounder).

The problem was, when I retrofitted my ships, say EP-1 Saber ships to EP-2 Saber, they did not change their names so I had problems differentiating which ships had been retrofitted and which had not. I ended up manually changing their names one by one, which was a pain to do. I think regardless of the naming convention, this issue will persist so I'll add this to the Master Wishlist.

[taltamir]

it would be best if a ship "class name" was something like "frigate mk 27" and the random names used for individual ships... instead of random names per design.

[PDiFolco]

I used "naturally" Navy designations to be able to detect what were my ships... What's cool in the game is that when you upgrade "DD-1 Warhawk" it becomes "DD-2 Warhawk", except for Starports where the name become cut off  ! Strange buglet ...