Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => Development Discussions => Topic started by: vorpal+5 on October 25, 2017, 06:57:44 AM
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Is there a plan about that? Even more casual games like Distant Worlds or Stellaris finally adopted this feature. Seeing the 'Saratoga' being a colony ship always hitches me somehow :D
The grouping is not necessarily by class, as there are too many and some can be added, but perhaps various possibilities might exist. Like
Carriers: Any ship with at least 1000t of hangars
Warship20k: would be the list of allowed names for any warship weighting 20k or more
A valid, unused name would be picked, and lists at the top would get more priority. So if Saratoga is both listed in the 2 lists and you are seeking a carrier name, then it can be picked from the first list.
Admittedly, some thoughts must be made for the system to work, but is it envisioned somehow for C# Aurora?
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To be fair, you can already do this with name lists per class. Personally I'd rather decide "Class X is a carrier, so I'll use traditional RN carrier names, but class Y is a battleship despite having hangars" than have the names assigned automatically.
That said, some sort of basic class naming scheme for NPR ships could be handy to help jog memory...
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Go try that Class design->DAC/Rank/Info->Name type for automatic naming of new ships.
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Distant Worlds and Stellaris can do that because they do not go into as much detail as Aurora does when it comes to ship designing. With the amount of granularity that Aurora offers, having simplistic automatic rules like that would only backfire.
You can create non-theme classes and then rename the class to what you want, plus assign a specific theme for the individual ships that is automatically used as they are constructed. The class theme names is just a list.
And remember that you can rename practically anything except shipping lines.
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To be precise, the problem is not with me, the player. I can definitively name correctly my ships ;D
The problem and issue is with the NPRs. They don't have a clue that 'Bismarck' should not be a tug but an heavy combatant (at list CA or heavier). I can understand it is tricky to code rules that are not too complex (code-wise), intelligible (for the user) while being smart enough to do the job. But I felt I had to raise the point, and Steve will decide whatever he likes, sure.
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Oh I see! Well, that problem doesn't really exist because enemy ships don't show up with their "real" names in your contacts, unless you use SM to make it so. So NPR "Germany" might use Bismarck as the name of a tug but you will never find out. Instead it'll show up what ever random name the Tac computer assigns to it when you first scan it.
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Except ... except if I check the box 'use real names' in Tac Intel window!
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Maybe it would make sense to at least have different lists for Military & Civilian ships since that is a pretty clear distinction in game as well.
I agree with the others that trying to come up with rules to decide name based on ship size / hangars or other things wouldn't make much sense though given how much freedom the designer offers.
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Bear in mind that the US Navy have a transport ship named Bismarck... :P
Saying that, I would like it if each civilian line picked a name list at random and used it (with the companybname) for their 1st. So instead of Carson C1 #017, you might have the Carson Wyoming (C1).
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I think Carson C1 #017 is perfectly fine. I don't want longer civilian ship names on my screen and they would anyway cycle every couple of years as ships are replaced.
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I think Carson C1 #017 is perfectly fine. I don't want longer civilian ship names on my screen and they would anyway cycle every couple of years as ships are replaced.
Could be a display toggle, and I do think the idea has merit since one key aspect in Aurora is to tell stories, and individual ship names certainly helps with that.
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To be precise, the problem is not with me, the player. I can definitively name correctly my ships ;D
The problem and issue is with the NPRs. They don't have a clue that 'Bismarck' should not be a tug but an heavy combatant (at list CA or heavier). I can understand it is tricky to code rules that are not too complex (code-wise), intelligible (for the user) while being smart enough to do the job. But I felt I had to raise the point, and Steve will decide whatever he likes, sure.
So would the ability for you to pick an enemy class type and "Change Reporting Name" (where you type in a new name for it) fulfill your needs? For (randomly chosen) example, the computer might have picked "Typhoon" and you might change that to "Akula". That would be a lot more straightforward to code up.
John
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Sure, that would be a good compromise indeed. Have me able to change how a class of ships (owned by NPR) get its names from would be a major advance already. Instead of manually renaming them after I figure out their class.
But that would provide me an instant extra info? If I decide all AI Battlecruisers should pick from the list of German pocket battleships... But then, is this a problem?
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It is giving you extra information. You now know that ship is a battlecruiser because it's been named after one.
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I would be happy if it randomly picked the name in the class, not just alphabetical order. I am sure that is something easy to code.
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Alien ship classes can be displayed by the phonetic alphabet tables, as it was in NATO naval practice ("Alpha class", "Bravo class", ... - list ordered by the time of first contact with this class).
That's easy, RP-cool, handy to memorize, and doesn't tell you any unnecessary information about alien designs.
More of that, this table can be selected from the list (NATO/ITU-R RTPA, Greek PA, Hebrew PA, LAPD PA), or even written by player himself.
Another solution is to use first names from officer names table, filtered by the main name scheme of that empire.
It will give more length, so when you contact more classes of that empire, than there are words in this phonetic alphabet - there will be less need with names list to use suffixes (like "Alpha-2" or "Alpha II" classes - those can be misunderstood by new players as succeed classes or blocks of one class).
But it can be less handy, because there are some very similar or even duplicated names in those name lists.
I'd like to see first variant (RTPA list) - smth like "Klingon Alpha class" ... "Klingon Victor class" ... "Klingon Alpha-2 class" ... - but only if it will be some personalization possibility.
If it will be hardcoded algorithm - than I'd prefer last variant (officer first names list of empire scheme).
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Currently, Aurora randomly selects a theme for an NPR, then randomly selects a(n associated) theme for a class, then procedurally selects a ship name from that class.
Then, when you encounter said NPR, Aurora again randomly selects a theme by which to report it to you, randomly selecting a(n associated) theme for reporting the class, and appending an ordinal number for the unit. It also gives you an option to just use the names the NPR is using.
So your complaint is that the randomly selected name & class that the (usually alien) NPR is using makes no sense by your empire's rules, but because it's called the 'real name' you feel unable to ignore it.
I'm pretty sure the Tac Intel window allows you to rename your reporting names for other empires/ships/classes (though I'm not going to fire up Aurora just to check). I advise you to turn off 'use real names for alien ships (if known)' and pretend that option doesn't exist.
If what your asking for is a way to 'push' player-designated names onto NPR ship/class designs, I would advise against it because that seems to me to be begging for an endless supply of bugs from accidentally including an apostrophe or ampersand or other special character in a field that does not get properly sterilized.
Sloanjh has the right idea. Even better, I think his "Change reporting name" button already exists, albeit by a different name, on the Tac Intel and/or Diplomacy windows