Captured Ship Class Name

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Quick Question.

When you first capture an alien ship of a specific class, do you think it is better to:

1) Automatically assign the same name to the new class as you had for the Alien Class.
2) Give the class the name assigned by the original owner and change the Alien Class name accordingly.

Aurora currently uses 2) but I was considering changing to 1).

[LoSboccacc]

shouldn't depend on whether you've translated their language?

could also give a bonus to translation efforts


anyway, going historically, enemy type call sign stay consistent trough time even if the actual type name is known, it's a way to prevent confusion between own types, and captured equipment gets a new name assigned that comes from the culture naming list, and is independent from the intelligence type name and the original type name - so a panther was a T-5 in Russian inventory

even for ships, in the sail age at least where capture was more likely, ship got renamed into the country own scheme, including the navy insignia; at the time show where one of tho, so gives no indication of how the class name itself would had been handled

so on this reasoning, my opinion would be for enemy class name stay consistent in the intelligence window, own class name becomes one from the own class name lists, intelligence window gains a field for showing the enemy class name if makes sense (captured and language translated)

[King-Salomon]

I would take the name intel has given the class ... so a "tiger" class Battleship stays a "Tiger class" and not converting to "sound sleeping lotus flower in the rain" (free translation from some spooky alien language)

[Froggiest1982]

1

[Garfunkel]

Keep 2

[papent]

LoSboccacc suggestion is awesome, but if not feasible, 1

also followup question what about individual ships will they convert to new names following a new naming scheme or keep previously assigned names

[unkfester]

 1

[vorpal+5]

LoSboccacc suggestion is awesome, but if not feasible, 1

also followup question what about individual ships will they convert to new names following a new naming scheme or keep previously assigned names

This please

[Black]

1

[Kaiser]

2

[Droll]

1, it helps keep naming theme consistent for different NPRs.

Currently with 2 you can end up with NPRs having two name themes as the real names are revealed.
Though I do admit that knowing what they call their ships can be some cool flavour.

[skoormit]

1

[Tuna-Fish]

I greatly prefer 1, not least because AI often picks "bad" names for their ships. For example, name themes that contain human names.

[xenoscepter]

shouldn't depend on whether you've translated their language?

could also give a bonus to translation efforts


anyway, going historically, enemy type call sign stay consistent trough time even if the actual type name is known, it's a way to prevent confusion between own types, and captured equipment gets a new name assigned that comes from the culture naming list, and is independent from the intelligence type name and the original type name - so a panther was a T-5 in Russian inventory

even for ships, in the sail age at least where capture was more likely, ship got renamed into the country own scheme, including the navy insignia; at the time show where one of tho, so gives no indication of how the class name itself would had been handled

so on this reasoning, my opinion would be for enemy class name stay consistent in the intelligence window, own class name becomes one from the own class name lists, intelligence window gains a field for showing the enemy class name if makes sense (captured and language translated)

This, or #1.

[Migi]

My understanding is that when the British navy captured French ships in the 17/1800's they kept the original French names, at least in some cases. It turns out that the Temerarie at Trafalgar was not captured from the French, she used the name of a ship captured from the French nearly 40 years earlier so the name itself was adopted into the naming lists.

Personally I think changing the name assigned by Intel is a mistake as it will cause confusion.
I think option 1 is better but it could be improved by adding (captured) or something to the class name.
Or you could have a pop up which asks which option to use.