Criss' Thread

[jzimmerman4]

Just to give some further insight, as a lot of the specific numbers were determined by me, and Criss and I just focused on the general layout for the naming convention. jstenholt you're completely right in that aviation, such as Boeing does it differently than we did. The original inspiration for our system was in fact boeing, but in how it turned out the system become more like the numbering system for more industrial machinery, like heavy equipment or semi-trucks/lorries.

So to break down the model numbers even further we use a three-digit system for the model numbers. The first digit is the main class size, so because our first TG ships are all "small class" or Class 1 the first digit is one. The second digit is the sub-class size, meaning that it tells you the size of the ship within class one. So a model number that is "10X" is considerably smaller than a ship that is "19X". The third digit, which Criss briefly mentioned in his latest post correlates to something with their systems, could be engine number, number of cargo areas, weapon systems, etc. So the third digit is the most random, and not entirely useful.

The overall goal was to have players able to figure out what sort of ships they might be coming up to from a great distance, even just through the nav menu. If you're planning to raid a TG convoy, and see a lot of Bahtra 190's it's not as good of an idea to continue with the raid than if it was a few 105's.

I hope this can shed some more light on it as it's sort of a mashup of inspirations from multiple real-world sources while also trying to add in our own logic.

I love the thought that went into it but most players wont know this info so it will be seemingly random to them, plus it is a lot to memorize and know, like I for one wont ever have this fully memorized. I just feel like it needs to be simplified a tad bit with only one ship of each categorization (civilian, freighter, military) being in a class. The second two digits should definitely be something cool like what you have going on, but the first digit is what most players will look at and so its hard to memorize the ships when the digit is the same for multiple ships that all serve the same purpose.

 

[Criss]

Okay, well my one suggestion would be to have the smallest of a type of ship in the 100's

Yes we've done that. The drone is a 105, the frigate is 190. These are just small ships (under 140 meters) and so when we have a titan TG ship it will be in the range of 700 meters and we can name it 900 something.

The first digit is the main class size, so because our first TG ships are all "small class" or Class 1 the first digit is one. The second digit is the sub-class size, meaning that it tells you the size of the ship within class one. So a model number that is "10X" is considerably smaller than a ship that is "19X". The third digit, which Criss briefly mentioned in his latest post correlates to something with their systems, could be engine number, number of cargo areas, weapon systems, etc. So the third digit is the most random, and not entirely useful.

I honestly thought you scrapped that idea and didn't know the 2 second digits meant anything. Woops!

 

[jzimmerman4]

So this would be my suggestion the the naming. Makes it wayyy more obvious as of which ship is stronger or weaker than another without having to know exactly what the number for the other ship is.
Bahtra 105-10
Crusa 110-11
Bahtra 313-6
Bahtra 522-17
Crusa 240-8
Tak 188-14
Bahtra 790-17

 

[Saber]

I honestly thought you scrapped that idea and didn't know the 2 second digits meant anything. Woops!

The funny thing is that I had originally planned on scrapping it, but then I started associating other factors of those ships with the second digit, and the digits came out exactly the same, so I stuck with the original plan instead as it was more consistent.

I love the thought that went into it but most players wont know this info so it will be seemingly random to them, plus it is a lot to memorize and know, like I for one wont ever have this fully memorized. I just feel like it needs to be simplified a tad bit with only one ship of each categorization (civilian, freighter, military) being in a class. The second two digits should definitely be something cool like what you have going on, but the first digit is what most players will look at and so its hard to memorize the ships when the digit is the same for multiple ships that all serve the same purpose.

I definitely understand the concern, it was a challenge just trying to get numbers that were telling of the ship and not atrociously hard to remember (though I know it's still difficult). But to keep the plane references going, one other example which was an inspiration was smaller planes such as the Cessna's pilots typically learn to fly in. Cessna 150's, 152's, 172's and 182's are some of the most common small planes used for training. They're all a similar size, but because of their slight differences they have slightly different numbering schemes without being too drastic.

And in reference to your adjusted list, that doesn't follow our overall plan for primary class size, as a Bahtra 790 would be in the second largest class size and would be well over 500 meters long, instead of the ~140 the Class 1 frigate is.

Another thing I'd like to add is that part of what may be attributing to the confusion is that we're showing all the ships at once, so they're just names and numbers on screen. If they're broken into their individual manufacturer's it looks more manageable, and even more so when you have the ships in front of you to look at.

 

[jzimmerman4]

The funny thing is that I had originally planned on scrapping it, but then I started associating other factors of those ships with the second digit, and the digits came out exactly the same, so I stuck with the original plan instead as it was more consistent.


I definitely understand the concern, it was a challenge just trying to get numbers that were telling of the ship and not atrociously hard to remember (though I know it's still difficult). But to keep the plane references going, one other example which was an inspiration was smaller planes such as the Cessna's pilots typically learn to fly in. Cessna 150's, 152's, 172's and 182's are some of the most common small planes used for training. They're all a similar size, but because of their slight differences they have slightly different numbering schemes without being too drastic.

And in reference to your adjusted list, that doesn't follow our overall plan for primary class size, as a Bahtra 790 would be in the second largest class size and would be well over 500 meters long, instead of the ~140 the Class 1 frigate is.

Okay I understand. Adding more uniformity though would make it easier to learn. Such as the smallest in the class being 11# (# being a "random" number) the the next in the class being 13# or something. But as long as every class follows this and it doesnt skip from 3 to 9 with out 5 in between then you'll know how strong it is compared the the others still.
So in other words if you come across a Bahtra 15#-## then you know it is guaranteed that there are two ships in the same class
that are weaker(11#-## and the 13#-##), making it the 3rd strongest ship in its respected class.

 

[Saber]

Okay I understand. Adding more uniformity though would make it easier to learn. Such as the smallest in the class being 11# (# being a "random" number) the the next in the class being 13# or something. But as long as every class follows this and it doesnt skip from 3 to 9 with out 5 in between then you'll know how strong it is compared the the others still.
So in other words if you come across a Bahtra 15#-## then you know it is guaranteed that there are two ships in the same class
that are weaker(11#-## and the 13#-##), making it the 3rd strongest ship in its respected class.

I can see your logic behind that, however some issues with that are that we may either have more ships than odd digits now or in the future for that primary class size, or also there are several ships that are very similar sizes. So sort of for my own benefit and also for everyone elses, I'd like to break these into their respective manufacturers, just to see if it seems less confusing than having a whole stack of numbers together.

Bahtra 105-10 = Drone
Bahtra 113-6 = Fighter
Bahtra 122-17 = Bomber
Bahtra 190-17 = Frigate

Crusa 110-11 = Shuttle
Crusa 140-8 = Salvager

Tak 188-14 = Freighter

So to reference the size difference, the Fighter and Bomber are very close in size, so their sub-class is only one digit difference. Let me know if having them listed by manufacturer's helps any though. There still remains a possibility that we could add to the names or tweak them slightly, but for the most part we've been fairly happy with them so far as it ties in with the overall TG mentality.

 

[jzimmerman4]

I can see your logic behind that, however some issues with that are that we may either have more ships than odd digits now or in the future for that primary class size, or also there are several ships that are very similar sizes. So sort of for my own benefit and also for everyone elses, I'd like to break these into their respective manufacturers, just to see if it seems less confusing than having a whole stack of numbers together.

Bahtra 105-10 = Drone
Bahtra 113-6 = Fighter
Bahtra 122-17 = Bomber
Bahtra 190-17 = Frigate

Crusa 110-11 = Shuttle
Crusa 140-8 = Salvager

Tak 188-14 = Freighter

So to reference the size difference, the Fighter and Bomber are very close in size, so their sub-class is only one digit difference. Let me know if having them listed by manufacturer's helps any though. There still remains a possibility that we could add to the names or tweak them slightly, but for the most part we've been fairly happy with them so far as it ties in with the overall TG mentality.

I certainly do like having them broken down into their manufacturers, that helps for sure. And I guess your system does make sense, the lower the number the weaker it is. I just know I will never remember the difference between the drone, fighter, and bomber.

I can certainly see a lot of thought went into this though so great job!

 

[Criss]

I certainly do like having them broken down into their manufacturers, that helps for sure. And I guess your system does make sense, the lower the number the weaker it is. I just know I will never remember the difference between the drone, fighter, and bomber.

Off the top of my head, I could name all the ships now, including the other two factions. And we've only know them for the past week or so. I don't think it will be too bad.

With the inclusion of the player submitted fleets, yeah it will get complicated then since we need names for those as well. Good lord.

 

[Saber]

So one other thing I'd like to share which I mentioned earlier as inspiration wasn't just aircraft model numbers, but also trucks. Because we approached it from the mindset of manufacturer's of craft largely associated with transport, inspiration was taken from how companies like Peterbilt and other American truck companies did their naming. Because of the quantity and variations of vehicles they produce, their naming conventions are rarely unique and clever (see below).

Spoiler

So hopefully that doesn't convolute it even further, I just wanted to provide some more insight into how the naming convention came about. As far as remembering the Bahtra's I personally love the 105 name, as it just sounds like a really small craft to me, so that one I find easy to remember, as well as the 190. I can understand having trouble with the fighter and bomber though, maybe there's something we can do with those to help make it more clear.

 

[jzimmerman4]

Off the top of my head, I could name all the ships now, including the other two factions. And we've only know them for the past week or so. I don't think it will be too bad.

With the inclusion of the player submitted fleets, yeah it will get complicated then since we need names for those as well. Good lord.

Hahah thats cause you made up the names.... but if you are going for giving the players a rough idea of what they are facing from a far then you definitely did succeed. Thanks for hearing out my suggestions :D

 

[Saber]

With the inclusion of the player submitted fleets, yeah it will get complicated then since we need names for those as well. Good lord.

Don't even get me started thinking about those, I'm about to head to bed, I'll have nightmares... Though I would like to use the player names as much as possible for those, if they provided them in their submission that is. Otherwise we get to make them up.
[doublepost=1474787344,1474787218][/doublepost]

Hahah thats cause you made up the names.... but if you are going for giving the players a rough idea of what they are facing from a far then you definitely did succeed. Thanks for hearing out my suggestions :D

I appreciate that, and I know we both appreciate the feedback, honestly we want to be sure everyone is on the same page with this so people don't just think we threw numbers at them with the intent to confuse them. Also for anyone trying to catch up on this conversation:

TL;DR - Bigger numbers = bigger ships. Bahtra=combat, so bigger number more dangerous. Tak = Freighter, so bigger number=more loot.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

Don't even get me started thinking about those, I'm about to head to bed, I'll have nightmares... Though I would like to use the player names as much as possible for those, if they provided them in their submission that is. Otherwise we get to make them up.

on that, are you guys gonna make up the lore for each submission on your own or would you guys accept some lore from the creators? I'd imagine creating new lore for each submission would allow each one to better fit in the games lore but then again that could take forever.

Personally I'd love to help you guys out with the lore being a bit of lore nut myself.

 

[Saber]

on that, are you guys gonna make up the lore for each submission on your own or would you guys accept some lore from the creators? I'd imagine creating new lore for each submission would allow each one to better fit in the games lore but then again that could take forever.

Personally I'd love to help you guys out with the lore being a bit of lore nut myself.

We aren't actually doing any lore for the manufacturer's. Because player fleets can be used by any random faction, we're considering the player's as manufacturer's, so no specific lore will be needed, as that would be way too much to try and keep track of. We'll just be giving the ships names and setting them loose upon the universe.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

We aren't actually doing any lore for the manufacturer's. Because player fleets can be used by any random faction, we're considering the player's as manufacturer's, so no specific lore will be needed, as that would be way too much to try and keep track of. We'll just be giving the ships names and setting them loose upon the universe.

wait how would that effect the player interaction with them? does that mean we wouldn't be able to get missions from them, gain/loss reputation, ect?

 

[Saber]

wait how would that effect the player interaction with them? does that mean we wouldn't be able to get missions from them, gain/loss reputation, ect?

No no, nothing like that. that's all dependent on the factions. Keep in mind that the fleet's players made are not being used by only one faction. There could be dozens of random factions throughout a universe that use one player's fleet, yet be completely different factions. That's what I mean by manufacturer's, the players through the competition are simply acting as ship providers. Like how two people can own the same car, but you can still have very different experiences with those people.

It's the factions that will give out missions and reputation, the ships that they use won't have any effect on that ability.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

No no, nothing like that. that's all dependent on the factions. Keep in mind that the fleet's players made are not being used by only one faction. There could be dozens of random factions throughout a universe that use one player's fleet, yet be completely different factions. That's what I mean by manufacturer's, the players through the competition are simply acting as ship providers. Like how two people can own the same car, but you can still have very different experiences with those people.

It's the factions that will give out missions and reputation, the ships that they use won't have any effect on that ability.

oh ok, was under the impression that each fleet belonged to a faction seeing as it would be really weird and immersion breaking if the factions lore was at odds with the ships they were flying.

so does that mean that factions will have random assortments of ships? like 1 ship from fleet A and 2 ships from fleet B?

 

[Saber]

oh ok, was under the impression that each fleet belonged to a faction seeing as it would be really weird and immersion breaking if the factions lore was at odds with the ships they were flying.

so does that mean that factions will have random assortments of ships? like 1 ship from fleet A and 2 ships from fleet B?

No, each faction should choose (as I understand it) one fleet and use the ships from that one fleet. There will likely be a lot of back-end stuff going on to determine what sort of factions choose what sort of fleets (trade fleets, combat fleets, etc.) but that's why during the contest we told people that they weren't actually creating factions, just fleets that would be used by random factions. Trying to integrate that much lore from different sources would be impossible.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

No, each faction should choose (as I understand it) one fleet and use the ships from that one fleet. There will likely be a lot of back-end stuff going on to determine what sort of factions choose what sort of fleets (trade fleets, combat fleets, etc.) but that's why during the contest we told people that they weren't actually creating factions, just fleets that would be used by random factions. Trying to integrate that much lore from different sources would be impossible.

I'm guessing that it might entail some kind of affinity tags for each fleet (eg. "industrial" tag for a more utilitarian looking fleet, "evil" tag for darker more pointier ships). that way theres no lore conflict.

 

[Lecic]

I would hope that the game would at least try and avoid reusing a fleet for a procedural faction until they've all been used up first. It would be awkward for two factions to be using the same fleet in the spawn galaxy.

 

[Ithirahad]

I still believe that the ships should at least have a letter somewhere in the serial number, if anything so players can remember them a little better.

Bahtra 105-10 = Drone... Bahtra D-10, D being obviously for Drone.
Bahtra 113-6 = Fighter... Bahtra SF-15, SF for Space Fighter (in case there are atmospheric fighters later, and to distinguish from the actual F-15 Eagle)
Bahtra 122-17 = Bomber... Bahtra SB-17, or SF-17
Bahtra 190-17 = Frigate... Bahtra LSS-190, LSS for Light Starship

Crusa 110-11 = Shuttle... Crusa T11 Swift (T for Transport)
Crusa 140-8 = Salvager... Crusa M13 Harvest (M for Mining vessel)

Tak 188-14 = Freighter... Tak H110-XS (H for hauler, 110 is just a model number, XS for Extra Small)