Player defined ship names

[Xeno]

Is there any discussion about adding the ability to "name" a ship? It would be akin to the ship id but player defined. Probably would default to the model name or maybe make and model.

Han Solo has the Millenium Falcon, Cpt Kirk has the Enterprise... I've got XR-5063. And while XR-5063 is an awesome ship id, it perhaps doesn't have quite the endearing quality of a good solid name.

And while it would be ok to just have the player ship named, i really would like to vote as hard as i can for universalizing it and adding names to all ships. Later in development, when meeting other ships is more common, I think it would be greatly appreciated.

[FluffyFreak]

Yes this is a good idea, it might need a little work to display it on the hull somewhere. Maybe it could replace the "XR-5063" text or something...

But the internals of it are a good idea, simply giving players the option to name it, we have plenty of auto-generated names already so we'd just need to adapt one for auto-naming ships.

[impaktor]

I've had thoughts on this as well.

I think a player should be able to name a ship, make it more personal, and it would work pretty much exactly like how we can change name of our character.

However, I think the registration number should stay as it is. My thoughts were then that at some special "pirate base" they could actually change the registration number for you (for a hefty amount of money) and when doing that it resets your criminal record.

[Xeno]

I was thinking of it working as impaktor describes: Name + ID, where Name is user defined and variant and ID is game assigned and (mostly ;) read-only.

I hadn't really thought of trying to put the name on the ship. That might be too much due to character size restrictions, and you invite all this "special fonts/colors for my shipname" business. Mostly I was thinking of ui branding, module flavor, faction flavor, the ship info and possibly the hud later. All stuff that can be WIP'd over whenever as long as the base is laid.

I read somewhere (impaktor, iirc) that "the player is the ship". I liked the sentiment.

[GunChleoc]

I hadn't really thought of trying to put the name on the ship. That might be too much due to character size restrictions, and you invite all this "special fonts/colors for my shipname" business.

Not to mention that Chinese players will want Chinese characters on their ship etc... this needs to be kept in mind when implementing this.

[Evarchart]

Maybe players could add a .png image to the exterior of the ship? Badges or decals etc? These could also be ship names etc just a thought for the graphical side of things. I do love the idea of being able to name the ship though.

[FluffyFreak]

From RYA(pdf)

NAMING YOUR BOAT:
You will need to decide on a name by which your boat is to be
known. For boats on the Part I Register, the proposed name should
not already be the name of a ship on the Part I Register or be
similar to such a name.
General restrictions for both registers are that; the proposed name
should not be similar to a distress signal, likely to cause offence or
embarrassment, have a clear connection with the Royal Family, or
have a port as part of its name if that is not the boat’s port of
choice.

So ships names should be unique (a little tricky for Pioneer), not be "HELP" / "HELP HELP HELP" / "MAYDAY" / "SOS"/ "SECURITE" etc. The other two we could probably discount :)

Anyone know of any good ship naming algorithms? I can find plenty of generators but no naming lists etc.

[impaktor]

I can find plenty of generators but no naming lists

List_of_snakes_by_common_name

:)

EDIT:
No way!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists

[FluffyFreak]

Ok so where would this name be visible then?
I've got a branch where I've added a Lua function and the backend storage of the name, not saving/loading it yet actually.

However, where would we be able to see?
How would we be able to change it?
- with real ships/boats you have to register the name of your boat officially.
- this is usually done with the country where your boat is registered and it's insurer.
So can you just open up your personal details and change it, or should I add a sub-new page to the spacestation shipyard menus and charge a small fee?

Andy

[impaktor]

I thought it could be just like how you can change the name of your character, but on the ship info page instead. So the "Ship Information" would look more similar to "Personal Information".

If changing the name of your ship requires a ship yard, than I think changing the name of your character would require a tax or police office or something.

My idea is that chaining the ship ID number would be more of a hassle, requiring shipyard or bribery or pirate station or something like that.