I have a rather complex system:
CLASSIFICATION:
- TUGS: Cargo-hulled ships are "tugs", in homage to StarFleet Battles.
- SCOUTS: Any ship designed to "see," often called "sensor ships" or "eyes" by others. Again, homage to SFB, but it makes sense... there is no real "physical scouting" in space, you just get close enough to use your sensors. As technology gets better, you stop having to move around as much to make this work.
- FIGHTERS: I am not fond of having "fighters," because I prefer the SciFi framework where fighters are expressly sublight, sacrificing FTL for weapons. However, I do use them, in part so I don't have to name every little ship.
-MONITORS: Ships with no engines, for planetary defence. Some people call these "orbital weapons platforms" or "defenders." I sometimes also use fighters with no engines in this role, but those are treated as fighters.
- WARSHIPS: Everything else. The line between fighter and warship is usually at small/ medium hull size, but sometimes at tiny/ small if I am willing to put up with the micromanagement.
WARSHIP CLASSIFICATION:
- I normally follow the current USN standard (exemplified by StarFleet Battles and StarFire): CT < FF < DD < CL < CA < BB. I don't use "dreadnought," because the term is descriptive, nad not a real wet navy classification. I don't normally use CLs, and rarely CTs, and I sometimes skip either FF or DD.
- I sometimes add a "G" to the designation of ships armed with missiles, following USN practice.
- Sometimes I follow a modified age of sail convention, which recognizes frigates and ships-of-the-line (just "battleships"), using "FF" and "BB."
- Occasionally I follow a Diane Duane/ B5 (and Star Wars, sort of) convention, where a "destroyer" is bigger than a cruiser. I still use DD and CA, though.
WARSHIP SIZES:
- A medium hull is usually an FF or a CA. Large is usually a BB, but sometimes a CA. A small is usually either a (heavy) fighter or a CT, but in my current game it is both FF and DD.
- It seems silly to me that a race would think "well, this is my badassest ship ever, but I'll call it a "destroyer," because I figure eventually I'll build a bigger ship and call IT a "battleship." You're more likely to commemorate your achievement with a cool name. I therefore sometimes model "slippage," where the classification of a hull size changes with time. Usually, the first "real" warships (medium hulls) are called either "cruiser" or "frigate," as these are nice, historical, descriptive names. Later they might be "destroyers," or I might just mess up the order of classes to keep them there.
OVERALL NAME SCHEME:
For Terran vessels, I often concentrate on historical naval (warhsip) or aircraft (fighter) names. For my "United Erf," which is a hokie, Star Trek-style "parallel Earth," I can get away with the same (that's why I made the race). For aliens, I usually stick with abstract concepts, names of planets or characters in the game, or other non-Earth-specific topics.
NAMING STRATEGY:
TUGS AND (non-fighter) MONITORS:
- CLASS NAME: these usually have a class name. I often use the same hull design for all of them. I currently have a single tug design with slight jewelry changes for the "AMV", "FTV", "SBV", "CTV", "TTV", and "SWAC" variants (asteroid, freighter, constructor, colony, troop transport, and scout variants).
- VERSIONS: I variously designate improved versions with a system of roman numerals, arabic numeral, or "+", "++" "X" series modifiers. The numerals are sometimes preceded by "Mark," when I am not being lazy. Thus you can get the "Space Tug TTV+," the "Space Tug TTV MkII," or the "Space Tug TTV 2."
- NAMES: I use the automatically generated name.
FIGHTERS:
- CLASS NAME: the class name is preceeded by a alphanumeric miilitary-style prefix. I like SA (Space, Attack), SC (Space, Combat), or just F (Figher). Often, small size hulls have a different prefix than tiny. This is followed by a sequential number; sometimes one sequence, sometimes separate sequences for separate alphbetical prefixes. I like "Star-" as a prefix (homage to B5). I do, however, have the "F-1 Rancid." That was just silly fun.
- VERSIONS: I usually use an alphabetical suffix for versions, usually starting with A. Sometimes, if I design the ship with the intent of upgrading before I build it, I will use a Y- prefix ala the USAF ("YSA-1 Starcat"). I often change the prefix for more advanced versions (see below). Thus the "SA-1A Starcat" became the "SA-1C Bearcat," the "SA-1E Thundercat," etc.
- NAMES: I use the automatically generated name.
WARSHIPS AND SCOUTS:
- CLASS NAME: there is always a class name. Following naval tradition, that name is always the name of a ship (whenever possible, the first produced).
- CLASSIFICATION: I always add "Class" and the "standard" two-letter classification symbol at the end of the name, e.g., "Dark Star Class FF."
- VERSIONS: Same as for tugs.
- NAMES: I usually have a name-scheme for a class, and often an overall scheme for a type (e.g., destroyers are often military leaders, battleships are often named for planets I own). Some of my favorite schemes are generals, admirals, famous ships, cities, states, countries, political leaders, snakes, predatory mammals, cool adjectives and British ships that start with R, "[insert color here] Star," famous paleontologists, etc.
- PREFIXES: I sometimes use a prefix for ship names, such as UES ("United Erf Ship"). This gets to be a pain after a while.
- HULL NUMBERS: I have used sequential hul numbers in names, e.g., "UES Dark Star FF 01." Keeping these sequential is a real pain, and I don't usually do this anymore.
And it took four times as long to write that as it did to think it up. Man, can I waste time or what?
