Naming conventions for all mod files

from GalCiv2 Forums
I have noticed a trend in the Library of files for the file names being ambiguous or too generic. To be honest some are very well named or at least partially descriptive, but file names like ships2.zip are worthless when trying to figure out what it is at a later time. As all the computers that will run this game support long file names, why not take advantage of that and make the files somewhat descriptive. This is something that can grow and evolve as time goes on, but there has to be a starting point.

May I suggest the following as starting points:

Start the file with the basic game item such as Ship, Mod, Portrait, Logo, or some basic usefull one word description of what the contents are.

Then follow it with subject matter. Such as b5 for Babylon 5, SW for Star Wars, ST for Star Trek, and BG for Battlestar Galactica. GEN can be used for basic game stuff.

Follow this with a NAME for the item.

Lastly if there is more than one version available put it as v1-1 or v3-0 or such.

Here are some examples:

Ship-B5-CR-Carrier.zip
Ship-B5-CR-Octurian.zip
Ship-B5-EF-Warlock.zip
Ship-B5-EF-Warlock-v1-1.zip
Ship-PR-Basis.zip
Ship-SW-Shippak1.zip
Ship-SW-Shippak2.zip
Ship-SW-ImperialShipsetV2.zip
Ship-ST-klingon_ships_101.zip
Ship-TastyShips18200629.zip
Mod-Ship-KryosHullSystemMod.zip
Mod-Ship-KryosHullSystemMod-14b.zip
Mod-Gen-Resource_Icons1200626.zip
Mod-Gen-TradeRouteEstablished.zip
Mod-Gen-TradeRouteEstablished2.zip
Logo-B5-B5Logos.zip
Logo-FS-FSLogoPack12.zip
Logo-ST-star_trek_logos.zip
Portrait-B5-pak1.zip

I hope this gives and idea of what I am striving for. As I tend to download and archive files to a great degree and over the years have worked out a system for a lot of it, I do have quite a lot of items that are not readily available any longer. (patches, mods and such)

Hopefully we can sticky this thread and folks can add comments and ideas to expand on this.
modding
5,196 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Also put your nickname at the start of the filename
(for example : Whismerhill_modname.zip )

Stardock
please STICKY this one
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This should be required reading for all modders. Naming conventions, especially for a sizable modding community such as the one here, just make sense. This begs to be stickied.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Actually the nick should probably go in the name part of the file name like these:

Mod-Ship-KryosHullSystemMod.zip
Mod-Ship-KryosHullSystemMod-14b.zip

This mainly because they are Mods first and ships second. There could be several other mods of this type by other folks and with the nickname later it will still follow with the same grouping.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Just thought it would be a good time to give this a bump for new folks.