I’m having to do a ton of scrooling on the sidebar where all your ship designs are available (when you’re placing ships on the map). How are the rest of you managing this? Also, what kind of naming schemes are you using to help you pick out each ship when you have a lot to choose from?
The names of each ship get pretty long, but being exact but using abbreviated names helps- start each ship name with the race (just the first letter- F R A E), hull type (FI FR CR), shorthand of the hull (StRay, Valhal), and after that, its purpose (R FI Achil Torpbomber) or list of weapons (3xCBL1xION etc) or equipment. The key is the race and hull type, though; it keeps it all organized.
I know what race each ship belongs to by name so my ship names are purely descriptive of their role. Eg: Praetorian Assault Cruiser for my Imperial heavily shielded, shield killing (loaded with Cruiser Lasers) short-range cruiser.
Yeah I have a similar naming scheme. For instance, Rebel torpedo frigates would be named RFT6 500 for a six torpedo design where 500 is the cost of the ship (it would be nice if you were presented with cost information when mousing over a ship design, but this is my current workaround). Sometimes I also put down the ship’s speed or other useful information in it’s name as well.
I have a subfolder in my ships directory that I dump my mothballed designs into when they start to get in the way. Hopefully the subdirectory doesn’t cause any weird issues with the game…
Putting price in a ship’s name is a great idea; I’ve only recently gotten into being as cost-efficient as possible, and to pricing ships so they fit nicely into the credit allowance.
I think its time for me to wipe all my ship designs again and start over. (I just bought this yesterday, so I’m still good.)
I am already doing something similar to Raiden, just a few more letters. Except I just use F for frigate, and I for fighter. Then I use either A, S or N for armored, shield, none. (an x after to exceuntuate tank like ships.) Then the range I would expect the ship to fight in. ©lose (m)edium (f)ar. Then descriptive words for its role, like anti fighter, anti frigate, assault, special (has something like anti missles) etc.
Fear my RC S C Assault ship.
SC, FR, CR.
Followed by thematic names.
For example, a short ranged frigate with good staying power:
Warrior, Footman, Knight.
Affordability <----> Power
Fast Attack Frigate:
Bandit, Rogue, Assassin
Affordability <----> Power
Missile Frigs:
Archer, Hunter, Ranger
Affordability <----> Power
Bombardment Frigs:
Shooter, Gunner, Grand Matross
Affordability <----> Power
Assault Cruiser:
Swordsmaid, Nightingale, Valkyrie
Affordability <----> Power
And so forth.
Followed with Mark numbers, followed by a one/two letter designation for slight variations for the design. (A-attack, D - Defense, B-Bomber/Bombardier, F - Fast, S - Siege, R - Recon, etc.)
Plus, I clear my designs a lot and redo them anyway, but haven’t done so for this game (I had well over one hundred different ship designs active in one Sword of the Stars campaign) since I haven’t purchased the full game yet (Need to sort new credit card + paypal out).
Hopefully this will be some help to people with a ton of ships:
Brilliant.