Ship naming and My Properties list

[modernrocko]

Here's something I've always been curious on regarding how others manage their properties in X3.

What kind of nomenclature do you use for your ships and stations? That is, how do you name your ships? Similarly, how do you manage your properties list? Do you let everything remain visible or do you hide specific properties to keep the list tidy and easy to find what you need at a glance?

Here are my methods in case anyone's interested:

Regarding ship names, I like to name all of my ships after some fictional ships in TV/Film/Book series I like. For example, my first ST/UT is usually the Nostromo, from the film Aliens. But I also like to be able to immediately see some additional information about my ships when I open my properties list, like ship class, type, and role. So using the example of the Nostromo, when I first install Trade Mk3 software and start it as a sector trader it's name should be:

(ST) Nostromo (Mercury-TS)

Once it's reached the proper level and it can start as a UT, I rename it with (UT) at the beginning instead. This way, when I open my properties list if I'm looking for a specific ship I can just quickly go down the list scanning that first "tag" of "(ST) / (UT)" to find what I need. Similarly, if a ship is of a specific variant I will include that in the class/type tag at the end. For example, a captured Demeter Super Freighter XL that I'm using as a manual transport has the name:

(T) Hunter Gratzner (Demeter.SFXL-TS)

Here are all of the tags I use to denote various roles:
(ST/UT/LT) - Sector Trader / Universe Trader / Local Trader
(T) - Manual Transporter / Misc Storage Ship
(C) - Carrier (regardless of class, this denotes a vessel which I use strictly for ship storage/pickup)
(SD) - Sector Defense (for larger class ships with fighter wings docked, used primarily for station/complex defense)
(P) - Patrol Leader (usually M6 vessels with two or three supporting fighters)

If a ship doesn't meet any of these criteria, it doesn't get a tag. Examples being M5-M3's assigned as a fighter wing to an (SD).

For station names I have a similar structure, also naming my stations and complexes after fictional space stations. For example, my first solar power plant is almost always named Solaris. Station name layout is the same as ships:

Solaris Station (SPP.XL)


Some other interesting bits related to the My Properties list:

First and foremost I disable satellites from showing in the list, as I think most other players probably also do. This cleans up much of the list. I then set all of my automated traders to Hidden (under ship control - command console - hide from property menu). HOWEVER, after doing this I go into the Options menu on the properties list (tab on far right side) and set the option "Don't Show Hidden Ships" to "NO" - This means the ships still show up in the list, but it has the awesome effect of changing the text color of those ships in this list to grey instead of green. I find that incredibly helpful because it means at a quick glance I can still easily find any ships I want by looking for green text, but if something bad is happening with one of my automated traders I can still see their grey entries in the list and quickly find the ship in question to address it's problems.

Interestingly, when you have a lot of fighters docked on a carrier somewhere, putting the (C) or (SD) in front of that ship's name has the nice side effect of showing that tag at the beginning of the fighters' location, so when scrolling through the list if I'm looking for something specific I can quickly see which fighters are docked on a carrier and which just happen to be in the same system as that carrier. (Hopefully this is easy to understand, it's hard to describe in text without a screenshot -- maybe I'll upload one if anyone's curious).

Anyway, I'm rambling. How do you all name your ships and stations, and how do you manage your property menu?

[NewtSoup]

I use CLS 2 and GAGs for trading in specific resouces.

CLS will bel

Energy 01 - Argon Prime
Energy 02 - Siezewell
Energy 03 - Weavers & Paranid Prime

Basically The sector is the "home sector" and the ship services all stations within 5 jumps. there's often overlap in "territories

CAG, because they service a station in a sector get

Argon Prime - Food - Energy 01
Argon Prime - Food - Cahoonas 01
Argon Prime - Food - BoFu 01
Argon Prime - Food - Nostrop 01

These would be ships servicing a "Food" complex in Argon Prime selling or buying from Galaxy Wide.

Ships under manual command get Frivolous names like Voodoo Child, Satan's Big Toe, Gunboat Diplomat, Paper Tiger etc.

[ajime]

I too cleared out satellites from list. and my list tend to classify by ship class. Had the same tendency to shorter the ships name too. Demeter super freighter XL becomes Trader Demeter SFXL(if it is a sector trader), Avarice-Ore Belt Heavy Load Transporter 1 if it is a a rail line Convoy.
For a home-based Factory Supply ship, I gave them Supply Demeter SFXL 1.

My CV fighters tend to be named rather generically like Nova 01 since they are usually set as home-based but useful to send specific ships repair after battle.

My special/Prototype ships have SP in front like SP Xperimental.

[DrSuperEvil]

I usually add a suffix with the role and number on the end.

[cobra mk2]

I try and keep it as simple as possible.
I usually have the job role as the first part of the name like Trader 06, Trader 02 etc.
If it is using cls,cag or ut/st then that is added to the beginning ie CAG Trader 01, CLS Trainer etc.
If it only dealing with one or two products then that goes in the title as CAG Ecells Trader 01.
The ship class is added to the end like CAG Trader 01 - TS and if it has a jumpdrive it becomes TSJ.
Capital ships are usually given a name but they still have their job role first ie Battleship Biffa Bacon M1J
M5-M3 are usually left alone unless i use them for a particular job

Complexies are always prefixed by my companies name in capitals ie GIBCOM Terran Food Complex, GIBCOM Missile Complex 03 etc

Sometimes i need to scan through my property list really fast to sort out a problem quickly so i think it's better to use as less text as possible. Having the ship models listed as part of the ships name doesnt really enable me to find that ship any faster so i dont use it.

[Hemmingfish]

For ships that supply a station I name them things like "Missile Energy Buyer", "HUB Supplier 01", "Missile Seller".

For sector traders I just name them Sector Trader 01, Sector Trader 02, etc

For personal ships I name them whatever I want:
Verdant Flow
Wishblade
Armourslayer

For capital ships I split them into Trade Fleet and Combat Fleet, prefixed with HTF and HCF:
HTF Marine Home
HTF Stationhand 01
HCF Balberith
HCF Cymbeline

I also set the property list so that it sorts by type instead of sector, because it displays a lot more properties that way and I can see all my stations at once.

[Sinxar]

Quick tip, placing any special characters including a space at the start of the name makes it appear at the top.

So you have a few ships you use a lot? Just put a space in front of the name to avoid scrolling.

[RainerPrem]

Quick tip, placing any special characters including a space at the start of the name makes it appear at the top.

So you have a few ships you use a lot? Just put a space in front of the name to avoid scrolling.

This category consists of all my TLs, M7s, M7Ms and M2s which are not in the following categories.

You have some ships you use even more often: Put two spaces in front.

This category consists of my fastest TL for station build missions in der war zone, a Hype and/or Springy as fastest transport for plot missions, one or two large TSs I need to transport larger amounts of goods manually

You have some ships you need really, really often: Put three spaces in front.

The latter category consists of:
1) My main vessel, typically a Hype or Springy
2) My fastest TP to call in for taxi missions
3) My best M7M with 20 Marines and a decent amount of hammers and flails to call in for boarding
4) The TP which is docked at the station, where my marines are being trained.
5) One M2 I use for cruises in Xenon sectors.

cu
Rainer

[Jimmy C]

I've found it convinient to have different naming conventions for combat and noncombat ships.

For combat ships, it's [type][name] like: Hyperion-Archangel
Because it's more important to know what type of combat ship it is than what it's named.

For noncombat ships, it's [name][type] like: Complex-CAG 1 - Mercury.
Because there will often be more than one of the same type of transporter flying around. So it's more important to know their function than their ship type.

[jlehtone]

Sequential numbering. Short names. CAG naming type 7.

Stations follow [sector]-[type]-[scale]-[number] e.g.
AP-Beef-C-16
as in 16th station, in Argon Prime, Cattle Ranch Complex equivalent to 100S (i.e. 20*L). Scale is Roman numeral.

Base name of freighters may get appreviated:

Code: Select all

Cai
Cai-H
Cai-M
Cai-SFX

(base, Hauler, Miner, SF XL variants of Caimans)

Short basename is better within CAG/CLS naming schema.

LT-Drake-DD-2-5 = 5th Trade Mk3 ship acting as Local Trader in Duke's Domain with range of 2. A Drake.

Cai-H-01 = first Caiman Hauler MORT

Combat ships are rather boring:

Code: Select all

Valhalla-01
Valhalla-02
Valhalla-03
...

although they might get fleet prefix:

Code: Select all

FA-Raptor-01
FA-Cobra-03
FA-Hades-A
FA-Hades-B

F = fleet; A, B, C, ...

[Honved]

I don't "name" my ships as such, but give each of them unique designations. For example, "My Mercury" would end up as "[Player faction name] Mercury [role] [number]". I don't call it by some personal name, like "The Junkheap", although I've been sorely tempted to call several Xenon ships by some unkind and unprintable name.
[Player faction name] would be what I call my "company", personal faction, or self in the game.
[role] would be a letter or letter/number designation based on function:
"F3" would be an M3 fighter, "LT" would be a local trader, C would be a CAG, and a plain M without a number would be a mining vessel. Using a mod to add repair lasers, an "E" would be an Engineering/Repair vessel, also providing resupply to the fleet, and would usually be either a TM or a TL.
[number] would be a simple ship number, next in line no matter what type or role it serves.

Examples: Kovacorp Mercury ST 17; Hoof of Xaar Perseus Vanguard M3 27.

I disable satellites in my property list, to avoid clutter. The ship types are also abbreviated in many cases, so a Mercury Superfreighter XL would end up as Mercury SFXL, and an Advanced Discoverer would be Adv Discoverer. Some of the combinations can still get a bit lengthy.