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Naming Policy, The Art of Naming your Rockets.


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Not something I gave really done yet, but keep meaning to. My only named vessel so far is the KSS Jebediah, a refuelling and science station in LKO, named after a certain kerbonaut who died in a tragic space plane test - after sneaking into the cockpit against orders.

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I'm too utilitarian and there's really no reason for fancy names unless you are a well known and popular streamer/LPer. I always end up with barebone stuff like Mun Lander or Duna Orbiter. I had to vary it a bit when I took up Remote Tech but not by much.

Now, I like to transpose names from one game to another. My best example is naming the (military) ship classes in Aurora based on the monster roster of Dragon's Dogma. Subclasses being tied to both the tech level and their effectiveness/tiers. It helps me a lot when trying to arrange ships around because I can tell from the class name alone the size and purpose of each ship or task group.

If you haven't played Aurora yet, I highly recommend it, by the by. Think Dwarf Fortress (in terms of complexity, gameplay has nothing even remotely similar), but in space.

Corvettes/Cutters:

Goblin - Hobgoblin - Grimgoblin

Frigates:

Wolf - Dire Wolf - Hellhound

Destroyer:

Saurian - Geo Saurian - Pyre Saurian

Cruiser:

Eliminator - Persecutor - Tormentor

Battlecruiser:

Drake - Wyvern - Wyrm

Battleship:

Firedrake - Thunderwyvern - Frostwyrm

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For most of my rockets, I use a descriptive name of function or payload (especially for parts to be assembled in orbit, e.g., Omega Station Power Module).

For reusable shuttles/orbital motherships, I first translate it's role into naval terms. Mk2 Spaceplane shuttles tend to be corvettes or thereabouts. Then I find a class of that type from (usually) the royal navy, and I then pick names from the type. My last ones were Amethyst Class ships, Amethyst and Encounter.

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I've started using the names of geographic eras for each separate program (unmanned Mun landers, manned space stations), like Carboniferous or Cretaceous, or some of the more obscure ones like Procrustean or Jiangshanian, along with a number or roman numeral afterwards, along with a Test or something before the name if it's, well, a test. Sometimes different though.

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  • 3 years later...

Just name your rockets after birds. It sounds cool and... yeah they sound cool, and that is it.

If you had a sea-launched rocket or a seaplane, call it a Waterfowl-class seaplane/sea launch rocket.

If you had a heavy lifter, google really big birds and name it that.

Make the prefix I, II, III, IV, and so on. Add a "heavy" or "super" after that for an iteration of that craft with more boosters.

Like lets say you had an Eagle-class HLV. You make another one based of the Eagle (it doesn't have to be bigger, it just has to be better, but it usually is bigger), name it the Eagle II. You add more boosters to the Eagle II, call it the Eagle II Heavy. 

*boom* now you have an easy way to make your rockets. 

 

 

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I think I've got better at naming my various vessels as I've gone along.  Currently I have --

 

Satellite Relay - Soccer stadiums - e.g. Anfield, Santiago Bernabeu, Damson, Nethermoor, etc.

Rovers - Animals (Goat, Scorpion, Elephant, etc).  Rovers for a particular body or area are related, e.g. Scorpion, Spider and Horsehose Crab are all at Vall.

Surface Base - Female scientists (Ida Noddack, Marie Curie, Vera Rubin, Emmy Noether, etc.)

ISRU refueller - Bands (Beatles, Oasis, Chemical Brothers, etc.).  For surface to orbit excursions for crew, and to refuel stuff in orbit.

Wheeled ISRU refueller - Dog and Cat breeds (Labrador, Persian, Alsatian, etc.).  Similar to above but with more ore capacity and less crew capacity.

Interplanetary Crew Transport - Mathematicians (Pythagoras, Aristotle, Al-Khwarizmi, George Boole, Isaac Newton, etc.).  Some themeing - Ancient Greek for Duna, Middle-eastern for Moho, Calculus-related for Sarnus, etc.

Returners - Footballers (Paul Scholes, Andrea Pirlo, Gareth Bale, Ferenc Puskas, etc.).  Returners are designed to fulfill "World's first contracts" by returning to Kerbin.

Mun Tourist Bus - Shakespearean plays or quotations (King Lear, As you like it, The Tempest, etc.).  Designed to take some tourists to either the Mun or Minmus and return.

Sun Peekers - Terry Pratchett Books (e.g. The Colour of Magic, Mort, Going Postal, etc.) - these are designed to take tourists outside of Kerbin's SOI (very) briefly before returning back to Kerbin.

Eve Landers - Classical music or light opera (e.g. Ruslan and Lyudmilla, Ritt der Walkuren, Pirates of Penzance, etc.).  To get crew to the surface of Eve and back.

Laythe SSTOs - Species of pterosaurs (e.g.  Hatzegopteryx, Jeholopterus)

Kerbin non-SSTO planes - non-raptor birds (e.g Duck, Pigeon, Avocet)

Kerbin SSTO planes - Raptors (e.g. Eagle, Red Kite, Hawk)

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Hey guys,

so im new to both KSP and this forum, this is my first post actually and also the one topic that made me sign up, anyway I just wanted to throw my two cents in.

I name everything off of a story I’m both attempting to write and that I’ve heavily modified and adapted for the Kerbals to explain why they are trying to explore space. It all begins with the save game title which is the name of the Kerbals space program parent company, VoidSolutions LTD. basically they are trying to answer this strange calling they received to find the “Void” somewhere in space so without boring you all too much the ships will be called the VoidProtos MK1 fro the first rocket ( Protos has a big meaning in the story) then things like the Void Wanderer or VoidSeeker etc. and depending on why I build a ship to fit this story that plays in my head something more fanciful as the VoidVengance. So there you go 1/2 cent of my two cents!

 

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How ships are named:

First, the body to go to, then the class of the ship, a nickname, acronym/initialism of the manufacturer, and number. So if I had a lander to go to Minmus manufactured by Zaltonic Electronics, name being Jelly, and it's ZE's 7th rocket, we'd have

Minmuslander "Jelly" ZE-07.

So, 

[body][class] "[name][manufacture]-[number]

On 9/7/2018 at 10:17 AM, Kernel Kraken said:

Acronyms.

Passenger Landing Aero-Nautical Engine.

P.L.A.N.E!

And this.

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  • 5 months later...
9 hours ago, NotConor said:

Is it just me, or are the images not loading? I saw this thread a while ago and came back to look at the scheme and the images aren't loading anymore. ;.;

Probably because this thread is from 2014, and I reckon many of the image hosting sites have changed the way they work since then.

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The only consistency I have right now are my launchers:

  • Proton Analogue: "Butalae" (for its bundling). Quad (testing) Hexa (out, Proton-K/M), and of course the 700 (UR700). Weirdly, due to the "bundling, Saturn I (Octa) is also there.
  • The R7 and Angara use "Ladle). Angara have the designation of "YiWCC"
  • The American Rockets are known as "Fogin" series. 1.25m use YiCC, 1.8m use YiWCC, 2.5m use ErCC, 3.75m use SaCC, and the 5m use SiCC
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[Enter Destination Name] Centrurion.

Tengen Toppa & Super Tengen Toppa Centurion

Sheep & Sheep v2 & Sheep v3

Kerpollo, Dunpollo, and such (Sheepollo and Gigapollo in the future)

Millenia

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I take inspiration from the Culture novels of Iain M Banks. So my most recent craft have been called the "I can see your house from here" and "Two's company, tea's a crowd"

... it does make it slightly confusing sometimes.

 

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