Naming scheme for your ships! (0.24 edition)

[mystik]

Ooh, fancy name rules.

I used to name my ships random stuff in the initial days. Now that I have unlocked over half the science I went back and deleted most my designs and returned to basic models. Basic models means something that has been tested to work good, without anything extra added to them, also called barebones (no science instruments, no extra add-ons, no unnecessary parts except for the strictly needed).

Depending on the simplicity or complexity of the designs, I number them with versions.

As such:

Basic Space Plane V1.0 (does not actually reach space) is reserved for a small plane that can do low range flight around the base. I may wish to test some things or just practice my landing.

V1.1 is planned for bigger craft that can reach at least half way the planet but not space (work in progress) but the initial design has been scrapped for the time being until better wings are researched to help with the overall flight quality and distance.

V1.2 is planned for the craft that can reach the entire span of the planet and is to carry a crew of at least 3 (lacking the proper technology right now)

V2.0 is reserved for space planes that can reach very high altitudes. (Vx.1/x.2 rules follow the same roles as before)

V3.0 is reserved for space planes that can go to orbit.

 

Basic Space Ships

Basic Orbiter Rescue V1.0 unmanned vessel with room for 3 crew used to launch rescue missions to near planet orbits, armed with a claw to recover parts and enough fuel to set debris on planet descent trajectories for those ship that do not need recovery but would like to bring down from space to clear the area. Can perform up to 3 recoveries of crews and one if captured with the claw and kept within the part. Armed with two parachutes that provide enough efficiency to land below the 6.6m/s and not destroy anything. I will most likely need to add more batteries or solar panels since the thing is damn fragile when it comes to power, and cannot survive more than 60 minutes away from sunlight.

To note, it is all on the 1.25m rockets and components, so the top part may be replaced depending on what needs to be lifted to orbit. I like to keep things that work in order to maintain order and to learn the rockets. It should be able to launch small satellites very far in the planet orbit.

So far I have planned the Basic Moon Lander V1.0 which should be a universal thing to allow me to go to the Mun or Minmus. I know that this is counterproductive, but I plan to use the same design to travel to the moon and then with the help of a second ship with a lander to do all the on and off missions and return with the main ship back.

 

While I have no basic rovers I do plan on implementing the same designs as above, only that this time the science instruments will be implemented.

 

I have no plans for making basic satellites since these contracts are all random and require different specs and that would be useless since I would have to edit stuff all the time.

 

Sorry for being potentially boring with my descriptions.

Edited December 1, 2016 by mystik

[moogoob]

This thread's been going forever. I like.

I still use the Tarot naming scheme - half my launches are by Fool, Magician or Strength rockets, with Emperors only being used if I REALLY can't get it up there any other way.  The Empress (Rhino-based) has been mostly relegated to super-heavy upper stage status since the adjustment that halved sea-level TWR, but once in a while I'll make a boosted version of it.

My shuttles all have the name -bird somewhere. Nastybird, Angrybird, Cargobird, Bigbird, etc.

[Guest]

I use the USAF Tri-service designations for planes. For rockets, I have nothing preset.

Here it is if you're interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_United_States_Tri-Service_aircraft_designation_system

[razark]

Each of mine generally has three names: Class, Vessel, and Mission.

Class: Usually rather descriptive of the vehicle.  Version numbers and letters are added as new designs are added or designs change.  Science Orbiter gathers science from orbit; Taxi 1 is the first design to take tourists; Mun Probe 1 is a Mun/Minmus science orbiter; Station Core 1, Station Hab 1, and Station Lab 1 are station modules.  Later classes that are used for surface to orbit crew or cargo transport are currently named after Viking ship types based on capacity.  The Karve class is a small crew transport with a small cargo capacity, the Knarr is a larger crew/cargo transport and so on.

Vessel: Early naming is based on purpose.  Science One and Science Two are small vehicles for sub-orbital science gathering.  Orbiter One and so on were for orbital science missions.  A series of Taxi 1 <letter> carried tourists.  Mun Explorer I and Minmus Explorer II were Mun Probe 1(A) class vessels.  Romulus and Remus were a pair of Karve class vessels used for docking tests.  Stations are named after location and phonetic alphabet.  L(ow) K(erbin) O(rbital) R(esearch) S(tation) Alpha followed by LKORS Bravo, LMORS Charlie, LMiORS Delta and so on.  Stations are built up of things like Alpha Hab Module docked to Alpha Core Module.  Later vessels that are used for surface to orbit crew or cargo transport are named after whatever strikes me.  Right now they're running off a list of US Escort Carriers of WWII.

Mission: Named after a brief mission description.  K(erbin) S(ub) O(rbital) 1 followed by KSO-2, L(ow) K(erbin) O(rbit) 1 and LKO-2, Mun Examination 1, Minmus Landing 2, LKORS Alpha Crew 1 Launch, LKORS Bravo Construction 3, etc.

[Hex6t6]

When I name my ships, I either go for some sort of Acronym or a word that's usually either an in-joke for me, or suits the mission. I named a space station Archon because I used to play Heroes and Generals with a guy called Arch0n, and I named my Jool mission Hugo because the rocket was huge, and it was kind of a play-on-words of the Juno mission. 
I used to also go MkI, MkII, etc but then I found out about the Launch Numbering mod that means that successive launches add 1, 2, etc to the end, and launched revisions of a craft are suffixed by a (Bloc I), (Bloc II), etc.

I think the names of my craft are fairy organic, and I either get a friend to name it and dedicate the mission to them, or name it when I see the finished product like John Hammons naming a freshly-hatched Velociraptor. Hm...

[septemberWaves]

Lately I've been using numerical classifications for launch vehicles with lots of variants.

Example: my Cinnabar-series launch vehicles. For the first three core types, there is a 3-digit designation. The first digit is the core type, the second is the number of SRBs, and the third is the number classification of the upper stage. The upper stages are C1 through to C7. The Raven series uses a similar convention, but it's not quite the same.