How do you Name your Vessels/missions?

[Steambirds]

So forums, here's a question: How do you guys name your vessels/missions? I personally like to choose the first noun that pops into my head when looking at my rocket, and then I slap a roman numeral onto the end for the mission number. Although all of my test craft are given greek/roman names and then alpha, beta, etc.

[Levelord]

Random things that come to my head. They are usually nonsensical.

For example, my mission to Moho involved a ship christened the "Moho Mofo".

[nekogod]

It depends really, planes usually get bird names, falcon this, eagle that kestrel whatever etc

Rockets usually get a name based on the function, ie Orbiter or Sky Lab or Duna explorer etc

[cicatrix]

Untitled spacecraft mostly for LKO ^)

Still I have

Mun-1, Mun-2... Mun-N

Minmus-1, Minmus-2...

Duna-1, Duna-2

etc

And I only have one Eve-4

[Callmedave]

If it's a small craft just to satisfy a contract, I might call it <part> test craft. Il delete the file after its done it job. For 'bigger' missions I try to give it a name, I had a Duna craft called Copernicus, my mun and minmus bases are both called 'eden'

I have a 'Dave station' too!

[RainDreamer]

For spacecrafts models, I name them after a theme I find interesting. My comsats and relay beacons are named after things related to sound, such as the lowest level relay beacon is called "Whisper", the higher one is called "Echo", etc. I may also name them with one of their outstanding feature, such as my mun lander, which has a huge, black heat shield on top of it for reentry on Kerbin, so I named it "Blackcap". It is memorable enough for me to remember what each model should do.

For missions and flight though, I have flight codes to allow me to keep track of many flights at once. For crafts orbiting a body, I name them in the following format:

[Orbiting body initials] - [Coded purpose of craft] - [Craft model name] - [#of copies if there are more than one]

An example: "K - RB - Whisper - 4" tells me it is the 4th Whisper model relay beacon orbiting Kerbin.

For craft in interplanetary transits, I do the same, but instead of [Orbiting body initials] I replace it with [initials of target body/Initials of origin body] to keep track which ways things are going.

An example: "Mu/K - Ldr - Blackcap" tells me it is a Blackcap model lander going from Kerbin to Mun.

There is a lot of benefits for keeping a system when you need to know where things are at all time. Especially when you are using Kerbal alarm clock and you have a lot of alarm listed for many crafts.

[Tery215]

I usually name them things like "moon bros" or "pole burner series"

My pole burner series has about 3 crafts that complete orbit specification contracts.

[Warscribe]

I have a chart.

http://i.imgur.com/YrY1bC0.jpg

[Musil]

I have a chart.

That was intimidating.

As a rule, I name my Mun missions "Archer" and then a number. Because Apollo... see, see? Minmus missions are sometimes called "Janus".

[T-Bouw]

I second naming my planes after birds.

Very obvious and easy!

Usually I try to give them a name that's fitting, not just a cool-sounding one.

My Colibri-series of planes, for instance, are named thus because they lack proper landing gear but hover great as do real Colibri birds.

[Guest]

Inconsistently.

[Norpo]

"Hm, what I should call this probe.."

"Fortitude? Nah... Swift? Nah... Discovery? Okay, that sounds good."

I just think of things that sound interesting and pick the best one from there.

[Finnan]

Planet / Mission / Number

ie: Minmus Contract 2

The second satellite build under contract orbiting Minmus.

[Travisfv]

I like birds, so I usually go with bird names. I did use Glacier recently for my first VTOL.

[soulsource]

Unmanned probes are named after their purpose, like "Minmus Temperature Sat", but manned missions are either named after famous authors or scientists.

If there's a chance for a pun, I gladly put that in. My manned mission to Dres is for instance called "KSS Dresselhaus" (after the famous physicists M. and G. Dresselhaus).

[Cirocco]

sattelites usually go "celestial body/ class / sat / greek letter"

for example, the first sattelite designed to collect science put in orbit over the Mun is "Mun S-sat alpha". The second communication sattelite in orbit over Kerbin would be "Kerbin C-sat Beta"

For mission crafts I usually go for vaguely appropriate references to mythology or an adjective describing the type of mission.

For example: my Eve return vehicle was called Orpheus (because it was going to hell and back) and an SSTO spaceplane personnel carrier was called Charon (because it ferried people between space and KSC). If I ever make a sun-diving probe it would probably be called Icarus.

My first long-range SSTO spaceplane was the KSS (Kerbal Space Ship) Dauntless and the first inter-planetary one was the KSS Intrepid. I'm considering naming one of my future Mk III super-heavy SSTO's the KSS F*CK YEAH! because of the amount of headaches the design process is giving me.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Cirocco

[Commander Jebidiah]

Ship Type/use;

CTV - Crew Transfer Craft

SDV - Satellite Delivery Vehicle

Then the specified operational altitude

100K - 100 kilometres

Mu100K - Mün 100km

Then if it's a CTV/plane the number of passengers

And if it's a plane it's max safe speed.

Stations are named after Greek gods.

Warships are named after Roman gods.

And Interplanetary vessels are named after historical vessels or Constellations.

[CptRichardson]

Munollo 1

Kerburn 5

The Jebidiah Kerman (piloted by Jebidiah Kerman on a five year voyage to explore the strange new worlds)

[Overfloater]

Single stage interplanetary crew or passenger planes - Astroliner

Single stage interplanetary small private planes - Astro-Cruiser

Custom space shuttles - Astro-Shuttle

Interplanetary rockets - Explorer

Edited January 14, 2015 by Overfloater

[klesh]

Random things that come to my head. They are usually nonsensical.

For example, my mission to Moho involved a ship christened the "Moho Mofo".

Haha, nice. I often do the same thing. Just the other day I made an electric plane to get to the top of Mt. Kraken, and while making it I thought of Rahsaan Roland Kirk's Bright Moments album, Track 6... so I named it Boogie Electric.

[ZeroGravitas]

I like to do this logically so I can always find and reuse designs for future missions.

XXX - YYY - abcdefg - ZZ

XXX - Simply the flight number, to make sure sorting ship files by name puts them chronological order.

YYY- 3 letter code defining the ships mission location.

For flights:

First letter is the body, e.g. K for Kerbin, E for Eve. Where 2 bodies share a letter (Mun and Minmus, Duna and Dres) then second letter is included in lower case.

Second capital designates the 'altitude'. L for low, H for high, S for sub (as in sub-orbital).

Third letter defines whether the flight is atmospheric (A) or orbital (O)

e.g.

KLA = Kerbin Low Atmosphere,

DuHO = Duna High Orbit

For surface craft

First letter is for the body again.

Second 'letter' is Su - for surface

Third letter is either R for rover, L for lander (immobile), B for base (long term manned), M for mining craft

e.g.

ESuL = Eve Surface Lander

MiSuM = Minmus Surface Lander

abcdefg - A name for the craft series which will be used by each vessel using this design; either from an animal, mythical creature, Ian M. Banks ship name, historical scientist etc etc.

ZZ - The number of the craft using this design, in roman numerals.

So some examples.

001 KLA Thales I

002 KLA Thales II

003 KLA Pythagoras I

004 KHA Democritus I

005 KHA Democritus II

006 KSO Democritus III

...

...

023 KHO Al-Kindi I

...

...

042 MuSuL Copernicus II

etc

For launchers I save them as sub-assemblies, with an ancient god's name followed by their payload limit.

e.g.

Enki 14t

Antu 6t

[Sampa]

One of my most successful heavy launchers, which I named the Phoenix launcher was so named due to some issues during operational status which almost forced a new design and launcher to replace it but I ended up redesigning the launcher to the point that it works nearly every time, even when jeb is piloting

[Greenfire32]

I usually name them according to what their function will be. Example: low kerbin orbit satellites designed to be communications arrays are usually callled "LKO-ComSat," and munar satellites are usually called "MunSat."

Manned vessels are usually along the lines of "Munar Lander," or "Duna Explorer" and don't really get a "name," per say, unless the mission becomes super successful (I once had a satellite above Eve that I managed to bring back. Was originally called "EveSat" but later became "Little Peeper" since it took so many pictures and returned home).

As far as space stations go, I've only ever built one per save file in LKO and it has ALWAYS been called the "KISS" (K.erbal I.nternational S.pace S.tation) in commemoration with Kerbal Kind Kissing the Stars.

[JimmyAgent007]

For the longest time all my ships had the name Death Trap in them somewhere.

[gmpd2000]

I just put the acronym as a name.

Example:

Jool System Explorer Probe : JSEP or JSE .