NameGen - Spice up the station names#5906
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impaktor
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impaktor
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Left some comments. In addition:
Since I just finished Mass Effect (1-2), I'm thinking you could also add "citadel" and "ward" to the station names.
data/libs/NameGen.lua
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| -- Occasional Roman numeral stuck to a planet name looks good | ||
| local suffix = "" | ||
| local srand = rand:Integer(0, 999) |
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Roman numerals on planets, I'd expect it to indicate order from its star: I, II, III, IV, etc. counting inside to out, looks to be random here, since getting order right is high hanging fruit, I suppose. For stations I can imagine "random", i.e. we don't know how many previous iterations of that station, or version I, II, were never realized, etc.
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OK. Didn't think about that. I drop it for now. I'm trying letters in front of instead...
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Actually, the order of the planets are already indicated by lower case letters.
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How about occasional Letters in front of?
Edit: Tested and removed in next commits... |
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| NameGen.rockPlanetFormats = { | ||
| "{name}'s Mine", |
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I moved this out of the planet names and added mines as station name instead.
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Thought: High roman numerals are "nicer".
(No action needed, except pondering) |
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I'm starting to swing back to Roman numerals. It is a bit random, yes, but It looks good and the planets are already distinguished by lower case letters so I don't think that interferes. |
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How about some very generic corporate names for Haber systems? (Can it be even selected by faction) |
I think so. Pioneer jumps back and forth between lua and c++ when building the star sysem, but stations are created right after factions are done. I tested to print the faction name from NameGen.lua and it works. I'll have a go. |
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@bszlrd This is all that's needed to get access to the faction. Can you be more specific on what you had in mind? |
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I was thinking about having a different naming scheme just for Haber. Kinda like how cultures are handled, but for systems and their elements. |
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Yes, I understand. I'm low on ideas of how that naming scheme would look like. |
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I'll whip up something. What are the elements/parts? How names are assembled? |
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Roman numerals should only be used on planets which are getting a "custom" name and do not follow the nomenclature of the existing system name (i.e. "Dolisium A c" should not have an additional numeral suffix, but "Wolfgargoyle IX" is fine). |
Yes. Numbers/Letters, how many and where? Only a select part of the alphabet, hexadecimals? Stuff like that. |
Now there's a thought: each planet named after a commit hash of the project itself... 😉 |
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Added back an improved version of the Roman numerals |
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| -- Occasional Roman numeral stuck to a planet name looks good | ||
| local suffix = "" | ||
| if rand:Number() < 0.4 then |
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0.4 may be a bit high. Leaving it like this for now.
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I might have overthunk a bit, but how about this?
Structured like this:
edit: on a second thought, I definitelly overthinked it. But the name lists bellow could still be of use: System names: Say: Boulton-3F. Code at the end is for obscurity, one-two letters and numbers. Prominent people of the industrial revolution. Industrialists, inventors, engineers
Settlement names: "Proc-32 Leverkusen" could work for example. Historical corporate towns and cities from around the world
Type: I made a relatively short list of types
Orbitals:
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You could also give the factions the option to have a list of famous people to choose from and the culture name files could have lists of names of places and nature objects to use in naming of places. It's maybe a bit out of scoop for this PR though? |
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Here's the current spread of the numerals with 652 II You wouldn't use 'I' for the first version of something, right? I omitted it from the numeral list. |
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* Add separate name formats for asteroids: NameGen.asteroidStarportFormats = {}
* Occasional Roman numerals to planet names
* Add new station names/functions
* Add occasional random station number
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OK. Squashed and rebased on master. I think the balance is pretty good right now.
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I think this can be merged. |
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I'm a little hesitant with the addition of roman numeral suffixes as it can give the impression of an "amnesiac connection" - i.e. the game implies to the player that a Solvang I exists somewhere and was important enough that there's a second Solvang (and thus important enough for a player to try to find it to discover some hidden lore). I won't object to the merging of this PR over it, however. I'd suggest it might be worth considering flipping the order of some names for greater variety, and adding one or two more prefix/suffix schemes. For example: I'm definitely happy to see some work done in expanding the quality and breadth of the Pioneer universe. Thank you very much for this PR! |
I'm fine with this especially for stations. Basically, there's an F-18, F-22, F-35, but intermediate were only design prototypes / defunct. (I remember the hype around F-19 you could buy models of it, and there was even a Microprose game) For celestial bodies it might be weird, as you don't plan / design or iterate them, as you could do with stations. |
| "{name}", | ||
| "{name}{number}", | ||
| "{name}{number}", | ||
| "{name}{number}", |
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Note that this produces an exceptionally high number of single-word starport names.
(Taiton is not the direct result of random generation, all other names are as-generated.)
This isn't a problem with long multi-syllable names, but a station named only "Lloyd" (or even "Rothmann") is quite immersion-breaking. I will most likely address this in a follow-on PR - I'm happy with the additional diversity of suffixes this PR adds and it's been sitting open long enough already.
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Hm, Taiton? I don't see the same list of stations for NN 3737.
a station named only "Lloyd" (or even "Rothmann") is quite immersion-breaking.
I think rather the opposite. Too many station names with a name and a random 'Spaceport' stuck onto it is more immersion breaking for me. Details like that isn't of great importance to me though. Thanks for the merge!
I will most likely address this in a follow-on PR
Please tag me... :)
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Hm, Taiton? I don't see the same list of stations for NN 3737.
Yeah, I clicked randomize a bunch in the system editor to get an idea of what the distribution of names was.
I think rather the opposite. Too many station names with a name and a random 'Spaceport' stuck onto it is more immersion breaking for me. Details like that isn't of great importance to me though. Thanks for the merge!
Please tag me... :)
The thing here that's immersion breaking (at least in English speaking / British/American style countries) is that towns/cities can have a single "person name" as their name, but transit infrastructure (airports, metro stations, etc) are almost always named e.g. <Area name> Airport or <Area name> Station. For example, it's "John F. Kennedy International Airport" or "Dallas-Fort Worth Intl. Airport", not "John F. Kennedy" or "Dallas-Fort Worth".
Given that these names are assigned to the spaceport specifically (an expectation set by the icon) there's an "uncanny valley" feeling when looking at those names, especially next to a name that does follow convention.
Perhaps it might help your sense of immersion if we were to generate some <First Name> <Last Name> Spaceport style names to reduce the deluge of <Name> Spaceports?
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Thanks for your work on this @zonkmachine! |
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What planet name isn't improved with a Roman numeral?
Numbers to spice up station names
The smaller bodies gets their own set of name formats
Can there be more than one instance of the same number. Yes. Same name and number? Not likely, but yes. This is what I could come up with in a short amount of time that made a reasonable improvement in the naming of bodies. I think this could be improved further if the pioneer universe was populated with companies/entities that placed their assets, ships and stations, in the systems and that had it's own decals, naming schemes etc.
Core Drilling Station? Yes, they are an efficient way to process asteroids... ;)
@impaktor I saw impaktor@a628fcf and was actually trying something similar but I'm not happy with the results yet.
Addresses #897