Short post today. Kind of a follow up to Tuesday’s post about the From The Depth imaginary ships.
I’ve had names buzzing through my head and they’re giving me much amusement. I thought I should share ! Saying that though, some of the names will be of Real People, so for those, I’ll just hint here.
Before that though – I did actually have a little look at the game again today and made a start on designing the Typo 0 class battle barge. Yep. I’ll be echoing our glorious Royal Navy’s tradition of using Type numbers to distinguish the major warship classes. Other navies do that too, although I think it’s more things like Project numbers for Russia. China uses the Type designation.
What does our Navy have at the moment ?
We have the Type 45, which is our newest ship (until the new big aircraft carriers come along).
That’s an air warfare ship. Its job is to knock down enemy missiles before they can threaten other ships. Our other major warship is the Type 23 :
That’s HMS Montrose. She was designed at a time when us Brits were worried about Russian subs coming over and lobbing nuclear missiles at us, so she’s designed to hunt those submarines down. The Type 23s are getting old now though, so they’re looking to replace them with the Type 26.
That Type number thing is a good tradition to have. So I’m gonna steal it :-).
Oh – you may have noticed a little fondness for ships. Maybe that started as a result of the fairly regular ferry crossings we used to do ? Partly. Those were from when I lived in Northern Ireland, we’d come back across to see the grandparents at major holidays and we’d take the ferry. A little due to keeping an eye on events like the Volvo Ocean Race (lost track of that one) and the Vendee solo non-stop round the world race ? Perhaps. But these ships definitely have their own personality when you bring all that complex machinery together.
I think that’s what really draws my attention to them. They have so much machinery on board and it all has to work just right. And they’re the home for the people who crew them too. Perhaps the narrowboat I end up will be called a Type 4.5 ?
The Americans use numbers too but it tends to be looking at the first ship in the class. So their Arleigh Burke class Destroyers have the DDG 51 name (DDestroyer Guided missile) and I think the Zumwalt class is named DDG-100. It used to be DD-X while it was still a paper ship.
So about these From The Depth ships and their names ?
RN Tradition had the Type 23 follow the Type 22. Type 45 followed two failed concepts after the Type 42. I think Type 26 has come about because 6 follows the 5 of 45. So here I am starting with the Typo 0 (deliberate typo).
Not much there yet is there … Lots to learn.
I’ll have to do more in the game before I do proper ships. I need to learn the way all the various bits of things like engines and guns fit together before I can go past that Typo 0 class. It’s a bit more involved than watching someone’s videos, even if those people (Aavak and Enter Elysium) are rather good at showing how to design these things.
Fun with ship names ? Here goes. I can’t give the proper people’s names here but here are some.
Boss class high level surveillance … objects. Cos my boss is very tall and sees everything. I think he’d chuckle at that.
Snow Queen class corvette – small, fast, designed as a hunter of stragglers and an expert wielder of Pointy Things.
Aircraft and carriers ?
Kitten class attack helicopter. Release the Attack Kittens !
Truthseeker class helicopter carrier. Just because. There would be a Craziequeen in this class too.
CG (ah ha ! Laputa) class helicarrier. Cupid’s Gift loves the kittens. (The Truthseeker would be an ocean bound ship).
The carriers would have loads of Kittens on board. This will take me a lot of learning though. You can put helicopters, blimps, jet aircraft and spacecraft in the game but it’s a challenge to make their AI behave. EE’s helicopters and jets tend to try and get … intimate … with each other (they appear inside each other). So – small steps and learn gradually.
(There’s a reason why CG’s ship is one with lots of kittens that lives in the sky but it would give away something that won’t go past a Facebook that’s locked down to me and friends only)
Sleepy class submarine. You knew I couldn’t leave myself out. Or maybe I’d put my name on one of the fortresses.
Admiral class battleships. And these would bear the names of a few people I know. The Admiral would be where the really big guns start appearing. Or would it ?
Commodore class first ?
I think the fortresses will get named after people I knew who are no longer with us. These are placed over resource collection areas and don’t move. So they’d be memorials.
You need other ships in a Navy too, auxillaries and repair ships. These have a place in the game too but I don’t think I’d want to put real people’s names to them. Old car names ? Ford class, Vauxhall class, Rover class (that would go on the one that keeps breaking down), Lexus class (for the shiny ones). Pet names ? Typo 0 is definitely a Scruffy ship.
For now though, I’ll be looking forward to putting more time into the game so I can build those Dragon trimarans. Perhaps an Egg or Hatchling class for ships I put together before feeling confident enough to build the winged trimarans ?
Some of the other names might come out too. Iceangel class, Bashara class, Finlay class. Nocimi for a stealth ship (not sure if you can do those in game ?) And then there’s TV and other media too. One of our team caused hilarity on Monday when he used “THIS IS THE VOICE OF THE MYSTERONS” as his identifier when dialling into our weekly meeting. Mysteron class, Thunderbird class, Fireball XL-5 class, Stingray. There are also names from gaming like Sarai, Souleater, Zaphyr, Fubb*, Makai, Stone, Luth, Belana, lots more where that came from.
*(yep, if you think you know what that means, you’re right)
When playing Moo2, I tended to take names from the album I was listen to at the time. So at the moment, it would be Beiderbecke class and after that it’ll be Shania or the Twain.
Yep. Lots of amusement thinking up names. And lots of names that I can’t put here due to the privacy policy !
The intended name for the narrowboat is still Sleeping Dragon. Mostly because of this pic :
Any more ideas for ship or class names ?