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With the addition of named single seat ships, I was thinking about how I could add in things to the TSN Sandbox using, in particular, the shuttle now aboard all ships. However, for them to work with a script, they must have defined names. I am opening a discussion here to gather ideas about what we could use as designations for shuttles.
At the moment, I am not going to extend to fighters and bombers as I don’t think we’ll make extensive use of them…yet, and their role is primarily for combat rather than utility anyway. That and having pilots use their own callsigns would be much more interesting (as long as they are appropriate). Of course, we could come up with a naming convention to have consistency (Red 1?)
Some ideas are to have a simple shuttle designation, like the ship registries (BC = battle cruiser, SS= scout, CL= Light Cruiser etc). We could have something like SH for shuttle or UV for utility vehicle or something and then a two-digit number. Another idea could be to have designations to match their assigned ships e.g. Raven 1. Or we could have named shuttles which have their own full name after some kind of historical figure or design concept (delta flyer?)
Add your thoughts and preferences below!
DS9 used river names for their runabouts. I think picking a theme like that would be interesting. It at least narrows down the possible list anyway. TNG and the other series (except for Delta Flyer) used famous scientist names mostly – Galileo, El Baz, Copernicus, Fermi, Goddard, Hawking, etc.
I think that having an official designation for purposes of fluff might be nice, but for purposes of usability in-game I’d like them to be either be callsigns for the expected pilots, potentially with a prefix for the type of vessel (SH-Nhaima for a shuttle, FTR-Nhaima for fighter, BMR-Nhaima for bomber) or reference it based on the ship it was launched from (Raven-SH-1, Raven-SH-2, Raven-FTR-1).
Even if we don’t move towards storing strike craft (fighters, bombers, etc.) on the ships immediately, I think we should pick a naming scheme that allows for the possibility for us to change it in the future or even just for more free-for-all configurations in sims.
How about the serial number of the parent ship followed by S/F/B and a sequential number and/or callsign.
Raven’s shuttle: 014S-1
“Zero-one-four-sierra-one” usually abrieviated from Raven’s bridge as “Sierra-One”
or
“Foxtrot-Nhaima” for “014F-Nhaima” being Raven’s fighter flown by NhaimaThis would have the pleasant side effect of getting us thoroughly familiar with the parent vessel serial numbers.
Do fighter pilots get to pick their own callsign or do we do it the proper way in a naming ceremony decided by their peers (Primary = Helm or Fighter) who choose a name suitable to their real name or past exploits.
For example, Allard might be “Miner” or “Sideslip”, Jemel might be “Jemel” or “Scotty” or “Duke-Eight” (ed-duke-8tor), Blaze might be “KIT-B” for “Knife-In-The-Back”, Xavier might be “Relic” or “Rogue-One” after the Artifact/Science-Ship incident, Aramond might be “Voiddamn”, “Alky” or “Wrench”, Mundy ought to be “Dammit!” or possibly “Hjocoa” (not that you will ever get her into a single-seater). Aposine might be “Hotshot” or “Drone-Lord”, Hall might be “Caltron” or “Toaster”, Morlock might be called “Eloi” for his name or “Hawkeye” for his shooting, Nhaima might be “Warbler” for her singing or “SteelTrap” for her terrifying erudition, Slate could be “NARIB” – “Never Announces Rank In Briefings” or possibly “JS” for “Just-Slate” ad-infinite-cetera. Oh and that new cadet the other shift should definitely be called “Joker”.
I am with Nhaima’s idea. Raven-One, Phoenix- One
We can create a squadron as Xavier suggests. Instead of using fighters individually, we can use them as a squadron.
Indigo Squadron perhaps? and every pilot has a callsign.
So now do we need to recruit pilots? or who will start to control the fighter when needed?
Tutor, I agree, home ship- ship designation #, or home ship- squadron designation- ship designation.
And as a response to the call for fighters, I am relatively good at bothe helm and fighter, so I could step in for both.
If we are doing to have themes for the names of ships, what about species of birds or fish?
I think having officers specifically on board to act solely as fighter pilots would be a luxury we generally won’t be able to afford from a personnel perspective. Would you rather launch 5 ships with a full bridge crew aboard or 4 ships with a few pilots? That question gets harder on days when we are launching 3 or 4 ships rather than 4-6. To that end, I think anyone flying a fighter would have it as extra duty on top of what they are otherwise expected to do. To that end, I can fly a fighter while operating another station and frequently do. This gets less easy the more your primary station requires constant interaction, but that’s no different than running another combination of multiple stations.
I think the core problem with trying to integrate fighters into our combat doctrine is that, like jump drives, a lot of people don’t seem to have experience with them and they require changes to the way we fight. Less so than jump drives, but still a change. TSN combat orders are a very top-down affair. Xavier or his stand-in splits up the division into battlegroups, battlegroup commanders order ships, COs execute their orders based on their ship and combat style. The most common example would be that the ship’s CO would have to remember to order fighters to launch. Fighters could be allowed to launch on their own initiative, but this means they need to be okay with being left behind, abandoned, or expended. We should also think, on an RP perspective, what a destroyed fighter means. Are these remote controlled vessels from the bridge or simulated cockpit, are bridge crew going into a fighter, etc.?
Fighters can be useful though, even with all of this. They can be used to intercept incoming drones instead of rotating the ship to face them. They can help defend a crippled ship or one that has little power. They can make delta-1 passes and drag enemy fleets away. This works best when there are minefields, blackholes, or deadly obstacles but even dragging enemy fleets away from bases or other soft targets – it buys time for the cost of the fighter. And that’s even assuming the fighter gets destroyed which isn’t a forgone conclusion.
I like the idea of mothership-type-number: Raven-S-1 for Raven’s Shuttle 1 (and we could squawk that as Raven Sierra 1 on TeamSpeak), for example, on the “official name” so it makes it obvious on the Science screen what the contact is and who it belongs to.
If we want to do “themed” ship names, I suggest that it be internal to the ship’s crew and limited to their communications – Viper-F-1 or maybe its pilot may be colloquially known as Cobra on their bridge. (“I said, ‘As_P_!'” made me giggle a little when I thought about different fighter names for Viper.)
I do like the idea of squad names and pilot callsigns (I get a little nostalgic for Space: Above and Beyond when serving on a carrier and think that we need to “deal out the Wildcards” when the fighters launch), but we won’t have to deal with things like that unless we see an uptick in membership to actually crew a squadron (and officers who don’t object to the mere thought of incorporating fighters into the canon game).
That said, 2.6 improved the fighter UI – enemy ships now have their ID listed next to their target marker. This makes it much easier to coordinate fire by using callsigns rather than saying “target the leviathan” and hoping everyone knows the difference between a Torgoth Leviathan and a Torgoth Behemoth based on the model alone.
First of all we should not call single seat ships as shuttles. They can be use as a shuttle but they are not in practice. they are fighters.
I also like Donovan’s idea.
Viper’s fighters can be Venom squadron. (Victor -1…)
Raven’s might be Talon squadron. (Tango -1…)
Phoenix’s – Scarlet Squadron.(sierra -1…
Hunter’s – Claw Squadron. (Charlie-1…)
LAncer’s – Knight Squadron (Kilo -1…)And there should be a procedure. Lets say every ship flying with 5 personel.
When the orders came to launch fighters CAptain takes helm, and weapons officers stays with him on the deck.
Helmsman, Science and engineer leaves as figher pilots.
So with captain on helm and security officer on weapons ships stays in operation actively while fighter squadrons attack to enemy at every direction.
Imagine flying with 4 full ships that makes 12 fighters in total. They have their own seperate channel. own callsigns. and ship wide call signs.
i.g. : “This is Claw Squadron leader Casanova, reading you loud and clear mothership, Claw -1 out!”
And we can use fighters actively on Drones. They make us lose a great deal of time. if we use fighter on drones and on enemy fighters we can get openings to attack to the carrier ships.
So what i am offering is if we use fighters effectively, from now on Theta maneouvers will be conducted with our fighters only, not with the mothership. We should use fighters on drones and other fighters instead of big ships.
This is the logical and realistic way. 3 fighters have a slight chance of winning against big enemies but with better pilots they have advantage on enemy fighters.
Couple of notes here – first we’ve gone a little off topic.
Every ship we have in the fleet is now equipped with one shuttle, and I’d like to use it as a utility ship for missions and general operations. As every ship has a shuttle, I need standardised names for them which can then be used in the mission script so we can interact with them. The fighters are another matter to be decided on at a later date. However, as they will not really be used for utility and therefore won’t need to interact with the script, how we name them is much more open.
In terms of operation of a shuttle, I see one officer taking the shuttle (science/helm most likely) and one officer taking that position. For example, helm takes the fighter, so the science officer steps into helm. I wouldn’t want to see the captain taking primary roles like helm though, particulalry if they are leading a battlegroup. Technically, everyone ranking ensign and above should have basic proficiency in all consoles, and higher ranking officers should be good on all consoles (if not we’ll have to look into this carefully).
sorry you are right. One step at a time. .
Then i am proposing shuttle names:
Viper’s -Venom
Raven’s -Talon
Phoenix’s – Scarlet
Hunter’s – Claw
LAncer’s – KnightOK, I have gone with a theme for the shuttle names, using names from figures from Greek mythology. As I can’t set them to player ships, and only to the ship slots (i.e. Ship 1, Ship 2) I have tried to make them more generic than have them specifically themed to a ship like the Raven or Viper.
Here as the names at present:
Ship 1 – Proteus
Ship 2 – Theseus
Ship 3 – Odysseus
Ship 4 – Perseus
Ship 5 – Dionysus
Ship 6 – Icarus
Ship 7 – Adonis
Ship 8 – HermesAs for the fighters, I like the idea of squadron names based on each ship. I am going to keep it that we can name fighters ourselves and not have to worry about the mission script. That way, Raven can name the fighter squadron Talon and have Talon 1, Talon 2, Talon 3…. etc. Whereas Viper can name their fighter squadron Venom and have Venom 1…. These of course would have to be named by the pilots themselves and the ship type set by them too. The script will end up setting and naming the shuttles though, and if your ship is in slot 1, you will get Proteus shuttle.
Any reason all of the Greek names have to be male? Artemis, itself, is named after a female Greek goddess. There are other good names to choose from:
Athena
Nike
Nemesis
Hera
Phaedra
Kallisto
etc.I know that TSN is mostly male, but we could try to have at least a nod towards inclusion? Besides, most men name their ships/boats/vehicles with female names, anyways.
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