FreeOrion

I don't know what info the designers still have as far as names from the old forums, but as we will be starting on stuff like galaxy generation soon, we're going to need names for all our planets and stars.

So, could someone on the design team please compile a text file of star system names, 1 name per line? If they have CVS access, they could stick in the /default/ directory where all the config files should go.

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FreeOrion Programmer

Crap, I just checked my browser's cache and I have the *second* page of the star system names in it, but not the first one with the officially proposed things. Sorry. I hope Aquitaine still has something.

I'm afraid I have nothing. I can resurrect the big list of names I posted originally with some effort. If we haven't heard from Kman by next week I'll add this to my pile of things to (re) do.

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Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

Do we want to use:

* The names of real stars? http://www.obliquity.com/skyeye/misc/name.html
* Scientists/science fiction authors? "Asimov" "Sagan"
* Real places? "Uluru" "Austin"?
* Descriptive english names? "Farlight" "Yonder" "Raven's Nest"
edit: hrm, actually descriptive names could be in any langauge.
* In-jokes? "Tyrethia" "Barcia" "Antz"
" Goofy alien sounding name? "Kilja" "Eetrapa" "D'Korsh"

I have an idea, make multiple list based on different criteria, a wacky list, a real list, a joke/official list. Alow the user to make lists on notepad files and make the name file user selectable at game launch. When you explore a place you can select "auto name" to pick a name randomly from the list or you can "manualy name" and it opens the list for you too read all names that have not yet been used, you can then select one or type your own on the spot (with option to "add to list"). The multiple lists alow the player to add flavor to their galaxy without manualy entering each name over and over and they can grow their list and make them very personalized.

http://www.drektopia.com/starnames.txt

500 star names ripped mostly from web pages. Includes names of real stars, famous astronomers, science fiction writers, game designers, plenty of mythological characters, plus some random gooblygook I typed in myself.

Ironically, the real star names are the goofiest looking out of the bunch. Later on maybe we can go through and replace some of the real star names with made-up crap.

fyi, I have all the stars sorted by source on a spreadsheet. If we do separate lists (or maybe lists tagged by xml) I have all the information on what came from where saved.

In the meantime, happy 4th. I'm outtie for the weekend.

er, hopefully.

Nice list...

Are we going to encounter any copyright issues here?

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FreeOrion Programmer

I assume that names of real stars, the last names of historically significant scientists/authors, and mythlogical characters all fall under public domain.

There's Uch-Akip...if you can figure out what the problem is with that particular piece of goobly-gook is then Nintendo might too. That's the only name I can think of that might not be in the clear...so I might as well delete it.

Who would want to live in a place called Uch-Akip, anyway?

No one, that's who I think I'd rather live in france or canada than there

Drek: Where did you get your list from? Our project has the exact same one for it, in the same format. solar empire.
It's public domain, so you probably aquired it from us.

I like impalers idea of allowing the user to choose one of different star name types.

No.

That starlist comes from the names of real stars (from the webpage listed above), mythlogical characters, and various names n' gooblygook that I typed in by hand.

If you have the exact same list then someone from your project copied it from drektopia...which is fine as it was constructed mostly from public domain sources.

(now if someone started coping my music files and passing it off as their own, I'd be perplexed and miffed.)

lets use the names of our homes towns all scrambled up in the wacky list.

Of course is you come from a place that already has a wack name like Utika, Wala-Wala or Germany Then we could leave that as is.

I am from Tucson Arizona so we should hav a Anozira system and a Noscut system

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Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

My country has a wacky name:
New Zealand

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

Wierd but wonderful

It would be a nice touch if the stars start out as nameless and only got named after someone settles them and give them a name specific for _their_ race. For example there might be a syllable list (editable of course) for each race and a star system would then be given a name consisting of 2-3 random syllables.

The human list could produce names like "Hub" + "ble", "Lon" + "don", and "Ta" + "too" + "ine" which clearly mean nothing and are only random noise but are pronouncable enough. Similarly an insectoid race could have systems like "(clack)" + "(chk)" and "(feeeeh)" + "(pk)".

If the RNG gives a duplicate we just assign a "New" in front of it.

I mean there's a definite feel in a game where you can conquer a system named "New (clack)(clack)".