Factionnames

[Husky110]

Please tell me those names are random...  ;D

[Tajin]

At least they don't have pilots like "Chuck Norris" or "Tyler Durden" flying around, like in a certain other game.  ::)

[Husky110]

Sure, but THAT's just a shitty name...  ;D

[Thundercraft]

I have seen a few faction names which are at least readable or memorable, such as "The Ahoosoo Collective" or "The Uey". However, most faction names are complete and utter gibberish that are clearly computer generated - names like "The Uugqoujlhiin' Conglomerate", "The United Easpbaakaiv Organisation" or "The Empire of Ulbufiodl". How can you even pronounce these?

 

See my Any galaxy seeds worth sharing? topic for a list of several dozens of galaxy seeds I started and the name of the faction you start with.

 

IMO, it is not at all appealing to have complete, unpronounceable gibberish for faction names. It breaks suspension of disbelief for me and makes it hard to empathize with the story. I'd much rather have fixed names or at least names pulled from a list.

 

I did actually manage to change the name of my starting faction, but it required a hex editor and had strict limitations. (See my How to change a faction's name topic for details.)

 

Which is why I suggest that the dev either gives players the ability to change faction names or at least an option to have the game pull faction names from a text or .xml file of names or name parts. It would be one more aspect of the game that could be customized if we could add our own lists of faction names.

 

Consider the Aurora 4x space strategy game that pulls ship names from a list. It allows players to customize their game with ship name sets, to customize it for the theme or nationality they're going for.

[Yeedo]

I have seen a few faction names which are at least readable or memorable, such as "The Ahoosoo Collective" or "The Uey". However, most faction names are complete and utter gibberish that are clearly computer generated - names like "The Uugqoujlhiin' Conglomerate", "The United Easpbaakaiv Organisation" or "The Empire of Ulbufiodl". How can you even pronounce these?

 

If names were generated consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel-etc they could at least be procedural and pronounceable even if they might sound a bit odd. If you add some other things like 'th' to consonants or 'ea' to vowels you can create a wide variety of procedural names while not being ridiculous. My first faction is called 'The United Guild of Imoamoa' which is quite a good name, however I have recently been involved in the war between 'The Viuxsxiz Army' and 'The Conglomerate of Dguumwiogb', and it would be nice to able to pronounce their names...

[SageThe13th]

I literally sided with the faction I did at Trinium tier because I could pronounce their faction name, while the other factions who are now my enemies all have those gobbledygook names.

[CitizenCake]

I literally sided with the faction I did at Trinium tier because I could pronounce their faction name, while the other factions who are now my enemies all have those gobbledygook names.

 

Best way to determine who to side with yet. I think i have a new strategy lol

[Zenebatos]

I personnaly find it hilarious to try to pronounce it, and its and infinite source of laughters and jokes amongst me and my friend on your Teamspeak chan.

 

I mean having factions like " Democratic Conglomerate of Oeufpue ( wich in french means Eggs Stinking) is just craking us up

 

or when some faction is the Church of Herpuus" and we call it "Church of Herpes"...

[diz]

I recently discovered the Oooi were locked in a bitter war with the Uouo over the last remaining consonants in the galaxy.

[LogicSocket]

Yes, please allow for us to edit the database of names so that we can have custom universes. I had been looking through the files but cannot seem to find it. I would love to create a star flight mod with alien races as well as custom ships for them.

[Yeedo]

Yes, please allow for us to edit the database of names so that we can have custom universes. I had been looking through the files but cannot seem to find it. I would love to create a star flight mod with alien races as well as custom ships for them.

 

I think that the names are procedurally generated by combining letters together rather than picked at random from a list.

[DivineEvil]

They're completely random, i.e. they're random string of letters with an attached faction title based on behavior variables. Someone should probably figure out the algorithm for generating them from multiple proper syllables chosen from alphabetical list.

[Yeedo]

They're completely random, i.e. they're random string of letters with an attached faction title based on behavior variables. Someone should probably figure out the algorithm for generating them from multiple proper syllables chosen from alphabetical list.

 

As far as I can tell this should be quite a simple job (doable within 30 mins, perhaps). Just have two arrays of Strings, one called 'vowels' and one called 'consonants'.  In the 'vowels' array put "a", "e", "i", "o", "u", but also things like "oo" and "ea" and "ar" and possibly "y". In the 'consonants' array have "b", "c", "d", "f", "g", "h", "j", "k", "l", "m", "n", "p", "r", "s", "t", "v", "w", "x", "y", "z", "qu" (but preferably no "q" as English-speakers (and probably German-speakers as well) will not be able to pronounce it), along with everything from "ng" and "ss" to "phth" and "lph". Then just pick at random whether to start with a 'consonant' or a 'vowel', then add random letters/syllables on until it reaches a (random) pre-determined length. Bingo, you have a wacky, alien word that people can still pronounce.

 

Granted it's not perfect (you could get "ooyyyquy" if you allowed "y" as a vowel), but it's a lot better than the current system and quite easy to code. The main issue would be finding the lists of all English (and German for the German version) letter combinations (I suspect that the English list would be a lot longer ;D), although there is probably something on the internet with the information you need. Failing that, we could have a community project here on the forums where people add any letter combinations that work to a long list to be added into the game.

 

Obviously this is less important than fixing game-breaking bugs or major gameplay improvements, but I'd like to see this added at some point.

[TheUberCannon]

The pirates in one of my worlds was named "The Yaaaam Pirates".

[LogicSocket]

I have successfully been able to create my own factions including custom ships for them. Ideally creating a certain amount of these and then drawing them from a table on faction creation would be the key to populating the galaxy with them.

I'm still looking into the best way to that bit.

 

 

 

[Hûvy]

I kind of like the random names, it makes the universe feel that more divers since we cant pronounce every name like we would other languages

[SageThe13th]

The name gen could do with some tweaking.  There are many examples of sci-fi and fantasy name generators that will generally give you pronounceable results.  Also, being able to seed a list with your own names would be cool.

[Polyman]

The name gen could do with some tweaking.  There are many examples of sci-fi and fantasy name generators that will generally give you pronounceable results.  Also, being able to seed a list with your own names would be cool.

You can do that by editing Avorion\data\scripts\lib\sectornamegenerator.lua just modify the arrays.

 

[howardxu23]

I literally sided with the faction I did at Trinium tier because I could pronounce their faction name, while the other factions who are now my enemies all have those gobbledygook names.

What factions I decide to purge also depends on that  ::)

[Warrax]

I wonder, would it be possible for the galaxy file to draw from a prepared list of Faction Names?

 

As well, if the devs are interested, i would post my list of "names".

The list is clean and does not contain copywritten material.