Making Enough Star Names for Very Large Galaxies

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Scripted Universe Generation!

#16 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Dilvish wrote:One thing to consider is a more significant limitation on how many stars will be named in the grouping fashion versus how many in the individual fashion, right now they're nearly all grouped.
What's the distinction? In that screenshot, they all have a prefix...

It might be nice if, for names that only appear once, the prefix is left out. That is, if a name from the stringtable list only appears once, it is just that name, with no Alpha prepended.

This would be particularly helpful in galaxies with less than 500 stars, in which there are enough names that most or all systems don't need to have name with reused entries from the list. Instead of 400 "Alpha Whatever", there would be mostly just "Whatever". This would help reduce map name label clutter.
cami wrote:...please note that the grouping expects genitive form of the group's name (like Alpha Centauri for the Centaurus constellation).
You might need to explain what "genitive form" means, with some other examples... Centauri is OK, but not Pegasus? What would the "genitive form" be for most of the other names in the list?

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em3
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Re: Scripted Universe Generation!

#17 Post by em3 »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
cami wrote:...please note that the grouping expects genitive form of the group's name (like Alpha Centauri for the Centaurus constellation).
You might need to explain what "genitive form" means, with some other examples... Centauri is OK, but not Pegasus? What would the "genitive form" be for most of the other names in the list?
It stems from pegasus and centaurus being Latin words. This language supports genitive form of noun, which would be the what appending apostrophe+s does in English. So Centauri means "of Centaurus".
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Scripted Universe Generation!

#18 Post by Geoff the Medio »

em3 wrote:It stems from pegasus and centaurus being Latin words. This language supports genitive form of noun, which would be the what appending apostrophe+s does in English. So Centauri means "of Centaurus".
Right, but what does that suggest for the non-Latin nouns in the list then? And since there are no Earth-consistent constellations in a randomly generated FO universe, none of the stars are "of" anything in particular... Would that suggest renaming all the real-star-name inspired genitive names to their standard (whatever non-genitive equivalent would be) form?

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Re: Scripted Universe Generation!

#19 Post by cami »

I just wanted to mention that users might be thrown-off by names that either are or strongly resemble any real language yet dont adhere to their grammar. And the constellation naming scheme is mostly latinised-greek, translating to "First of x", "Second of x", and so on (the greek preferred using alphabet where we nowadays use numbers, which has found its way to modern world in some places, often in some disguise).
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Dilvish
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Re: Scripted Universe Generation!

#20 Post by Dilvish »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
Dilvish wrote:One thing to consider is a more significant limitation on how many stars will be named in the grouping fashion versus how many in the individual fashion, right now they're nearly all grouped.
What's the distinction? In that screenshot, they all have a prefix...
in that screenshot they're all grouped & therefore have a prefix, yes. Currently, any of the star names in the base list that already have a greek letter in them (Alpha Centauri, etc.) are reserved for naming individual stars & the rest get used for group names; more of the 'group compatible' names could instead be used as singular names. (It could be that we would simply want to drop "Alpha Centauri" and "Beta Centauri" etc., from the starname list so they don't wind up scattered at opposite ends of the galaxy, and instead put in "Centauri"
It might be nice if, for names that only appear once, the prefix is left out. That is, if a name from the stringtable list only appears once, it is just that name, with no Alpha prepended.
If by 'appear' you mean 'used to name a system' then that would be easy and I agree better also. I made that change in the attached version of the patch & here is a screenshot using it. Names currently get assigned to Systems before it is determined if the system is going to have a star, or any planets, so many of the names wind up not displayed on the map. It looks to me like come moderate code juggling could let star and planet choosings be done before naming, and then more of the visibly named systems could wind up with the solo naming scheme.
This would be particularly helpful in galaxies with less than 500 stars, in which there are enough names that most or all systems don't need to have name with reused entries from the list. Instead of 400 "Alpha Whatever", there would be mostly just "Whatever". This would help reduce map name label clutter.
Well, the current (pre-implementation) feedback seemed to be that folks liked the idea of a fair bit of grouping even when the number of stars didn't especially require it, so 400 stars being mostly "Whatever" isn't what I was shooting for. But I can rework it so that the ratio of "Whatever"s to group names is more controllable.
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MatGB
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Re: Scripted Universe Generation!

#21 Post by MatGB »

Dilvish wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:This would be particularly helpful in galaxies with less than 500 stars, in which there are enough names that most or all systems don't need to have name with reused entries from the list. Instead of 400 "Alpha Whatever", there would be mostly just "Whatever". This would help reduce map name label clutter.
Well, the current (pre-implementation) feedback seemed to be that folks liked the idea of a fair bit of grouping even when the number of stars didn't especially require it, so 400 stars being mostly "Whatever" isn't what I was shooting for. But I can rework it so that the ratio of "Whatever"s to group names is more controllable.
I agree with this, this is a good opportunity to improve the map a bit, having two or three stars clustered together with linked names even on small maps would, for me, be both a useful memory aid and also I think a nice trick. Plus I might go back to one of my old vilage name starlanes lists, invading alpha, beta and Gamma Galmpton might be fun ;-)
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Re: Scripted Universe Generation!

#22 Post by shawndream »

I love the direction things are heading.

I have two short arguments against automated, delayed star naming/renaming

1 - Gamism - We would then need lists of names for each empire, and would incentivize people to try and remember what names go to which empires... eh, hassle on all sides not worth it.

2 - Realism - Naming things doesn't just require you to be the first to find it... you have to have sufficient clout to make the rest of the world use your name, and the chutzpah to think YOU should decide what everyone calls this place. (Otherwise I'd be living in North LeifEricsonLand, or more likely North Pontichikawa).

I suggest instead that renaming a star be a production item unlocked with tech from the political/social/trade tree, where an expensive "Historical Revision Center" building or ship provides some trade/supply/political bonus in the region, and also allows you to rename the system it occupies (if you are the sole empire owning the system).

I think empty space should always default to Beta/Gamma X of the nearest star system, regardless of wether the star is itself a Gamma, Alpha, or just plain old X.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Scripted Universe Generation!

#23 Post by Geoff the Medio »

shawndream wrote:I think empty space should always default to Beta/Gamma X of the nearest star system, regardless of wether the star is itself a Gamma, Alpha, or just plain old X.
I would suggest having empty space always have a unique name, so that it can't interfere with the numbering / naming of other systems... "I see Alpha and Gamma Starname, but where's Beta?"

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Re: Scripted Universe Generation!

#24 Post by Vezzra »

Geoff the Medio wrote:I would suggest having empty space always have a unique name, so that it can't interfere with the numbering / naming of other systems... "I see Alpha and Gamma Starname, but where's Beta?"
Not possible. As this whole feature we're discussing here is for really huge galaxies, you can very easily have more empty space systems than unique names in the starname list.

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Re: Scripted Universe Generation!

#25 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Vezzra wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:I would suggest having empty space always have a unique name, so that it can't interfere with the numbering / naming of other systems... "I see Alpha and Gamma Starname, but where's Beta?"
Not possible. As this whole feature we're discussing here is for really huge galaxies, you can very easily have more empty space systems than unique names in the starname list.
Then maybe start the empty space numbering from the Omega end of the prefixes? Stars get Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, ... and empty space gets Omega, Psi, Chi, Phi, ...

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Re: Scripted Universe Generation!

#26 Post by cami »

shawndream wrote:1 - Gamism - We would then need lists of names for each empire, and would incentivize people to try and remember what names go to which empires... eh, hassle on all sides not worth it.
2 - Realism - Naming things doesn't just require you to be the first to find it...
I think you're completely misunderstanding me. This is what I was referring to:
1. system initialization generates a catalogue name for each system. Only observers and moderaters can see this.
2. the first time a system is prepared to be sent to a normal player (human or AI), the server automatically permanently substitutes the catalogue name by a common name.*
3. the common name uses the rules developed by dilvish and is entirely unrelated to who discovers it. it's just a trigger.
4. If any other empire also discovers the system, it will see that same common name, no further substitutions are made.
5. Thus no human/AI player will ever see any other name for that system, it will appear as if it was generated with this name right away.

So your arguments don't apply here, neither we would need empire-specific names, nor would the order of discovery matter. The rationale for the above strategy is that we need LOTS of names, and it is not clear whether we will have enough "good ones", so we want to use the "good ones" where they are more useful, i.e. in systems that the player actually maintains for a long time (=discovers early). As we can't look into the future, the obvious strategy is to postpone the naming until we know what systems that will be.

Btw, this would also solve the empty systems problem, as we could simply never give it any common name and let it keep its catalogue number.

*) P.S. in fact, for simplicity, it might make sense to rename a whole group right away instead of just the discovered star.
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Re: Scripted Universe Generation!

#27 Post by Vezzra »

Geoff the Medio wrote:Then maybe start the empty space numbering from the Omega end of the prefixes? Stars get Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, ... and empty space gets Omega, Psi, Chi, Phi, ...
The question is, why name empty space systems at all? Players don't ever get to see their names, instead they always get "Deep Space". We could as well set the name for empty systems to "Deep Space" directly and not waste names from our limited pool - or are system names required to be unique?

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Re: Scripted Universe Generation!

#28 Post by Dilvish »

Vezzra, my response to Geoff also answers your last question.
Geoff the Medio wrote:Then maybe start the empty space numbering from the Omega end of the prefixes? Stars get Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, ... and empty space gets Omega, Psi, Chi, Phi, ...
the way I was starting to plan on reworking it, I would simply place the empty systems at the end of a group, so the initially visibly named systems would all have the lower order prefixes. Any systems gaining a star via nebulae might then still wind up creating an apparent gap in the naming, but I think that's a pretty minor issue I wouldn't worry about.

Cami, it seems to me like the scheme you are describing would only really wind up helping if the game ends before a large enough region of the galaxy becomes visible that includes the starting systems of multiple empires. I don't really see any other benefit, and changing things to that approach seems like simply unnecessary work. I think we'll get it worked out well with modifications to the current approach.
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Re: Scripted Universe Generation!

#29 Post by Geoff the Medio »

cami wrote:The rationale for the above strategy is that we need LOTS of names, and it is not clear whether we will have enough "good ones"...
I think with greek numbering, there should be sufficient names. On-the-fly renaming sounds unnecessarily complicated.
Vezzra wrote:...why name empty space systems at all?
If a star / planet gets created in them, they would appear with a name on the map.

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Re: Scripted Universe Generation!

#30 Post by cami »

I didnt even think about that case, more about good names for important systems, as systems need be recognizable when you have few, or when they are heavily developed (because you owned them ofr a long time). As soon as your empire grows large you start caring less about each individual one that pops up. If we get enough memorizable names with what we have let's not waste any more time discussing what I mentioned. I thought that would be a simple change, as we're just updating a string that has no further effects in a single codepoint. As it seems it is not it cannot be worth the effort.
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