Is there a reference of unusual planet / station names?
- Thread starter NecasekO
- Start date
And some, like "Stapled Peacock Flesh" just demonstrate the absurdity of allowing players to name things.
I'm currently basing operations out of Bonkers in Wolf 25, because who wouldn't?
And some, like "Stapled Peacock Flesh" just demonstrate the absurdity of allowing players to name things.
Ugh... The NPC names... The humanity, my immersion.....
I don't think planet names are generated from words. The standard naming convention for planets is <systemname> <number> and anything else is hand-placed.
Just yesterday I came across a planet called Blob, in a system that had one other custom named planet - definitely not procedurally generated. I would like to find out the story behind that name - I assume many of these places are named after real people, movie references etc. which would be interesting to know and I can't find any description anywhere (in game or out).
There is some named by players but that list can't be long. There have been 2-3 competitions were winner would be able to name a planet and during ks that was on quit high pledge tier so not many probably pledged for that. So i would assume that vast majority of stations and systems are named by rng from word list were frontier placed some list of names for famous people.
Edit. Also if i remember right if you got yourself right to name station or planet etc. you were unable to submit which station/planet would be named after that so the names and locations don't have any history or meaning beyond player stories since launch.
And of course some names come from previous elite games
Edit. Also if i remember right if you got yourself right to name station or planet etc. you were unable to submit which station/planet would be named after that so the names and locations don't have any history or meaning beyond player stories since launch.
And of course some names come from previous elite games
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The Kickstarter for ED had various reward tiers that allowed you to name a; space station (£500), a planet (£750), frontier star (£3,000), a complete star system design to support your written work (£4,500), a central star (£5,000), and you get to name the secret founder's system (also £5,000).
It would probably be fairly easy to do a query on EDSM to find planets with a name that didn't start with the system name. I don't know if anyone has a project to catalogue *why* they have those names, but I think there are five main reasons and it's *usually* possible to determine which applies from context.
1) Represents a real planet, named to match: obviously the planets in Sol, but various exoplanets elsewhere as well.
2) Name inherited from FE2/FFE: various planets in well-known systems often named after present-day famous people or locations (Birminghamworld, New Africa, Mitterand Hollow, Feynman, etc.) or for lore reasons in those games (Turner's World, Capitol, Between)
3) Named as a result of a Kickstarter reward
4) Renamed after 1.0 at community request, e.g. Laika or the various planets named after deceased players. Usually in uninhabited systems.
5) Renamed after 1.0 for competition winner. e.g. Hutton Moon or Garibaldi.
1) Represents a real planet, named to match: obviously the planets in Sol, but various exoplanets elsewhere as well.
2) Name inherited from FE2/FFE: various planets in well-known systems often named after present-day famous people or locations (Birminghamworld, New Africa, Mitterand Hollow, Feynman, etc.) or for lore reasons in those games (Turner's World, Capitol, Between)
3) Named as a result of a Kickstarter reward
4) Renamed after 1.0 at community request, e.g. Laika or the various planets named after deceased players. Usually in uninhabited systems.
5) Renamed after 1.0 for competition winner. e.g. Hutton Moon or Garibaldi.
Yup - maybe start with one of the data dumps and write some code to filter out the generated names: https://www.edsm.net/en/nightly-dumps
As Ian says, finding the reason is going to be quite a task for you - good luck OP!
yeah, that was LCU et al.
Thanks for the replies. I was basically just wondering whether there already is some database (or in-game explanation) of individual planet and station names. It seems there isn't one, which is a valid answer.
At least I know the potential sources of planet names which I didn't before, thanks Ian.
At least I know the potential sources of planet names which I didn't before, thanks Ian.
Part of the problem with having either an in-game or out-of-game lore explanation database for the various planet names is explaining the origins of the kIckstarter planet names.
Take the example I've often quoted when this topic comes up for discussion: the Bast system. Bast has only one planet, the Earth-like world named "THFC-Est1882". Now, that perhaps sounds like an obscure catalogue number - unless you happen to be aware of the fact that the Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club was established in 1882.
Now, we can probably come up with some kind of non-immersion-breaking lore-based explanation for the name "THFC-Est1882" - my own head-canon explanation is that the planet was first colonized by survivors of the crashed freighter "Est1882", which was owned by the Tau Horologii Freight Consortium. However, if FD adopt some such an explanation for the name, that might upset whoever it was that paid FD at least £750 for the right to name a planet; they presumably paid that money specifically to add a tribute to their favourite sports team into the game. I'm told the same person also applied to have the only space station in Bast named "White Hart Lane"; this was apparently edited back to "Hart Station" by FD shortly after the game launched.
That being said, as Xious reports, INARA does have a little "Galpedia" entry which explains the origins of some of the names of space stations which FD have named after famous people or places. In the Ida Dhor system, for example, there is a space station called "Vancouver Gateway"; The INARA page for this station gives a little Galpedia blurb about who George Vancouver was, and lists the various cities and places on Earth which are also named after him. However, the INARA pages for Hart Station in the Bast system, and for Big Harry's Monkey Hangout in Jotunheim, are unsurprisingly blank.
Take the example I've often quoted when this topic comes up for discussion: the Bast system. Bast has only one planet, the Earth-like world named "THFC-Est1882". Now, that perhaps sounds like an obscure catalogue number - unless you happen to be aware of the fact that the Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club was established in 1882.
Now, we can probably come up with some kind of non-immersion-breaking lore-based explanation for the name "THFC-Est1882" - my own head-canon explanation is that the planet was first colonized by survivors of the crashed freighter "Est1882", which was owned by the Tau Horologii Freight Consortium. However, if FD adopt some such an explanation for the name, that might upset whoever it was that paid FD at least £750 for the right to name a planet; they presumably paid that money specifically to add a tribute to their favourite sports team into the game. I'm told the same person also applied to have the only space station in Bast named "White Hart Lane"; this was apparently edited back to "Hart Station" by FD shortly after the game launched.
That being said, as Xious reports, INARA does have a little "Galpedia" entry which explains the origins of some of the names of space stations which FD have named after famous people or places. In the Ida Dhor system, for example, there is a space station called "Vancouver Gateway"; The INARA page for this station gives a little Galpedia blurb about who George Vancouver was, and lists the various cities and places on Earth which are also named after him. However, the INARA pages for Hart Station in the Bast system, and for Big Harry's Monkey Hangout in Jotunheim, are unsurprisingly blank.
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