Making new names of Systems, Stars and new POIs official by Frontier

[JohannStrauss]

I wonder if and when Frontier will officially apply the approved new names players have given their new found babies, also known as systems, stars, planets and so on.
We found them, so let's make it official - after we sold the data. This would make the name-finding much more fun to me and the entire exploration aspects highly rewarding.

Can I hear a "YES, we will do this!" Frontier?
Yes?

 

[marx]

I'm not saying this to offend you, but I hope not. Why? Because of two reasons.

If by "the approved new names players have given" you mean the names on the GMP, there is precious little quality control there, which is natural. After all, the authors of said project are players like everyone else here, so posing as judges of the incoming name would be controversial. Now if FD ran quality control on each and every name there, and didn't approve some, their authors could be upset.

If by that phrase you mean that players would have the opportunity to name stuff for which they've sold the data and received the first discoverer tag, that sounds better, but I have my doubts that Frontier could keep up with all of those. Then we'd end up with planet names like "Planet McPlanetFace", "Moon Moon Moon" and the like. Plus it could well make selling exploration data much clunkier - imagine being asked if you wish to name each undiscovered body you found or not! It would take hours, so it's not feasible to do: you'd have to have the option to name planets you discovered later instead. I wonder if that would be viable with the game's architecture, although it probably could be.

Personally, I'd rather they ran the procedural name generation on inhabited stuff instead. In my opinion, it is kind of weird when we have systems still using their procedural names, not just around Jaques, but also back in the old bubble. The algorithm would be impartial anyway.

 

[Yanick]

Frontier are slowly approving names for certain POI. Mostly as tourist destinations. And I'm happy with that. The GMP names give them a good amount of options for naming systems, and regions too.

o7
Yanick

 

[CMDR CHIGGY VONRICTOFEN]

Another thing...pretty sure it requires major server update, and each one would have to be done individually. I 'm pretty sure the system name is tied to the generation of the system itself, if not in whole, at least in part. Just changing the name of the system, would also change the contents of that system.

 

[marx]

Another thing...pretty sure it requires major server update, and each one would have to be done individually. I 'm pretty sure the system name is tied to the generation of the system itself, if not in whole, at least in part. Just changing the name of the system, would also change the contents of that system.

It does appear that the Stellar Forge uses the system name as a seed, or as part of the seed. However, FD can override it. They have done so for Beagle Point, and also for all the Colonia PMF systems (36 so far) which were renamed from their original proc. gen. names. I think the process could be automated, but not knowing the internals of the engine, I might be wrong there.

 

[Corbin Moran]

If by "the approved new names players have given" you mean the names on the GMP, there is precious little quality control there, which is natural. After all, the authors of said project are players like everyone else here, so posing as judges of the incoming name would be controversial.

Just to clarify this:

- the Galactic Mapping Project does have a naming policy. In short you could say that a name should fit the ED universe and not be silly or break immersion. If a CMDR submits a POI with a name that is problematic (for whatever reason), one of the mapping team gets in touch with that CMDR and a solution is worked out before the POI is added to the map.

 

[jimbeau1571]

It does appear that the Stellar Forge uses the system name as a seed, or as part of the seed. However, FD can override it. They have done so for Beagle Point, and also for all the Colonia PMF systems (36 so far) which were renamed from their original proc. gen. names. I think the process could be automated, but not knowing the internals of the engine, I might be wrong there.

Bizarrely, I believe if you search for Colonia's original proc. name, it will still locate Colonia for you. I have had a few like this recently when searching for D?-?? mass syetm names, and it has then found it only to be showing me a HIP ????? type name. I even selected away from that system and redid the search to check.

So I think the proc. name could still be the true name, any change just being a purely 'Cosmetic' for us.

Happy to be told I'm talking nonsense once more.

 

[marx]

Just to clarify this:

- the Galactic Mapping Project does have a naming policy. In short you could say that a name should fit the ED universe and not be silly or break immersion. If a CMDR submits a POI with a name that is problematic (for whatever reason), one of the mapping team gets in touch with that CMDR and a solution is worked out before the POI is added to the map.

My bad, I didn't know about this. Looking at the post now, this is only mentioned in passing, so you might want to add this to the info then. It's a sensible policy, if a bit too flexible. It's your project, your rules. The names aren't automatically included in-game, so it's fine. (Clarification: if some players would decide what other players can or can't name in-game, that would be problematic.)

Bizarrely, I believe if you search for Colonia's original proc. name, it will still locate Colonia for you. I have had a few like this recently when searching for D?-?? mass syetm names, and it has then found it only to be showing me a HIP ????? type name. I even selected away from that system and redid the search to check.

So I think the proc. name could still be the true name, any change just being a purely 'Cosmetic' for us.

Yep, you have that right: overwrites happen quite often. It's not just manual stuff like named systems (Rendezvous Point, Beagle Point and so on), but also regions: for example, systems in nebula sectors (like "Little Gem Sector") are renamed systems from their parent proc. gen. sector. Of course, there's also that the search function can work a bit "funny" when you are doing partial names, so it might point you to a "wrong" one because of that - but if you can figure out the original name of the system and search for it specifically, it will point you to the overwritten name.
However, the star catalogue systems I believe are created separately (I might be wrong though), so you searching for a partial name and getting directed to a HIP catalogue system could have been due to the search function.