Unusual Planet Names

Katt Trollblod

K
You know... I thought I'd seen it all in Elite Dangerous. Genocidal alien bugs in flower shaped ships, fields of spikey bacterial colonies floating in space and the unsettling look of Sagittarius A.

Then there was this world in the Calhaucan System. What's so unusual, you ask? Its name, I answer.

'Stapled Peacock Flesh'.

A world which is orbited by one Angel Station. It really caught me offguard. So I have to ask my fellow Commanders. Have you seen any utterly bizarre planetary names out there?
 

Vedmo

Vedmo
I think that one might take the cake! I'm guessing a kickstarter backer got naming rights, but not sure. Anyway, I kind of like the name.
 

Sapyx

Sapyx
Planet names in ED have various sources.
- Most just have the boring, procedurally generated name of {star_system_name planetary_orbit_number}.
- Planets in systems that were copied across from the old FE2 starmap, including those that were copied to FE2 from the even older original Elite starmap, have inherited the names form that map. Earth-like Planets in FE2 were given procedurally-generated names, picked off a relatievely short list of options. Taylor Colony in Tau Ceti, for example. Some hand-made names that are legacy from FE2 include Capitol in Achenar and Navy Central in Eta Cassiopeia.
- Planets in systems that FD decided to hand-make especially for ED. Many of these worlds are mostly in or near what is nicknamed the "pill", the small cylinder of space that was originally opened up to players during Gamma Testing. Azeban, in the Eranin system, is one that would be familiar to many, due to its use in the tutorial missions.
- 141 people who paid £750 or more to the ED kickstarter, bought the right to name one planet in the ED galaxy. Most of the weirder planet names in ED do come from this source. You have found one of them. Others that come to mind:

- Anew, in the George Pantazis system. The planet, and the system, were named by a high-level backer; I don't know if that backer is a member of this forum, but I've seen him post on the ED Facebook page under that name.
- THFC Est1882, in the Bast system. That might sound like some obscure catalogue number, until you realise the backer was a fan of a certain English football club which was established in 1882.
 

Amargosa

A
Sapyx said:
- Most just have the boring, procedurally generated name of {star_system_name planetary_orbit_number}.
Click to expand...

It's not procedural, it's based on a real system which uses roman numerals instead, like Sol III. Star Trek uses that system alot too.
 
Last edited:

S3B4ST13N

S
Koen said:
It is procedural: in fact, you just described the procedure.
Click to expand...

Procedural infers it's been randomly generated, it has not. The naming system in ED is very specific and based on a simple algorithm that can be predicted just by looking at the order of the planets/moons/stars etc. The names of stars/planets/life in No Man's Sky for example, are procedural (though with some criteria, eg, fauna/flora names have a very sciency/latin-esque feel to them).
 
Last edited:

Kenneth McGrew

Kenneth McGrew
Hacker#451563 said:
I found* a planet once called:

"Swampy al Aroma" I was really surprised.










* No you didn't you've been drinking again.
Click to expand...

any names mentioning man eggs would be amazing, i fear the filter may have got the better of these though :(. if only i were given the opportunity of naming something...
 
Last edited:

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
trollson said:
Procedural generation is repeatable but not necessarily deterministic.

It is free to use (lots of) pseudo random number generators with deterministic seeds, but is not obliged to.
Click to expand...
And in this case for *most* systems, the system name (which is most of the contents of the planet name) was generated as part of a pseudo-random process, as was the planet's position within the system, so just because there's no *further* randomisation in the process to join the name and the sequence numbers together doesn't make the whole generation non-random in its basis.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Sapyx said:
Planet names in ED have various sources.
Click to expand...
In addition there are a few which have been renamed since the start of the game for various reasons
- commemoration by Frontier of something or someone
- by players as competition prizes / charity auction rewards / etc.
 

Koen

Koen
r0ckhat said:
Procedural infers it's been randomly generated
Click to expand...
No, procedural means that some procedure has been followed.

The seed for this procedure can be random or not random. For a "rogue like" game where the world is different every time one plays, the seed is (pseudo-)random.

In ELITE 1984, several seeds were considered and rejected. One was infamously rejected by Bell & Braben because it generated a system named "(edit: deleted by the forum filter, but David Braben names it in the linked interview)". In this case the seed is not random: it has been selected because it has certain properties.

In the real world, designations of celestial objects are also procedurally generated (whether the seed is random or not is in that case a matter of religion/philosophy).

r0ckhat said:
The names of stars/planets/life in No Man's Sky for example, are procedural (though with some criteria, eg, fauna/flora names have a very sciency/latin-esque feel to them).
Click to expand...

There is no difference between the principles behind the names (and positions, landscapes, etc...) of planets in NMS and Elite, only the procedures and the seeds are different. Both use fixed seeds, so that the planet names are the same for all players and for each session (unless they change it in a patch, of course).

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall while FDEV and Hello Games developers were discussing the choice of seeds for their games.
 
Last edited:

Sapyx

Sapyx
Deejayeff145 said:
Big Harry's Monkey Hangout is always a favourite station of mine. Forget the system, but it's not far from Achenar.
Click to expand...

That one's in Jotunheim. I didn't mention it because the OP's original question was about planet names, not station names.

There are a lot more Kickstarter station names than Kickstarter planet names: 254, by my reckoning.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom