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Naming


PeterDragon

  

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My naming goes like this:

[My rank] ([Area]) [!] [Xcom Rank]

[My Rank]:
Rookie -60 TUs
Pro 60-70 TUs
Elite 70+ TUs

[Area]:
SS (Sniper) 70+ Acurracy
Psi (Psi) 90+ Psi Strenght
As (Assault) None of the above (This guys usually have high reactions when they recieve Elite rank)

[!]:
They recieve this mark if they have 80+ Psi Str

[Xcom Rank]:
+ Squaddie
++ Sargeant
+++ Captain
++++ Coronel
+++++ Commander

Examples:

Rookie (As) Door Opener (Tipical newcomer)
Pro (SS) ++ High accuracy Sargeant (Usually when fighting Snakeman)
Pro (Psi) ! ++ Say hello to my Psi Lab! (After first ethereal ship)
Elite (SS) ! ++++ Cydonia Coronel Edited by Kirill
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It feels more authentic somehow to not tamper with their names, but I have been guilty of naming one "Gomer Pyle" (from the psychotic dude in Full Metal Jacket. He was so worthless that I just [i]had[/i] to :D) ^-^

But otherwise, no :unsure: The strategical purpose of it gets messed when someone gets wounded or dies anyway.
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  • 2 weeks later...
In my current game I have been giving every soldier a number so that I can track my losses and how long each one career is.
So my first eight are numbered one thru eight.
Playing on Superhuman without reloading I am now at July 1. I am up to number 75 and still have 40 men.
So I have lost 35 men in 6 months
Of these only two are left of the first eight but I must admit I have been rotating my squads so no one soldier has been on all missions.
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I wonder how they feel being called "Number 72" instead of "John Ridger"


[edit]ohhh, that's what you meant. Well then, that actually sounds a lot like dog tags, with a personel ID and name....[/edit] Edited by blehm
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I name my soldiers in this manner.

(Rank) (Name) (Occupation)

Rank shows their current Xcom rank.

Name shows there last (or sometimes first) name.

Occupation can be HW (Heavy Weapons), Rockets, Medic, or R (New Recruit).

Examples

"Pvt Johnson ®" (this man ususally gets a a rifle and personal armor, thats it. Recruits are any Xcom opperitive that has not survived 4 missions intacted,)

"Pvt Jack (Medic)" (He carries tons of medkits and is usually armed with a pistol.) (later in the game i give them heavy plasmas).

"Sgt Sarah (HW)" (The HW really only applies in the beginning when you have auto cannons and stuff, once you get plasma everyoen gets a Heavy plasma.)

"Pvt Benny (Rockets)" (This man will handle rocket launchers or blaster launchers.)
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  • 3 weeks later...
Odd, I've posted to this thread, but only as a comment to a short side discussion - not really in regards to naming. Oh well, I'd better fix that. Here goes.

Occasionally I like to rename soldiers, but not too often considering how fragile they are. In general, I just leave the soldiers as they are and I let my imagination develop personalities for them all. I tend to let my soldiers generalise and use a weapon kit that I wouldn't mind letting anyone use (one example of a general weapon kit would be: personal armour, laser rifle, 3 grenades). After a while, I tend to remember which soldier gets a unique weapon kit. And if I forget, well, no problem, just go back to the general kit or something new until I remember or find a new task for the. Or, I usually just let them go with what they start with, which works fine with me. It's good to be flexible.

Occasionally, I use XComUtil's autonaming system (if I'm playing a copy of the game with XComutil, that is), and be done with it. At other times I use a variant of it that I guess you can call the 'Star' system, which keeps track of the three stats I like to keep tabs on. STrength, Accuracy, Reactions.

Strength levels between 30 - 40 get an S while everything above that gets a S+ (this is mainly kept for determining who gets the large rockets or the high explosive packs).

An A is given to anyone with good accuracy. It's hard to say how to detemine 'good' accuracy, so I sometimes give it to soldiers with accuracies over 65 or over 70.

Reactions is also another hard one, but if it's high in general, like 60 - 70 or above, they get an R. So in the end, a soldier might have a /S+AR on the end. I don't use this that much anymore though.

The one other global naming convention that I [i]always[/i] use is the "!". Anyone found failing a psionic attack immediately gets a "!" at the end of the mission, should they survive. This is just to remind me to prepare these soldiers for dismissal.

Finally, if whimsy strikes, in the Dos versions of the game, I like to attach fake 'medals' on the end of the names of soldiers that I'm keeping a tight watch on (also works as my own personal promotion system). It's accomplished by pressing ctrl+backspace to create a copyright symbol and then using the < or > (I can't remember which one) a few times. Since the greater (or less than) symbol overlaps the copyright symbol, it ends up looking like a fake medallion. It won't work in the windows version of the game because it ignores ctrl+backspace. It can be done with a soldier editor (although you'd need the proper alt+key sequence for the copyright symbol), but not in-game.

In conclusion though, I usually play the soldiers as they are named, and tack a '!' on the end if they fail to any psionic attacks. Any other naming convention that I use is only used on occasion.

- NKF
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  • 4 weeks later...
My namings are simple. Usually i change the last name because the game generated names, well let's just say they are bad.

I don't change the rookie names, but after they get promoted, i add "Agent" to the beginning of their name. So let's say i have a soldier who is named John Park and he gets promoted to squaddie. He will become..

Agent Park

After he gets +5 kills and +5 missions, he will become

*Primani* Park (It's latin for an elite 1st legion soldier)

After he gets +10 kills and somehow manages to survive 10 missions, he will become

**Veteranus** Park (Again, latin for highly experienced soldier/officer)

Let's say Park would have good STR and decent firing accuracy, he would become a rocketeer (Rocket launcher/Blaster launcher) i'd add ® -symbol at the end of his name, thus he would become

**Veteranus** Park ®

If he had good psi str and psi skill, he'd named as

**Veteranus** Park-PsiCorp

I use this system, it keeps my attatched to my troopers but also gives me some info of about who i can give the heavy weapons to. After a while though, you remember the stats of them, everyone has a own personallity.
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  • 1 month later...
I usually slap the rank before the name, dropping the surname and if they perform exceptionally, maybe a profession. Usually things like (Sniper) if they have performed "killing sprees" with very high accuracy (ie, lots of aliens in quick succession over a certain number of turns) and suchlike.

Example, one of my men I lost ( ;_; ) :

Sgt. Michael (Sniper) (Mike's track record was 6 Sectoids in one mission, 7 shots. Only one of those shots missed, base defense. All the others were one-hit-kills, with a plasma rifle :wink1: )

(Rank, Name, "Profession", if any) Edited by Exo2000
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  • 5 months later...
I use xcomutil for the stat strings -- I remember doing that by hand way back when and it was probably my least favorite aspect of the game. Oh, I did modify xcomutil's stat-flag list slightly, adding s for str>40 and S for str>55 after getting lots of non-weak people overloaded with autocannon ammo and such. . . .

I only rename rookies if their stats are particuarly interesting; e.g. I named Irvine when I found someone with 70-something accuracy in my rookie squad in base #2 (after the Final Fantasy 8 sniper), and a medeocre recruit with extreme throwing accuracy became Tosser. (The latter having outlived both Irvine and his successor Tatsuo to become the 'leader' of that squad.)

Oh, and occasionally I'll just name people because I get struck by an idea; like making two medeocre recruits Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

For the most part, I wait until the people become squaddies, or perhaps till about five kills, and then name them something that seems to fit. Someone who spent most of a terror mission igniting things with AC-I rounds became Canti, after the god of fire in whats-her-name's video game in the second episode of the FLCL anime . . .

If nothing comes to mind, I just delete their last name (like Tatsuo) most of the time, because I think that one-word names look a lot cleaner, especially with the stat strings in.
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I voted for "NONE, who cares?" simply because I don't start my battles over everytime I lose a guy. The soldiers as NKF said, are too fragile. Why should you take that time renaming them, then they die right in front of you? (not to mention you get the urge to reload the battle <_< )

This is what I do, order some men, stick them on an aircraft, and send them to their doom on superhuman difficulty. Fact of it is, I always beat the aliens in the end, so why should I care about extra stats?
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This is how I name people in my squad
Name (Job) <Rank>

Jobs
(T) Trooper (Rifles) for average soilders
(HW) Heavy Weapon (AutoCannon Rockets) for strong guys
® Recon (Pistol, motion sensor, MediKit) lots of Time units and stamina
(S) Sniper (Most accurate weapon I can find)

Ranks
<R> Rookie
<Sq> Squadie
<C> Captian
<S> Sergent
<Co> Commander
I think there is one other rank, cant think of it though.
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I used to rename soldiers, but when i got Xcomutil i just change people's guns depending on the letter or two after his name
and i keep the weapons that work on my soldiers

renaming men takes a long time when you order 20-30 at a time
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I do mine by base and number.

My first base (XCOM Euro) will have my Alpha Team.

They will go from Alpha Leader through to Alpha 10. It is easy from there. Alpha Leader is the highest rank and holds a Blaster Luncher, Alpha 2 is my heavy weapons expert with a Heavy Plasma, Alpha 3 is my sniper with a Laser Rifle and then Alpha 4 is my scout with a Plasma or Laser Pistol in one hand and a Stun-rod in the other. Then my 5 and 8 are heavy weapons experts, 6 and 9 are snipers and 7 and 10 are scouts, all outfitted as above.

So I have three Heavy Weapons Experts, Scout and Sniper teams supported by my Blaster Laucher wielding leader and usually a Fussion Launcher HWP.

This is my basic outfit for strike teams for one, two or three bases with Skyrangers as the only transport. Once I have psi my teams diversify and I usually move a sniper to support team one and have two psi capable soldiers sit back with my leader. And of course gaining Avengers means I can carry larger teams, so they expand again and are given greater HWP support.

I also name my next squads in the accepted Phonetic Alphabet order, that being Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta and so on.

And I like to change it before Cydonia so that I have each individual squad in the level under the banner of Alpah, Bravo, Chalie and Delta. All squads are also given
their own Blaster Bomb support by this point. I find it fun to set up, but I can waste hours doing nothing. Edited by CaptainKnight
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  • 4 months later...
I don't bother with bases or continents in the names. After all, bases are temporary, but soldiers are forever.

Usually I rename them based on their skills, they're weapon of choice, and how I'm going to use them.

For example, "Kamakazi"s are loaded down with high explosives, and the walked straight into a medium scout. :D

Other than that I have "Privates", which just use power suits are heavy plasmas (This is kind of funny, because sometimes I end up with a private who's ranked at colonial...), Heavy Weaps (High strength, blaster launchers), Psi ops (Self explanitory), Medics (Who double as tossers), snipers (accuracy, reactions, Heavy laser), and godly officers (Who are simply given the suffix "God")

In my current game I have 5 godly officers. One is named after me, the other is named after my girlfriend, and the other three and named after The Lost Vikings. Anyone remember that game?
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I found re-naming Soldiers (with the exception of adding stats strings) gave me unhealthy attatchments for certain soldiers and subsequently hitting the old reset to revive my "friends".

Since that learning experience I generally refrain from renaming them which allows me to accept lossess easier and just give em a military funeral and order new troops.
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[quote name='Dover' date='Jan 18 2006, 05:36 AM']I don't bother with bases or continents in the names. After all, bases are temporary, but soldiers are forever.
[right][post="144493"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

¿que?

Generally in my games the bases have a longer life expectancy then the soldiers.

Normally I wouldn't name soldiers, but when its a base attack or you have a lot of troop transporters its a bit hard to remember who's who, its a bit annoying when you give James Krugen(nice tough name) a rocket launcher, then he's so encumbered in battle that he barely moves, wheras Lily White is actually a butch hardcore woman who can carrying enough weapons to level a city map but is given the motion scanner and laser pistol instead.

When I name its delete the last name and add a proficencies.

e.g. James/HW/R

James, who carries heavy weapons and has rifleman accuracy.

F- Fodder, generally bad stats used as bait and human shields.
Scout - Hopefully high reactions but for people with low accuracy and stregnth.
R- Rifleman Acc+50
S- Shooter Acc+60
SS - Sharp Shooter Acc+70
Sni - Sniper 80+
HW - Heavy Weapons
Psi - Psi Strong
PsiW - Psi Weakling
Fire - People who I plan to fire when I go to sell/sack.
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[quote name='Kratos' date='Aug 21 2005, 03:02 PM']I voted for "NONE, who cares?" simply because I don't start my battles over everytime I lose a guy. The soldiers as NKF said, are too fragile. Why should you take that time renaming them, then they die right in front of you? (not to mention you get the urge to reload the battle  <_< )

This is what I do, order some men, stick them on an aircraft, and send them to their doom on superhuman difficulty. Fact of it is, I always beat the aliens in the end, so why should I care about extra stats?
[right][post="129432"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

[quote name='Oldblue153' date='Jan 18 2006, 06:53 AM']I found re-naming Soldiers (with the exception of adding stats strings) gave me unhealthy attatchments for certain soldiers and subsequently hitting the old reset to revive my "friends".

Since that learning experience I generally refrain from renaming them which allows me to accept lossess easier and just give em a military funeral and order new troops.
[right][post="144496"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

Funny. I don't get the urge to reset, but that's mostly because I lose Squaddies, who are expendable. My Command crew stay nice and safe in the Avenger. :D Also, I don't usually save midmission.
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[quote name='Sharp' date='Jan 18 2006, 10:42 AM'][quote name='Dover' date='Jan 18 2006, 05:36 AM']I don't bother with bases or continents in the names. After all, bases are temporary, but soldiers are forever.
[right][post="144493"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

¿que?

Generally in my games the bases have a longer life expectancy then the soldiers.

[right][post="144533"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right]
[/quote]

Lies. Soldiers are valuable. They take time to train them the way you want them, they take time to name properly, they take time to hire/sack until you find suitable candidates. I have 14 soldiers on each of my 5 intercept bases. Thats 70 soldiers to keep track of and babysit, not even counting my main strike base, which is 3 Avengers with 26 guys each. I'm too lazy to do the math but that's over 140 soldiers easily.

I don't lose soldiers, I just don't. Not when I can help it at least. I mean, if they hit me in the face with a blaster bomb there's not much I can do,

Bases are easy. You buy an access lift, tack on a couple moduals, and you've got yourself a respectable base. Not like soldiers. Proper soldiers are hard...
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  • 5 months later...

I guess I fall in the majority who edits all names. Or should I say "amends"? See, I leave the original names intact but add a bit at the end about strength so I know how to arm. After the strength increases enough, I remove that stat and add something for training. Usually it is FA and Reactions. After those are maxed out, The soldier gets his/her original name back (hurray!). :)

 

- Zombie

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well, i used to order 20 to 40 soldiers at a time, and rename every single one of them, a name for different stats

if they had above 50 accuracy, and below 50 reactions, they're a Rifleman

if they have above 50 accuracy and reactions, they're marine

If they have above 60 accuracy and below 60 reactions, they're sharpshooters

If they have reactions and accuracy above 60 they're named super soldier

if they accuracy above 70 and reactions below 60 they're a sniper

if they have accuracy above 70 and reactions above 60 i named the super marine

i had like 20 names in total, but those were the most common

i had cannon fodder for soldiers with accuracy and reactions below 50, and plasma fodder for soldiers with below 50 accuracy and reactions, but one of those two stats was below 40 as well

i also had a few others, but yeah

 

one time i had a colonel sharpshooter, with reactions and accuracy above 70, a strength of like 65 (I swear, no joke, this guy was crazy)

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  • 1 year later...

I've used XComUtil's naming feature and it worked great. But by the endgame you've got a list of troops with an ungainly suffix tagged onto their 'first initial/last name' tag. (ex: 'B Jones -d32/cpSnpr')

 

I've turned off the feature for my latest game to force me to actually go through and manage my soldiers manually, rather than dump anyone with c or x in their name.

 

At first I'll amend a '/HW' for those that can best heft the heavier weapons early on or a '/R' for 50+ Reaction stats... Eventually they get replaced by a Callsign. (takes the place of the soldier's first name where possible... if the last name's too long, then its a complete replacement)

 

Earned:

'Rooster' - soldier that miraculously survives a 3/4/5-to-1 firefight as a Rookie/Squaddie

'Deadeye' - bequeathed after an ungodly long-range sniper shot... usually through multiple windows

'Cappie' - first promoted Captain

'Golem' - first previously-unnamed Powered Armor soldier (generally HW specialist)

'Psi'cho' - first 95+ Psionic Strength soldier

'Cooper ##' - (full name replacement; Number ranges from 01 to 04) Women of >80 Psionic Strength (homage: Syndicate's "Cooper Team" cheatcode quad of female agents)

'F.A.S. ##' - (full name replacement; Number is for designation... helps keep track of the number of rejects I've gathered in my recruiting. Courtesy of Doc, author of the-whiteboard) "F.orward A.blative S.cout" Any soldier with <30 Psi (Trooper: "What's 'ablative' mean?" Sarge: "It's french for 'essential'.. now grab that 9mm and move your *ss.")

 

The rest are given names from various sources after a few deployments/promotions...

Edited by Sangrahl
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Only after psi-training do I consider it prudent to have a naming convention, at least for certain soldiers. I usually use names from various mythologies for the psions, especially the ones who have been around awhile and have uber stats, and where practical, the names fit the statistics of the soldier. Zeus might have a psi amp in addition to a disposable blaster, three bombs, and loaded heavy plasma, and still have over 75 TUs, as might Thor, Apollo and Hercules. Thoth would be a name for the 100 Psi Strength guy. Athena, Isis, Nike, and Diana would be strong females, and Diana would probably have the highest accuracy. Aphrodite (another might also be named Venus) would have the highest Psi Strength.

 

Before Psi-training, I may name the odd guy some G.I. Joe-esque name such as Snake Eyes or Hawkeye or Ace (or even G.I. Joe), or I may give them a functional identifier such as Scout (too weak to carry much more than a sidearm or LR and a couple of grenades and/or flares), Grunt (can carry at least a standard load of rifle + grenades + medkit), Sniper, Heavy, etc. I am prepared for the casualties and discharges, since these guys are prone to die and usually don't have squat for Psi Strength.

 

This is in Superhuman, with no reloads. In my earlier days I would name any soldier with good stats as soon as I started the game. Of course, those soldiers would die, and I would reload. Once I stopped reloading, and turned up the difficulty, renaming just became a pain in the arse (pre-psi). I also started using stat strings, which basically make function names redundant. Now I can win most battles with minimal losses, but I still haven't played completely without psionics. My psionic squads don't take casualties. I imagine without untouchable soldiers I'll do a lot less renaming.

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  • 1 year later...

I name some of my guys after some military video game heroes. The first agent on my list, I edit so that the agent is a male blonde, and I name him Dimone Freehold. That's the real name of Specter, the guy you play as in SOCOM II and 3. I also named one of my guys Louis Loiselle, the guy from France on your team in Rainbow Six 3.

 

In UFO 2000, I give all my guys names from the Rainbow Six series. The team leader, I name him Domingo Chavez, from the USA. The next three, I name Eddie Price, from England, Louis Loiselle, from France, and Dieter Weber, from Germany.

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  • 3 months later...

Ah hah... I found it. So you guys do rename your soldiers. I do sort of the same thing but more like this... if they aint officer they aint crap to me.

 

A- (HW)+PSI <Cpt> = Agent- (Heavy Weapons)+Can use PSI Amp <rank>

 

A- (SNP)+PSI <Col> = Agent- (Sniper)+ so on and so on.

 

Like I said if they aint officer material they dont get a rank...

 

If they have no specialty and and havent been to PSI school yet... they suck... its just a straight A-

 

Right now, I got 4 PSI labs going at one base and all the guys that already put a month in. This is their first month to use the AMPs.

 

Put their PSI stats in their name like this or what ever... A- PSI 70/50 = Agent- can use PSI AMP 70 Strength/50 skill

 

If they are sniper or heavy weapons carrier or what ever, take it out of the name... PSI is more of a priority than all.

 

Thats also a good way to see how much they improve after each mission if they were ever used with PSI AMP.

 

 

Anyone with 70 Accuracy becomes a sniper, this actually goes up fast for those with this high of accuracy that are straight recruits. Anyone with 40 Strength from straight recruit becomes Heavy Weapons. And of course this goes up fast too with all the crap hes carrying (1 Blaster Launcher with 6 Blaster Bombs and a laser pistol)

 

 

 

Name the commander what ever, just remember his stats which is easy. Guess what his name is??? COMMANDER NICOLAI "Now do some push ups."

Edited by Commander Nicolai
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  • 1 year later...

and here is my system

not perfect, but works for me

 

i just add some letters at the end of soldier names

even wrote small editor, that changes those names for me

 

reactions

r 50+

rr 60+

R 70+

Rr 80+

RR 90+

 

firing acc

G 60+ ( good )

E 70+ ( exelent )

S 80+ ( superb )

T 90+ ( terminator )

TT 100+ ( terminator of terminators ;) )

 

throwing acc

g 60+

e 70+

s 80+

 

psi skill

m 40+ ( first mind controls )

mm 50+

M 60+ ( standard )

Mm 70+

MM 80+

W 90+ ( can mind control everything )

WW 100+

 

psi strength is just plain number

 

i dont put any strength marks

and dont care about bravery

 

example:

Maria Bonal rEs80Mm

 

 

yarrow

Edited by yarrow
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  • 1 year later...

I used to give my soldiers handles in parenthese to signify thier role like:

 

Jordan "Deadeye" Jenkins

 

But I find if I personalize soldiers too much it gives me too much of an temptation to reload when they die. So I instead use a simple one-character convention.

 

"-" are scouts, high reaction, since the dash looks like a door, signifying that they'll be the ones breaching them.

"+" are riflemen, high accuracy, since the plus looks like a crosshair

"*" are heavyweapons, high strength, since the aterisk looks like an explosion

"=" are good allarounders, captain bars, for soldiers I want to become officers.

 

Once I get Psi:

 

W - For Weak Sub 50 Psi Strength

N - For Neutral 50-74 Psi

S - For Strong 75-90 Psi

O - For Operator 90+ Psi, Operator as in they'll be operating Psi-Amps.

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