Anyone name their ships? Why are all the ships USS prefix?

[DorianGray]

I'm just wondering if people personalize their ships by giving them names on the ship cards and on the base of the minis.

A deeper question is why in Star Trek every Federation Ship from Earth all USS? I know Star Trek is obviously American-biased but it really has little excuse to have all their ships USS.

Shouldn't there be a more imaginative abbreviation from all human starships like SFS (Starfleet Ship)? Or there should be lots of HMS's, HNLMS's, SMS, or INS floating around...

Actually that leads me to ask why are all "combat" ships in starfleet all human-design? I never seen a Vulcan or Betazoid crusier serving in a Federation fleet... along side the standard saucer human ships.

[drwibble]

The Star Fleet Universe has its roots in the original Star Trek and the animated series which followed on when it was thought that the acting version was dead for ever. It's doubtful that Gene Rodenberry had any idea at the time how big his creation was going to grow, and he based a lot of it around what he was familiar with. So the "NCC-1701" was actually based on civilian aircraft registrations since Gene was a pilot, and was later rationalised into being "Naval Construction Contract".

Similarly "USS" was originally based on United States Navy ship titles, but quickly rationalised into "United Space Ship". In the context of a unified Earth, individual nationalistic ship naming conventions wouldn't make sense. And bear in mind that even amongst the original Constitution class cruisers there were names of famous ships from several old-Earth nations - Kongo, Hood etc.

The original series had a Constitution class cruiser named Intrepid which had an all-Vulcan crew (destroyed in the encounter with the space amoeba). The rationale would be that Star Fleet supplanted all nationalistic and individual world navies, and so there are a set of standard vessel designs across the entire fleet. There are very good and sound logistic reasons for this; maintenance and supply for a diverse range of ships from widely different backgrounds would be a nightmare for fleet operations.

Perhaps the ship titles should in fact be "SFS"... but this is neither canon to the Star Fleet Universe or the source material at its point of origin and so wouldn't reflect what the SFU is about.

[Sgt_G]

Actually that leads me to ask why are all "combat" ships in starfleet all human-design? I never seen a Vulcan or Betazoid crusier serving in a Federation fleet... along side the standard saucer human ships.

Actually, there are Vulcan ships. But you have to look at the Early Years products for SFB to find them. I beleive there's a project in the works to migrate SFB Early Years "Y-Ships" to Fed Cmdr.

As Betazoids are from ST:TNG, you won't ever find them in SFB or Fed Cmdr. Same with Bajorians and Cardassians.

[Ravenhull]

The big issue with there not being member race ships in Star Fleet was to unify their operations, and in the process reduce the instances of things like the Rigellians and Alpha Centaurans having low grade combat incidents.

As for 'USS'... simply a legacy of the original source material.

[Steve Cole]

These are NOT human-designed ships, but star fleet designed ships.

[Hod K'el]

By the way, that is United federation of planets Star Ship...thus USS. TOS made a big difference over space ships and star ships...'We can destroy any space ship!' 'But you don't understand; the Enterprise isn't a space ship, it's a star ship!' Oh, yes, I remember this well!

The Vulcans were instrumental in engine and systems design, the Andos were on weapons and humans were on everything.

And yes, I name my ships. My specific ship is named below. I use klingon names for my klingon ships, fed names for my fed ships, romulan names for my romulan ships, and kilrahthi names for my kzinti ships. Frigates and smaller ships are numbered, as are freighters.

I suggest you read the history of starfleet universe for a better understanding of how this game works with respect to weapons as well as names and titles. Remember the final frontier...the tiger lady dancing on the bar...Kzinti!

[Dan Ibekwe]

I name all my Hydran ships, mostly based on Royal Navy vessels, all my Lyran ships, based on names from the ADB ship registry, and some of the others as the whim takes me (using Marc Okrand's Klingon language books for the klinks).

Although I still need to come up with something suitably left-field for the Andros...probably to be based on Ian M Banks' Culture ships...

[Wolverin61]

I name all my Fed ships, the rest I just call targets.

[pinecone]

It will get out sooner or later, so I might as well say it now.

My ship (a Fed BC of the Kirov class) is named the Star Sheep It's escorts are the Fluffy Wool (CA), Protector of Pastures (FF) and Sherperd (FF) All are part of the War Bleat fleet. The mainstay of officers on the ship are, well sheep (efficient at controlling a starship, but my marine raids are pretty bogus).

On a more serious note, I do name my ships (And did once name it the Star Sheep). Sometimes I'll look in the reference books and find a name I like, or I might make my own.

[djdood]

I use names from the ADB registry, except for a few rare cases (named for friends and family).

I mainly play Feds, and they all have their names on the minis (or will, once all the decals get applied).

Fed BC's are the Montana more often than not, due to it being my original (and still my spiritual) home.

My group's Klingon player tends to go with either major Klingon character names (Kang, Kahless, etc.) or with strong names like Saber, Demon, etc.

His favorite (a so-far un-destroyable D-5W) is the Blood Vengeance.

[Sllarr]

Yes, I do name my ships.

I created an excel sheet to keep track of the miniatures in the collection. One day decided to name all the Feds so I could order decals for them. and after that ended up naming all the 170 miniatures. I used mostly names from the registry but took a few liberties.

I am still working on the minis but my plan is to have some type of label on the bases indentifying the ship's class and its name.

[Sllarr]

On a more serious note, I do name my ships (And did once name it the Star Sheep).

By the way Pinecone, the "Star Sheep" is a monster in a fiction story in Captain's Log #24 . Just read it last night. There are two scenarios in the book using those creatures...

[DorianGray]

Yes, I do name my ships.

I created an excel sheet to keep track of the miniatures in the collection. One day decided to name all the Feds so I could order decals for them.
.

How do you order custom decals for the ships? Can you get custom NCC numbers for them as well? It'd be really awesome.

[OGOPTIMUS]

I got all my custom names/NCC numbers from Starfighter decals. Unfortunately this service has recently been discontinued. You can still get a mix, but no more specific requests.

There are several people here who have done their own decals or are looking into doing so (myself included). It's not that difficult--there are so many pictures of the Big E, D7, Warbird/Eagle out there that you can get ideas/images for your own. And since most other SFU ships are based off these, getting decals for others ships is a matter of simple resizing or cutting and pasting mirror images or the like.

After that, all you need is access to some decal paper, a drawing program (many available) and then a color printer (laser is preferable), and you can always go to Kinkos for that.

[Sllarr]

Starfighter-decals.com (Mark Tutton) used to take orders for custom names and NCC numbers. I ordered most of my Fed decals that way. Unfortunately looks like he is not accepting orders for custom names anymore.

Anyway, you can e-mail him and ask.