What's with the names of Xenon ships?
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What's with the names of Xenon ships?
As the title says, I can't figure out why with the exception of one they all just have a single letter for names.
N, M, L, LX, P, Q, J, K... Does anyone have any clue as to why this is? Some math reference to denote the AI nature of the Xenon? Development names that stuck the developers threw in? Anything?
N, M, L, LX, P, Q, J, K... Does anyone have any clue as to why this is? Some math reference to denote the AI nature of the Xenon? Development names that stuck the developers threw in? Anything?
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An old thread.
I think LX came in as just a handy name for a superior L fighter. The same for the PX, a superior P corvette.
We also now have the S, a Xenon mining ship in X Rebirth, and the I, a Xenon mobile barrage missile and weapon platform in X3 and XR.
One assumption is that these are all handy short designators agreed by the other races for ships that were purely named by the Xenon for their function and individual ID using machine code.
I think LX came in as just a handy name for a superior L fighter. The same for the PX, a superior P corvette.
We also now have the S, a Xenon mining ship in X Rebirth, and the I, a Xenon mobile barrage missile and weapon platform in X3 and XR.
One assumption is that these are all handy short designators agreed by the other races for ships that were purely named by the Xenon for their function and individual ID using machine code.
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N = nano
M = micro
L = large
LX = large experimental
P = patrol
PX = experimental patrol
Q = well, Q as in Q-ship, a decoy.
K = killer
J = Junk
That is how I remember it anyway! But some of them seem plausible like nano and micro where nano is smaller than micro. Remembering K as killer lets me know its a destroyer.
unlikely any of that is correct but i don't know german so I can only guess what they are supposed stand for, if anything other than what Alan Phipps said. More likely just an agreed upon designation for their ship types.
M = micro
L = large
LX = large experimental
P = patrol
PX = experimental patrol
Q = well, Q as in Q-ship, a decoy.
K = killer
J = Junk
That is how I remember it anyway! But some of them seem plausible like nano and micro where nano is smaller than micro. Remembering K as killer lets me know its a destroyer.
unlikely any of that is correct but i don't know german so I can only guess what they are supposed stand for, if anything other than what Alan Phipps said. More likely just an agreed upon designation for their ship types.
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Next to what Alan said, keep in mind that simple number or letter IDs are quite common for cars and other vehicles too. For instance, the first Ford models were called A, B and C. Or more recently: Tesla models are / will be called S, 3, X, Y. These names / ids often don't have any proper meaning.
Fun fact: In the old X-series games, there are text descriptions and voice recordings for a Xenon I (TL) and a Xenon H (TS). And I think I read somewhere, that models for them even existed in XBTF and XT, although they weren't used.Alan Phipps wrote:We also now have the S, a Xenon mining ship in X Rebirth, and the I, a Xenon mobile barrage missile and weapon platform in X3 and XR.
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Didn't it start out with just M1-M5? Then they added numbers out of sequence, because they didn't leave room for additional designations.
So, we ended up with M6 and M7 out of sequence, then M8 bombers, and finally M0 ships larger than M1. If they had started it out in the reverse order, with M1 being the tiny scout ship, they'd at least have had an open upper end, although adding intermediate classes would still have been problematical.
The Xenon designations are just letters in the same order as the numbers, L, M, and N being 3, 4 and 5, P being 6, and Q for 7.
It seems like it's time for a complete overhaul of designations into a more intuitive linear order, easier for new players to figure out.
So, we ended up with M6 and M7 out of sequence, then M8 bombers, and finally M0 ships larger than M1. If they had started it out in the reverse order, with M1 being the tiny scout ship, they'd at least have had an open upper end, although adding intermediate classes would still have been problematical.
The Xenon designations are just letters in the same order as the numbers, L, M, and N being 3, 4 and 5, P being 6, and Q for 7.
It seems like it's time for a complete overhaul of designations into a more intuitive linear order, easier for new players to figure out.
The simple answer is that Xenon ships are machine produced. The Xenon didn't give them names, so the other races gave them a simple designation. Ships belonging to the 'organic' races presumably were given names by those races and translated into the closest 'Argon/Terran' for our benefit. Makes sense to me.
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Never played AP; all X3 advice is based on vanilla+bonus pack TC or before: AP has not changed much WRT general advice.
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