Factorio Forums

ssilk wrote:We need something like "official abreviations" of the items and entities.

Ask and thou shalt receive.
Just to clarify, I'm not saying the names of items in game should be changed.
Official Factorio Wiki Items List

-1 do not want.

Just use the normal names. Abbreviations are stupid as hell. Confusion for everyone who doesn't know them and even someone who knows them has to think about the meaning if the abbreviation is not common. Oh, and you don't really save time with them, because most parts of posts are not item names but normal english.

Nova wrote:Just use the normal names. Abbreviations are stupid as hell. Confusion for everyone who doesn't know them and even someone who knows them has to think about the meaning if the abbreviation is not common. Oh, and you don't really save time with them, because most parts of posts are not item names but normal english.

DaveMcW wrote:-1 do not want.

Uhh? I wasn't saying that the items names in game should be changed. ssilk just mentioned having abbreviations for them and I decided to oblige.

Some suggestions that I've used:
Circuit - CKT (CRTs are those TVs people are throwing away these days - I see Electrical Engineers use CKT more often)
Express - X is a bit more pronounced (XBLT, XUG, XSPLIT or sim)
Sulfuric Acid - H2SO4 is more erudite (back to school if you forgot)
Oils - PETRO, LIGHT, HEAVY, CRUDE or sim
LUB
GEAR suffices unless you have an expansion
STEEL suffices
Engine - ENG and E-ENG
Science - SCI
always use PL for plate
Items less than 5 letters don't need an abbrev.

Why does the internet have this manic urge to abrv evrth? Js wy?

By the way, it's true, excessive abbreviations only make life harder for new guys around. I've browsed quite a few threads since I got the game last week and some of them are hard to read, bordering on incomprehensible. Not helpful. If the game operated on such terms, I would have dropped it on the first level of the demo.

Besides, if you are shortening Coal with the shortform of the chemical element Chlorine, you gotta know you're doing it wrong anyway.

CreeperDaReeper wrote:Uhh? I wasn't saying that the items names in game should be changed. ssilk just mentioned having abbreviations for them and I decided to oblige.

I never though you did mean to change the ingame names. I just wanted to mention that's it in most cases a bad idea to use abbreviations.

I was on a star craft 2 forum a few days ago. Didn't understand anything because of the huge amount of abbreviations.

I appreciate the OP hard work. Personally I think abbv (abbreviations) should be done as scholars so anyone can use which ever form of abbv they like for ec (electronic circuits) or whatever. This way everyone can read it without having to refer to the wiki and if these abbv's are used only in the wiki I'm fine with that.

I think sometimes abbreviations are useful. For example, if you mention it already in a post or thread: The 10th repeat of "iron ore" or "transport belt" doesn't bring anything. In that case, it is useful to shorten it.

My opinion is that commonly used items and commonly used abbreviations should be used. When talking about belts, people usually just say "belts" or yellow/slow/basic belts, red belts, xpress/blue belts if they need to be specific. Another example is parts needed to make gears, people would just say, "gears need iron" without specifying plates or ore because it's pretty basic. Also, it's not a bad idea to let people abbreviate naturally, then making a list of commonly used abbreviations.

Actually put some thought into these now, though I feel some aren't much better than they were before. Hope someone finds them useful.