Plurals in technology names

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What do you think is the best solution?

Keep it as it is now (e.g. "Battery")
4
29%
Make them plural (e.g. "Batteries")
9
64%
Add "The" before the singular name (e.g. "The battery")
1
7%
Another idea (please a reply to the thread and explain)
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 14

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Dev-iL
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Plurals in technology names

Post by Dev-iL »

I would like to suggest that relevant technologies are renamed to their plural form. Several examples in no particular order:

Code: Select all

Rocket silo -> Rocket silos
Atomic bomb -> Atomic bombs
Fluid wagon -> Fluid wagons
Engine -> Engines
Battery -> Batteries
Railway -> Railways
Here are some reasons to support this idea:
  • At the moment there are both types of names, and no convention. This is a mess that should be resolved.
  • These names don't really work when speaking: "I'm researching battery" vs "I'm researching batteries".
  • Others are doing it: Stellaris, KSP.
Let me know what you think!
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Bilka
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Re: Plurals in technology names

Post by Bilka »

another dev wrote:Well in the perfect world actually, the technology name should probably be entirely different from the recipe name
This option would get the most support from me, although finding those names would be hard.

I think plurals work better for most things (only rocket silo seems weird to me) if we cant find other names that are not the same as the items.
I'm an admin over at https://wiki.factorio.com. Feel free to contact me if there's anything wrong (or right) with it.

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V453000
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Re: Plurals in technology names

Post by V453000 »

I like the megalomaniac idea of Rocket silos, but that sounds really odd. :D

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Re: Plurals in technology names

Post by Dev-iL »

Well rocket silos sound weird becase we only have one type at the moment, but if/when PvP rocket silos are added to the game we'll see who's laughing ;)

You can call that technology "Spaceports" since that is essentially what it unlocks. And perhaps call the entity "Launchpad" since that's how these installations are caller IRL ("silos" are mostly for nukes, I believe).
Bilka wrote:
Tue Jan 08, 2019 11:49 am
This option would get the most support from me, although finding those names would be hard.
Regarding naming of technologies, if you guys make some platform where the community can suggest names and vote on them, you'll find that this task is not as hard as imagined. Of course you won't have to oblige yourself to use the suggestions, but should you choose to rename something, you'll have a big DB of popular suggestions to choose from.
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posila
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Re: Plurals in technology names

Post by posila »

"make everything plural" doesn't sound good to me. I went through the Stellaris wiki and found plenty of singulars (Industrial Base, Machine Template System, Living Metal, Flak Battery, Kinetic Battery, Flak Artillery, Giga Cannon, Starport, ...)

To me it would make sense that "fields of science" would be plural, and unlock of singular specialized item would be singular. So Turrets would either stay Turrets or be renamed to Gun Turret, Larser Turrets would become Laser Turret. Rocket silo, Atomic bomb, Fluid wagon would stay singular, and let's make Engines and Batteries be fields of science and therefor plural...

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Re: Plurals in technology names

Post by CJ5Boss »

This may be unpopular, but the reason I said singular is because that is, how I see it, the way it is. When you research, you do not unlock "many rocket silos." You unlock one (singular) rocket silo crafting recipe, hence why it should say "Rocket Silo".

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Re: Plurals in technology names

Post by Dev-iL »

Almost two years later, this has finally been acted upon (see FFF #363), though in the opposite direction...! No matter, as long as it's resolved ;)

Mods - feel free to move to implemented suggestions.
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