Depends on the pilot character (they tend to have personal histories that justify otherwise irrational behavior, like buying shield caps or upgrading to big ships).
For loner Iggy Rohn, the ships emphasized speed and precision, and the names were Gamma Knife for the scoutship and Scalpel for the lightning. The fully outfitted lightning did fine for isolating and destroying individual ships in both the aliens and T.A.G. You're It (no forklifts or ResEdit mods were involved).
To play with the heavier ships, I duplicated Iggy's pilot file (after the Rebel alien missions), and Iggy's Evil Twin raised hell in Confed space in an outfitted Rebel Destroyer named Fury, and then upgraded to the Cruiser (christened Rage) to check out combat with fighters.
Nagon (The "a" should have a ring over it like in angstrom, and it is pronounced more like No-gun) is a regular social sort that took the scoutship to corvette to kestral route. The ship names were from Scandanavian mythology: Sleipner (Odin's horse) for the scoutship, Valkyrie for the corvette, and Mjollnir (Thor's hammer, good for killing frost giants and the like) for the kestral.
I'll have to see what makes sense for playing plugs.
-pagangod
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