We can all agree that the unique names for every crazy combination of the dozens of rausers available are great, some of the best ones summing up the unique or quirky personality of the rauser effectively. Vengeance. Alucard. Sinker. Hammerhead. Smalls. Postman. Fist of God. Names you could easily picture gleaming across the steel armor of some inimitable soaring weapon, forged solely for the valiant (or vainglorious) purposes of war.

But perhaps you'd like to make them better? Or indeed, maybe there's some rausers in particular you'd fancy flying with a badass moniker all your own? Then this is the guide for you.

If you don't know how to get to the LUFTRAUSERS game local files by using your file browser, it should be easy enough to access them from your Steam library by right-clicking LUFTRAUSERS, clicking "Properties" and then in the box that comes up, under the tab "Local Files" just click "Browse Local Files."

The file path that leads up to this point (on Windows) should look something like:

C:/Program Files(x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Luftrausers

We're just looking for one file that has a list of all the rauser names for the part combinations available to configure. In your Luftrausers folder, there should be three subfolders. Open the one called "data," then in that folder open "res," and then finally in that folder you want to open the file named "global." So, simply, your file path should be:

(your drive)/Program Files(x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Luftrausers/data/res/global

"global" is listed as a "JSON" file type (it's fine, I don't really know what that is either) but it's just a simple text file you should be able to open with any basic text editor (Notepad, Wordpad, etc.).

In the text file, there's a few sections, entitled "customize types", "missions", and "planenames". As the purpose of this guide suggests, we want to scroll down to "planenames".

***DISCLAIMER! VERY IMPORTANT!!!***

Please note that before editing game files it is always a good idea to save a backup copy of the original file in another folder, perhaps just beneath the folder containing the soon-to-be-edited file with an easily recognizable name of your choice, like say "backup" or "originalfiles."

While it is certainly possible to bugger things up... say, if you click somewhere in the file you shouldn't have and hit backspace... you're not very likely to cause problems if you just stick to editing the plane's names in the fittingly titled "planenames" section of this file.

You could, if you really wanted to, edit values in the section entitled "missions," but only at the risk of sullying your game experience or even possibly messing up your mission progression. I could hazard a guess as to what changing the values in that section would do just by glancing at it... that is, alter the mission type and parameters for its completion, e.g. how many of and what type of enemies you need to kill in order to fulfill it (almost all the missions are "kill X thing X many times under X conditions, if not just attaining a certain score or multiplier"), but beyond that I have no idea how changing them could affect your progress in the game, what kind of values correspond to what missions or enemy types, et cetera (nor would I really want to know, as I've completed most of the missions anyway). That's a totally different guide that someone else can write.

***END DISCLAIMER***

When you get to the bottom section "planenames," you'll start to see the easily recognizable names of so many rausers you've no doubt had a chance to fly and shoot stuff in, enclosed in quotations.

If you refer back to the top section of the file, you'll see that each of the values adjacent these names refer to the various plane components "weapon," "body," and "engine;" with number values corresponding to whichever part of each type is assigned there. The plane names are assigned to the unique 3-number combination that makes up the rauser. For quick reference, the numbers of each part of each type are as follows:

Engines:
0 is original
1 is superboost or jet engine
2 is the gungine
3 is the underwater engine
4 is the hover engine

Body:
0 is original
1 is armor
2 is melee
3 is nuke
4 is bomb

and Weapons:
0 is original (machinegun)
1 is laser
2 is spread shot
3 is missiles
4 is the cannon

And 5 for each type refers to the "???" part, only available to the valiant few who have completed all missions for all parts in SFMT mode, all of which combine for access to the ultra-super-top-secret-classified URAUSER.

Back in the "planenames" section, you can easily get to a particular combination of parts that you'd like to change the name for if you refer to the engine and body parts first... if you look to the right of this section, the row for engine parts ascends from 0 to 1 and on to the next only after all weapon and body part combos for that engine part are exhausted, and so on for the body parts in each block of 25 total combos for each engine part (that's a total of 125 combinations not counting the Urauser!) until the remaining possibilities for weapons attached to the engine and body part are exhausted. Example:

I want to change the name of the combination corresponding to the underwater engine, melee body, and missiles (originally it's called Hammerhead, a personal favorite of mine). I look on the right-hand row and scroll down until i see a bunch of 3's (number for underwater engine), then melee/underwater planes should be right in the middle of that block (2 refers to melee body), and then to the left of that I'll find the numbers for weapons, with 3 referring to missiles.

If there's just some particular names of rausers that you'd like to change, if you remember their original names, you can very easily get to them by using the Find function in Word, Notepad or Wordpad (it's under Edit at the top of your window or you can just use CTRL+F).

That's about it for naming! Once you save and close the file, the next time you launch that particular rauser, it'll take to the skies with its new and totally awesome name! It'll appear at the bottom of the screen upon launching, just as usual.

This is just a list of names I've come up with and some of which I've put to use, along with suggestions for their appropriate assignment, but it's really totally up to you, what is cool or appropriate is subjective after all! Except Top Gun and references to it, which will always be cool and will always be appropriate for this game. Let's start with those:

-Maverick is actually already in there, referring to the original body and engine with missiles. Maverick is Tom Cruise's code name in the movie Top Gun.
-Goose (Maverick's co-pilot)
-Iceman (Val Kilmer)
-Viper (the instructor's handle)
-Merlin
-Wolfman
-Sundown
-Cougar

More references:
-Too Close For Missiles
-Need for Speed
-Loggins (because of course)
-Danger Zone (already used, but feel free to change/reassign it)
-Great Balls of Fire
-Lovin' Feeling
-Tower Buzzer
-The Bird

References to the movie Stealth:
-EDI (the robot pilot)
-Tinman
-Bulletproof Skin (the theme song)
-Prime Number
-Goodbye

Names for underwater engine rausers:
-Dolphin
-Narwhal (personally I used this for laser, armor, underwater... it just makes so much more sense than Humpback)
-Moby ♥♥♥♥ (well, haha, I guess I can't type the word "♥♥♥♥" without it being censored, it's not offensive in this context, he is also known as The White Whale)
-Davy Jones
-Ishmael
-Hull Breach
-Tuna

Names for nuke rausers:
-Strangelove (referring to Kubrick's film)
-Mutually Assured (referring to the nuclear weapons ideology of the cold war)
-ICBM
-Countdown
-Last Song

Names for hover/laser weapon rausers (star wars/trek and other space references)
-Gagarin (the incomparable Russian cosmonaut)
-Apollo
-Buzz
-Skywalker
-X-Wing
-Y-Wing
-Moon Stabber
-Millenium Falcon
-Enterprise
-Spock
-Kirk
-Vulcan
-Asteroid
-Planetoid
-Nebula
-Sputnik
-Death Star
-Star Killer/Destroyer
-Planet Puncher
-Milano
-Hammer of Dawn

Miscellaneous names
-North Korea
-Strike Vector/Rauser
-Flyboy
-Next Day Air
-Red Baron
-Goddard
-Hornet
-Harrier
-Lockheed
-Laser Guided
-Yossarian
-Snowden
-Sudden Impact
-Body Blow
-Twofer
-Katana
-Bushido
-Dagger
-Raiden
-Flakker
-The Right Stuff
-Yeager
-Ripper
-Puncture
-Death From Above
-Valkyrie
-Raptor
-Superman (laser, armor, superboost. Flies fast, laughs at bullets and has laser vision, just like the man of steel himself)
-Particle Lance (Laser, Original, Superboost) :)
-Lead Eater
-Brush With Death
-Rapier
-Zero
-Butterfly (float like a...)
-Iron Man
-War Machine
More superheroes, etc. etc. which means I'm totally out of ideas. Hope you enjoyed the guide! Feel free to list any badass rauser names of your own!