I've been thinking of how to add a string to name ships, but my mind kept getting stuck on the idea that text entry doesn't appear to be possible anytime soon...
But, today I had idea, I don't know if I have the ability to do it yet, so if anyone can get to work...
While entering unique names ingame is not an option, how about using a prebuilt list (which can be edited outside of game in XML) and choosing a name for the ship with a menu similar to the assign new commander menu?
If that can be done, then let's think about how we're going to see it in game...
When the script looks into the language file to display the ship type, is it unique to that ship or is it just looking at ship class? There has to be something because if you look at the npc ships they have job titles assigned. i.e. "PMC Energy Trader"
Another Idea which may, or may not be easier to implement at the moment is to replace the ship class name with the captian or pilot's name. < this could help give the game a little more of interactive feel with the NPC's... mouse over a ship and instead of "PMC Energy Trader" you would see "Captian Obvious" or maybe even the senior office working on that ship so if there is a 5 star engineer working under a 3 star caption you would see "Engineer Joe Blow"
I hope this sparks some creativity, because managing more than a few ships is a real pain atm.
Edit: Confirmed that names can be added to ships in the save game file.
Research findings: Default names are called by the ship or station macro which refers to the "t" file. Since these names are named through this method, the string "name=" is not entered into the save file. By the function of the current scripts, it appears that any instance of "name=" supersedes the macro and will be displayed. (see pictures in post below of test results)
grandit they would all be the same. i did change the stupid human names egosoft loves to use. replaced with regular names.
