Courtesy to Shidan
Basics
- Can not be set as general name database for a race, needs to be set separately per each character.
- You can have several word swaps on the character name slot
- 'Named' to false
Use word swaps, manually setting the name of a character to a word swap name, fe, /CBTSHEKNAMES/, and set the 'Named' to false so they use the word swap name. Try to make the word swap names unique, in case other modders use the same word swap name. I use in mods my initials CBT in front. Do note, that this is really cumbersome, you cannot really copy a list of names from somewhere and paste it, you need to insert every name in its own row one by one.
The word swap can have any conditions applied, fe. gender, race, faction. Which means you can make a one word swap database for all races, but it would be the same amount of work anyways than making separate word swaps. It depends which you find easier, to swap all character names to /CBTUSEMYDATABASE/ and just adjusting the names inside the word swap into categories, or having different word swaps.
You need to make a new word swap file per every character you want to use a different name database. All characters using the same database have the same word swap in the name. Do note, that in that case it is very possible to have one or more identically named characters appear in the game (as if this is not already happening in vanilla). To minimize this, you should have quite a large database. Also you will have a list of identically named characters in the character list, which makes it harder to know which character is which. Additionally you cannot use any of the identical characters in dialogues as interjectors with 'is character' enum. Well it would make the picking of the character from the drop down list very hard. Unless you have saved its file number in an excel sheet that is.
BUT you can make nested lists, fe, you have a horse that is black. You can make a larger non-color-based TRADITIONALHORSENAMES swap and a smaller all black-color related names swaplist like 'Blackie', 'Sable' etc, and have one of the black name options be exactly /TRADITIONALHORSENAMES/. In that way if none of the black names were selected, the game engine would just pick one of the larger non-color names. Naming the horse character /BLACKHORSENAMES/ would then result either one of the black names or one of the non-color names.
In my horse example I would have to ensure the horse would actually be black coated to match the name. But that is for another tutorial.
You should also only do this to new custom characters you introduce with your mod. Otherwise it will conflict with a custom name database someone else might have made for vanilla characters. All custom name databases for vanilla characters need to be a standalone mod an user can pick and choose from. Do not include vanilla characters custom name databases as a part of a mod that also adds other things. Give your subber the option of choice.
How to generate pseudo-random names
This works best for the droids, as they can have any letter and number combination. This could be done for the organics too using syllables. But no-one knows what words that would make. You would have to be very careful not to create fe, 'mom-suk-er' or worse as an option.
You can have several wordswaps within one name row. See image. Fe. you could use it to generate /FIRSTNAME/ /LASTNAME/
Here's one of the wordswap files:
Here's how the example word swap list looks like:
(of course for the actual mod it would be better to have all of these to be uniquely named fe. CBTINITIAL1)
