Rainbeau made it happen! Editable Pawn Titles over at Rainbeau's Mods
Many thanks to one of the great pillars of the modding community!
TL;DR: Remove 15-character limit for names, modify backstory name string or add '2nd nickname' field, optionally making it more visible in-game.
Hey everyone! So there's this thing I do: when a colonist performs some crazy feat, I like to give them a title or nickname based on the event. Unfortunately, due to character and visibility limits, I'm pretty much restricted to using a short, 1-word nickname. Apologies in advance if this becomes a mess of words..
Simply put, I'd like to be able to remove the character limit of 15 from nicknames and have them be completely visible on both the colonist bar and beneath them. Instead of truncated with "..." which personally, I find pretty irritating. I think that would be the simplest way to do this. I do use Colonist Bar KF which allows me to increase the entire icon size, which somewhat helps to achieve this effect. But it doesn't allow me to increase the name visibility by itself, so you end up with oversized icons. Another route to go might be adding a "Title" name area (basically a 2nd nickname) that only shows in the game world beneath the pawn, saving bar space. My modding knowledge is XML-limited so I'm not sure what's easiest or even possible.
Some examples (and mostly irrelevant): I just had a 77 year old colonist go down against a group of mechs. Throughout the battle, he took a good dozen minigun shots while already laying in shock behind a stone chunk; including one to his unprotected head and lived to tell the tale. Somehow, the colonist still firing 1 cell next to him, never took a bullet from a dozen minigun sprays. I would have liked for their name bars to show something like: Sean "The Invincible" and Viper "The Agile". In this case, I can't even give him the name "Immortal" without it getting cut. The other I opted to use "Dodger" but it feels like I'm replacing a cool name with a dumber one. In another game, several mechs landed on a colonist across the map. He downed 4-5 of them as he was retreating, before going down himself -- leaving an easy 2 for the rest of the colony to take care of. I wanted to crown him "The Mechslayer," but had to go with "Luddite" which I thought was stupid as well.
I believe this would add more "immersion / role-playing" options, especially for tribal colonies. It would also build more into a colony's theme, story, and history. I'm not talented enough to do this (if even possible) but I'm hoping one of the many fine creators here would like to see this and consider it a worthwhile endeavor. Thank you!
Edit: I've figured out I can modify the nickname in the save file, bypassing the character limit, however inconvenient. Thank Notepad++ for its "replace all" feature. I can see why they've placed the limits, it takes a bit of horizontal space and overlapping names could be frustrating for some. I suppose if the '2nd nickname' route were taken, perhaps it could be placed on a line underneath the colonist's name? On the top bar it currently shows as: Sean "... and Viper "... which I don't mind so much, since it's full in the game world.
Many thanks to one of the great pillars of the modding community!
TL;DR: Remove 15-character limit for names, modify backstory name string or add '2nd nickname' field, optionally making it more visible in-game.
Hey everyone! So there's this thing I do: when a colonist performs some crazy feat, I like to give them a title or nickname based on the event. Unfortunately, due to character and visibility limits, I'm pretty much restricted to using a short, 1-word nickname. Apologies in advance if this becomes a mess of words..
Simply put, I'd like to be able to remove the character limit of 15 from nicknames and have them be completely visible on both the colonist bar and beneath them. Instead of truncated with "..." which personally, I find pretty irritating. I think that would be the simplest way to do this. I do use Colonist Bar KF which allows me to increase the entire icon size, which somewhat helps to achieve this effect. But it doesn't allow me to increase the name visibility by itself, so you end up with oversized icons. Another route to go might be adding a "Title" name area (basically a 2nd nickname) that only shows in the game world beneath the pawn, saving bar space. My modding knowledge is XML-limited so I'm not sure what's easiest or even possible.
Some examples (and mostly irrelevant): I just had a 77 year old colonist go down against a group of mechs. Throughout the battle, he took a good dozen minigun shots while already laying in shock behind a stone chunk; including one to his unprotected head and lived to tell the tale. Somehow, the colonist still firing 1 cell next to him, never took a bullet from a dozen minigun sprays. I would have liked for their name bars to show something like: Sean "The Invincible" and Viper "The Agile". In this case, I can't even give him the name "Immortal" without it getting cut. The other I opted to use "Dodger" but it feels like I'm replacing a cool name with a dumber one. In another game, several mechs landed on a colonist across the map. He downed 4-5 of them as he was retreating, before going down himself -- leaving an easy 2 for the rest of the colony to take care of. I wanted to crown him "The Mechslayer," but had to go with "Luddite" which I thought was stupid as well.
I believe this would add more "immersion / role-playing" options, especially for tribal colonies. It would also build more into a colony's theme, story, and history. I'm not talented enough to do this (if even possible) but I'm hoping one of the many fine creators here would like to see this and consider it a worthwhile endeavor. Thank you!
Edit: I've figured out I can modify the nickname in the save file, bypassing the character limit, however inconvenient. Thank Notepad++ for its "replace all" feature. I can see why they've placed the limits, it takes a bit of horizontal space and overlapping names could be frustrating for some. I suppose if the '2nd nickname' route were taken, perhaps it could be placed on a line underneath the colonist's name? On the top bar it currently shows as: Sean "... and Viper "... which I don't mind so much, since it's full in the game world.