Rational Names

Rational Names

Summary

This MWSE-lua mod makes various changes to item names for more convenient inventory sorting, and enables names to exceed Morrowind's limit of 31 characters.

Description

The primary objective of Rational Names is for items to sort more conveniently in the inventory. This mod is inspired in part by the Oblivion mod of the same name, and by the "names tweaks" options for Wrye Bash's bashed patch, although it goes in a different direction in some respects.

Three basic types of changes are made by this mod:

1. Prefixes: Most object types have prefixes added at the beginning of their names to improve sorting, though these prefixes are hidden by default, so you won't see them in the UI. Weapons now sort by type, and optionally max attack, while armor sorts by weight class, armor slot, and optionally armor rating. Clothing also sorts by slot. Drinks (such as alcoholic beverages) and other "special" potions now each sort separately from regular potions, while magic scrolls and non-magic letters/notes each sort separately from regular books. Lights sort by radius (an approximation of brightness) and then by time. Apparatus sort by type and then quality, while other tools (lockpicks, probes and repair items) sort by quality. Finally, keys, propylon indexes and soulgems (and optionally gold) now sort separately from other misc items, with soulgems also sorting by soul capacity.

2. Base Name Changes: In addition to the prefixes, many items have their "base" names changed as well. In some cases (such as potions), these changes improve how the items sort in the inventory. In other cases items have more descriptive names, and some groups of items with previously identical names are now named in such a way as to distinguish them from each other. Also, a few names have been lengthened to take advantage of the third basic change made by this mod. The archive includes spreadsheets which list all items whose base names have been changed, along with their old and new names (not including any prefix).

3. Name Length Limit: In vanilla Morrowind, object names cannot be longer than 31 characters, and the game will poop its diaper if we try to set a name longer than that. This limitation is still technically in place, but this mod enables it to be bypassed. The mod keeps track of all objects with names longer than the limit, or whose names should otherwise be displayed differently than their technical object names (such as items with prefixes, when the mod is configured to hide prefixes), and modifies the UI (e.g. in menus) in various places to enable it to display the correct name.

Details

This mod affects every type of object that you can have in your inventory (though not every individual object is renamed by this mod). Other object types with names (such as creatures,