Just a side note I am using the Japanese theme, and there are many family names which are actually first names.

The Japanese way is to put the family name first and given second.

But the current method is creating names like ben john, or phil kylie, is there a separate familyname to given name or is it just a mixed bag.

A good example is this Hideyoshi Narihiro both are given names.

Approximatley how many classes on average does a theme use?

Is there a maximum number of characters that can be used for ship names?

edit: Other than the button in the ship design window is there a method of adding new hull types and abbreviations in a similar method as adding new classes and names? ie the hulls are used when that theme is chosen.

The number of classes can vary considerably but I think perhaps 30 would be a reasonable number.

40 characters for the ship name

Hulls are not theme-based so the button on the Design window is the only way to add them.

Steve

Yes, that's fine. Many of the commander themes and race themes were user-created, a lot them of them by Backstab.

Steve

Speaking of more themes , how long have I got before the next release ?  I'll knock up a few more.

Thanks for the info 
All questions answered - If I should manage to get enough creative goo together, could I mail it to you so you could include some of them should you like them?

Since I'm not that much a fan of playing humans ( ) I've been building some races here and there. I've reached a point where I've added some flags, race pictures and ship icons to my aurora folders and finally got some decent ideas for racial and commander themes. Now, I've browsed the forum and while I found some more or less helpful threads I couldn't quite figure out what exactly it is that I need to do.
My info sources so far are:
Mechanics Post, good info, though (too )few details (for me)
Mostly unrelated, though mentioning shipyard names (e.g. I'll need a file for that, too?)
An example

After that, my current file structure is as following:
- Theme
   - Racial Theme
      - Class.txt
      - Rank.txt
      - System.txt
   - Commander Theme
      - FemaleFirstName.txt
      - FirstName.txt
      - Surname.txt
This is pretty much what I'm sure about, though I still probably need a Shipyards.txt and ShipNames.txt - however, do they count to the racial theme (which I assume at least for shipyards) or somewhere else entirely? I'm aware that the folder structure is unneccessary but its for organisation and overview purposes only. I'd kiss you Steve for giving a detailed insight in what exactly can be done  

Especially the Rank.txt:
Names of 7 naval, 4 ground and one administrative and scientist rank each
Order?
Naming of administrative and scientific possible at all?
While ground's forced to 4 ranks, can there be more naval ones?

Commander Theme:
Smaller name portions as to the 'von' and 'y' in german and spanish themes - How are they done?
How does the mechanical race theme work with - between the 'first' and 'surnames' instead of spaces? Also the incrementation of the numbers looks more like a mathematical work than just writing countless numbers line after line in the Surname.txt

What's with stuff like the names of shipping lines or possibly an auto rename for ground forces? (e.g. turn 'xxth Garrison Battalion' to 'xxth Pooh-Bear Battalion' without having to rename each ground unit manually after training)

P.S.: Is there any way to create a human race which is played by the computer?