Is there any way to identify an unknown shipset from the *.gam file? I mean, a shipset which isn't present on your HD, so that the game loads a random one each time... The game must have some means to know what directory name it must use for loading the pictures.
I suppose it's a rather common problem on PBW... We had a player which did not specify his empire's shipset, then left the game (he actually "disappeared", after missing some turns...).