vbulletin & integration questions

[RSharpe]

I have a site developed that allows 3 different registration types (fee based). Each member is stored in the same db no mater what registration type they are BUT users from registration type 1 can possibly have the same username as members in registration type 2 and 3.

Basically, duplicate users are checked ONLY within the same type.

I am looking to integrate vbulletin into this and was wondering how I could go about allowing the same. I have 3 user types already set-up in vbulletin and my own scripts will be writing the user info into the vbulletin db (direct registration is closed). Can users for vbulletin group 1 have the same username as user in group 2 or 3?

Is there a possible way to achieve this? Any hints, suggestions and/or assistance would be greatly appreciated.

=RS=

[Wayne Luke]

vBulletin's groups do not work this way and you would have to change a bit of the registration code as well as maintainence functions throughout the system.

By default vBulletin requires every username to be unique.

[RSharpe]

So, in a nutshell, trying to attain this level of functionality from vbulletin would require a great deal of hacking and may or may not be useable in an environment requiring stability of it's core components, one of which will be vbulletin?

Does anyone have other ideas? I have toyed with the idea of having a separate vb installation for each registration type (where type 1 would have it's own installation, type 2 would run off a second installation etc.) but then I'm faced with a dilemma in which forums I create for registration type 1 and 2 to converse in together, is not possible. I can never have these two registration types interact using the vbulletin platform.

Again, I'll ask if anyone has any suggestion or helpful tips that will enable me to reach, perhaps, a common ground where i get what i want without sacrificing functionality or stability of vbulletin.

Regards,

=RS=