This actually wouldn't be incredibly difficult, might take some time to do. I've done something similar with my custom calendar events system. Though I don't append a number to the Subject, I do generate a unique ID that ties the two together so the event can be linked via a custom URL in the thread.
Are you planning on using a 2nd table to just track the trouble tickets, or do you want to keep using the Posts table in threads and handle each ticket as a post?
[edit: too early to be a guud spellur
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