Test Server Feedback

I really don't understand people saying that ship classes are less clear now than on TQ. You really find squares of very slightly different sizes easier to distinguish than different shapes? That sounds more like a knee jerk reaction to change rather than a considered opinion.

It sounds like you're saying a new revision is live but it all looks the same to me.

Knowing exactly who is, and who is not on grid with you. Simples.

make those NPC entity icons red also

I'm still not a big fan of the new icons. Old icons follow an own style for player ships, an own style for NPCs and an own style for the rest. Players/NPS ships were totaly different from the rest. New ones mix back and forth. Capitals are big containers. Depots are stations. Now there is one set of icons where this icon is A, this icon is B and this icon is C. But basically they all bolong to one "family". I don't know how to explain it better.
The only way to properly distinguish Players and everything else (which for me is the most important thing) is by setting the background color for "Pilot has no standing" (besides color settings for FW, war, corp, etc) in the overview settings.

You really need to stop using size as a ship differentiator. Below cruiser is just too small. Stretch them the full height of the icon "box" at the least in other words the frigate would be a long arrowhead not a stumpy one. Better still use the full icon space with a destinctive design. Little triangles are just a poor choice, and even poorer visibility.

Here is a good test, assuming you have good eyesight, put your eyes 3 inches away from the icon and try to tell them apart, you should be able to even blurred. If not, redraw as I suggest and try again.

The latest iteration of icons look much better on the whole, namely structures. A few points of criticism, if I may:

1. NPC icons are a bit more difficult to differentiate from player ships. Hostile ones aren't an issue due to their color difference. Neutral and friendly ones, however, are a bit more difficult. A few ideas:

1. Color them. I don't think using blue, green, or yellow would be a god move due to conflicts with friendlies, corpmates, and other yellow objects (Cans, wrecks, next waypoint highlight). Perhaps adding am extremely faint tint to the icons in a cyan-ish color would be acceptable, but it may not be enough to differentiate when a handfull of icons begin to overlap and intersect.

2. Make them dimmer. If the lines of the friendly/neutral NPC icons were made to be less bright, and approaching a bit of a gray tone, it may be easier to identify. They'd be easily distinguished from player ships, and player ships would show up "over the top" of NPC icons when there are a lot of players and friendly/neutral NPCs in one spot on screen.

Once I have a chance to hop on SiSi again to look at these whenever they're put out for viewing in an in-game environment, I'l likely have more input.

Alright so, its better when you have the whole picture! I'm sold on most of the stuff.
Of course, there still are things that could be improved in my opinion:

- The non-looted wreck icon looks like a "contact" icon. I see a person's head and its torso. I do understand the logic behind it though, and its actually clever!

- The ice field icon looks bad in my opinion, you should try something else to differenciate it from the asteroid belt.

- The carrier and supercarrier icon (especially carrier) looks bad. Same for dreadnought, you should consider something like this. With the two turrets on the side, its very intuitive. Even if they are tiny once 32x32.

- The whole industrial ships line are... really meh.

- The destroyer icon looks too much like an old wreck icon, but I guess you cannot make design decisions based on that kind of previous stuff you're trying to get rid of.

- Why make a SBU icon? It is going to go away in two months anyway.

- I'm assuming the "beacon" works for both cynos and beacons? If yes, you should consider splitting it and using the "agent in space" icon for cynosural fields, instead. Find something else for the agent in space, their current icon just screams cyno :D

- I would honestly find something else entierly for NPCs. The distinction between players ships and friendly NPC ships is blurred, and even for ennemy NPC ships it doesn't seem very ergonomic to have the same shape. But that's just my opinion, red crosses are fine! Pretty sure you could make 7 different red crosses, which would cover: Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers, Battlecruisers, Battleships, Capitals, Non-combat (indus & co)

I would personally go for multiple variations of red crosses with various sizes and thicknesses, plus multiple geometric shapes made of lines that do not touch for the rest (non combat stuff and caps / supers). For NPCs.

I will be blunt and honest here. I don't like the "pixel font" direction these are taking. I assumed new icons would be done from the same approach as the UI revamp, as vectors. These look ok, but pixel fonts aren't in style anymore. They stopped being in style 10 years ago.

I would like to see this system move to a more advanced HUD that combines and groups bracket clusters into a more readable layout. I'm all for the icon redesign, and anything is better than what currently exists, but it just feels like a missed opportunity to me.

Dreadnought is too similar to cruiser, imho. It looks like subcapital ship.

UP: wreck (not empty) is too similar to any ship on the field, since it has same triangle-like top.