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Thanks again guys, your feedback isn't lost on us. Especially with regards to redundancy in the Type column as well as decluttering the already-dense icon space as it currently stands.

While I can't promise a full overhaul, I can also sympathize with the position that the ISIS icons were an inappropriate base to start with, since the requirements for those icons when they were first created were wholly different. It's a well-reasoned argument with form follows function at its core, which prioritizes raw gameplay functionality over holistic unified look concerns. It's a valid point to keep in mind and I'll certainly bring it up at our next design meeting and see what people think!

In the meantime, here's the official thread for the mass test of these schedule for Thursday, March 5th, at 17:00 UTC
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5544670#post5544670

Please log in and give us your impressions from seeing the icons in action. The more feedback we get the more it will help inform our next steps with these.

It is very refreshing, that you are willing to question assumptions made earlier in the design process, and that you understand our concerns, and are considering them with an open mind. Please consider function as your primary design goal, and whilst we all enjoy interesting and artistic ideas, functionality is the overriding goal.

We all wish the same result, clear, informative information, delivered in an attractive way.

I was impressed with the links to military design earlier in the thread where they spent thousands of man hours investigating this issue.
It may be worth drawing ideas from this to save limited resources, to achieve the best for all of EVE.

Once again, Thank you.

Awesome. :)

Now that you're here, could you please comment on the consistency of the icons? Why do mining frigates have one icon, while haulers (T1+T2) and mining barges share one? Why are there two separate icons for fighters and fighter bombers, when there's no separate icons for the launch-platform - why are drones suddenly all that important on the overview? etc. (see more here - previous post in this thread)

Also, anything more solid on when POS-modules are re-worked? And, how about player deployables?

The question shouldn't be why are certain things not getting their own icon, it should be why does something specific need its own icon?

If you feel you need to be concerned with more information about something you can simply hover over it or look at its "Type" clearly listed in the Overview. ALL frigates and other small ships should be a single group, medium class ships should be a group, and large class ships should be grouped... if we keep wanting each ship to be unique we will end up with the proposed 'drone situation'...

At most we need no more than half a dozen icons to distinguish the core ship classes. Limiting this number helps make sure the icons remain simple and clear. The more exceptions you want the more complicated it becomes, hence part of the problem the proposed new set of icons has.

Small (frigates, shuttles, destroyers)
Medium (cruisers, battlecruisers)
Large (battleships)
XL (capitals)
Industrial (haulers, mining barges)
Industrial Large (rorq, orca, freighters)
Capsule

Am I missing any ship types? (counting T2 and T3 variants with the base hulls as ship size and weapons system class as bases for grouping)

Most of the time those are the only real distinctions you need to see on your overview to make a decision if you need to care. And if you need to care the rest of the information is already present by numerous methods and places, listed by mousing over the ship or by glancing at the "Type" column as two very simple and currently available methods.

By making all player ship icons red, you're foregoing an opportunity to display a variable with color.

If you make the icons different colors based on race or pirate faction, then filtering overview by roles (such as recons and heavy interdictors) will produce more readily identifiable information with simple icons. This part is kind of important for another suggestion I haven't made yet, for moving away from overview and toward functional ship icons in space.

I don't want to say too much because I want to see what you have in store for UI Modernization Part II.



Anyway. There is CSS customization that makes it possible to have the ship type display next to the icon in space, but that's a text field that takes up some width on screen, made worse when you have a handful of icons to display.

The icons in the blog make the mistake of trying to look too cool for their size. Let the ships look cool, and let the utility assets (icons) have some utility (and look utilitarian).

I think ship icons should have the same general silhouette, for instant recognition as being a ship.

I think squares are the best shape due to the aspect ratio of pixels. When you overuse diagonals and curves, you begin to lose clarity and sharp edges. The size constraints of icons are small already, and aliasing makes this worse.

Square silhouettes are also least likely to blend in with other items in space, and not many things in space are square (as opposed to cool little ship-like icons). The assortment of tiny icons for ships will have mixed recognizability in any given setting.

I think ship icons should have first priority in icon hierarchy. Save squares for ship icons, and use complicated, cool-looking shapes for entities that are not ships.

The current dimensions of ship icons are 18x18 pixels. The 2-pixel border can be used to convey things like lock, aggression, signature radius bloat, and module activation.

Using icon borders to convey information [edited at 12:34 for typo and adding C+E combo]
note: the black outline is just a placeholder for this graphic.

The borders aren't perfectly clear (due to size), but it's better than leaving the space unused.

Displaying module status to all ships on grid is a bit more information than is available right now. For example, you can't tell if a Dread has siege activated if you're outside of looking distance (100 km). So there's a decision to be made here, for whether you want more data broadcast to all ships on grid.

There's a second part to this suggestion about the center of the square field, but this graphic so far took me three hours to make, and that's all the mockup time and energy I have time for tonight. See you tomorrow or this weekend.

So far, yes. Hold that thought for the second part of my suggestion

Thank, appreciate the good feels! And I want to stress that communication is definitely a two-way street, especially with the new release cadence which allows us a shorter cycle for trying things, getting your feedback and iterating from it. Hopefully leading to more such positive feedback loops where you guys can help us develop a better game, be happier as a result, and making us devs happier in the process.

Also good to know. Plus a super-carrier class icon shouldn't be a big problem :)

Please take a look at these excellent suggestions:
- http://i.imgur.com/z5sMq6x.png
- http://newnetwork.cc/images/maptactic/wot-icon-pack-ejs.jpg

Thank you.

Just put a circle around the icon rather than that + sign to denote a npc