FEEDBACK: Ship Icons/Selection

from StarControl Forums

Maybe I'm the only one having this difficulty, but I often find it a little challenging to pick out a ship during the selection process, and a huge part of that is the disconnect between the ship I've crafted and the icon created for it.

For example:

 

A purely top-down view just doesn't resemble what I built; there are several custom ships that I can only recognize because I gave them very distinctive paint-jobs. 

It might be too late in the development process, but could we please get ship icons that are pointed a little more at the front of the ship? Just tilt 'em a smidge so we get an angle...?

 

Along similar lines: during fleet battles, our ships don't show which weapons they have on 'em, and it's easy enough to forget which ship has which armaments. Oh, sure, we can totally see what we're getting during fleet selection, when actually building our armada...but after we've lost a ship during battle, we're forced to have each ship's loadout memorized when selecting the replacement.

I'd like to see that one revised, too.

 

Thanks! 

21,343 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from StarControl Forums Top

This is a good point. 

 But it seems from a usability point of view you want to see how it would look too down wouldn’t you?

Reply #2 from StarControl Forums Top

Well, the idea is to be able to identify it...which is difficult from top-down, sometimes. Ships don't always look like what you built from above.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting BionicDance, reply 2

Well, the idea is to be able to identify it...which is difficult from top-down, sometimes. Ships don't always look like what you built from above.

In the game the ships are always shown top down.  Wouldn't it be easier to view them from that view?

Reply #4 from StarControl Forums Top

In the game the ships are always shown top down.  Wouldn't it be easier to view them from that view?

But they're not. Not completely.

They bank when they turn. You can get a sense of their scale.

That red ship, in battle, looks as tall as it does in the editor; you can get that sense of vertical size in battle because you can some perspective, especially when the ship banks on a turn.

You don't see that in the top-down icon, and if you're looking for a tall ship, you might not recognize it. I know I had difficulty the first time 'round, and part of that is because I'd been looking at it in 3D for quite some time, so I was looking for something that resembled that ship...which a top-down view doesn't do.