More Spacecraft Icons?

[mc8888]

So at the minute, there is only a fairly limited selection of icons you can use to identify your ship in the map.

Personally, I find it slightly boring that most of my spacecraft are under the 'Ship' category, also it can get a bit confusing at times if you have lots of spacecraft in similar orbits with the same icon.

I just thought it would be a pretty cool, yet fairly simple idea to expand the selection of icons for a more diverse, clearer map. One possibility is to have them in sections (e.g. expand the space station section to include different types).

Here's a list of suggestions, some more useful than others:

Ships

- Shuttle

- Cargo

- Interplanetary transport

- Intraplanetary shuttle

- Exploration

- Mother ship

- Research

Probes

- Interplanetary

- Interstellar

- Cargo/transport

- Intraplanetary tug

- Anti-spacecraft missile?

Rovers (Both unmanned and manned)

- Exploration

- Transport

- Research

- Buggies

Bases

- Research

- Habitation

- Military?

- Floating?

Landers (Manned and Unmanned)

- Light

- Heavy

- Research

- Rover base

- Hard lander?

Stations

- Research station

- Fuel station

- Habitation station (need a better name for that)

- Interplanetary staging station

- Orbital construction facility

- Battle station?

SATELLITES

- Communications

- Reconnaissance

- Ground Observation/Imaging

- Space telescope

- Orbital weapons platform?

AIRCRAFT

- Spaceplane

- Transport

- High Altitude Research

- High Speed Research

- Reconnaissance

- Bomber

- Fighter

- Helicopter?

- VTOL?

Ships?

Missiles?

Anyone got any more ideas?

Anyone think this is a good idea?

Anyone think this is an atrocious idea and that I'm an utter cretin?

Edited January 2, 2014 by mc8888

[Stargate525]

Well, you're not going to get any of the combat-related ones in the base game (at least according to the Devs today). That being said, I like the idea of getting some more icons. I personally have wanted a ground probe, a distinction between manned and unmanned rovers, an aircraft, and hulks (abandoned objects, but not debris; I want to keep them around).

That's a lot of icons... What if the different icons were split into subgroups (a lot like you've got them laid out)? They use the same icon, but their PATH COLOR changes. So for your rovers, a plain one would be grey, a specifically unmanned one would be blue, manned would be green, etc.

[mc8888]

Yes, I saw from the sticky posts that they don't want to add dedicated weapons to the game, but people build them anyway.I thought it could be cool, but I know it's a long shot. The colours idea is an interesting one, as long as you kept the colours simple enough.

[Stargate525]

Yes, I saw from the sticky posts that they don't want to add dedicated weapons to the game, but people build them anyway.I thought it could be cool, but I know it's a long shot. The colours idea is an interesting one, as long as you kept the colours simple enough.

You get five, as far as I can see: The original grey, red, green, blue, and yellow. If you want to stay colorblind-friendly, there's going to be some tinting you'll need to do, but... You might be able to squeeze two or three more.

[Trann]

I'm betting not everyone is going to agree on any sort of categorization for ship types/classes/icons.

Instead, allow custom icons to be pulled from a GameData/Icons folder (for example) and let the player right-click to set the icon for their ship, similar to how they can rename a ship.

Unfortunately, the icon filter may need an 'Other' category for anything not using the defaults. I don't see it being feasible to include all icons in use.

[tofof]

What determines what category things end up in right now? I'm not sure I understand the difference between 'lander' and 'base' for example.

[Pursuedtank]

What determines what category things end up in right now? I'm not sure I understand the difference between 'lander' and 'base' for example.

The icon is chosen mostly by which pod you are using. A ship will be any of the standard cockpits, a lander will have the lander can as its root part, a probe will be unmanned.

[Boomerang]

So, just for clarity's sake, there isn't a way of modifying vessel labels? Either though the config files or a mod?

I too would love to be able to sort vessels into either other categories. I don't care if that means more icons/labels, or adding subcategories to the existing ones.

Like others mentioned, it would be nice to be able to put ComSats into a specific group, for example, if one plays with RemoteTech.

[CsendesMark]

I agree with the most of your suggestions mc8888, when my orbits are already crowned with vessels, it would make easier to find what you looking for!