Oh, I had TEC in mind. Bleh, nevermind.

Those look amazing, Draakjacht. I'd LOVE to see those in-game. It'd make the Distant Stars mod feel alot more like an actually separate mod to me, rather than only seeming to have enhanced ships. I'd play it more often than i already do (which is a bit).

As for size, what about having small lines just outside of the icon to denote what size it is? For instance, a single line above the icon (pointing directly north) would be the smallest size, then one north AND one pointing northeast would be the next size up, and so on, adding another line for every time the size is bumped up?

I didn't mean for the symbols to float in the areas you just specified, more inside those areas where the whole of the Planet Icon would be located, but i can definitely see now what you mean by them being easy to miss by the player, as that would probably significantly decrease the size of the main icon. Ah well, I tried =P

Keep up the good work, I can't wait to play with Flagships and these icons.

Are there any current plans to do the same Icon overhaul to ships and structures, or are those ugly things here to stay?

As it turns out, the values that I think that would work didn't work out at all. So all of the values are being scrapped and I have to rework it. So a patch to the current Dynamic mod will not be released for at least another 2 weeks

I really like the way those icons look!!! I would also, as a starting point, simply update the current Fleet, Planet size, etc nototations to the similer style. I would be curious to see how you approach moons? Maybe have a big M in the 20% that isn't used around the icon?

As a note for the future, I believe focusing on non-ship icons after the planetary icons are finished would be preferable. Much easier to come up with a consensus on those icons (as they are fewer and everywhere) than it would be to try and rework the whole lot of ship icons.

Specifically......

Colonizable:

Ancient Citadel
Conciousness of the Unity
Pirate Base

Non-Colonizable:

Asteroid Belt
Deep Space Sector
Magnetic Cloud
Nebula
Plasma Storm
Ship Graveyard
Space Junk
Wormhole

Stars (and Companions):

Black Hole
Blue
Green
Magnetar
Orange (Sol from CB Mod, Yellow Star)
Red
White (Pulsar)
Yellow

Don't forget that one of the intro movies has a 'radar' screen that shows enemy ships on it.  I think just triangles, but you never know.

You had done it on your test 2 image, I didn't look all that closely at test 3.

Too hard to see the variances. Especially if you have glare issues.

another possible planet size indicator idea ie a dot (e.g. approx 10-20 pixels across) on the lines of the icon for each size step from the tiny similar to the current wedges.

harpo

BUG Report:

had an odd sound loop bug happen when I zoomed in and out quickly on a battle.

It was Vas vs Vas. the loop was I think an engine sound effect loop.  But it stayed loud and continued to loop.

Strange....

Okay, some serious input from me now since I've had some time to sit down and consider the icons.  The overall shape, I don't really care about.  They're grouped by research so as long as that stays consistent, then so be it, it doesn't bother me what research is represented by what shape.  As for the colors, I have some suggestions based on what I'm seeing and have observed by looking at the planet textures themselves.

First, if paradise is blue, so should be terran.  The reasoning is that they essentially exhibit the same general qualities, albeit, the paradise is a bit better.  Maybe blue exterior circle and green interior line and circle.

I like the savannah and forest being green as that's the color of the grassy plains and the dense woods that cover each respectively, however, I would suggest that the military be made green as well since it's just a forest planet with a mountain range.  Also, I'd suggest the swamp be green as well since that's it's color in the game.  It's research falls in line with the hostile (volcanic) environment, so a triangle with no interior, or a round interior or even more appropriately the section sign ( § ) in it's interior.  The oceanic planet could also use this symbol instead of the diamond.  Back to the savannah, maybe a bunch of diagonal offset hashes similar to the unstable gas giant could be used instead of one single line.  The forest could use a tree instead of the diamond maybe.

Desert should be a similar color to relic since they exhibit similar qualities in game, however, relics have this pinkish purple dot on them, maybe use that in the center of the icon for differentiation.

Barren should either lose it's interior triangle to help visually separate it from the others, or have it's interior triangle flipped over so that the design looks more like three small triangles joined at their tips forming a 4th in the middle...

Pirate base could use the open white square with the current pirate faction logo in it's interior.  Ancient Citadel could use the white box outer and a triangle with slightly dented in sides on the interior.  Consciousness of the Unity could use also the white box outer, but have a circle in it's interior.

The rest I don't have anything specific to talk about.

Potential designs for the non-colonizable space...  A parallelogram for the 'cloud' types.  Green, pink, and white for each.  Worm holes could also fall into this design using blue, deep space sector using yellow, ship graveyard using red, and space junk using orange.

Asteroid belts could use a string of connected, though slightly offset small white squares.

Stars are pretty easy if you go with the astrological symbols.  Each has it's own color except the magnetar which could be given a red, white, and blue coloring.  Black holes I think would be pretty amusing to see a black icon in game.  Others may not agree with me, but you're not really supposed to see them all that well anyway.

For unexplored, how about just a plain white circle considering the game gives us a plain white circle for a planet until we explore it?

I think this idea would be better served in the sense of viewable versus not viewable (Which is not the same as explored versus not explored before someone jumps in saying something along the lines of they like having to explore the gravity well first before knowing what's there...).  Viewable you see nice bright lines and glow, not viewable you just see slightly dulled out lines and no glow, though I believe if the glow isn't overpowering the game should get rid of it automatically when it reduces the opacity of the icon.

Interested in the ideas you have for that...  Maybe I'll redo some of the DS system maps with the new icons once they're done so people can use them as radar images or scan images of the systems.

Edit: I could see the use of chevrons, little stars, and bars like the current Advent and TEC command crew logos as appropriate indicators of size.

So the reason I went with blue was I was separating watery planets from earthy planets, even if the water is frozen. I'm going more monochrome for the moment.

Although the Military planet is a Forest planet with a military facility, the focus is the application. My idea behind grouping them with Urban and Industrial is to show their unique natures, which make them points of interest beyond Terrans and Forests.

I was debating green or blue as it is a very wet terran planet. The research didn't mention Swamp, so I'll double check that.

As for the tree, I would prefer something simple that doesn't potentially get cluttered given the size of the symbols.

Again, going for difference in function. The Desert and Relic look similar, but the Relic has a particular trait that makes it stand out like a sore thumb.

Not using the white box as I'm using that for asteroids, which are denoted specifically cause of their small size and value.

I figured that a plain shape in the center said something about it being plain, but I did consider including it a more complex structure under the category of asteroids.

As for the rest, I'll worry about that when I get my samples out. Then we can debate back and forth. Ultimately, it's up to something of a vote, so I call upon the POWERS THAT BE!!!!... yeah, so Nacey, Ryat and whoever wants to comment can come do their thing. Mod members get more sway. The one thing I do want to stress is that simple is better. I considered more intricate symbols and quickly discovered that, especially with a glow, the details get lost and make it ugly.

As per the suggestion to everyone else who has posted here saying that:

Update your 7z program, then try again.