Anyone else have touble seeing the tiny ships?

jpinard · #1 January 5th, 2001, 04:10 AM

When people make shipset mods, it would be nice if they could all maximize the space provided by the pixels so the ships aren't so hard to decipher (sooo tiny!).

Just a thought. I have a 19" monitor and it's real hard to tell the difference between ships.

Nyx · #2 January 5th, 2001, 06:47 PM

Well, I don't think they should necessarily use all the space, I like seeing small ships and big ships. But when they're small and black they get lost against the background. Including some exhaust trails or something in the remaining space might be a nifty compromise.

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

Tomgs · #3 January 5th, 2001, 09:00 PM

The Sallega ships are the smallest I have seen. They can sneak up on you because they are so small they just about dissapear into the background. Maybe its a stealth trait for their race. Even when I know there is one in the system sometimes it takes a while to see it. I just tend to overlook a graphic that small.

Puke · #4 January 5th, 2001, 09:49 PM

heh, if you want to be a real dick when you are fighting humans, make a ship set that looks like part of the starfield. of course, you will probably forget about your own ships that way too.

no, i would never do that. sheesh.

Nyx · #5 January 5th, 2001, 10:24 PM

But the trick is, that you can cycle through the "next ship" selector to find all your own ships, and he can't. The downside is that you'd need to make your race flag look like the starfield too or you'd never be able to put more than one ship in an square without losing the stealth bonus.

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

Londo · #6 January 5th, 2001, 10:57 PM

Seems kind of a silly idea to me, if you are going to be that deceptive, why have an icon at all, surely we can do some sort of hack which will make the ship truly invisible to our human opponents.

thorfrog · #7 January 5th, 2001, 11:09 PM

Malfador how about increasing the size of the ship icons? Double the size of the smaller ships and triple the size of the larger ships. Put things in better perspective. Would this cause a problem in slowdown?

Puke · #8 January 5th, 2001, 11:25 PM

quote:
Originally posted by atomannj:
Malfador how about increasing the size of the ship icons? Double the size of the smaller ships and triple the size of the larger ships. Put things in better perspective. Would this cause a problem in slowdown?

I think it would cause a problem in scale. what would you do to the size of planets? if you make everything bigger, why not just play at a lower resolution? what happens to the lost screen size? maybe a good answer is putting an empire flag with EVERY ship on the strategic view.

Nyx · #9 January 6th, 2001, 12:24 AM

I probably shouldn't post this, but if you look in the notes about designing your own shipset, you'll find that true black (RGB 0,0,0) get treated as transparent by the game. Thus if every ship image, and your race flag, were set to true black, you'd be completely invisible, even when over someone's planets.

This would be exceptionally despicable to do against another human. Thus I recommend you reserve it for hotseat games against your brother (those who have them that is).

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

Tampa_Gamer · #10 January 6th, 2001, 02:15 AM

So do I - I'm with you.