Species Icons in Oolite

[PhantorGorth]

Last year I created a set of species icons for anyone to use. This image shows the set:

I thought I would go ahead and try and add then to the core game. I have managed to do so (locally to my PC at the moment) and below is a image showing how they look when you press 'i' in the Short Range Chart (F6) screen:


I have displayed them in pink but this can be changed . If people think this is good I will pass this patch on to the Oolite Devs for inclusion.

Phantor

Edit 25/4/2017 - fixed links to images.

[CommRLock78]

Lookin' great PG . I like the linear format (i.e., all the icons in one line). I also think the order of the icons is good, as they follow the order of the system information screen (F7).
The only thing to I would suggest is to consider whether or not to use the same colour for each species icon. Multiple colours like the government types might be a nice way of quickly recognizing a species icon, but then, that might make the short range chart look too colourful.
Anyway, these are just my opinions - great work though man!

[Diziet Sma]

I second the idea of multiple colours.. the icons for political type make good use of colour, so I don't see why the species icons should be limited to just one.. it helps speed up recognition.

[PhantorGorth]

The only thing to I would suggest is to consider whether or not to use the same colour for each species icon. Multiple colours like the government types might be a nice way of quickly recognizing a species icon, but then, that might make the short range chart look too colourful.
Anyway, these are just my opinions - great work though man!

I second the idea of multiple colours.. the icons for political type make good use of colour, so I don't see why the species icons should be limited to just one.. it helps speed up recognition.

This can definitely be done. For your info the colour for the government type is a hardcoded list and for economy type the red level varies linearly with the economy type (number). Give me a bit and I will sort something out.

[onno256]

Very cool!

[Shipbuilder]

Great idea.

[Eric Walch]

Currently this is no vital info. Having them only on the chart would not be enough. You must also encourage oxps to make use of it. Currently an oxp can only read the inhabitant description. That contains more than the pure race/type. Probably you also would need a spiecies property by number. e.g. 0=human, 1=Rodent, 2=Frog. ..... to make it easier for scripts to do special things with species.

[Malacandra]

Nice! Pure eye-candy but it is short and to the point, adds a little extra to the display without cluttering it too much. Would download. There's a shot of Leestian Evil Juice behind the bar for you next time you're passing that way.

[Svengali]

Looks really good, PG.

Currently this is no vital info. Having them only on the chart would not be enough. You must also encourage oxps to make use of it. Currently an oxp can only read the inhabitant description. That contains more than the pure race/type. Probably you also would need a spiecies property by number. e.g. 0=human, 1=Rodent, 2=Frog. ..... to make it easier for scripts to do special things with species.

Sounds like a plan .-)

[PhantorGorth]

Currently this is not vital info. Having them only on the chart would not be enough. You must also encourage oxps to make use of it. Currently an oxp can only read the inhabitant description. That contains more than the pure race/type. Probably you also would need a species property by number. e.g. 0=human, 1=Rodent, 2=Frog. ..... to make it easier for scripts to do special things with species.

It isn't vital info I agree. I can look into adding such a property but given that this would involve adding a new JS property to SystemInfo object, and as this is not something I am very au fait with, it might take me some time.

BTW the number order would be 0=Rodent, 1=Frog, 2=Lizards, 3=Lobsters, 4=Birds, 5=Humanoids, 6=Felines, 7=Insects, 8=Human Colonials as Human Colonials is the "odd one out" as calculated differently. This is also the way I have added the icon characters to the oolite-font.png file given that there is limited space for extra characters and they have to be grouped in two blocks (characters 9 to 12 and 25 to 29).

[PhantorGorth]

Here is a suggestion of colours for each icon:



Phantor

Edit 25/4/2017 - fixed image URL.

[CommRLock78]

Like the colour selection PG - very clean. It looks like I'll have to run a trunk update soon here

[Cody]

I see that felines are purple - excellent!

[PhantorGorth]

Here is a screenshot with the new colour scheme. I managed to find a location in G2 that would show all 9 in one image:

Like the colour selection PG - very clean. It looks like I'll have to run a trunk update soon here

Given what Eric said, I doubt the Devs would accept this without adding access to a base species number to the Javascript properties of the SystemInfo object to give this info more relevancy. So I wouldn't hold your breath yet.

I see that felines are purple - excellent!

Of course they are purple. That's what the colour of felines are from where I am from

Edit 25/4/2017 - fixed image URL.

[Wyvern Mommy]

i like it.

a suggestion though, with 4 symbols now, it would look better in two rows i think.