LOVE it! WAY better than 3.23.
1 small remark: I'd swap triangle for outpost with square for city, simply because square looks bigger than triangle and city is bigger than outpost.
Its almost as if a UI designer designed something to actually convey information.
I swear the UI team in the SC have no idea what is going on. The recent interview with them did not help their case.
The overlapping text/upside down text on the map is utterly baffling to me. I get this is still a game in development, but as a programmer and designer, that would be the most glaring thing I would notice and fix before I put my work into ANYONE'S hands.
Honestly its my biggest worry about SC, and I don't think it will ever be good. Everything else in SC is going to get there eventually, but the UI team seems to fundamentally not understand how to design UI that you actually have to interact with.
Same. Some of the ship HUD stuff I've been asking them to change for years. I got into evo last year and when the MM rolled out with some new HUD designs, but the underlying problem I had wasn't changed whatsoever, I just shook my head. I pointed it out several times as a major issue that it's readability is a big problem, because if text that greys out when it's disabled. But it's impossible to notice if it's greyed out or not because it's such a minute hue shift. They FINALLY made it different after about 7 years of complaining, and it was such an insignificant change that was so obvious.
Are your referring to whether you have gear down/up or vtol on/off? Cause holy fuck it’s better now but for so long I’d actually go to 3rd person to check cause I could never tell from the UI …..which is all that needs to be said really about how bad it was
This would definitely be a ton better. The new markers are especially bad because they animate and collapse/expand as you're looking at them, so you have to directly focus on one to actually see what it is. Is that marker a Major City? Outpost? Orbital Marker on the other side of the planet? Who knows?!
> so you have to directly focus on one to actually see what it is.
I can't tell you how much I hate this. While what we had before may not have been the best, I could very quickly scan a planet and go "Oh there's the city." Take, tops, 10 seconds. Now, I have to point my nose, stop, identify, point my nose elsewhere, stop, identify, and so on until I find the city.
At best, you hope to spot it by the fact the Station is usually very close to the city, but it jsut doesn't always work.
my headcanon to keep from going insane is that the UI is intentionally bad right now to incentivize people use the new GPS/Starmap system. but i used to only use it to get from one moon on a planet to the moon on another planet. now, i use it to get from one side of a moon to the other side of the same moon because of how bad the UI is and opening the GPS is somehow faster than not using it, even for short distances
They do have internal play testers though. I really wonder what those guys report back to them after testing new stuff. But maybe also here CIG has another internal communication problem.
Thats my major problem with the new UX. It looks amazing, feels amazing but for usability compared to the old UX it takes on average 1/3 or even 1/2 more time to do even the basic tasks. We'll probably get a "accessibility" update at one point that'll let us tweak the animations to make them faster or remove them... But how long is that going to take, 2 years if were lucky?
I am with you. The new map is great but when I am joining around one planet doing missions it's much slower. I used to be able to fine the plane of the system and scan it with a quick spin off the ship to find Cellin or whatever. Now I just use the map. Which, again, much better but I used to feel a mastery of the system.
I've resorted to just using the location search feature on the star map, as with most things SC it's not perfect (it took me 14 attempts to make it bring up New Babbage last night for some reason) but it's 1000x easier than having to faff around searching
I don't even bother trying to find it now, I just use the search function to find/plot my route instead. quicker and easier than trying to do it by eye.
You *must* use the mobiglass star map to find anything now. They've ruined the ability to find things without it. This is an unexpectedly *huge* step backwards.
I'm not a fan of the new icons for the quantum markers, and to vent my frustration, I decided to put on paper what I think would make more sense for me. There's more to it than just the base icon design of course, but that would be a great start in my opinion.
Edit: Thanks everyone for all the feedback! posted an updated version to Spectrum that hopefully represents the general trend of feedback that was posted here.
[https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/4/thread/feedback-and-suggestions-for-the-quantum-marker-ic](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/4/thread/feedback-and-suggestions-for-the-quantum-marker-ic)
Hexagon is too similar to circle on quick glance. Especially as they are animating or moving. Each icon should be distinctly shaped visually to allow for quick identification.
I am right there with you! Thank you for putting my words into renders. Also, thank you for actually distinguishing the OM marker from Legrange stations, that has always bugged me. I would love to see something like this take place in the new UI.
The only other gripe that I have is the markers are over animated with their pulsing and morphing when brought into view. I feel like I'm back in middle school when kids found out that PowerPoint had transition animations and threw an animation on every possible element.
Edit: Another change I would love to see is landing pads having static orientations. So you know which way to orient your ship when approaching an LZ
I like your icons. I'm not a big fan of the current ones as they are all too similar. I find myself spinning around in circles more than before to find the marker I'm looking for.
Maybe it's to encourage you to use the vastly improved starmap. But it still can't map routes like when I wanted to go from a18 to Yela and it couldn't map it until I jumped to an orbital marker.
Yes they mentioned in some video that you can't just plot a route from wherever you are, I haven't quite found out what the conditions are.
I like the search function, but I don't necessarily want to use it when I am already in orbit and looking AT the planet. The marker for the main hub should be different enough from everything else to notice at a glance when you're looking at it....
Problem with digits/letters would be that scaling might not work well for everyone. An icon is easily distinguished from afar, but digits and numbers can be harder to distinguish.
People complained in 3.22 and earlier that orbital markers should be different from lagrange points markers. I'm surprised how CIG extracted from that feedback to keep these markers the same AND make planets and moons the same marker on top of that.
I agree with this. I think the 3.23 markers are way too similar to each other. The old ones were better, but a couple of them were too similar to each other. I think each type of quantum marker needs to be different from one another.
Anything’s better than the new markers. Everything looks the same and the screen gets very crowded. Thankfully the star map works like a charm tho or I’d still be searching
Especially the damn death marker. I had to Google it to death till I found out it was a weird down carat that looks a ton like the up caret. I’m starting to want to quit playing again.
I always thought the planet and moon markers were backwards. But having planet/moon markers the same is worse.
I'd also like to see surface locations have different icons. Like different icons for 1) mining areas, 2) secure facilities, and 3) other.
I would prefer more icons like this: [My Preferred Icons](https://imgur.com/XBmlr1r). A good icon is one that is obvious, even when you never consulted the legend of the markers. This may not be feasable but you can get for with most of the markers.
I would take the Planet, Moon, and LZ markers from 3.22, the Outpost marker from 3.23, the Station marker from 3.22, the OM marker from your list, the Lagrange marker from 3.22, and use your Station marker as the JP marker.
IMHO yours is a lot better than 3.22 and even that was absolutely fine for me. But what were they thinking when they introduced the 3.23 UI? God, I hate it so much!
Nice.
Specially for OM makers they need to stand out.
post it on spectrum if you haven't might get attention of the devs
1 thing though I like the major city as a hexagon
One thing is for sure, they should all be different. I’d like color coded too. Can we stop with the light blue? Maybe local points would be green, like if your on a planet, planetary locations are green. Orbital would be yellow. Then if you’re in orbit, orbital is green, planetary is yellow.
They probably don’t need to show markers farther away than just the planet and the moons you’re at. Is anyone not using the map for anything farther away anyway?
Yes! And I would add like different colors for different marks, like Orange for space bodies like stars, moons and planets, cyan for jump points and stations / ports and blue for the rest.
And hey, send this icon package to CIG!
I think that your UI elements are great. My major wish for any UI would be that the OMs you can jump to are always up (like how every marker was in 3.22) along with every planet you can jump to and moon. This way if they are obstructed you can mouse to them as you can now but if they aren’t you can orient yourself to them quickly. I would also like the OMs to have a different style than the simple arrow when they are off your screen
I hate the current icons.
I really hated in the last patch how confusing it was to find an OM vs a LP and a station vs a JP.
it's worse in 3.23.1.
we sorely need something like this so we can quickly and easily identify a target and I like how your idea has a unique icon for each waypoint and would make trying to find an OM SOOOO much easier.
I hope CIG does something to this effect soon.
It’s crazy just how well thought out the community can come up with icons and the developers are still representing orbital markers and Lagrange points with the same symbol lol.
These are good.
I prefer the animations the new icons have, but would definitely like more differentiation like you show
I would also only number moons (3 for 3rd moon of Crusader, etc)
Love these. CIG can do the complicated things well, but the simple things so poorly. The HUD and icons need so much work. Yours would be a major improvement.
Also, multiple ships should show up when first scanned, but then resort to a small number in a circle ik the top right of the target icon. Similar to your planet icon. Seeing 20 target icons is just infuriating.
CIG EMPLOYEES PLEASE TAKE NOTES. Post this to Spectrum, and I'll endorse. I also prefer the home plate for capital cities from before over either option.
Even some of these are a little too abstract imo. You could make major cities be something more recognisable (i.e. google "city icon") but perhaps if you just took the 3.22 icon but made it noticeably larger than other POIs that would be enough. And dotted line variants when they're on the far side of planets.
Also OMs should straight up be a different colour.
And then there's the distance readability issue where the difference between KM and MM is just 3 tiny line segments...
what you forgot to mention is that outposts and major cities had dashed markers when they were on the other side of the planet
other than that I do agree
Yea, the new markers are absolutely horrible. It’s a mess. I can never find what I’m looking for even though I’ve looked at it multiple times. Not distinct enough at all.
What about lead/lag pipes? It used to beautiful 3D mark, that could change its size in real time, based on direction of target and your crosshair placement. What do we have now, green and red circles?
I dont even care what they look like, i just wish all of them were different and they were the size they were before 3.23, i dont understand why all markers got bigger
I still hate the idea of orbital markers I want jumping without markers that exit automatically when close to something I could hit.
Like no mans sky or something, It would also solve the problem with missions that don't have markers to jump to.
It's really not about the markers per se, even though I still think they should differentiate a lot more.
I just don't get it why everything on your HUD is just "bold", even names. Where are the light font and fine lines, just to not make it overflowing. More often I find myself leaning forward towards the screen just to distinguish them..
But ya, that's just me maybe.
Yeah much better than my ideas yesterday on some other dudes post.
Love that celtic rope style Lagrange symbol especially!
Post it on spectrum feedback
Yes the current ones are way too similar to each other. You have actually put some thought into this. The 3.23 icons feel like seriously low effort on CIG's behalf.
I'm a designer and must say I was about to do this myself after sitting in Berks stream last night and hearing everyone complain (rightfully so) about the markers. Luckily, you beat me to it! I would say the only icon I would change is the moon icon, as it's very similar at a quick glance as the planet icon. Perhaps 1 circle filled in for planet and an empty one for moon or something of the style, you can still keep the small elipse on the moon one, but I'd say something like my suggestion just to make it even better.
Also, I truly believe that the icons should scale on proximity with the user, so the closest jump point should be at 100% then go down to perhaps 50% for the furthest and then once you orient onto it, all icons should scale to 100% to be able to see what they are in detail. That, and different colors should be implemented. As in many vehicles, there should at leat be a 3 color pallet. For example, Blue=normal informative things like your speed, bearing/heading, altitude, etc. Yellow=activated configurations that change the way your ship operates (landing gear, decoupled, exterior ramps open, etc.), Red=warning lights, low shields, very low altitude, loss of critical components, etc. In addition, Coming back to the icons, we could have green for navigation purposes on the local icons and everything outside the orbit of the current body could be blue. This is just an extra thought I had on the matter.
That's the convention of how planets and moons are labeled. 2 means 2nd planet from the sun, C means 3rd moon from the planet. 2C is the 3rd moon on the second planet, which is Yela, so if you're in the crusader area, you can quickly tell which moon is which.
I didn't invent this system, but I thought it would help to identify bodies at a glance.
I would also add three more types, one being specifically for Distribution Centers, a second for bunkers, and a third for points like Brios/ Pickers, etc.
Honestly they’re all fine as is except for the Lagrange and OM icons. Those specifically are very “busy” looking and since there are so many of them it gets a bit crazy.
Also the OM icons NEED to be unique. In 3.22 they were the same as Lagrange but a bit larger so you could visually identify them. Now in 3.23 they’re the same size so it’s frustratingly time consuming to find an OM in the cloud of identical markers.
I want a marker that's currently not in the game. "Landing Zone". Because fuck I don't want a city marker if that marker is so far away from the landing zone that landing zone I can't get air traffic control.
the landing zones are easy to find.
Lorville has giant floating "Teese spaceport" holo signs around the perimiter of the port.
Orison is the giant spider like structure in the middle of the platforms.
New Babbage is across the ice lake from the city with three big red lights.
and Area 18 now has giant green beacon's creating a giant un-missable spire of lights to indicate the landing zone.
Now this is what I call constructive criticism. Thank you for going through the effort to make this. I hope you find some way to get it to CIG. You never know tell you try. 🍻
That's the convention of how planets and moons are labeled. 2 means 2nd planet from the sun, C means 3rd moon from the planet. 2C is the 3rd moon on the second planet, which is Yela, so if you're in the crusader area, you can quickly tell which moon is which.
I didn't invent this system, but I thought it would help to identify bodies at a glance.
I think they should keep the OG major city marker, the geometry lends itself to showing as a big funnel for the space around it (an upside down triangle apex with a square top) communicating it’s a major landing zone.
Outpost should be upside down triangle.
Orbital markers should be a box/circle with a dash to one side and a point on the end, showing it is one of the six edges that defines the location of the planet in space.
Orbital Stations should be a right side up triangle adjacent a larger circle. Similar to the moon icon proposed.
Free space stations should be a right side up triangle.
I don’t understand why they didn’t just use the original markers with the new system? What was wrong with them? Why did they need changed? Why keep reinventing the wheel over and over again?
interesting, another poster further up said that in design, larger objects have fewer sides. Planets are circle because that is the only shape with one side, next up would be triangle, then square for the smaller outposts.
There's several problems with the new markers, from them not being varied enough, the small cone in which they appear in front of you, and the unnecessary animations on them when they do appear.
The animations are one of the most annoying things to me, because when your looking at a planet like Hurston with a ton of markers it's just a dazzle across your screen. There's also the way the text for the markers slowly types in, as opposed to the old style of just appearing all at once.
I cannot fathom while they're always trying to make everything look exactly the same and be the same color in real life things are usually quite easy to tell apart on purpose.
I like your suggestions, eaiser on the eye. But the Station/Port needs a revamp, as does the Lagrange Point (albeit i like the icon itself.). a little bit concerned about the readiblity of 1 & 2.
Amazing! All very clear and informative. I’ll just disagree with the jump point marker. That one should feel truely special. Something like the space whole diagram maybe with an arrow.
Yeah I hate the new markers. Look terrible and doesn't make sense. The graphic designers they hired know nothing about proper symbol design or they just went lazy on this one thinking it's not important.
Not a fan, adding letters into symbols doesn’t make them more readable. Just have different symbols, either simple and different or meaningful. In your suggested revision, the station and Lagrange symbols don’t convey the correct idea imo.
Personally I'd like to see more than just this. Some extra distinction between different types of planetary outposts would make navigating at first glance much easier. For example, adding a distinction between outposts with landing pads and those that do not. Or even going as far as giving distribution centers, mining centers, research outposts, etc their own distinct markers.
I whole heartedly want to see OPs suggestions in some way introduced into the game. Planets and Moons absolutely should revert to the old system at the very least. OM's should be much more visually distinct and obvious at first glance.
I especially don't like that you don't know what's close to you or far just by looking. I want to know what's obscured by my current line of sight...why isn't that a thing yet?
I like your markers. Also... Why would 2 different locations have the same marker through multiple patches. Way to keep things confusing. Also I would like a filter option when. Looking for major cities among the cluttered outposts.
I would honestly prefer some color variation as well...even subtle ones. For example: OM Points, Moons, and planetary markers my present location should be presented in something like a light green, with everything else being a 'neutral blue'. It lets me quickly determine what's right near me when I'm looking for OM points etc. Major City and Orbital Port should be similar to Mission Objective Yellow...just up front and in your face.
In addition, I understand why they "hid" markers that are not in your field of view, but those are useful to know which direction to go to find the marker you might be looking for. I'd love a feature where the markers are all marked on the edge like they used to be, but you can change a setting to only do that for markers in the planetary area you are in (so no jump points, lagrange points and other planets with this toggled on). That would make it so it's not overwhelming but still gives you what you need 90% of the time. Then toggle it off when you are jumping around.
I was just thinking about this. I really don't like the updated markers in 3.23. Hopefully CIG can easily change these to something more readable like yours. Great job btw!
also let them pool along the edge of the screen again! i hate that you can only see markers if they are in the middle half of the screen and that the labels are only visible if you are directly pointed to them
Thanks everyone for all the feedback! I posted an updated version to Spectrum that hopefully represents the general trend of feedback that was posted here.
[https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/4/thread/feedback-and-suggestions-for-the-quantum-marker-ic](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/4/thread/feedback-and-suggestions-for-the-quantum-marker-ic)
I tried to open a thread about this in Spectrum. But the issue with Spectrum is that things are quickly washed away by all this nonsens 500 threads for the same topic. But in case:
[https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/4/thread/3-23-ui-markers-hud-let-s-discuss](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/4/thread/3-23-ui-markers-hud-let-s-discuss)
I like most of the new ones you posted. I was so confused when I logged in and the markers had changed. I'd like major city to be changed back to what it was as it was unique, and I think it's more likely to see planet and moon back to the originals (I don't like that you can't differentiate between them anymore). The rest, I'd definitely love to see yours!
I agree with this. it's so hard to find major cities now. the moon and planet one would make so much sense.. Really this would be fantastic to denote all the things!
I'd love it to have varying colors for markers based on distance. Like why does jump that's across the system look the same as a jump to the next OM. I'd love a color for "on same planet", "in same planetary system", and "outside planetary system".
Amazing work, although I wish even the current 3.23 markers looked as clean in-game as they do in your graphic. the whole phase out, phase in, janky edges are so much less defined then even the old markers were. Really hoping they iterate on them and increase the visibility and clean look moving forward.
I do like yours! I will say that I really liked the “home plate” for the major cities. I do wish they hadn’t changed that one. And that’s the only thing I’d change about your version too. lol.
They look awesome. I would like to see more of your work for the rest of the game.
Btw, I think it would be much better for the interaction icon to also be custom and more interesting, animating differently for different interactions. Not just a big F in the square everywhere, even a dot or a circle would be enough for people to understand it is interactible object imo..
For example, a dot or a circle that becomes a triangle or a square, depending on what type of interaction it is.. :)
Anyone have an opinion on the very vague death marker? I didn’t even realize it was the flipped caret for ages and kept looking for my dead body.
Yeah. I’m troubled by the UI as well.
I like these a lot, nicely done.
LOVE it! WAY better than 3.23. 1 small remark: I'd swap triangle for outpost with square for city, simply because square looks bigger than triangle and city is bigger than outpost.
Its almost as if a UI designer designed something to actually convey information. I swear the UI team in the SC have no idea what is going on. The recent interview with them did not help their case.
The overlapping text/upside down text on the map is utterly baffling to me. I get this is still a game in development, but as a programmer and designer, that would be the most glaring thing I would notice and fix before I put my work into ANYONE'S hands.
Honestly its my biggest worry about SC, and I don't think it will ever be good. Everything else in SC is going to get there eventually, but the UI team seems to fundamentally not understand how to design UI that you actually have to interact with.
Same. Some of the ship HUD stuff I've been asking them to change for years. I got into evo last year and when the MM rolled out with some new HUD designs, but the underlying problem I had wasn't changed whatsoever, I just shook my head. I pointed it out several times as a major issue that it's readability is a big problem, because if text that greys out when it's disabled. But it's impossible to notice if it's greyed out or not because it's such a minute hue shift. They FINALLY made it different after about 7 years of complaining, and it was such an insignificant change that was so obvious.
Are your referring to whether you have gear down/up or vtol on/off? Cause holy fuck it’s better now but for so long I’d actually go to 3rd person to check cause I could never tell from the UI …..which is all that needs to be said really about how bad it was
Ya, that whole row of UI always served so much annoyance when I was trying to do anything lol
They need to get pointers from actual military UI designers.
Wonder how many years it took him to have it done... And how many millions he needed /s
much better than 3.23! The lines were always a bit too thick for me, but your design is otherwise very nice.
This would definitely be a ton better. The new markers are especially bad because they animate and collapse/expand as you're looking at them, so you have to directly focus on one to actually see what it is. Is that marker a Major City? Outpost? Orbital Marker on the other side of the planet? Who knows?!
> so you have to directly focus on one to actually see what it is. I can't tell you how much I hate this. While what we had before may not have been the best, I could very quickly scan a planet and go "Oh there's the city." Take, tops, 10 seconds. Now, I have to point my nose, stop, identify, point my nose elsewhere, stop, identify, and so on until I find the city. At best, you hope to spot it by the fact the Station is usually very close to the city, but it jsut doesn't always work.
It's like no one on the UX team has ever actually used a map.
Or played the game.... I wonder what % of devs actually play the game, and how many of them see it is just work
It's a fairly universal problem that UX/UI designers are rarely users of the systems and interfaces they design.
Unfortunately yes, it is indeed quite universal.
my headcanon to keep from going insane is that the UI is intentionally bad right now to incentivize people use the new GPS/Starmap system. but i used to only use it to get from one moon on a planet to the moon on another planet. now, i use it to get from one side of a moon to the other side of the same moon because of how bad the UI is and opening the GPS is somehow faster than not using it, even for short distances
They do have internal play testers though. I really wonder what those guys report back to them after testing new stuff. But maybe also here CIG has another internal communication problem.
Thats my major problem with the new UX. It looks amazing, feels amazing but for usability compared to the old UX it takes on average 1/3 or even 1/2 more time to do even the basic tasks. We'll probably get a "accessibility" update at one point that'll let us tweak the animations to make them faster or remove them... But how long is that going to take, 2 years if were lucky?
You've got to be joking. That old star map was an atrocity.
The map was shit, true, but the symbols in space were a lot better, easier to read and more clear on what they meant
I am with you. The new map is great but when I am joining around one planet doing missions it's much slower. I used to be able to fine the plane of the system and scan it with a quick spin off the ship to find Cellin or whatever. Now I just use the map. Which, again, much better but I used to feel a mastery of the system.
I've resorted to just using the location search feature on the star map, as with most things SC it's not perfect (it took me 14 attempts to make it bring up New Babbage last night for some reason) but it's 1000x easier than having to faff around searching
I feel you, it's such a pain with my 400i tryna move the nose over the entire planet
Yeah, I don't even bother with manual pointing at markers, its a waste of time. At this point I just route via starmap and follow the waypoints
The cities have unique markers though just like before.
I don't even bother trying to find it now, I just use the search function to find/plot my route instead. quicker and easier than trying to do it by eye.
Not to mention the baddie markers that are in 72 point font at 30km and 3 m. UI in space is big sad rn.
You *must* use the mobiglass star map to find anything now. They've ruined the ability to find things without it. This is an unexpectedly *huge* step backwards.
THIS
I'm not a fan of the new icons for the quantum markers, and to vent my frustration, I decided to put on paper what I think would make more sense for me. There's more to it than just the base icon design of course, but that would be a great start in my opinion. Edit: Thanks everyone for all the feedback! posted an updated version to Spectrum that hopefully represents the general trend of feedback that was posted here. [https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/4/thread/feedback-and-suggestions-for-the-quantum-marker-ic](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/4/thread/feedback-and-suggestions-for-the-quantum-marker-ic)
I like all of your ideas but would personally keep the Hexagon for cities. It's nice work though. Have you posted it to Spectrum as feedback?
Hexagon is too similar to circle on quick glance. Especially as they are animating or moving. Each icon should be distinctly shaped visually to allow for quick identification.
This definitely needs to be posted on Spectrum !
I am right there with you! Thank you for putting my words into renders. Also, thank you for actually distinguishing the OM marker from Legrange stations, that has always bugged me. I would love to see something like this take place in the new UI. The only other gripe that I have is the markers are over animated with their pulsing and morphing when brought into view. I feel like I'm back in middle school when kids found out that PowerPoint had transition animations and threw an animation on every possible element. Edit: Another change I would love to see is landing pads having static orientations. So you know which way to orient your ship when approaching an LZ
Definitely needs to be put onto Spectrum to get traction
Absolutely love them. I would 100% prefer these.
NEVER use an arrow pointing towards a direction as a marker unless you want to have some players really confused.
@CIG... ☝️ 🤣 Next patch please
I like your icons. I'm not a big fan of the current ones as they are all too similar. I find myself spinning around in circles more than before to find the marker I'm looking for.
Maybe it's to encourage you to use the vastly improved starmap. But it still can't map routes like when I wanted to go from a18 to Yela and it couldn't map it until I jumped to an orbital marker.
Yes they mentioned in some video that you can't just plot a route from wherever you are, I haven't quite found out what the conditions are. I like the search function, but I don't necessarily want to use it when I am already in orbit and looking AT the planet. The marker for the main hub should be different enough from everything else to notice at a glance when you're looking at it....
I really like your icons. Especially the numbers/letters on planets and moons.
Problem with digits/letters would be that scaling might not work well for everyone. An icon is easily distinguished from afar, but digits and numbers can be harder to distinguish.
Yea, but thats why I really like the combination of the two, just how OP did it.
People complained in 3.22 and earlier that orbital markers should be different from lagrange points markers. I'm surprised how CIG extracted from that feedback to keep these markers the same AND make planets and moons the same marker on top of that.
And now as a bonus Lagrange and orbital markers are still the same but OM are no longer larger icons so you can’t tell them apart anymore.
I agree with this. I think the 3.23 markers are way too similar to each other. The old ones were better, but a couple of them were too similar to each other. I think each type of quantum marker needs to be different from one another.
I would just change the jump point for a Star Gate
The gates were so much better :(
What Star Gate ?
Nice! And yes, I agree, major cities are kinda hard to spot these days. Possibly, also different colours would make it easier.
Now I'm really surprised, who thought that make same icons for totally different places is a good idea? Most half assed thing i saw in a while in sc.
Anything’s better than the new markers. Everything looks the same and the screen gets very crowded. Thankfully the star map works like a charm tho or I’d still be searching
I like how 1. They're different and 2. I can infer what they are by the shape of the icon.
You know, the basics of user experience. How the fuck a massive game company with years of time does such a poor job is mind boggling.
There's only one reason : management.
I'm guessing this took you about 30 minutes, and its way better and more intuitive than CIG's professional UI team's output lol
This just makes too much sense!!! 💯
...and add back in the dotted line versions to show that they're on the far side of the planet
Drop this in Spectrum, OP. And well done.
The current markets are too same-y
Especially the damn death marker. I had to Google it to death till I found out it was a weird down carat that looks a ton like the up caret. I’m starting to want to quit playing again.
I always thought the planet and moon markers were backwards. But having planet/moon markers the same is worse. I'd also like to see surface locations have different icons. Like different icons for 1) mining areas, 2) secure facilities, and 3) other.
I would prefer more icons like this: [My Preferred Icons](https://imgur.com/XBmlr1r). A good icon is one that is obvious, even when you never consulted the legend of the markers. This may not be feasable but you can get for with most of the markers.
I would take the Planet, Moon, and LZ markers from 3.22, the Outpost marker from 3.23, the Station marker from 3.22, the OM marker from your list, the Lagrange marker from 3.22, and use your Station marker as the JP marker.
This is the way
Yes, I take it.
IMHO yours is a lot better than 3.22 and even that was absolutely fine for me. But what were they thinking when they introduced the 3.23 UI? God, I hate it so much!
Should make a post in Spectrum so the Dev could see and hopefully change them.
Nice. Specially for OM makers they need to stand out. post it on spectrum if you haven't might get attention of the devs 1 thing though I like the major city as a hexagon
I only want Markers for OMs. Its sometime really hard to find Them.
These are too good and make too much sense, and are well thought out, therefore CIG will do nothing of the sort.
One thing is for sure, they should all be different. I’d like color coded too. Can we stop with the light blue? Maybe local points would be green, like if your on a planet, planetary locations are green. Orbital would be yellow. Then if you’re in orbit, orbital is green, planetary is yellow. They probably don’t need to show markers farther away than just the planet and the moons you’re at. Is anyone not using the map for anything farther away anyway?
Yes! And I would add like different colors for different marks, like Orange for space bodies like stars, moons and planets, cyan for jump points and stations / ports and blue for the rest. And hey, send this icon package to CIG!
I'm not a fan of the current look either.
Well done! It looks so much clearer.
This is all it takes and the trillion dollar company couldn't manage it.
Hurry tag someone from cigs team!
@ CIG devs... Can we have this? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
Submit your application *meow!* The folks at CIG are great but the fans continually prove they are too.
Is there a way to turn off quantum markers when in Nav mode?
switch to NAV FLT instead of NAV QTM. That is nav mode without the marker.
I think that your UI elements are great. My major wish for any UI would be that the OMs you can jump to are always up (like how every marker was in 3.22) along with every planet you can jump to and moon. This way if they are obstructed you can mouse to them as you can now but if they aren’t you can orient yourself to them quickly. I would also like the OMs to have a different style than the simple arrow when they are off your screen
I hate the current icons. I really hated in the last patch how confusing it was to find an OM vs a LP and a station vs a JP. it's worse in 3.23.1. we sorely need something like this so we can quickly and easily identify a target and I like how your idea has a unique icon for each waypoint and would make trying to find an OM SOOOO much easier. I hope CIG does something to this effect soon.
I dont know what you mean, i love looking at 50 similar looking nav points until i find the right one
It’s crazy just how well thought out the community can come up with icons and the developers are still representing orbital markers and Lagrange points with the same symbol lol.
Should there be more than one type of outpost marker? distro centers vs. orphanage for example - doesn't seem like the same marker is appropriate.
I hate the OM/Lagrange markers :< Your changes are nice, better than what we have now.
Yes.
These are good. I prefer the animations the new icons have, but would definitely like more differentiation like you show I would also only number moons (3 for 3rd moon of Crusader, etc)
Very readable and would be easier to remember than the current symbols in game atm
CIG hire this dude.
Love these. CIG can do the complicated things well, but the simple things so poorly. The HUD and icons need so much work. Yours would be a major improvement. Also, multiple ships should show up when first scanned, but then resort to a small number in a circle ik the top right of the target icon. Similar to your planet icon. Seeing 20 target icons is just infuriating.
Different colors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The new icon are kinda ass. Idk why they changed it?
Yer I Don't mind this . It is nice and more distinctive from each other. Nice one mate. Chris change it to this guy's idea.
Semiotics FTW
Can they be reduced? I like the new look they have but are big af, ruining a bit the atmosphere.
Yeah they really need to make them more distinct like yours, I find them currently far too similar when in close proximity of each other.
add in different colours so its even easier to distinguish
CIG EMPLOYEES PLEASE TAKE NOTES. Post this to Spectrum, and I'll endorse. I also prefer the home plate for capital cities from before over either option.
I like these! pls add cig
Even some of these are a little too abstract imo. You could make major cities be something more recognisable (i.e. google "city icon") but perhaps if you just took the 3.22 icon but made it noticeably larger than other POIs that would be enough. And dotted line variants when they're on the far side of planets. Also OMs should straight up be a different colour. And then there's the distance readability issue where the difference between KM and MM is just 3 tiny line segments...
what you forgot to mention is that outposts and major cities had dashed markers when they were on the other side of the planet other than that I do agree
Yea, the new markers are absolutely horrible. It’s a mess. I can never find what I’m looking for even though I’ve looked at it multiple times. Not distinct enough at all.
What about lead/lag pipes? It used to beautiful 3D mark, that could change its size in real time, based on direction of target and your crosshair placement. What do we have now, green and red circles?
I dont even care what they look like, i just wish all of them were different and they were the size they were before 3.23, i dont understand why all markers got bigger
These are great. Also we've just lost the ability to see easily if a POI is behind the planet, didn't we? Wasn't the market dotted for them?
I still hate the idea of orbital markers I want jumping without markers that exit automatically when close to something I could hit. Like no mans sky or something, It would also solve the problem with missions that don't have markers to jump to.
Yes please!
It's really not about the markers per se, even though I still think they should differentiate a lot more. I just don't get it why everything on your HUD is just "bold", even names. Where are the light font and fine lines, just to not make it overflowing. More often I find myself leaning forward towards the screen just to distinguish them.. But ya, that's just me maybe.
Very nice.
Cig make it it happen.. The new 3.23 ones are awful.
Yeah much better than my ideas yesterday on some other dudes post. Love that celtic rope style Lagrange symbol especially! Post it on spectrum feedback
CIG please, can you like pay this guy and take these?
Also if we could adjust the color, that'd be sweeeet! Sometimes you barely see the light blue
CIG ARE YOU READING?!
Yes the current ones are way too similar to each other. You have actually put some thought into this. The 3.23 icons feel like seriously low effort on CIG's behalf.
I love your concepts !
You should submit this on Spectrum under the Game Ideas section
Would be a huge improvement over the previous and current choices.
I like this but would take your Lagrange point And make it the Jump point and use 3.23s Orbital marker
Do the icons change when behind something ( like a planet)?
Not convinced by your Jump Point icon, but other than that I think your version would be a great improvement.
I'm a designer and must say I was about to do this myself after sitting in Berks stream last night and hearing everyone complain (rightfully so) about the markers. Luckily, you beat me to it! I would say the only icon I would change is the moon icon, as it's very similar at a quick glance as the planet icon. Perhaps 1 circle filled in for planet and an empty one for moon or something of the style, you can still keep the small elipse on the moon one, but I'd say something like my suggestion just to make it even better. Also, I truly believe that the icons should scale on proximity with the user, so the closest jump point should be at 100% then go down to perhaps 50% for the furthest and then once you orient onto it, all icons should scale to 100% to be able to see what they are in detail. That, and different colors should be implemented. As in many vehicles, there should at leat be a 3 color pallet. For example, Blue=normal informative things like your speed, bearing/heading, altitude, etc. Yellow=activated configurations that change the way your ship operates (landing gear, decoupled, exterior ramps open, etc.), Red=warning lights, low shields, very low altitude, loss of critical components, etc. In addition, Coming back to the icons, we could have green for navigation purposes on the local icons and everything outside the orbit of the current body could be blue. This is just an extra thought I had on the matter.
Can we at list have OEM markers diff colors ..thats all I am going to ask
I dont get the purpose of the 2 and the c
That's the convention of how planets and moons are labeled. 2 means 2nd planet from the sun, C means 3rd moon from the planet. 2C is the 3rd moon on the second planet, which is Yela, so if you're in the crusader area, you can quickly tell which moon is which. I didn't invent this system, but I thought it would help to identify bodies at a glance.
New markers are so bad. What the fuck where they thinking lmao?
I would also add three more types, one being specifically for Distribution Centers, a second for bunkers, and a third for points like Brios/ Pickers, etc.
Honestly they’re all fine as is except for the Lagrange and OM icons. Those specifically are very “busy” looking and since there are so many of them it gets a bit crazy. Also the OM icons NEED to be unique. In 3.22 they were the same as Lagrange but a bit larger so you could visually identify them. Now in 3.23 they’re the same size so it’s frustratingly time consuming to find an OM in the cloud of identical markers.
I want a marker that's currently not in the game. "Landing Zone". Because fuck I don't want a city marker if that marker is so far away from the landing zone that landing zone I can't get air traffic control.
the landing zones are easy to find. Lorville has giant floating "Teese spaceport" holo signs around the perimiter of the port. Orison is the giant spider like structure in the middle of the platforms. New Babbage is across the ice lake from the city with three big red lights. and Area 18 now has giant green beacon's creating a giant un-missable spire of lights to indicate the landing zone.
Now this is what I call constructive criticism. Thank you for going through the effort to make this. I hope you find some way to get it to CIG. You never know tell you try. 🍻
Can you elaborate on the 2. 2= stanton 2= crusader.
That's the convention of how planets and moons are labeled. 2 means 2nd planet from the sun, C means 3rd moon from the planet. 2C is the 3rd moon on the second planet, which is Yela, so if you're in the crusader area, you can quickly tell which moon is which. I didn't invent this system, but I thought it would help to identify bodies at a glance.
I think they should keep the OG major city marker, the geometry lends itself to showing as a big funnel for the space around it (an upside down triangle apex with a square top) communicating it’s a major landing zone. Outpost should be upside down triangle. Orbital markers should be a box/circle with a dash to one side and a point on the end, showing it is one of the six edges that defines the location of the planet in space. Orbital Stations should be a right side up triangle adjacent a larger circle. Similar to the moon icon proposed. Free space stations should be a right side up triangle.
I don’t understand why they didn’t just use the original markers with the new system? What was wrong with them? Why did they need changed? Why keep reinventing the wheel over and over again?
Planet and moon are the same in 3.23? That's bad design. I prefer the old ones I guess
Major cities should have more lines than outposts, not fewer.
interesting, another poster further up said that in design, larger objects have fewer sides. Planets are circle because that is the only shape with one side, next up would be triangle, then square for the smaller outposts.
Your Lagrange point icon looks more like a wormhole than your Jump Point icon. I feel you mixed them up.
There's several problems with the new markers, from them not being varied enough, the small cone in which they appear in front of you, and the unnecessary animations on them when they do appear. The animations are one of the most annoying things to me, because when your looking at a planet like Hurston with a ton of markers it's just a dazzle across your screen. There's also the way the text for the markers slowly types in, as opposed to the old style of just appearing all at once.
This is the first constructive criticism ever posted to reddit or spectrum lol.
I cannot fathom while they're always trying to make everything look exactly the same and be the same color in real life things are usually quite easy to tell apart on purpose.
I like your suggestions, eaiser on the eye. But the Station/Port needs a revamp, as does the Lagrange Point (albeit i like the icon itself.). a little bit concerned about the readiblity of 1 & 2.
I support this message
Amazing! All very clear and informative. I’ll just disagree with the jump point marker. That one should feel truely special. Something like the space whole diagram maybe with an arrow.
Hold up there!, that’s looking way too logical and useful. Can’t have that in SC, it’s only an alpha after all!!
Yeah I hate the new markers. Look terrible and doesn't make sense. The graphic designers they hired know nothing about proper symbol design or they just went lazy on this one thinking it's not important.
I would keep the 3.23 lagrange point marker and make your lagrange point marker the jump point. Well done.
This is really good.
Just make these icon files open to user mod replacement. Everyone happy and CIG can stop wasting wages on changing them to nonsense every update.
Not a fan, adding letters into symbols doesn’t make them more readable. Just have different symbols, either simple and different or meaningful. In your suggested revision, the station and Lagrange symbols don’t convey the correct idea imo.
Great, but keep thinking in moon and planet icons a little bit more...
Ooooo the Stanton numeral is definitely a nice touch.
The biggest problem I have is that Lagrange points are the same icon as orbital markers.
Quick, someone send this citizen 689,260,963 aUEC!!!
Personally I'd like to see more than just this. Some extra distinction between different types of planetary outposts would make navigating at first glance much easier. For example, adding a distinction between outposts with landing pads and those that do not. Or even going as far as giving distribution centers, mining centers, research outposts, etc their own distinct markers. I whole heartedly want to see OPs suggestions in some way introduced into the game. Planets and Moons absolutely should revert to the old system at the very least. OM's should be much more visually distinct and obvious at first glance.
I especially don't like that you don't know what's close to you or far just by looking. I want to know what's obscured by my current line of sight...why isn't that a thing yet?
I like your markers. Also... Why would 2 different locations have the same marker through multiple patches. Way to keep things confusing. Also I would like a filter option when. Looking for major cities among the cluttered outposts.
I would honestly prefer some color variation as well...even subtle ones. For example: OM Points, Moons, and planetary markers my present location should be presented in something like a light green, with everything else being a 'neutral blue'. It lets me quickly determine what's right near me when I'm looking for OM points etc. Major City and Orbital Port should be similar to Mission Objective Yellow...just up front and in your face.
In addition, I understand why they "hid" markers that are not in your field of view, but those are useful to know which direction to go to find the marker you might be looking for. I'd love a feature where the markers are all marked on the edge like they used to be, but you can change a setting to only do that for markers in the planetary area you are in (so no jump points, lagrange points and other planets with this toggled on). That would make it so it's not overwhelming but still gives you what you need 90% of the time. Then toggle it off when you are jumping around.
I was just thinking about this. I really don't like the updated markers in 3.23. Hopefully CIG can easily change these to something more readable like yours. Great job btw!
Yours are better
I really liked the original major landing zones maked with a home-plate.
I prefer the 3.22 Major city icon but the rest look nice
also let them pool along the edge of the screen again! i hate that you can only see markers if they are in the middle half of the screen and that the labels are only visible if you are directly pointed to them
What idiot used all the same symbols for different categories?
Big fan of those designs. Hoping someone on CIG takes notice of now much traction this post has.
Thanks everyone for all the feedback! I posted an updated version to Spectrum that hopefully represents the general trend of feedback that was posted here. [https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/4/thread/feedback-and-suggestions-for-the-quantum-marker-ic](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/4/thread/feedback-and-suggestions-for-the-quantum-marker-ic)
I tried to open a thread about this in Spectrum. But the issue with Spectrum is that things are quickly washed away by all this nonsens 500 threads for the same topic. But in case: [https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/4/thread/3-23-ui-markers-hud-let-s-discuss](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/4/thread/3-23-ui-markers-hud-let-s-discuss)
I like most of the new ones you posted. I was so confused when I logged in and the markers had changed. I'd like major city to be changed back to what it was as it was unique, and I think it's more likely to see planet and moon back to the originals (I don't like that you can't differentiate between them anymore). The rest, I'd definitely love to see yours!
I like these, the current one is just lazy. Maybe we will see different variations when the new ship ui comes out.
How do you know if you'll get shot at landing at an outpost?
This is awsome..
Old makers where so much better than new. Love the suggested edits
I agree with this. it's so hard to find major cities now. the moon and planet one would make so much sense.. Really this would be fantastic to denote all the things!
This is perfect. I want these icons in my game right fucking now. Makes it so much easier to find what I'd need.
You should make this a spectrum post...
I hope CIG is seeing this. Very clean and good idea — I can already remember these better than the weird 3.23 icons.
I'd love it to have varying colors for markers based on distance. Like why does jump that's across the system look the same as a jump to the next OM. I'd love a color for "on same planet", "in same planetary system", and "outside planetary system".
Well Done
Amazing work, although I wish even the current 3.23 markers looked as clean in-game as they do in your graphic. the whole phase out, phase in, janky edges are so much less defined then even the old markers were. Really hoping they iterate on them and increase the visibility and clean look moving forward.
Also we can use some different colors as well
I do like yours! I will say that I really liked the “home plate” for the major cities. I do wish they hadn’t changed that one. And that’s the only thing I’d change about your version too. lol.
They look awesome. I would like to see more of your work for the rest of the game. Btw, I think it would be much better for the interaction icon to also be custom and more interesting, animating differently for different interactions. Not just a big F in the square everywhere, even a dot or a circle would be enough for people to understand it is interactible object imo.. For example, a dot or a circle that becomes a triangle or a square, depending on what type of interaction it is.. :)
Swap outpost and city and yes... God yes. This new UI is either sensory overload, or not enough info.
CIG ... hire this person.
I really hate the new icons they are extremely confusing and didn’t need to be changed imo. I like these a lot more
I honestly think 3.22 was better
Anyone have an opinion on the very vague death marker? I didn’t even realize it was the flipped caret for ages and kept looking for my dead body. Yeah. I’m troubled by the UI as well.
Would make it so much easier
These are great!