Factorio Forums

TL;DR

The icons in 2.0.18 [experimental] look REALLY wonky, and should be changed to be less... modern corporate logo-y.

What?

I'm going to tear through these piece by piece, because I don't want to be too vague/miss anything in the effort of being concise.
"If I Had More Time, I Would Have Written a Shorter Letter."

First, the old vs. new:



I'll skip mentioning any icons that were literally just scaled up because I think those are all fine.

ALT Mode: I guess it's fine, it just feels weirdly blocky compared to the rest, somehow. Id live with it though!

Blueprint/Planner/Book icons: The center icons should have less dead space between the dotted square to match the smaller versions. Book looks cool.

Import: Looks better as it does honestly, I like it.

Roboport: I feel like I liked the lightning more, but no issues here.

Copper wire: DEFINITELY needs to be colored copper. I couldn't tell what this was until I hovered over it. Additionally, if red/green are going to be as they are, the copper should match as a 'C' for consistency. [and copper]

Red/Green cable: Strikes me as weird and too modernized, but I guess it's consistent.

Artillery strike: I thought this was a mining drill at first. I think it would do much better if the shell icon closely resembled the real deal, color or otherwise..

Discharge: yeah. I get it. It's nothing crazy, i feel like colors would be nicer here but sure yeah.

Spider remote: I don't want a dang spider in my quickbar! eek! get it out of here! No, really, I think it gets the message across but I think having a spider there is just bleh. If not for me, perhaps for others. Not the end of the world if it stays but I'd prefer it to be literally anything without a spider on it. I get it's rough to convey its point without it, but like, bleh

Why?

These icons are going to be on my screen for pretty much the entire time the game is open. I think out of everything, they deserve a significant amount of thought. I get some of the previous icons were placeholders, but some of these new drafts feel like downgrades! Not to be rude about it, I just need to get it out there.

I think the new red/green/copper cable icons are awful. But I would just stop seeing it after a while, so not a huge deal to me. Although, there's so little of the red/green color in the existing ones, compared to the overwhelming white dotted box, that I do think they're easier to find now. That's a plus.

The rest are a big improvement IMO. I love that there's a spider on the spidertron remote. But they could have an alternate icon that would be shown when "arachnophobia" mode is active.

I guess the artillery could be a little better. The circle-with-cross symbol is what got it across to me, not the shell which indeed could be a drill or something else.

The wire icons are terrible. The old ones just need the white border removed and be larger.

The new green/red new ones ones should have the same shape, only with a different color.

Serenity wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 9:23 pmThe new green/red new ones ones should have the same shape, only with a different color

I assume you don't have issues with color vision. That's not the case for everybody, though.

posila wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 9:50 pm

Serenity wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 9:23 pmThe new green/red new ones ones should have the same shape, only with a different color

I assume you don't have issues with color vision. That's not the case for everybody, though.

Hah! I didn't even notice they look like the letters G and R. My appreciation for them just went up immensely.

posila wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 9:50 pm I assume you don't have issues with color vision. That's not the case for everybody, though.

That makes sense, but this could be adjusted when activating one of the existing color blind filters or be another setting there.

FWIW I immediately noticed the change in shape for anyone who is colorblind/has vision issues, but it still looks off in some way. Hard to say how, it just feels off. In the same way that corporate logos get modernized is the best way I have to describe it.

I like these icons quite a bit, but they need a little work in terms of how much space is taken up by each icon, and how much padding surrounds the center where the icon is. As of now, it seems rather inconsistent (particularly with the blueprint, upgrade planner and deconstruction planner).

I got 2 big problems with those icons:
1) Spider. Absolutely no spider. Spider GOT to go.
2) Blueprint should be next to all the other blueprinty- things, not way of on its own.
Aside from that I think it's ok. the new wires don't make me happy, but the current ones are also ugly and also impractical on top, and they'll fix that part at least.

mergele wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 1:14 am 1) Spider. Absolutely no spider. Spider GOT to go.

No, the spider should stay. A joystick doesn't tell me "spidertron remote" the way a spider does.

They could change it back to the joystick if "arachnophobia mode" is enabled in the options, though.

It does not have to be the joystick. They can make it a treasure map. That sells that someone goes somewhere. Or a walking robot. Or something. But no darn ugly eightleg bullshit.

Revert the blueprint icons, make the lines thinner on the wire icons, keep the rest. That'd be ideal for me.

I assume that all arachnophobes in this thread are having https://mods.factorio.com/mod/arachnophobia installed (and didn't made it to Gleba yet, lol).
I assume that arachnophobia claims belong to a different Idea & Suggestion.
I assume that arachnophobia claims belong to that mod's Discussions for now, unless acknowledged as a whole as a separate Idea & Suggestion.

P. S. New icon of Spidertron Remote is a crab, d'oh.

EustaceCS wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 9:29 am I assume that all arachnophobes in this thread are having https://mods.factorio.com/mod/arachnophobia installed (and didn't made it to Gleba yet, lol).
I assume that arachnophobia claims belong to a different Idea & Suggestion.
I assume that arachnophobia claims belong to that mod's Discussions for now, unless acknowledged as a whole as a separate Idea & Suggestion.

P. S. New icon of Spidertron Remote is a crab, d'oh.

2.0 adds an arachnophobia setting which hides spidertron/stomper/strider legs,;

Oh. Missed it somehow. Am stupid indeed.

It's not even that I necessarily am arachnaphobic, it's just I don't want to be forced to live with a spider icon living rent free in my head. chances are I might just make a mod to tweak precisely that if it becomes a big enough problem for me, in playing with 2.0.18 its been a bit bothersome so far.

Quick Edit: Yes, if it's changed to a crab I think that would be quite nice

Romayne wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 2:11 pm It's not even that I necessarily am arachnaphobic, it's just I don't want to be forced to live with a spider icon living rent free in my head. chances are I might just make a mod to tweak precisely that if it becomes a big enough problem for me, in playing with 2.0.18 its been a bit bothersome so far.

Quick Edit: Yes, if it's changed to a crab I think that would be quite nice

Yeah, that's a mod thing. Don't force everyone else to not have the most obvious and clear icon just because it bothers you too much to just deal with it but not enough to turn on the arachnophobia mode.

Fair enough, I suppose I have 2 mods on my plate then :v Not the worst ever

All I can say is... play on a really high DPI screen and you'll appreciate the new icons a LOT more. They were illegible to the point of just having to memorize which button was which before, even with the UI scale cranked up bigger than it needs to be.

TBH there's still room for improvement, but they are a ton more legible than they were before. It's basically allowed me to turn the UI scale back down to 100%, so I see more game than UI now. For me, that's a massive win.