GFX Mods: AI Defenses

[Giegue]

uh... then why'd you modify the guardian?

[Ozymandiaz]

Shape and look are two different things, and we're mainly talking about overall shape and the way they appear in icons.

Think of it this way. You have three different ship types, each of them presented with a approximately square icon, each with a minor difference, like one has rounded corners, for instance. They're all certainly unique, but very hard to distinguish from each other at a quick glance, because they're essentially all still squares. It would be much easier to learn and browse them if each icon was more unique, for instance one is a triangle, and one is a circle.

That's essentially one part of this mod project. I cut away and mold the originals in a way that brings out more unusual (compared to originals) overall shapes, primarily for the icons, as the original guard post icons all look very much alike. There are no easily identifiable details in some of them. It's possible to learn them, yes, but if they could be made even easier to learn... no harm by adding extra detail. As an example, the Passive Guard Post mod. Tell me one other icon that has something resembling spread bird/angel wings in it. I can't think of any myself. You only need to remember one detail about that icon/post to easily remember and learn it. (Whether it makes sense for a guard post to have metal wings on it is a different matter entirely. )

This all is of course my opinion and something I thought useful to address with these mods. It's not all just about modding the graphics for the guard posts themselves, the icons are important too. Or rather, the icons have muchly dictated the direction I've taken with the graphic modifications for the structures themselves. The more the icon needs distinguishable details, the more I've altered the structure.

I very much agree. Most of the time I spend looking at the map in far zoomed out mode, and the galaxy screen. And easily identified icon is great! So to me they are an important part as well.

I bet Chris would want something like this in the long run also, but limited time to do it with all the other aspects of the game needing tweaking and building. Just wish I had any graphical sense at all and could help. But MS Paint is the closest I get

uh... then why'd you modify the guardian?

Perhaps he just wanted to? To take a break som doing guard posts, and other stuff he must have going on in RL and online. I dunno, don't question artists.

[HitmanN]

uh... then why'd you modify the guardian?

Perhaps he just wanted to?

That about sums it up for all of these mods.   It's still all based on my personal feeling towards them. I started making these mods for myself, but am also offering them to be used by others, or even officially.

Regarding the Beam Guardian, my personal preference is that guard posts and guardians shouldn't look alike, and making some of the guardians symmetrical helps with that, especially given their starship-like nature. I'm still planning to touch a few other guardians as well, so it wasn't a exception or anything. I work on what I feel like working on next.