The strategic icons are too small for high resolutions, barely understandable for casual players, invisible with dark player colors, confusing when stacked together and inconsiderate for different eye visions. It makes the battlefield unintuitive and a lot slower to grasp, often causing eye pain after prolonged viewing.
Paying attention to every little icon is exhausting as usually there are hundreds of them on the screen while a game in supreme commander can reach hours.. The human eye is not designed to remain focused for so long.
The advanced strategic icons mod aim to fix those problems by improving icon visibility and readability. It lets you grasp things faster with less effort.
Highlighted features:
- Changeable size
- Easy to understand symbols
- Color marking
- Multipurpose one-click installer
- Pure UI
Different resolutions need different icons' size. You can pick the right icons size for you (Small, Medium or Large) and use every resolution comfortably without eye strain (Or, if applicable, without glasses). The icons were completely redrawn to fit each size separately, showing finer graphical details without pixelation.
While most of the classic symbols remains, the confusing ones were replaced with a more intuitive version. For example: the engineer gets a wrench symbol, the stealth field generator gets an eye symbol, the radar get a dish symbol and the strategic missile launcher get a nuclear symbol. On top of that, the inner symbol of every icon was highlighted with white outline, making it easier to read on any player color while the symbol's background area made brighter in build queues.
Key structures are marked with color so that you'll never miss them. For example: the tactical missile launcher is marked with red, the shield generator is marked with blue while the radar is marked with green. Also, the position of the marking gives a quick understanding against what the structure works, making it easier to grasp situations at a glance without focusing too much. A topline indicates air coverage, an underline indicates naval coverage while side lines represent land coverage. Note that the bigger the line, the more advanced is the structure.
Not everyone wants to play with the same icons' size every time. Sometimes the player's eyes are tired and need large icons while in other cases, the player might prefer switching to the small size to get maximum icon separation on big maps. The installer gives the ability to switch sizes at a push of a button while modding multiple types of FA installations at once.
Designed to be 100% compatible for multiplayer games, this UI mod doesn't touch the inner workings of the game, doesn't provide any UI automation and doesn't give the player any unfair, technical advantage beyond the texture level that would harms competition or balance. The only thing this mod gives to the player is better readability, visibility and comfort on high resolutions.
DOWNLOAD:
Newest version:
Version 3.3.1 is ready, bringing new mass extractor icons, tiny wall icon for the small set, refined yellow symbols for power generators and pixelation elimination for the white selection outline in the large set.
Advanced Strategic Icons mod installer 3.3.1.zip- Open the zip file and start the one-click installer.
- (705.52 KiB) Downloaded 16997 times
Old version:
Spoiler: show
Screenshots:
Closeup:
- taken on version 2.1
- Screenshot2.jpg (1.65 MiB) Viewed 41617 times
Small size:
Medium size:
Large size:
Change log:
Version 3.3.1:
- Windows XP compatibility issue has been fixed (Discovered by Dazzer).
- Overhaul: All icons in the large size look better when selected. No more pixelated white selection line.
- New T3 mass extractor icon for the small and large sets (Sir Prize's suggestion).
- New T2 mass extractor icon for the small and large sets (Sir Prize's suggestion).
- New yellow symbols for all power generators (Partytime's suggestion).
- Smaller wall icon for the small set (Partytime's suggestion).
- Bigger white outline for the tactical defence icon when selected on the large set.
- Fixed: Pixelation of the T2 mobile antiair boat icon in the large set.
- Fixed: Capped mercy's tech sign when selected.
- Fixed: The engineering station icon is no loger capped and its position is in the right hight.
- Fixed: The position of the symbol and the icon of the air staging facility have been fixed.
- Fixed: When the cursor passed over a selected T1 mass extractor in the large set, a white artifact would appear.
- Fixed: Black pixal in the T1 bomber icon of the small set.
- Bigger T1 mass extractor/storage (Laserpoint's suggestion).
- The white outline (highlight) has been removed from all mass extractors and power generators to increase the player's color area. They dont need it because the green and white symbols are bright enough (Inspired by Sir Prize's suggestion).
- Brighter symbol background in build queues for all size sets that improve readability (Inspired by arhun's suggestion).
- Bolder diagonal black outlines for all icons in the medium set that improve visibility (Phlegm's suggestion).
- Bolder pink marking for the strategic defence in the medium set. (Kulu's suggestion)
- Bolder black outline for the experimental icon in the medium and small sets.
- Smaller experimental icon for the large set.
- Bolder black outline for the T3 shield icon in the medium set.
- New marking for the tactical defence icon in all size sets. It defend only against ground to ground missiles so its marking changed into ground fire marking (lines on the sides). Also, the icon in the medium set is a bit smaller to accommodate the tactical launcher.
- Improved green marking for the T2 and T3 radar icons.
- Improved strategic launcher icons for all size sets.
- The symbols of the T2, T3 mobile shield and the T2 shield boat are now shorter in the small set to accommodate the icon space.
- Bolder black outline around the symbol for all power generators in all size sets.
- Smaller T1 power generator in the medium and large set.
- The installer can now identify when different sizes are installed on multiple forged alliance installations and gives you the option to change all of them globally.
- Fixed: Capped icons in the build queues when using the small set (This issue was inherited from the unmodded icons).
- Fixed: Occasionally white tint around the experimental icon (Discovered by Aarhun).
- Fixed: The strategic launcher in all size sets no longer show a yellow circle in the white outline when selected.
- Fixed: The strategic launcher in the medium set now show the white outline in the correct width when selected.
- Fixed: The T1 land scout didn't show white symbol when mouse cursor pass over it.
- Fixed: Several icons in the medium set had the wrong size when selected or when the cursor hover over them.
- Updated help.
- Selection overhaul: Icons from all size sets now look better when selected or when mouse curser pass over them.
- New, smaller mass storage icon for all sizes (Reducing the overlapping issue of the mass storages).
- New T3 mobile antiair for all sizes.
- Selected icons in the small set no longer cut their tech sign (This issue is inherited from the unmodded icons).
- New in-game preview button. Replacing the old 'Test in-game' button which just run replays, it will let you preview the selected size in-game without replacing the current version and with greater speed.
- New T2 mass extractor in the medium set.
- Tiny wall icons for all size sets.
- The green highlight width of all radars in the small set is now depend on the unit's tech level accordingly.
- All air factories in the large size now have their symbol in the correct height.
- Steam detection fix: The new versions of steam use different registry keys.
- The small yellow tint have been removed from the icons of all power generators.
- T2 Stealth generator fix in the large size.
- Minor gunships fix for all size sets.
- Minor T2 fighter/bomber fix for all size sets.
- Fixed: the black borders of the energy storage icon within the medium set was too wide.
- Fixed: Rare windows 8 issue that caused inability to play replays after running the old in-game testing.
- Fixed: Rare graphics acceleration issue with text's shadows that caused a crash.
- Aero glass skin in the installer (Windows 7/Vista only).
- Updated help.
- The Armored Assault Bot now correctly shows its 'X' icon instead of the Heavy Assault Bot's icon. The wrong icon was shown in FAF when the large or the medium sizes were installed (Discovered by Phlegm).
- Fast in-game testing is now possible with the Steam and FAF versions independently.
- Updated help with pictures (Inspired by Partytime's suggestion).
- New help button in the options window.
- Minor UI improvements.
- Thicker indication for the T1 point defence in the small version (Szakalot's suggestion).
- Fix for a rare installer's reentry crash on some systems has been applied (Discovered by Sulo).
- Windows XP compatibility issue has been fixed (Discovered by Phlegm).
- Updated help
- New icon sets: Small, Medium and Large.
- Redesigned installer with dynamic zoom; Just drag the window's edges to change it.
- New options screen with manual installation option that let you be more explicit.
- New test button for quick In-game experiments (Only with the stand-alone version of FA).
- Smaller T1 mass storage icon to help reduce the issue of the overlapped mass extractors.
- New battery sign for the energy storage icon (Only on FAF).
- The strategic launcher and antinuke signs now have a proper highlight.
- Better pause icon that doesn't conceal the signs below it.
- Steam compatibility.
- Standalone CD-installation compatibility.
- Thicker symbol outlines for power generators.
- Multi-installation capability to install on FAF, Steam and a separate CD installation all at once.
- Pixelation issues have been fixed for the cruiser, the stealth boat and for all submarine units.
- New informative status bar and a help button in the installer.
- Windows XP compatibility issue in the installer has been fixed.
- Minor pixelation issues have been fixed for air based units like the interceptor, the gunship and the ASF.
- Minor pixelation issue have been fixed on the T2 mobile anti-air unit.
- Better installer notifications that show more data.
- New and improved commander icon.
- Better icons quality due to size adjustments that bring them to meet industry standards. Noticeable improvements on units like the mass extractors who have tightly dense lines.
- No more flipping unmodded icons when selected or when mouse cursor hover over them. The selected and hover states of those buggy icons have been redrawn to fit their idle state. This problem was particularly noticeable on units like the stealth field generator, the radar, the anti-tactical defence, and the strategic missile launcher.
- Smoother circular icons for experimentals and strategic launchers (Achieved by using transparency for smoothing)
- Brand new, one-click experimental installer.
- Full compatibility with FAF including its new units.
- All commonly used icons have been redrawn or refined, exposing finer lines and details.
- Higher icon resolution that eliminates pixalation. Now you can play on low-end resolutions without feeling like you play an old Nitendro game.
- Smaller file size by using better compression method that offers better image quality while saving space.
- Fixed some minor glitches and subtleties, like the small defects in the the orange indications that made the player's color leak into them.
- The first version to go public, it was pixelated and full with issues but I didn't want to deny it from people who just can't play with the original icons on modern resolutions.
Icons are a little too big for my taste but still going to use the mod.
