I'm very happy with things over all, but I must make one point very clear in reference to the above post.

The most intuitive starting point for shields is the upper left quadrant, then armor in the upper right, then structure on the bottom... with damage progressing around the circle clockwise as it is now.

Dude I'm trolling.

shield, armor, hull clockwise. kinda intuitive IMO

We really need a [sarcasm] tag for the forums. It would prevent so many misunderstandings.

As I said elsewhere, maybe something like this:

Pic

Blue = Shields
Green = Armor
Orange = Hull
Black tick = speed (or something else?)

and the only pro for the new icons are imho they look more shiny but the usability and readability are really really bad

To whom? The very first thing I thought of was a circle being filled, whether clockwise or counter-clockwise. That way, the red is a seamless line of damage done, and the next category of defense follows directly by following the progress of the red fill.

well also allow me to help re-rail the discussion by offering an idea with a few mock up pictures....

http://i.imgur.com/8h0e9.jpg - red
http://i.imgur.com/CoehQ.jpg - orange
http://i.imgur.com/oTOEx.gif - green

Introduce a traffic light system for giving pilots indications of gun/ missile range and tracking. How it would work is as follows and is listed in order of priority, where a higher priority colour overrides a lesser one:

• Red: out of falloff range and/or out of tracking speed
• Orange: In falloff range and/or within +/- 10% of tracking speed
• Green: In optimal range and/or within tracking speed

This traffic light system would only appear on the selected object and only when either a pilot has moused over a weapon group or has a weapon group activated on a target.



This may seem a bit of a big helping hand for noobs but when you consider how people fight within weapon systems this could serve as a guide but not a full proof way of knowing you're going to hit a target effectively in a given situation. for example...

Autocannon PvP ships generally fight at half falloff so being in a AC cynabal for example you'd not want to get within 10km of a target typically so you wouldnt fight when your reticle hits green flashy.

Missiles use an explosion radius vs sig radius calculations that shouldnt be used to indicate tracking on this system, adding some requirement of further study and knowledge of ur target and your weapon system.

FYI the green flashy is so that the 3 colours are easily distinguishable by all forms of colour blindness.

How about something like this?
http://oi48.tinypic.com/i74lsl.jpg

colors:
blue = shield
green = armor
orange/yellow = structure


The targeting thing would look like cooldown timer, as you can see. And of course there is "seconds left"-timer, so no need to guess how much time is left

Btw. this is my first forum post

How about something like this?
http://oi48.tinypic.com/i74lsl.jpg

colors:
blue = shield
green = armor
orange/yellow = structure

This looks good and useful. Can't wait to try these things out.

While you are working on the icons, could you squeeze some more information out of the brackets. As we know the player ships have broken boxes to identify themselves from other objects. However these do not give much information if it's a frigate or a battlecruiser unless you can distinguish a few pixel difference out of memory.

This could be improved by adding a geometric symbol in the box. Let's say a frigate would have a triangle in the box and a cruiser a square. Now we can see what is going on around us much easier, especially in the overview. Taking it further the icons could be separated by colour or adding lines or symbols to mark different tech levels or roles. For example a merlin has a gray triangle and a hawk golden triangle with a black stripe while a buzzard has a golden triangle with a blue stripe. This would make it easier for people to identify ship classes at a glance and speed up the identification so you could assess the situation better.

As I said elsewhere, maybe something like this:

Pic

Blue = Shields
Green = Armor
Orange = Hull
Black tick = speed (or something else?)

Why are we still debating the direction from-to which the damage should flow in those circles and what colors those should be, since the majority of people already concluded that while this is indeed nice looking bendy shiny thingy, it is less functional and counter-intuitive.

Really? Could we get a vote count on that one?

The reason we're still debating it is because answering those makes it just as functional and more intuitive.

The world you live in must be a strange one.

Why are we still debating the direction from-to which the damage should flow in those circles and what colors those should be, since the majority of people already concluded that while this is indeed nice looking bendy shiny thingy, it is less functional and counter-intuitive. While the brackets MIGHT prove to be useful to new player experience, the new targeting UI is just shiny. It adds no new usability, it is actually worse than the current UI.

afaik it will turn off the damage notification in the log too, doesnt it?

A small request: the current target crosshair should stand out more compared to targets that are merely locked. .