F10 and ME icon suggestions

[Northstar98]

Hi everyone,

In the future, would it be possible to expand the icons displayed in the mission editor and F10 map?

Currently we have 2 icon styles available, NATO and Russian. Personally, I'd like to request another symbol set be included, and that's NTDS symbology (for air and naval units) and NATO APP-6A (or later) for ground units.

One limitation of the current NATO symbology, is that it doesn't have direction information present, so when the game is paused, you can only find direction by clicking on a unit and reading the heading from the information table.

See the spoiler below for a full legend:

Spoiler

 

Note that the unknown symbol for planes, air group, submarine and submarine group shouldn't extend past the dot (like the friendly and hostile symbols, and like the unknown contact that we see in data-link trackfiles)

Where NTDS falls over on though is classifying ground units, so if NTDS would be considered, it should be used for naval and airborne units exclusively, with ground units classified under NATO APP-6A symbology (or later).

 

Regarding the NATO symbology though, DCS typically gets symbols correct (but not always, I'll go through them all and report them), however, introduced in APP-6A, is an affiliation indication, which is done by symbol shape, and colour (currently DCS does colour, but not shape).

For ground units:

• A blue rectangle is used to denote units that are friendly
• A red square at a 45° is used to denote units that are hostile
• A green square is used to denote units that are neutral
• A yellow quatrefoil is used to denote units that are unknown

Another thing DCS does, is that it uses hostile symbology for REDFOR and friendly symbology for BLUFOR. Personally, I think it would be better (and more accurate) if it uses friendly symbology for units that belong to a certain side, and hostile symbology for units belonging to the side that's hostile to said side.

Even better would be coalition specific symbology, even if it was NATO for BLUFOR and Russian for REDFOR (though personally, we need a drastically different coalition system that's more flexible, which I might make a separate wishlist thread about, though a similar thing has been requested before).

One thing that I did mention here, is the usage of icons per unit, and icons per group. When sufficiently zoomed out, units belonging to a group should use an icon appropriate for the group (even if user defined), positioned over the average position of all the units in the group, instead of having an icon for each individual unit, which when zoomed out, end up cluttered and stacked on top of each other. When zoomed in however, such that icons are sufficiently spaced apart, they should switch to individual icons (like we have now).

When clicked on the group icon, it should show a small list of units to be selected, organised the same way as the group.

 

The only other thing I'll mention is airfield icons, would it be possible to change these to the kind of icons seen on aeronautical charts?

• Filled circle with runway layout for an airfield with hard-surfaced runways 1500 - 8069 ft
• Unfilled circle with a coloured border for airfields without any hard-surfaced runways
• Runway layout with a thick coloured border for airfields with at least one runway that is longer than 8069 ft
• Blue used to denote airfields that have a control tower
• Magenta used to denote airflields that don't have a control tower

Edited March 30, 2022 by Northstar98
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