More recognizable coloring of armor

[Lostmixup]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):
So I've been having the issue on alpha of not being able to tell who's in what squad at first glance, or at all by just looking at them. I feel this is a major problem that leads to confusion in the long run. I suggest we make the coloring on marine armor more distinct and recognizable.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):
Will allow squad members to find each other more easily in the field generally causing less confusion allowing squad members to stick together better.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):
I suggest covering the armor with more color than is already on it or making the armor colors more stand out-ish (make alpha a brighter red, bravo a less pale yellow, charlie a more bright purple, etc).

I also suggest adding a recognizable colored symbol onto the armor (possibly only on the helmet, or on both) that would change color depending on what squad the persons in. To make it even more recognizable you can make the symbol change depending on what squad the person is in. This symbol could simply be the first letter of the squad they're in or an actual symbol, depending on how much effort anyone would wanna put into it.

Not everyone is on a monitor that's above 15" nowadays, so not everyone will have the sprites scaled up large enough to see the colors as they are currently. Making the colors more distinct on the armor will alleviate this problem.

EDIT: Here's an example photo of a bunch of marines all together mixed up and such.

It's a tad confusing if I do say so myself.

[Densane]

Personally, I find the current armor to be enough, if far too much. The garish colors detract from the "Military armor" feel of things.

... your not mildly color blind are you?

[Lostmixup]

Personally, I find the current armor to be enough, if far too much. The garish colors detract from the "Military armor" feel of things.

... your not mildly color blind are you?

Nah, I'm on a laptop 100% of the time, and SS13 doesn't look awesome on it's small screen. The colors usually look washed out and generally hard to distinguish, mainly on the body armor.

Also, there doesn't have to be more color, the colors just have to be more recognizable at a glance in my opinion. It's either that or give all squads their own armor designs, and I'm pretty sure the dev team doesn't wanna do that.

EDIT: Here's an image of what it looks like on my screen, it's not to hard to tell the difference when everyone is still, but when like 50 marines are in one area frantically running around it can get pretty hard to tell who's with who, ESPECIALLY if they don't have a helmet on.

[Densane]

I think I know your problem. I've recently found that Byond has a hardware based anti-aliasing that makes everything look "Fuzzy" because it blends pixle's color values a bit in order to smooth over everything. I can't see predators cloaking outline at ALL because the anti-aliasing blends everything together completely.

If you have that anti-aliasing turned on (which it is by default iirc) as well as working on a small screen, I wouldn't be surprised if they muddled the whole thing completely.

this may be completely anecdotal, and maybe a bit unrelated, but hey, it's something.

I DO agree on one thing though: The basic armor and military belt has red on it, which makes my brain jump through a loop for just a millisecond when I first glance at someone. But sometimes that millisecond is what counts. That should be fixed.

And maybe Delta needs to be touched up a bit, yeah. The helmet is pretty bad.

[LordeKilly]

I'd like brighter colors, or distinct patterns, the delta blue literally melts into the armor.

[Lostmixup]

I think I know your problem. I've recently found that Byond has a hardware based anti-aliasing that makes everything look "Fuzzy" because it blends pixle's color values a bit in order to smooth over everything. I can't see predators cloaking outline at ALL because the anti-aliasing blends everything together completely.

If you have that anti-aliasing turned on (which it is by default iirc) as well as working on a small screen, I wouldn't be surprised if they muddled the whole thing completely.

this may be completely anecdotal, and maybe a bit unrelated, but hey, it's something.

I DO agree on one thing though: The basic armor and military belt has red on it, which makes my brain jump through a loop for just a millisecond when I first glance at someone. But sometimes that millisecond is what counts. That should be fixed.

And maybe Delta needs to be touched up a bit, yeah. The helmet is pretty bad.

Also you mentioned color blind people earlier, that's a really good point! We should make sure color blind people can tell the difference too.

[Jeser]

I'd like brighter colors, or distinct patterns, the delta blue literally melts into the armor.

I agree, Alpha and Charlie is normal now. But Bravo and esspecially Delta is awfull.

[Killing Torcher]

As Jeser said, Bravo and Delta are really in desperate need of repainting.