Not sure how happy Tarn will be about printing a potential 5 layers. For example Grass + Bush + Stockpile + Bin + Item. But I think he will be open to suggestions.
Are these layers per tile? It should be rare enough not to be a big problem, I think, if that's the case. Otherwise it would be excessive but then, so would giving bins their own layer. A bin is an item that contains items, might as well just let it be closed if the cost is high.
We will do a few designs for trees, yes. Broadleaf, Conifer, Saguaro, Giant Mushrooms, Palms... not all trees for now, just the most different-looking ones.
There's a lot of tradeoff in time and all that, but it would be good to do a bit more differentiation than that. Like, stone fruit look a lot like each other so honestly the only real difference sometimes is flower color, but then they all look different from like oaks or walnuts. Of course, different kinds of oaks have some variety in how they look, and the different sections of the walnut genus can look pretty different too. But most of the part of that which can be seen in this resolution can also be covered by color.
As I understand that in stockpile settings menu you will need an additional window where you can select an icon/banner/flag. As well as the required background color.
You don't necessarily have to, it can also be procedurally chosen by the game according to what stuff the stockpile accepts. Either way, it'd be more work for Toady.
Maybe worth noting, those faintly colored segmented lines work don't work at all if one is color blind (or at least the mild red/green version which isn't all that uncommon), which yeah, minority concern and all but to me at least it's kind of straining on the eyes and doesn't help with identifying what kind of stockpile it's supposed to be at all (though I suppose it depends a lot with which colours are chosen as well).
Yeah, but it's not like it's worse than the current situation even in that case.
Let's assume you get visited by a werebeast... would these be sufficiently werebeasty?
It doesn't look bad but together with the defined musculature, those red banana hammocks make it look like these guys are out of some kind of animal strip club.
I mean, I'm not saying that's a deal breaker. But if these go into the game, there'll be smut drawn of the werebeasts.
I did a little mock up just for fun with serious and ridiculous examples.
I like the wood, though I find stone and metal rods with stone plaques a better fit.
Im wondering if the checked stockpile pattern isn't very ingrained in DF by now. Deviating from it is a little soul-crushing don't you think?
The same could be said about ASCII.
Edit: Mh...
That looks very monstrous. Which is appropriate.