Request: Can we pls have better access to icons and faction colours this time around?

Sorry, this isn't in the plans. 

Colors can simply be changed in the color.color file found in the Windows file in the install. ( C:\Program Files (x86)\Stardock Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Window)

Just as long as you have the hexdecimal code for a color your good to go.

On the topic of colors, it would be nice if you changed some of the default colours a bit.  They're really hard for colour-blind gamers like me.  The light green in particular is virtually indistinguishable from yellow, and teal/pink is also pretty bad.

Heh, I use green all of the time.  Like carbon said, just change the colors.color file on your end.  If we were given the ability to have more colors, I wouldn't complain.

At least give us option to make simple badges D: jeez

The ability to go into the 'Options' menu in Sins and enable or disable a color blind color setting would be nice to see.

Team colors? 

the problem with changing anything now is the fun of other peeps seeing your badge. It only currently changes it for yourself

I'm not too concerned with custom badges not being a feature in the game. We already have a large badge selection to choose from that differentiates people fairly well. It's the colors that are the main concern for some in my eyes.

What would be nice is the option to use the neutral badges, or have two color badges (one color is your faction color on the empire tree, but both are combined on the ship hulls)

For the color blind, simply changing the colors.color file (See Carbon's post for the location) with the appropriate colors you want fixes it for you.  It's absurdly simple to fix that and it doesn't affect your checksum so online play is unaffected if yours is different then someone else.  If you visit here: http://www.december.com/html/spec/colorhex.html  or any of the other literally thousands of places on the net that give you hex color codes, you can find new colors that work and since the file in the core game is in text format, you have to do absolutely no converting of files.  Know what color needs to be changed (0 through 9), find a color that works for you, change the value FFabcxyz (always preface it with FF), save, play to confirm you're good with the change, done.  Most mods do not touch this file, but those that do, the process is exactly the same only change the file in the mod folder.  And before you ask or attempt it, no you cannot have more then 10 colors.

As for the icons, a post was made in DS informing people that we'd make and include custom icons in the mod for anyone who wanted one.  Only the lore people answered, and not even all of them.  So there are custom icons included in the game, and from personal experience, it's not really a requested feature at all, especially if a mod as popular as DS offers to do every bit of the work except for making the final decision on which one you want, and no one really answered.

The problem with an automated process is how Sins handles things.  First you need an image in gray scale.  This controls the shading of the faction color on the icon.  Then you need an alpha layer cut out that matches the icon so that color can be applied to it as well as tell the game what parts of the icon to display.  Multi color icons are handled by adding color to the gray scale image itself, but if I recall correctly, your faction color will mix with this color changing it to a third color so you really have to work at this to get it to show up properly and anyone not using the color you use for it gets a messed up color instead.  Back to that alpha layer cut out, it needs to be copied three times over in three additional sizes so it can be displayed properly in the many places your faction icon shows up.  Once you have all of that done, you need to change the 5 player theme files many sections to account for all of the new icons, and then when that's all done you have to distribute it.  It can either be done by constantly adding icons to a file, assigning each one a unique ID so that the next time you play and someone is using that icon, it reappears and an active player ends up with a massive file, or pass it around at the game load for every single game and these changes are all made on the fly.  Either way, there are too many ways an automated process can screw this whole thing up considering everything that needs to be done and load times would most definitely increase.  While some games simply take an image and overlay it on top of their skins, Sins uses a far too complex method to make this happen easily.  So I doubt this feature will ever show up no matter how much supposed interest there is for it.

While I agree with Stant that this is simple and it's even better because it does not change the checksum, I do feel that it would be a feature in game that would make life easier for those that are color-blind and either do not visit the forums or simply do not want to run it as a mod.

If it was an option in game it could VERY easily be a bullet point on the back of the box that would be a marketing point for this game. I would think that for a little effort this would potentially increase sales and increase the player base of Sins with people that would otherwise just ignore games of this type.

*pokes fun at Boshimi*

Can I have a non-epileptic button that removes everything that flashes? 

I'm kidding bud, honestly if people just told me what colors, I'd do it for them.  I've never had a problem doing something like that.

Most gamers lack the technical complexity to do so.  Simply changing the defaults to be more friendly to colour-blind gamers would be a good step.

Its not any more techincal than adding a map or mod to the game. And you can google the color codes for those who dont know them.

But re doing the 'team colors' option for those who have color-blind would be great.

And even if its not fully supported someone could make a mod out of it. Since it wount change your checksum, it would be MP friendly.

Yeah, the day a computer user has trouble opening a file and changing 6 characters and saving the file, claiming it's too complex of an operation, is the day I decide the world has been dumbed down far enough to consider zombies a real possibility since they can't open a file, change 6 characters and save the file, fly to Texas to meet up with Draak, and start shooting every moron zombie I see.

I offered to make the changes, but I'm not color blind so I can't go through the game and pick out all of the different things besides the factions that could use new coloring, and then select new colors that would be better to use......

I guess I'd better get my shotgun ready because we're far beyond the point you have mentioned. 

All I got is FN 57. Besides Tennessee is a better hold up. Just saying.

Pardon me resurrecting this old post, but I decided to give SoaSE another try and this post gave me hope I could make it work. I am impressed that the game uses the colors.color file; what a great concept! (I am color blind.)

However, the color I need to change is the background color of the universe. I want/need a black background. To me what looks like a reddish background makes most colors hard to see (as opposed to some of them).

Am I missing something or is there no way to turn off the whatever-color-it-is background?

Coyote, you can change the background AKA skybox in game in the effects part of the options. There are two options "Use Color Skyboxes" and "Use DeepSpace Skyboxes". Just turning of Color should work, but you can also just switch them on and off until you get a skybox you like, or if you turn both off you should just get an empty black starscape.

Thank you! That's exactly what I need.

Interestingly, the first basic tutorial seems to be hard-coded with colored sky boxes on, so I was never going to figure it out!

I think team colors may actually be an optional setting somewhere in the menus? Not sure but I seem to remember something like that.

They are.

they should just add a color wheel so we can choose the exact color that we want