Make liquid & gas input more clear by rotating the input icon

[GhostEcho]

So currently a gas bridge looks like this:

But to me it makes more sense if it would look like this:

Now all three arrows point in the same direction. Satisfaction!

 

The same goes for some other buildings as well. Currently it looks like this

And if you flip the inputs, then it becomes:

 

Not only does it look nicer, but it helps recognize how gas/liquids flow more easily.

 

 

[kurzweilfreak]

I like this idea. +1

[Oxidizer]

You're assuming the pipes will be in the direction you put them there. Quite frequently, I have pipes going 90º to the side, or precisely the other way around (i.e., the input of toilets comes from the ceiling, but with your suggestion the "input" arrow is now reversed). What then? Does the icon rotate to try to match the pipes? What if I have pipes coming or going out in two directions?

I think the main issue is with the icons themselves. The white border around the outside makes them too similar. Make an arrow going into a box or coming out of a box (without a second frame around it, that always makes it look like the arrow is "in" something) and they instantly become clearer. Plus, the current "shaft" of the green arrow gets narrower towards the back of the arrow, which is just horrible from an icon design point of view (the whole point of an arrow is to have, well, a point - not two).

Also, making all arrows diagonal would prevent people from associating the direction of the icon with the direction of the liquid flow.

I've attached an example with diagonal arrows, no extra frame, and straight shafts. As you can see, even when they're rotated 90 or 180 degrees, there's never much doubt which is which, they're easy to distinguish at a glance.

P.S. - The current colours can also be a bit confusing. It sort of works for toilets ("white" clean water going in, "green" polluted water coming out), but it's precisely the other way around with sieves ("white" polluted water going in and "green" clean water coming out). Personally, I'd use colour coding to indicate the type of liquid that's accepted or output by the port (ex., blue arrow for clean water, yellowish green for polluted water, pink for hydrogen etc.). But that's just the cherry on top. The more important matter is the icons themselves, and a good icon should be instantly recognisable regardless of orientation (which doesn't mean you can't also rotate it to give more information, of course).

[GhostEcho]

Thanks for thinking along!

You're assuming the pipes will be in the direction you put them there. Quite frequently, I have pipes going 90º to the side, or precisely the other way around (i.e., the input of toilets comes from the ceiling, but with your suggestion the "input" arrow is now reversed). What then? Does the icon rotate to try to match the pipes? What if I have pipes coming or going out in two directions?

Fair point. It works well for the (gas) bridge and to some extent for a toilet. But it breaks down for a gas pump, where you have no idea where the  pipe will come from. Still my suggestion is to improve it for those cases where there is a clear benefit without any drawbacks. So maybe not for all buildings. For toilets I would argue that this would be an improvement as well, but I can see that this is not 100% airtight/watertight

 

Your suggestion to replace the icons is interesting. I copy/pasted them into the gas-bridge picture and I get something like this:

I agree it's better than what we have now, but still I would prefer just the current icons, but then rotated to make it simple to follow the flow of the gas.

Note that my photoshop skills are very limited, so I messed up the scale for the icons. If you can do better, please show what the result would look like with your icons.

[Neotuck]

@GhostEcho

I usually only pay attention to the color of the icon more than the arrows

when building pipes I know liquids start at green then end at white

But that's just my play style, flipping the icons to match the direction of the flow is a good suggestion but I think the devs mean for the arrows to indicate liquids are going in or out of a structure so I doubt they will change it

but I do see how that can confuse some players into thinking the arrows indicate flow direction in pipes so perhaps multi arrows pointing in or out would be better?

 

[GhostEcho]

Yeah, that would also be an improvement.