The look
Style bible
The look is austere, and a little far ahead of now. The solar system is already the scenery. What we draw sits in that field and has to stay readable.
The field
Black space, and the planets
Space is black. The planets already carry the scenery. A ship, a warehouse, and a station sit in that field as volumes. If a shape has to be dressed up before it holds, the shape is wrong.
Type is bone-colored. Amber shows up on a kicker, a link, a cursor. Hulls stay quiet.
Two designs
One harvest, two yards
Sol Systems flies from blueprints. The same plates, the same tanks, the same siphon geometry, scaled. A contractor's ship looks licensed. It is planar and ceremonial, the way issued equipment looks.
Ashland Marauders build from the same harvest. They have hull metal, ice, tar, rain. They do not have the drawings. Their ships come out of a yard that never saw a Sol stamp.
Ships
Read the silhouette first
Faction is a shape before it is a mark. Sol is aligned. A Marauder ship uses the same kit, bolted at other angles.
Load shows in how the ship sits. Heavy sits like it costs. Light is a tank and a spine. Cash has no weight, so a ship coming home from Earth still sits light, carrying the payout.
On the system map a ship can be a mark. In the terminal it can be a schematic. In a battle replay it can be a body. Those are three jobs, and they can be three drawings.
Places
Keep the box a box
A warehouse is a volume in orbit. The dock, the bay, and the bank live in that volume. Earth stations are larger, one per faction, and they are still architecture. A faction mark tells them apart. The planet does the rest.
Europa and Callisto are the same kind of place: a dock on a yield. One warehouse language covers the moons.
The terminal
Issued, or done without a license
The phone is a terminal. Sol's is issued: tracked, wide letter-spacing, small type. The Marauder terminal does the same job without a license. Both stay readable at arm's length.
How far
What has to be readable
A player has to read faction, load, place, and commodity. The rest can wait. Ship classes can wait until a run has been flown in grey and still felt like a run.
Leave these off
- Carnival lighting, and lens flare used as decoration.
- Skulls, neon, or a jolly roger on Marauder hulls.
- Jewel-cut icons for the yields.
- Chrome that exists to shine.
- A unique station design for every moon.
Palette
On the map, a mark has to be read from the outer orbit. Sol's mark is gold. A Marauder mark is oxide. The objects themselves stay quiet.
Field
#000000
The board. It stays empty.
Bone
#E8E4D9
Type, edges, a quiet hull.
Amber
#FCD34D
Kickers, links, a cursor.
Sol mark
#C4A35A
A license, read from the outer orbit.
Oxide
#6B3A32
A Marauder mark. The color of ash.
Energy
#F5E6C8
Held light. The haul and the burn.
Yields
Each yield has a look in the hand and in the hold.
Hydrogen metal
Dull, pressed, and it stays solid.
Helium rain
Pale. A droplet, heavier than it looks.
Mantle ice
Milky. Kept after the lift from the clouds.
Storm tar
Black. Carbon pulled out of weather.
Energy
Held light. The haul, and the burn.
Cash
No weight, and no shine of its own.
What the player must read
Faction
Silhouette first. A mark when the shape is too far away.
Load
How the ship sits. Heavy costs. Light is a tank and a spine.
Place
Warehouse, bay, dock, two Earth stations. Volumes in orbit.
Commodity
How the material looks in the hand and in the hold.