Feature Request: Allow users to modify their player badge programmatically
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Proposal:
It would be a neat feature to allow users to manipulate their player icon in game via code. This would allow users to change their icons depending on many different scenarios:
Economy state, war time, holidays, etc
Unknowns and concerns:
Are player icons rendered on the servers or via some other means through the browser (CSS)?
How much impact could this make on the server performance, and if it's significant can/should it be limited to a icon changing cooldown (still allowing users to change it manually).
Extreme End Feature:
Someone can change their icon every tick, so they could implement quasi animated player icons
Lowest End Feature:
Allow a user to programmatically change their icon once per day to reduce server impact. Can still use this to change to a war-time icon.
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I'm strongly against people being able to change their icon every tick. If too many people do it then it's not unlikely you'll get crazy high contrast changes every tick because people are people.
Once a day seems fine.
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I do agree the `allow every tick` thing would probably bring out the trolls unfortunately. Once an hour would be ideal in my book, since war can start or stop regularly.
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Badges are generated SVG files- created using text, essentially. There are two types of badges-
* Templates badges, which essentially let you pick a badge template, a modifying value (that lets you adjust shape), and colors. These are what the majority of players have.
* Custom badges - an example would be my badge. These were offered through the crowd funding campaign that raised funds for the steam client. They are stored as somewhat more complex "path" data.
I think changing the badges themselves programmatically would be rather confusing. However, I think it might be interesting to allow the colors of the badges (but not the template, shape, or other data) get changed.
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It would be nice to programmatically change my badge in case any trolls want to try to sleep near your territory. There are people who seem to be doing this currently.
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I agree Tedivm, the answer really would be two fold: A function to change the RGB values of the 3 colors in the player generated badges (which I would hope would be easier), and a separate function to change the shapes as well (with the myriad of options, both inverted, sizing, and just choices in general would obviously make this one more complex).
K-C yeah we've got a few trolls in our area that are taking the badges of other players and pretending to be them to try to incite wars. It's a bit frustrating.
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I don't like the change badge shape idea.
It's nice to be able to look at my neighbors and be able so see, at a glance where they are going. To do that their badges should not change much.
That said, it would be nice to have a color change ability on some level.