The idea is to have ‘mini-skins’ on ships representing the piloting character’s faction, corps, and personal mark.
There would be up to three marks:
a faction’s insignia (such as the Amarr, Caldari, Gallente, and Minatar Icons)
corporation Icon
pilot’s personal mark
if you look thru history, combat vehicles have always had displays (such as flags and symbols) revealing their allegiance(s)… even when combat was expected to be conducted beyond visual range (sometimes very far beyond).
I think on each ship model spots can be designated to receive Faction insignia, Corp Icons, and Pilot’s mark.
Then a character purchases the insignia, icon, or mark he/she wishes to display on his/her ship(s).
After purchase, the display automatically goes to whichever ship the character is piloting (except maybe a capsule) and is no longer displayed on that ship when the character is NOT piloting it.
Thus, when a character changes ship(s), the marks move with him/her.
I expect these marks will have no more effect on operations/combat than ship skins or character apparel, but it is another level of personalizing a player’s experience.
It’s kinda, sorta on the CCP roadmap/radar to do something along those lines.
The biggest issue as I understand it has been the quality when some logos are placed on the ships, so CCP have gone down the route of flags/holograms that sit slightly separate from the ships.
There are a couple of different approaches that have appeared in game already, but confined to CCP controlled designs at the moment.
So probably will happen, but timing is the unknown.
They are talking about this for years. Not even sure how many years, it was so long ago.
I don’t get why they are so hesitant to just let you display the logo even if it looks out of place. We are in an age where they create purple skins for ships so the “aesthetics” excuse doesn’t really hold anymore.
This can be addressed by providing a menu of symbols acceptable to the marks.
I would suggest looking into heraldry’s list of symbols.
Last I looked, there are more than a thousand such items available (not counting coloring/shades).
Heraldry is also the answer to whether it can be displayed on a ship.
There are two basic color categories in heraldry (metals and tinctures).
the two metals are “OR” (Gold, yellow, and amber) and “Argent” (Silver, white, and grey).
all other colors are ‘tinctures’.
the rules of heraldry state that a metal can not be put on a metal and a tincture can not be put on a tincture.
so the pilot’s can have two stages of design… background and devices (items put on the mark).
once a player selects the background, the choices of color are restricted to the other category of color.
(if a metal is selected for the background, only tinctures are available for devices and vice-versa).
after background, the player selects what device he wants from the list and what color he/ wants for it.
as to the location on the ship(s), having a ‘standard’.
…for this discussion, I’ll use aircraft as the test vehicle…
there can be three location types available…
primary (vertical stabilizer and wingtips)
secondary (fuselage, body art)
tertiary (nose art)
If the character bought a Faction insignia, that goes on the primary location(s) ONLY.
If he bought a Corporation Icon, that will go on the primary UNLESS a faction insignia is bought, then it will be moved to the secondary location(s).
If a character buys and designs a ‘pilot’s mark’, that will go on the tertiary location(s) and the primary locations UNLESS displaced from the primary by a faction insignia or corp icon.