The symbol colors for books got very messy lately. I want to make clean up that a bit and give the colors meaning. There is a PR for this:
Here’s the proposed coloring system:
Martial arts books:
Light red: Books that teach a martial arts skill.
Crafting books:
Light green. Used when book teaches notable crafting recipes or is focused on fabrication.
What is “notable” is subjective, but is has to contain at least one crafting recipe to fit into this category.
Skill books:
Are primarily there to teach a certain skill. They may also contain some crafting recipes.
magenta: book teaches a skill up to level 1
brown: up to level 2
green: up to level 3-5
cyan: up to level 6-7
blue: up to level 8 or higher
Enjoyment books:
Books which are “just for fun”. They don’t teach anything, but have a morale boost.
pink: +1 morale
light blue: +2
light cyan: +3
white: +4 or higher
Special books:
Dark gray: If the book behaves differently than all other books or have an uncommon use.
Waste books:
Light gray: Books that have no intrinsic use in them. They don’t teach anything, have no morale boost or even a morale penalty and also have no special use case. They still may be sold, thrown, harvested for paper, burned etc.
Unused colors:
Yellow and dark red. These colors are not used intentionally. Yellow question marks are used for sounds. Dark red question marks is used for IR. The fact that there had been some yellow books added motivated me to do all this. I thought it is annoying and irritating to have the same symbol for an item and a sound.
If this proposal gets accepted, I this color code should be written into the wiki or, even better, into the in-game help.
We pretty much shot this down on Git. Main problem is that you can (usually) tell what kind of book it is from its cover or across the room; you can’t necessarily tell how advanced it is, whether it’s fun, how fun it is, what sort of crafting recipes are in, etc.
So the counterproposal is to color-code by kind of publication, more or less how it was before things got out/whack. One color/pair for magazines, another for novels, a third for textbooks, maybe a fourth for binders and other technical documents, and another for religious books. (I think that covers everything.)
This sounds good.
I would add another category for non-books, like computer printouts.
And I would split textbooks into two categories: Beginner level and advanced level. Beginner level books are books which have no skill requirements, advanced level books do have requirements. I hope this is not too overly mechanical. Martial arts book would count as beginner level books. You (mostly) can tell them apart from the title alone.
I would split novels (enjoyment books) in two categories: Short and long. Comic book, Playboy etc. goes to short, western novel, tragedy novel, war novel etc. go to long. It’s simple to tell because of their size. =)
Summary (and proposed coloring)
[ul][]Magazines: pink
[]Short enjoyment books (including novels): light cyan
[]Long enjoyment books (including novels): light blue
[]Beginner level textbooks and guides: dark green
[]Advanced level textbooks and advanced guides: dark blue
[]Religious books: dark gray
[]Technical documents, (technical?) protocols, (lab) journals: light green
[]Other reading material/non-books (use only if every other category does not apply): light gray[/ul]
If people are happy with that, I’ll do the recoloring once again.
Just retitling your list to make it clear why different categories are distinguisable, seems like a good breakdown to me.
Summary (and proposed coloring)
[ul][]Magazines: pink
[]“Paperbacks” Short enjoyment books (including novels): light cyan
[]“Hardbacks” Long enjoyment books (including novels): light blue
[]“Small textbook” Beginner level textbooks and guides: dark green
[]“Large textbook” Advanced level textbooks and advanced guides: dark blue
[]Religious books: dark gray
[]“Printouts” (including spiral-bound and similar) Technical documents, (technical?) protocols, (lab) journals: light green
[]Other reading material/non-books (use only if every other category does not apply): light gray[/ul]
Minor nit: comics and porn are magazines, not paperback books.
Though I suppose you could have a comic-collection paperback or somesuch: “THE ESSENTIAL Toxic Teenage Troublemakers*”, as opposed to “Toxic Teenage Troublemakers vol. 1, issue 4”, for example. Longer version of the comic book.
*Any resemblance between individual Toxic Teenage Troublemakers and mutation categories is purely coincidental.