So, Ive got a group of 10 ships. I use control-1 to group them. Now, any time I have this group selected, not only do I see the normal tactical icon over top the ship graphics, but I see a giant shadded circle around that icon as well.

It looks like im controlling a bunch of grey circles on the screen, even when im zoomed almost all the way in.

I want the tactical icons, but lets be serious here, I also want to be able to see my ships. Im not talking about the little tiny fighters and bombers either.

So whats with the circle? Why not just put a little number representing the group they are in, on the side of each ships tactical icon?

Also, make a configurable setting that lets you pick the distance you want the ship graphics to switch over to tactical icons instead. The current ruleset seems to be set to "As soon as you start to zoom out, switch to tactical icons.

I dont know. The icons are needed a good deal to control things, but I think they take priority too often when ship graphics would still work. At least give the user the option in the config to set how they like it.