Looks great!  Personally, my desire to be able to zoom out so see the whole map is not for the sake of spending time playing at that level, but rather as a means of moving from one location to the next. Currently, I find the experience of moving around kind of jarring. Scrolling, double clicking on a control group, clicking on the mini map, or bringing up the strategic map with the space bar just doesn't feel very seamless, especially give the size of some of the maps. 

I know your looking into heat maps for unit representation, and I think that would work well at the zoom level posted above; however, ideally I'd love to see the zoom function extend all the way out to the entire map. Since any details at that altitude would be minutely small, perhaps as one zooms out to the map's full size it could morph into what we currently what we have as the strategic (space bar) map.

The game would be unplayable like this.  The only way to make this usable would be to add in a whole new layer of information that would be displayed that would be practically a game project unto itself.

I was going to wait for clarification before saying anything but what the hell...

Please let us zoom out at least as far as in your picture. It still looks very playable to me. Forget about icons but give us the zoom. You wanted feedback from the players, here it is

Are you worried it will make even T3s look small and loose the feeling of scale you want? With huge maps that is going to happen anyway I'm afraid.

I didn't see your first reply, sorry.

People want to see the lay of the land, the lay of their forces and give some movement commands without having to be constantly scrolling around.

Looking at the scale of that zoom out you could so all those things. BUT the majority of the game would still be played zoomed in with all the richness that offers. Without icons I don't think that which you seem to fear most will happen.

It would really help us to better understand your intentions, and help us understand what is within the realm of possibility given your roadmap. Right now on your screen there are no abstractions of any of the units or buildings aside from presumably the empire tree. In the strategic view we are able to see unit blobs and control groups. Is that generally the rules of the UI that we are dealing with? Or do you have plans to present some form of unit/building abstractions that provide additional information when zoomed out or on the strategic view?

Here is why I ask: if there will be no form of unit abstraction on the main screen (aside from the empire tree) and your screenshot is pretty much all we will be able to see at that zoom level, then that zoom level is useful for only 2 things:

a. telling units where to go over a long distance, which can already be done on the strategic view

b. getting a good overview of the terrain

If that's the case I would not conclude that that zoom level is really all that beneficial. That changes if there is some kind of unit abstraction at higher zoom out levels. So, what are your realistic intentions with regard to visual unit abstractions on the main map?

other than hav g a heat map around units to make them pop more.p, here's no intent to abstract the main map. That's why I'm not sure what people are looking for out of zooming out.

That sounds like a great idea to me, assuming we'll be able to keep that zoom setting in multiplayer.

Thank you Frogboy for this awesome image. i do like a lot this zoom out image and you can do so many thing with it, you can add a lot of info

let me show you 2 small examples of how may it look if you add units heat signature.

http://postimg.org/image/f1zhjhgpl/full/

in the first map you just have dots.
bigger dots are T3 then come T2 and the smallest ones are T1 units, the idea is that when you start a war the units who are fighting will start glowing, i couldn't add the glow to it because i got lazy. sorry.

while the second example is:

http://postimg.org/image/qsdf0v9i1/full/

in here we have some kind of heat signatures,, when you see the armies fighting each other then you see them glowing.

Those are just examples. there is no on screen information about the size of the units, just think about it, if you go ahead and add the unit info in the left side of the screen ala Sins, it will be interesting.

having all that i am sure you will forget about the unit speed.

its not about playing using this zoom, its about getting the info of the whole battlefield, when you see or want to do something in a specific location just go ahead and zoom back in and start moving your units or building.

EDIT:

I want to add a last image on how it may look when you bring your mouse on top of a heat signature armies battling or when you click on this army then you get a white color around what your looking for then the info will appear on the left side of the screen.

http://postimg.org/image/quxanpd5l/full/

Guys remember this is just my personal idea. i hope i will get some good comments from everyone.

EDIT 2: Sorry about the images not expanding, i have no idea why it never work for me, i am so frustrated by that.
I added a direct link to the image for now the best way is to open link in new Tab.

Same for me.  Just zoom out to move faster around the map.

ASADDF, I like your ideas. Last one especially.

I believe it's the right way to go - the overlay system displaying forces' positions on a main viewport with smooth zoom from entire map to local battle. The examples of how it can look is above in ASADDF's post (probably need some additional info on unit composition). It preserves the key ergonomic sequence of SupCom/SoaSE: zoom out, see what's happening, move mouse only a bit and then zoom in. Old-fashioned navigation sequences containing usage of additional panels like minimap or external map windows is less convenient due to missing visual clue between close-ups and large scale view - they force players to remember correspondence between places, events and army compositions; this can cause headache proportional to the size of the map. While current spacebar overview does some part of the job regarding quick navigation, direct visual link is still missing.

Just watch 2 Top players play this FAForever with the most epic caster Gyle  and take your  thoughts about ashes,its the best exemple how its so easy use only zoom to make your decisions on a map ,there is no need complicate watch how many times they use the mini map   (0 times) .

And to over the icons ideas i like PA game not bad now ,but this is the best exemple with + 7.000 units with icons that i really hate the view,so for who  want icons watch how ugly the game can be.

FA  

PA