I don't like the first two suggestions, too comprehensive. Player's ultimately decide what constitutes a Frigate or a Destroyer and may well decide to name their gulls "Ragglsnufts RGL-S" and "Ingiwiggz IG-WZ" or some other non-sense... more like "Assault Carriers", "Heavy Battlecruisers" and such, but the point is the symbols being tied to nomenclature is a bad idea for Aurora specifically.
I looked at the provided screenshots from Aurora II, and yeah, that'll clutter up right quick. Having the symbols scale down as you zoom out, eventually becoming dots after a certain point and then scaling back up as you zoom in might be one way to solve that. No idea how you could implement it though... or how hard that might be to implement.
I agree. If new map symbols are implemented it must be done carefully so as to avoid limiting player creativity. This is a major strength of the current implementation in my opinion.
Also... I like the current circle symbols. They remind of my college MATLAB robot projects :-)
