Uniform Colour Policy
The Uniform Color Policy is designed to provide a uniform color palette for all Urban Dead maps.
Currently, dozens of different suburbs and groups use their own barricade maps and weather reports. Since there is no standard color scheme, there are currently maps where yellow means extremely heavily barricaded and green means enterable, and other maps where the exact opposite is true. The uniform color policy is intended to help standardize colors, in order to make maps easier for out-of-towners to read. For example: If you have an aesthetic objection to our particular shade of NecroTech Purple, we hope that you would use a purple color of your choice rather than green when you designate NT Buildings on your map.
Underlying Principles of the Uniform Color Policy
- Color stays true to in-game colors when convenient. (For example: Hospitals are pink, Police Stations are blue, Fire Stations are red.)
- Game-identical locations are all the same color even if colored differently in-game. (For example: streets, wastelands, monuments, parks, etc., are all grey.)
- Color reflects utility. For barricade maps, all buildings that are treated equivalently get the same color.
- Color stays true to current prevailing usage. (For example, on barricade maps, EH non-resource buildings are bright yellow, since that represents near-universal current usage.)
- Color uses a robust color name (that is, "Silver" instead of "#C0C0C0") whenever possible.
Color Descriptions
The first table shows current building types that currently use a generally-agreed upon color.
The closest basic color is shown by name and hexcode. Basic colors probably show up correctly on all browsers. The 150 or so Advanced Colors (see web colors copied from "web colors" in Wikipedia) work on most if not all browsers -- please correct our web colors page if the color doesn't show up correctly for you. The table also shows an advanced color name for each building type (that might be easier to look at) and a hexcode color that uses the 4096-color palette.
| Type of Building | Color Range | Basic Name | (Hexcode) | (Robust) | Prettier by Name | Prettier by Hexcode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Street | light gray, gray, black | Silver | #C0C0C0 | Basic 16 | DarkGray | #BBBBBB |
| EH Building | bright yellow, yellow, white | Yellow | #FFFF00 | Basic 16 | Khaki | #EEEE11 |
| Police Station | bright blue, blue, light blue | Aqua | #00FFFF | Basic 16 | LightSkyBlue | #00CCFF |
| Fire Station | bright red, red | Red | #FF0000 | Basic 16 | Tomato | #FF6666 |
| Hospital | light pink, pink | Pink | #FFC0CB | Advanced | Pink | #FF99CC |
| NecroTech Building | purple | Fuchsia | #FF00FF | Basic 16 | Plum | #CC99DD |
| Cemetery | light green | Lime | #00FF00 | Basic 16 | LimeGreen | #00DD00 |
The second table lists current building types that do not appear to have a generally-agreed upon color:
| Type of Building | Prevailing Colors | Proposed | (Sample Shown) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revive Point | bright green, dark green, dark blue | light green | #00DD00 |
| Mall | light slate blue, bright orange, other colors | orange | #FFBB00 |
| Cell Phone Mast | orange, brown, purple, other colors | dark brown | #CC9922 |
| School | blue-grey, light yellow, other colors | blue-grey | #99CCCC |
| VS Entryway | light green, green-grey, other colors | ideas? | #66AA77 |
| Church | light orange, other colors | use EH color? | (n/a) |
| Wide Open Entry | bright green, other colors | ? | #00AA00 |
| Armoury Building | brown, other colors? | light brown? | #998877 |
| Power Station | grey, brown, other colors? | brown? | #776655 |
| Zoo Building | dark red-brown, other colors? | dark red-brown? | #996655 |
| Stadium | green-grey, other colors? | green-grey? | #99CC99 |
Building Type Descriptions
Street: Any unremarkable location that doesn't contain a building. No barricades are possible. (Includes streets, roads, ways, parks, groves, monuments, car parks, wastelands, etc.)
NecroTech Building: NT Buildings are Very Strongly Barricaded in all common barricade plans. (Since NTs are extremely attractive targets for Zombies, some redundant NT Buildings have EH Override -- see your local map for details.)
Police Station: Police Stations are Very Strongly Barricaded in all common barricade plans.
Hospital: Hospitals are Very Strongly Barricaded in all common barricade plans.
Fire Station: Fire Station are Very Strongly Barricaded in all common barricade plans.
School: Schools are Very Strongly Barricaded in all common barricade plans. (Note that Schools are considered essential resource buildings -- thus VS -- in Uniform Barricade Policy.)
Church: Note that churches/cathedrals are not considered resource buildings (thus are EH) in Uniform Barricade Policy. Many barricade maps do not distinguish churches and cathedrals from other unremarkable buildings.
Cell Phone Mast: Cell Phone Masts are Extremely Heavily Barricaded in all common barricade plans. In some suburbs, the Cell Phone Mast is also a resource building, but the planned barricade level is typically EHB nonetheless.
Official Revive Point: Official revive points should not only be marked by spraypaint (both at the site and at nearby high-traffic areas), but should also be listed on this wiki -- both on the Revive Point page and also on the maintaining group's page. (Since revive points require constant maintenance, they become obsolete when maintaining groups are no longer active.)
Cemetery: All cemeteries should be noted on barricade maps, because cemeteries are used as revive points by supporters of the Sacred Ground Policy.
Mall: Mall buildings are kept Extremely Heavily Barricaded. All malls have official or unofficial VS Non-Resource Entryways.
EH Non-Resource Building: Any unremarkable building designated as Extremely Heavily Barricaded. (Includes arms, auto repairs, banks, bars, cinemas, clubs, factories, hotels, junkyards, libraries, mansions, motels, museums, pubs, railway stations, towers, warehouses, and non-NT office buildings.)
VS Non-Resource Entryway: Any non-resource building that is designated as Very Strongly (VS+2) Barricaded instead of Extremely Heavily Barricaded. (Suburbs using lower barricade standards than Uniform Barricades often keep the majority of their buildings at Very Strongly.)
WO Open Entry: Any building that is designated as Wide Open (no barricades). These few unlucky buildings are brain-rotter revive clinics, indoor revive clinics, or emergency free-run entryways.
EH Override (Redundant Resource Building): Some buildings are designated as EHB despite Uniform Barricade Policy / Optimal Defense Plan. (Typically, this is because there are adjacent buildings of the same type.) In prevailing barricade plans, these buildings use the appropriate color, but have obvious scary markings such as black slashes across the entire square.
Barricade Plans
Here are the colors selected for use in Barricade Plans. I have tried to stick close to the colors suggested here and those representative of the game map. Anywhere I may differ was based on common usage of colors in most existing multi-color wiki maps at the time I developed the template, and were selected for contrast.
| Unenterable Buildings | |||
| Extremely Heavily Barricaded | Phone Mast | ||
| Enterable Buildings | |||
| Auto Shop | Fire Station | ||
| Hospital | NecroTech | ||
| Police Department | School | ||
| Other VSB Buildings | Unbarricaded Buildings | ||
| Other Locations | |||
| Street | Monument | ||
| Cemetery | Revivification Point | ||
