Icon layering allows for substantially more powerful icon creation (many mods make use of icon layering to create recipes dynamically, for example), but for entities placed in-world, there are negative performance impacts, and the current behavior is not-ideal with each layer casting a shadow on the layer below it:
If icons were instead baked after they've all been created during data phase, these pain points could be entirely avoided.
Interessting news in that link. I think such graphic painting qualities in the startup would make things a lot easier. Think to mods for compressed items: They need a palette as "griund" and paint some items slightly smaller over that to generate one item-graphics. But they need to do that dozens of times (for mods eventually some hundreds).
Cool suggestion: Eatable MOUSE-pointers. Have you used the Advanced Search today? Need help, question? FAQ -Wiki -Forum help I still like small signatures...