You can use these settings to tweak the behavior of the strategic view in GalCiv IV

GraphicsDefs.xml:

There are many settings in GraphicsDefs.xml that can be used to tweak the strategic view:

RadialIconHideTextDistance - distance where radial icons hide their text (IE: Fleet numbers)

If cluster not discovered:
MainMapGalaxyViewCameraHeight - beginning height to switch to "cluster view"
MainMapGalaxyViewCameraFadeSize - cluster view is fully fade in at height: MainMapGalaxyViewCameraHeight + MainMapGalaxyViewCameraFadeSize
else
it interpolates between (MainMapGalaxyViewCameraHeight + MainMapGalaxyViewCameraFadeSize) and MainMapGalaxyViewClusterMaxHeight using galaxy LOD slider

InfluenceCiclesInternalFillInMinLOD - camera height where influence bubbles start to fill in
InfluenceCiclesInternalFillInMaxLOD - camera height where influence bubbles are completely filled in
InfluenceCirclesInternalFillInMaxAlpha - when fully filled in, max alpha of the influence bubble
MainMapPlanetHUDTinyDist - distance at which planet HUD changes from tiny to super tiny
MainMapPlanetHUDCullDist - distance at which planet HUD hides
InfluenceWatermarkFadeDistStart - distance to start fading out water marks
InfluenceWatermarkFadeDistEnd - distance at which watermarks are faded out completely
StrategicIconScreenSizeNear - size of strategic icon when it first becomes an inconsistencies
StrategicIconScreenSizeFar - size of strategic icon just before it disappears as you zoom out
StrategicIconNebulaScreenSizeNear - size of nebula when it first becomes an icon
StrategicIconNebulaScreenSizeFar - size of nebula just before it disappears as you zoom out

Nebula Icons

Nebula strategic icons work a bit differently than other objects. In order to make them appear more like clouds, and less like scattered dots, a tile with a nebula will create an icon in the center of the tile, then surround it with randomly sized icons to fill in the gaps between tiles. You can use the following settings to change the size, location, and number of icons for a nebula:

StrategicIconNebulaCenterScaleSizeMin - min size of center nebula icon
StrategicIconNebulaCenterScaleSizeMax - max size of center nebula icon
StrategicIconNebulaScaleSizeMin - min size of nebula surrounding icon
StrategicIconNebulaScaleSizeMax - max size of nebula surrounding icon
StrategicIconNebulaSurroundingIconScale - size scale of nebula surrounding icons
StrategicIconNebulaSurroundingIconAlphaMin - min alpha for nebula surrounding icons
StrategicIconNebulaSurroundingIconAlphaMax - max alpha for nebula surrounding icons
StrategicIconNebulaCenterAlpha - alpha for center nebula icon
StrategicIconNebulaNumSurroundingIcons - number of nebula surrounding icons
StrategicIconNebulaSurroundingIconOffsetMagnitudeMin - min offset magnitude for nebula surrounding icons
StrategicIconNebulaSurroundingIconOffsetMagnitudeMax - max offset magnitude for nebula surrounding icons

GameOptions.xml

There are several game options in the Options screen that allow you to tweak when certain icons disappear. You can use these sliders in-game to adjust them live to get them to hide when you want. Once you have that at a setting you like, you can then change the default value of these options in GameOptions.xml. You can use the new <GameOptionVersionDef> to force just the options you changed to reset for all players when they update.

For example:

<GameOptionVersionDef>
<Version>5</Version>
<OptionToReset>StrategicIconZoomCategoryPlanet</OptionToReset>
<OptionToReset>StrategicIconZoomCategoryDeadPlanet</OptionToReset>
</GameOptionVersionDef>

By placing this in GameOptions.xml, you force any users that have a prefs file with version less than 5 to reset the StrategicIconZoomCategoryPlanet and StrategicIconZoomCategoryDeadPlanet options to their new defaults.

The options used by strategic view are:

StrategicIconZoomCategoryShip - the level at which ship strategic icons disappear
StrategicIconZoomCategoryPlanet - the level at which planet strategic icons disappear
StrategicIconZoomCategoryDeadPlanet - the level at which dead planet strategic icons disappear
StrategicIconZoomCategoryAsteroid - the level at which asteroid strategic icons disappear
StrategicIconZoomCategoryResource - the level at which resource strategic icons disappear
StrategicIconZoomCategoryAnomaly - the level at which anomaly strategic icons disappear
StrategicIconZoomCategoryNebula - the level at which nebula strategic icons disappear
StrategicIconZoomCategoryRallyPoint - the level at which rally point strategic icons disappear
StrategicIconZoomCategoryBlackHole - the level at which black hole strategic icons disappear

You can hide an icon completely by setting this to 0, or show it all the time by setting it to 100.

Setting it to a value between 0 and 100 will cause it to hide somewhere between when it becomes and icon and the map switches to galaxy cluster view.

This setting is a percentage of the range between minimum zoom and the galaxy cluster view.

InfluenceCircles4.fx

There are two hard-coded values in the InfluenceCircles4.fx shader that can be tweaked to modify the look of the galaxy view clusters. Changing these will require re-compiling the shader.

You can hot-load these in-game with F8 if you are running in a Release build.

CLUSTER_FILL_IN_FALL_OFF_EXPONENT - determines how quickly the fill-in color of the cluster falls off
CLUSTER_FILL_IN_MIN_ALPHA - determines the minimum alpha of the fill-in color of the cluster