Was this a conscious decision?

[The Creeping Sloth]

Hi, everyone!
 I start by saying, I love this game, heard about it a couple of month ago, and finally picked it up on sale recently. Played for about 10 hrs, I know i`m still a scrub) Although I flew(as a pilot) only once, it was a blast, long fight on a 2v2 map, my crew of experienced air-sailors guided me to sweet victory. In all my roles(gunner,pilot,engineer) I found 1 thing bothering me.
 The ship parts icons, sliding on the edge of the screen. I had to constantly look around the ship, to see through walls, whether the hull or the balloon is damaged. Taking in to account that the icons overlap on each other, it was kind of awkward to turn around and look at them separately in the heat of the moment, whether i was fixing something, firing at something, or maneuvering around something.
 The question is. Was this a conscious decision? Wouldn`t it be much more clearer to make a small outline of the ship in the HUD, to see what parts are taking damage. Thinking about it take in consideration, that you see if the parts are taking damage through walls already. In current state you just need to kind of stop what you are doing for a second and turn around to check. 

 Hope this question has been answered somewhere already and I will get a quick short answer.

Thanks)

[HamsterIV]

A lot of people ask for some sort of ship damage UI element that shows you the damage is a consistent spot on the screen when they first start, but then they grow accustom to the way GOI does things. Having a UI element show a blue print of the ship would either take up a lot of screen space, or limit the ship designs. The Galleon has 11 components spread across 3 decks so either the components would be jumbled so close together on one outline that one could mistake a bottom deck gun's damage for a top deck gun, or each deck would have its own schematic taking up way more of the screen than is necessary. Muse could design their ships so that  each component does not allow for overlap on the UI damage display, but then they couldn't make ships like the spire.

Once you get familiar with areas of responsibility and what each of the component icons look like you will respond to the UI like a pro.

[Hunter.]

It's also really atmospheric to have to move your head to the component in question to check on it!

[Milevan Faent]

Another factor to consider is you are not the only one watching that damage. As the Captain, I regularly call out "Hull is down" or "balloon is down" and so on, drawing the attention of my engineers to critical problems that I need fixed, since I can keep an eye on all the components AND fly the ship at once.  That's basically my job as Captain, keeping an eye on the whole situation and helping my crew stay aware of where they're needed, since my job flying the ship takes only a part of my focus, leaving me free to keep the situation as a whole in mind as well.

[The Creeping Sloth]

Thanks for all the answers. One more thing. It`s about the overlapping of the icons. I feel like it the current icon system is fine, except the overlapping icons. Icons-icons-icons) Hope you get what I mean.

[Omniraptor]

As a pilot, your job doesn't require you to be facing a certain direction, so you can glance around at the indicators freely to get a sense of what's going on. I agree that they shouldn't overlap though, just cluster.

[Richard LeMoon]

Well, the original idea was to have a special tool (engineer goggles) that would allow you to see damage. Without it, you could not see what was damaged at all. This is the result of removing that tool, and giving the ability to everyone by default.

[The Creeping Sloth]

More info coming in, thanks) As I play more, I get used to it more. Removing the overlapping will "fix" everything)