I'm moving this gently over here from the RTB thread.

I've heard a large amount of positive feedback on the green health bar, so I'm curious as to what the popular opinion is. Keep it or toss it?

Pretty sure the HUD is customizable, so I think this poll is more than a little silly.

Well, of course it's customizable, Grumblesaur. But I think that that shouldn't be an excuse for not making the HUD a bit polished right from the get-go. If everyone who ever plays it has to re-order their HUD, and most of them are doing it the same way, why not just fix the problem before release so the players don't have to mess with it? It's like packaging a game with a "some assembly required" label on the side.

It's fine to me as it is, BUT I like the idea of balancing it on the other side with some other piece of dynamic ship information.

What should that be? Other than general structural health, what one other thing do you want to be able to quickly ascertain about your ship? Fuel remaining?

Or are there maybe a number of things that depend on context? Cargo space for a mining-specific HUD; distance from home for exploration; weapon efficiency or missiles remaining in combat mode; money in the bank (on some scale) for trading; and on on.

Where are the shields? I think that would do very nicely over on the other side.

Shields and armor would work for me.

Although I like those context-sensitive things, too.

Talvieno wrote:Where are the shields? I think that would do very nicely over on the other side.

This. The health bar needs a counter point. Shields or Armor should do nicely.

Or you know... put it on the bottom of the reticle to create a U shape

Talvieno wrote:Well, of course it's customizable, Grumblesaur. But I think that that shouldn't be an excuse for not making the HUD a bit polished right from the get-go. If everyone who ever plays it has to re-order their HUD, and most of them are doing it the same way, why not just fix the problem before release so the players don't have to mess with it? It's like packaging a game with a "some assembly required" label on the side.

I don't consider it so different from fiddling around in the options page to get things running optimally for my computer's equipment.

I mean, compared to piecing together a Lego kit or writing a script, mod, or plugin for a game, clicking and dragging some boxes around to rearrange some widgets is pleasantly trivial.

Health and shield and armour indicators for the win.

And, if it is to be a mechanism in the game, I would also add a fuel indicator as Flat almost suggested.

I enjoy the fuel scoop mechanism in the Elite games.

I like it as it as, but could do with a bit of tweaking, as everything. (but not now :V)

Many mistakenly consider the only solution for a harmonious color scheme to make it monochromatic; I think you can safely mix up an array of colors and still keep things looking very decent and much easier on the eye.

I said keep with the assumption that it actually turns red at low values (<30%, for example).
I like the idea of having the same bar for shields on the other side.

Mistycica wrote:I like it as it as, but could do with a bit of tweaking, as everything. (but not now :V)

Many mistakenly consider the only solution for a harmonious color scheme to make it monochromatic; I think you can safely mix up an array of colors and still keep things looking very decent and much easier on the eye.

I agree, monochromatic would make it less intuitive to extract certain information by just glancing at the screen.

Why not 4 bars in extreme?

Boost capacitor ( shields ( * ) hull )armor

I'd like to have:

- Green health.
- Blue shields.
- Yellow/Orange power levels.
- Enemy health seen as red (with shields being blue).

And that's just the start.