Altering health-bar system for ships with internals?

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Song
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There's been a few questions over time why the health bar drops far slower after reaching 50%. It's down to internal compartments, of course....however, it's a bit unintuitive. What are people's thoughts on it, and whether it might be a good idea to split it to two displays (eg. Armor %, Internal %)? This would have to happen for both the health bar and the damage indicator on the targeting display.


Personally I think it would:

- Take up more screen space
-Take slightly longer to read
-Add some complexities with multihulled stations (not insurmountable, but there might be the odd bug)

+ Be more intuitive and actually show the existence of internals ingame (currently they aren't!)
+ provide an immediate indication of what targets do and don't have interior health. if a target has a "compound" health bar, or two values for health when targeted, it's got them.
+ Be a bit more accurate. Most ships do not have 50% of their health split between internals and non-internals, due to the extreme damage resistance of internals (same as the armor + the multihull bonus to non WMD weapons)
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JohnBWatson
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I suggested what I believe to be the best available solution a while ago - have the section of the bar indicating internal HP be a darker red than the section indicating armor HP.
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Here's a Ministry ticket I wrote: Separate health bars for armor and compartments
Currently, the health bars are a bit counterintuitive as the first half represents the health of the lowest armor segment, and the second half represents compartment health. Until the player understands the mechanics, this causes a sudden change in how tough it appears to be to damage the enemy for no apparent reason.

I suggest having separate bars with different colors (perhaps gray for armor and red/green for compartments), one above the other (either higher on the screen or overlapping).

Also, the health readout when targeting something with internal hp should display the health percentage of the lowest armor segment until it's zero, then switch to internal health.
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TheLoneWolf
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I've got a better idea.
PM
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Different colors and/or text. For text, write "hull" if damaged, "armor" if hull is undamaged.
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TheLoneWolf
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TheLoneWolf wrote:I've got a better idea.
PM wrote:Different colors and/or text. For text, write "hull" if damaged, "armor" if hull is undamaged.
You reading my mind?

Yeah. I've wanted to say this for a very long time (an hour).

We get two stats from a targeting ROM:

Damage = x%
Shield = y%

And we got hex color support.
So why not gradual shading towards the red spectrum for shields and armour?
When the shields reach 0, their counter goes red and stays that way till it begins to recharge.
The damage counter behaves the same way for compartment-less ships. For ships with compartments, it sticks to yellow till they get breached and then starts to take average of Armour HP + Compartment HP

Or the counter:

Damage = x% + z%

when z% is damage to compartments

I propose that a different hitsound to be played when a shot hits already revealed compartments.

A better idea would be to display a 3D blueprint of the targeted ship, that displays damage in terms of colors the same way as above i.e an armour that is more damaged appears redder.
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TheLoneWolf
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- Take up more screen space
-Take slightly longer to read
-Add some complexities with multihulled stations (not insurmountable, but there might be the odd bug)
Distracting
+ Be more intuitive and actually show the existence of internals ingame (currently they aren't!)
Could add a non direct reference or a hint in the tuitorial (Benedict).
+ provide an immediate indication of what targets do and don't have interior health. if a target has a "compound" health bar, or two values for health when targeted, it's got them.
How about superimposing healthbars of non superimposing colors? One for Armour, one for Compartments?
+ Be a bit more accurate. Most ships do not have 50% of their health split between internals and non-internals, due to the extreme damage resistance of internals (same as the armor + the multihull bonus to non WMD weapons)
Eh?
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