health bar

[hls]

Can you make health bars above each unit? Like WarCraft?

[John.d.h]

That's what the ring under a unit's feet is for.

[wyvern]

Yeah but I must admit I'd prefer if the ring under the unit would change from green to yellow to red depending on how low its hp is instead of just getting darker.

[hairy cat]

Imagine you DO have those health bars above the unit, and you assemble a huge army. Would slow down the game if you move it, plus it would kinda block the view. Just my opinion.
As Wyvern said, it would be nice to change colours though.

[John.d.h]

The ring system is fine the way it is.  Health shouldn't be something you can see with exacting precision at a glance.  If you look at a wounded soldier, you might be able to see he's got a couple bullet holes and he's bleeding quite a bit, but that doesn't tell you if he's moments from death or if he just needs some serious bandaging.  In my opinion, having a little bit of uncertainty and guesswork is a good thing.

[ultifd]

The ring system is fine the way it is.  Health shouldn't be something you can see with exacting precision at a glance.  If you look at a wounded soldier, you might be able to see he's got a couple bullet holes and he's bleeding quite a bit, but that doesn't tell you if he's moments from death or if he just needs some serious bandaging.  In my opinion, having a little bit of uncertainty and guesswork is a good thing.

Yep, thats how I think of it...though I'm not sure if I knew about the ring system.

[justinzach13]

His question wasn't answered. I was also wondering the same thing, is it possible to add a health bar for each unit?   

[Kiko]

The ring system is fine the way it is.

I agree with you there John. The ring system works and is a known animal, so at most perhaps it might need colour changes to make unit changes more obvious. Changing the look just to match another game seems like a waste of developer time to me. I'd rather see coders spending time on things which matter more, such as new features, tweaks and tuning for speed, etc.

[Bloodwurm]

The only thing I hate with the current ring system is that when the health is really low the rings almost completely disppears, making it hard to see. It's especially an issue when at night and selecting units.
Numerous times i've lost time trying to pick a unit or thought I had it group selected but didn't see the rings so redid my select...

Also, i don't feel that the two systems can't co-exist. The more "numerical' health bar on top of units could be something you display only when a particular key on the keyboard is pressed (like in starcraft) or if a game option is enabled (the game option could perhaps make you choose which method you prefer: None, Rings or HealthBar).

[John.d.h]

I think the main reason for wanting health bars so far is "because it's what I'm used to seeing in Age of Command&ConquerCraft", which is really a poor reason to do anything.  If the rings become hard to see when they fade, maybe instead of shifting from opaque to transparent, they could change colors instead?

[Omega]

I think the main reason for wanting health bars so far is "because it's what I'm used to seeing in Age of Command&ConquerCraft", which is really a poor reason to do anything.  If the rings become hard to see when they fade, maybe instead of shifting from opaque to transparent, they could change colors instead?

While that's not necessarily a bad idea, it clashes with how we currently use colours on those bars. Green are your units, red are enemy units, blue are allied units (same team, different player), and orange are resources.

[Zoythrus]

I think the main reason for wanting health bars so far is "because it's what I'm used to seeing in Age of Command&ConquerCraft", which is really a poor reason to do anything.  If the rings become hard to see when they fade, maybe instead of shifting from opaque to transparent, they could change colors instead?

While that's not necessarily a bad idea, it clashes with how we currently use colours on those bars. Green are your units, red are enemy units, blue are allied units (same team, different player), and orange are resources.

why cant the colors be chosen by the modder? just give the modder two colors for each circumstance (ally, enemy, etc), and the game would make the circles fade from color 1 to color 2

[Omega]

I think the main reason for wanting health bars so far is "because it's what I'm used to seeing in Age of Command&ConquerCraft", which is really a poor reason to do anything.  If the rings become hard to see when they fade, maybe instead of shifting from opaque to transparent, they could change colors instead?

While that's not necessarily a bad idea, it clashes with how we currently use colours on those bars. Green are your units, red are enemy units, blue are allied units (same team, different player), and orange are resources.

why cant the colors be chosen by the modder? just give the modder two colors for each circumstance (ally, enemy, etc), and the game would make the circles fade from color 1 to color 2

First of all, if the modder choses the colours, it creates vast inconsistencies ("blue is EP, no, wait, health...or is it..."). Secondly, changing colour of the bars (eg, from a bright sky blue to a dark purple-ish blue could be done by the engine itself, rather than being modder specified, but it's really not that much different from the current "becomes more transparent" system.

[Zoythrus]

well, what if the health rings blend into a specific tileset? this sort of control would be nice....but i do see your point.

[Omega]

well, what if the health rings blend into a specific tileset? this sort of control would be nice....but i do see your point.

Except there's no way for a techtree to know what tileset it's playing on, and per-tileset colours would be fairly confusing, don't you think?

[Zoythrus]

well, what if the health rings blend into a specific tileset? this sort of control would be nice....but i do see your point.

Except there's no way for a techtree to know what tileset it's playing on, and per-tileset colours would be fairly confusing, don't you think?

we're assuming here that a mod may come with a specific tileset.

[Coldfusionstorm]

It dosn't matter what people are used to, it matters when the game is designed around it.

Its fine you like the level of realism it proviedes that there is "guesswork" about it, i don't and it don't fit with the gamestyle i want to go with.

Therefore, I would most certainly like a better HP bar.,

[THE FOLLOWING BELOW IS ONLY APPLICABLE TO MEGAGLEST]
 But this really comes under new interface, wich we also have been around before, Megaglest REALLY needs a new UI.

[Omega]

[THE FOLLOWING BELOW IS ONLY APPLICABLE TO MEGAGLEST]
 But this really comes under new interface, wich we also have been around before, Megaglest REALLY needs a new UI.

You realize this is the GAE board right?

In my opinion, if such a feature were ever implemented, I'd rather see an option in the options menu for choosing between whether or not the health bar should appear, out of four settings: either always on, only on when a certain hotkey is pressed (toggle), or only on when the unit is selected. By default, it should be a hotkey, which defaults to off ingame. The always on feature would always show a tiny health bar, regardless of the unit and whether or not its selected. Hotkey would be the compromise, allowing you to toggle it on or off on the fly, keeping it off for those who don't want it at all, while being able to flick it on for, say, an epic battle, for those who want to sparingly use such a feature. Finally, only for selected units works the same way as the circles; only appearing when units are selected.

The circles would always be on, though, as the colours are necessary for determining the unit's alliance (friend or foe) as well as have crucial uses in the interface (how else do I know if the unit is selected? As well, if attacking a unit, the appearance of the red circle signifies that you correctly clicked the unit and they are indeed an enemy you want to be attacking).

Of course, I'm still unconvinced the feature would be of any reasonable priority (in other words, do everything else first, then come back to this).

[Zoythrus]

[THE FOLLOWING BELOW IS ONLY APPLICABLE TO MEGAGLEST]
 But this really comes under new interface, wich we also have been around before, Megaglest REALLY needs a new UI.

You realize this is the GAE board right?

In my opinion, if such a feature were ever implemented, I'd rather see an option in the options menu for choosing between whether or not the health bar should appear, out of four settings: either always on, only on when a certain hotkey is pressed (toggle), or only on when the unit is selected. By default, it should be a hotkey, which defaults to off ingame. The always on feature would always show a tiny health bar, regardless of the unit and whether or not its selected. Hotkey would be the compromise, allowing you to toggle it on or off on the fly, keeping it off for those who don't want it at all, while being able to flick it on for, say, an epic battle, for those who want to sparingly use such a feature. Finally, only for selected units works the same way as the circles; only appearing when units are selected.

The circles would always be on, though, as the colours are necessary for determining the unit's alliance (friend or foe) as well as have crucial uses in the interface (how else do I know if the unit is selected? As well, if attacking a unit, the appearance of the red circle signifies that you correctly clicked the unit and they are indeed an enemy you want to be attacking).

Of course, I'm still unconvinced the feature would be of any reasonable priority (in other words, do everything else first, then come back to this).

A can agree with this, your idea has my approval, Omega

[ChupaReaper]

Would it not be better to put the health bar on the unit's portrait when selected in the interface? Rather than 100/100, have 100 centered on top of a health/ep bar that depletes, configurable by the widget.cfg too?