HUD Enhancement

whoppaXXL

It is one of the most present game aspects and sets the overall power of you and your team. It is build upon fundamental informational laws and is the ultimate tool for an efficient action distribution.

So let's talk about the design of this, as logic, usefulness and asymetric is fusioned inside this thing and how it could be enhanced for both species and it's lifeforms to max out the potential for gameplay.

<b>The alien Hivemind way</b>

Connecting every kharaa individual via hivemind and distributing <u>detailed</u> information without<u> any loss</u> in an open system. (Every alien is concious of the overall system process and naturally finds someone up to the task)

<b>The human technology way</b>

Connecting every marine via the nanogrid and distributing <u>specific</u> information with <u>purposed withholding</u> for the person/squad assigned to a task. (A marine only needs to know what is important for his job while the commanding authority keeps the overview and sets aims)

<b>The current Situation of alienvision and nanovision</b>

When I press "F" as alien, I get a view that immensly enhances my movement and targeting qualities. I certainly don't get any improvements on information-warfare.
When I press "F" as marine, I get a flashlight.

<b>What could be done to the visions</b>

What if, when pressing "F" once, I get the above, which acts for the own personal gameplay benefit and should be minimalistic in features.

But if I press "F" twice (or once again) I get an overlay of muchly needed information to manoeuvre through map specific waypoints, tactical information and fellow players status. The overlay would much more deficit the view on face-to-face battle, but while moving or waiting it would greatly enhance the outlook of the game's status itself. It would show information in an artistic way like the evolution-menu, just not interactive and overlayed to the 3d view.

These informations could be:

For The Aliens
- Lifting (as glowing) player and structure locations and their conditions (health percentage, safe, in battle)
- Showing of the the current technology research and infestation expansion
- All that like "mind zooming closer to a location"

For the marines (maybe via upgrade)
- Choosing a powered room he wants to display more information and set it to it, now the player gets much more 3d information about that place (structure, powernode health)
- Outlining important structures (get to that phasegate, ye that specific one) and it's destination! (via 3d outline)
- Displaying players and arcs/macs through walls.

I think there's so much more potential in the specific species HUD to discover. So, these are my ideas.

Sherlock

I do like this idea. I find when I respawn and am running to the nearest sector under seige / sector under construction, I bring up my full screen map and navigate with the arrow on that as opposed to my eyes, until I reach my destination or encounter hostiles.

Utilising an advanced HUD view (maybe even with a different button press) to stop me from doing this, and allow me to "keep my eyes on the road", would be great. Maybe even go one step further and move the Commander waypoints/notifications and weld instructions, etc. to this screen as well, meaning you need to choose between knowing where to go or having limited visibility?

TimMc

I would prefer alien pheromones to be more akin to NS1 - colour coding for different units and statuses. It was very useful

Marines getting some sort of nano-vision would be interesting, just make it different than aliens as you've said.

Visdoom

This is a better idea than the marines current flashlite which is near useless and only helps aliens identify threats.

yakcyll

And what if aliens hold double?