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[nomadic_leader]

Hi, the rules for when/where the peak performance timer and CR starts degrading are  complicated. This is regrettable, but showing CR/PPT as a bar on the UI overlay of ships would make things a lot easier.

Then instead of memorizing the rules, you could just look at the bars and get a feel for it.

For the player ship its way over on the left of the screen, but it's pretty important so it should be right on the ship along with CR/Flux. It'd also be good with enemy ships to have it right there to look at.

Somehow CR and PPT should be combined into one bar-- like PPT could be a different color that drains first or something. Depleting PPT bar should blink or have some visual cue. I know it isn't as simple as this mockup but the details can be worked. It's possible and desirable to represent these things more clearly.

Here's a mockup. Since CR is basically just a ships stamina or energy, I used the cel phone battery icon. It's something 99% of people would understand right away, unlike the term "Combat Readiness."


Caption: Mockup of a ship with a bar representing CR and peak performance timer.

[Megas]

This would also be a good way to differentiate between soft flux and hard flux, especially with the coming weapons that EMP through shields based on it.  Hard flux level is almost too subtle to pick up, one I almost overlooked when I first played the game.

As for the OP, I occasionally check on enemy ships for CR in case I need to stall them to death.  Bar may be okay.  The numbers we get now are a bit small to read quickly.

[Grievous69]

I thought you could already differentiate hard and soft flux by the little ''needle'' (idk what to call it) at the flux bar.

[Megas]

I thought you could already differentiate hard and soft flux by the little ''needle'' (idk what to call it) at the flux bar.

You can, but it is a bit hard to see.

[nomadic_leader]

Yea, there is the flux needle. Megas was just saying it should stand out a bit more, which is also a good idea-- it is the same color as the flux bar which makes it easy to miss sometimes.

But something like that moving flux needle might also be a good way to indicate PPT vs CR on the same bar.

Anyway it should be something graphical like this-- It's said that graphical readouts like analog dials and bars are easier/faster to comprehend than just a bunch of digital numbers, and one study shows novice pilots performing better with old fashioned analog dials vs all digital readouts, though the digital numbers area more precise, so some interfaces offer both.

You notice there are few cars with digital speedometers, because when you look at something for only 1/20th of a second, one boxy digital numbers looks about like any other digital boxy number.

For starsector combat we're glancing at a lot of things rapidly, so having more graphical indicators like bars is probably a good idea where possible.

[Midnight Kitsune]

This is an already built in feature of the combat radar for your ship but I agree that something like this would be nice for enemy ships. One note though is that I wouldn't want the digital readout for my CR to disappear

[nomadic_leader]

The main issue in most cases is peak performance time. I more often want the bar for peak performance timer than for CR, though it would be nice if both stats per ship are displayed somewhere next to each other with some kind of graphic.

[Toxcity]

Something like this would be really nice. Hell, even changing the Peak timer text color to something more noticeable would be good.