HUD Diversity

[Daud]

When I first started playing Elite: Dangerous, I thought it rather odd that despite there being so many ships and ship manufacturers, the HUD for all of the ships is essentially identical. This, I think, can be improved in a number of ways:

1. Allow people to change the HUD colour in-game. I understand that it's possible to do so through external sources, but it'd be a lot more convenient in-game. There might be some obscure, optical reason as to why orange was chosen, but if this is the case, a simple warning would do the job.

2. Allow players to move around the various HUD functions. If a player wants to have their heat indicator or radar in a different area of the center HUD, let them.

3. Add different-looking radars and HUD functions, possiply depending on ship manufacturer. This idea was mostly added as an afterthought, so I honestly don't know how it'd work- but I'd like you to look into it.

Thanks.

I've posted this in the suggestion forum as well, but it dosen't seem to be particularly active.

 

[Rhonda]

For the sake of immersion and variety I would like to see HUD displays integrated into the actual ship's cockpits. Those ships should have displays showing what we see on the HUD.

 

[Commander Dave]

When I first started driving, I thought it rather odd that despite there being so many cars and car manufacturers, the controls and instruments of all of the cars are essentially identical.

 

[Daud]

When I first started driving, I thought it rather odd that despite there being so many cars and car manufacturers, the controls and instruments of all of the cars are essentially identical.

..no? Many cars these days use Satelite Navigation, but that doesn't mean that they're using the same type of GPS. Sure, all cars use steering wheels, but that's not really what I'm referring to, is it?

 

[ghostookami]

When I first started driving, I thought it rather odd that despite there being so many cars and car manufacturers, the controls and instruments of all of the cars are essentially identical.

the controls are identical but they don't all look the same despite doing pretty much the same thing.

 

[Lobstris]

When I first started playing Elite: Dangerous, I thought it rather odd that despite there being so many ships and ship manufacturers, the HUD for all of the ships is essentially identical. This, I think, can be improved in a number of ways:

1. Allow people to change the HUD colour in-game. I understand that it's possible to do so through external sources, but it'd be a lot more convenient in-game. There might be some obscure, optical reason as to why orange was chosen, but if this is the case, a simple warning would do the job.

2. Allow players to move around the various HUD functions. If a player wants to have their heat indicator or radar in a different area of the center HUD, let them.

3. Add different-looking radars and HUD functions, possiply depending on ship manufacturer. This idea was mostly added as an afterthought, so I honestly don't know how it'd work- but I'd like you to look into it.

Thanks.

I've posted this in the suggestion forum as well, but it dosen't seem to be particularly active.

All great suggestions. All discussed before. Came up many times in Alpha, Beta, Premium Beta etc. etc. Bottom line: #1 will probably arrive at some point and is on the list, #2 and #3 probably not in even the mid- to long-term as they would (apparently) take too much time and effort to implement.

*EDIT* For example see: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=26543

*EDIT2* Key quote from Sandro Sammarco:

[Hello Commanders!

Let's all be nice, folk, no need for insults.

There are a couple of quick points I can make about the cockpit interface:

A modular interface that can be manipulated by Commanders would be extremely difficult and time consuming to implement. You have to remember that almost all of our holographic displays are placed "in the game world" as opposed to being "stuck on the screen". So whilst I agree that giving Commanders options is good in principle, the practicality of implementing such a system is rather doubtful.

We really want to avoid clutter in the main view area. We have all these cool ships and effects occurring; the last thing I want to see is a network of HUD lines and numbers all over them.

Our close-quarters game play is slower than a conventional flight simulation engagement. We're not flying aeroplanes, we're flying armoured space ships that can, generally speaking, take a bit of a pounding, re-route system power and perform a number of tasks not useful to fighter planes. In general, this gives us a little bit of leeway in terms of Commanders having more time to use elements that aren't front and centre.

As an aside, we're looking (at some point) to make a change to the head camera movement works, so that when you pitch significantly harshly, the bottom placed holographics will only leave the screen temporarily, as opposed to what happens now (they are gone until you soften the pitch). There will also be passes to increase legibility of some HUD options (basically, we're not completely happy that the interface is final yet), though I'm not expecting a complete overhaul.

Of course, this is just our reasoning; I don't expect everyone to agree with me.

I guess though, the most important fact here is that we don't believe that pilots are truly hamstrung by the interface, though it's different in some ways from a more conventional HUD. The most significant element that we didn't want Commanders to have to search for – distance – is pinned next to the ship itself. Weapon information is on the brackets nearby. Shield strength can be gauged by colouration of weapon impacts. Everything else lives in the various holographic panels around the dash.

It's perhaps similar to a "follow the arrow" issue we had internally. Back in the day, we used to have an arrow point to a targeted ship when it was off screen. Contextually this was completely reasonable - after all, your sensor pretty much knows where the target vessel is in relation to you.

But when we used it, we found that all we ever did was look at that darn arrow. The whole game, in all its glory, had been reduced to a simple sprite. So we removed it, and instantly, the game felt more engaging. Suddenly we found that we could lose targets if we didn't pay attention. Suddenly the sensor was useful, and so it goes.

So this is where we've ended up. It's possible that the interface will be tweaked and changed in various ways, so by all means, feel free to point out where you think it isn't working, or could be made better (or highlight bits that you think work well). But at the moment, we're reasonably happy with how things stand.

 

[Uncertain]

Allow people to change the HUD colour in-game. I understand that it's possible to do so through external sources, but it'd be a lot more convenient in-game. There might be some obscure, optical reason as to why orange was chosen, but if this is the case, a simple warning would do the job.

I took part in the HUD colour-changing thread when it was first discovered, as far as I'm aware. It was surmised then that the devs are probably planning on adding HUD colour customisation in the future, but they developed a quick sort of hack-like method until they can get it approved, quality-checked etc etc. So hopefully it's in the works. I think there may have been confirmation of that from a developer, but I can't quite remember.

One part of that is the way that orange was baked into the ship lighting until recently, and I think 1.1? changed the ship lighting to be based on the colour scheme you're actually using.

What did you mean by a warning?

 

[Daud]

I took part in the HUD colour-changing thread when it was first discovered, as far as I'm aware. It was surmised then that the devs are probably planning on adding HUD colour customisation in the future, but they developed a quick sort of hack-like method until they can get it approved, quality-checked etc etc. So hopefully it's in the works. I think there may have been confirmation of that from a developer, but I can't quite remember.

One part of that is the way that orange was baked into the ship lighting until recently, and I think 1.1? changed the ship lighting to be based on the colour scheme you're actually using.

What did you mean by a warning?

Assuming that there's some sort of optical reason for orange being the default colour (ex: it's easier to see orange in space, or somesuch), a warning should appear when you change the colour of the HUD. Said warning would essentially just say that X colour would be difficult to see. Or, it could be less specific and just say *why* orange is the default colour.