NEWS : Ingame HUD System

Starman©

Spaceman
In addition to the last last update that brought up a few questions regarding the HUD-System, we decided to bring you people a few more informations about it.

Wing Commander Saga currently features a multifunctional HUD display. Through the HUD, the player can check on vital ship’s systems, access sensor readouts, target enemy ships and torpedoes, quickly check on the status of mission-critical friendlies, have instant access to the status of wingmen, and much more.

The HUD also allows for a fair degree of customizability. As of now, it is not possible to move the various elements of the HUD around, but players can adjust for brightness, change color schemes, and make other modifications that make the HUD flexible enough to meet the individual taste of different players.

The standard HUD settings for Saga are represented in the following picture:


Besides that you can choose from 3 stanard variants given by the game, here is the blue one:


As seen in this shot (left side), you can also set the colour for each HUD-Element seperatly, and you can decide if you want to have it active, as popup or disabled


In addition to that, there is an ingame command (L-Key) that lights up the entire HUD System for better viewing (which isn't really necessary with the standard configuration we include in the release, these pictures here just don't give a perfect view of the real ingame effect).

-Starman
 
Pardon me for sounding negative...but that's just the typical Freespace 2 Hud? Why would you need give us a preview of a feature of a game that's been out for years? As much as we definitely want to see more of Saga...giving us pictures of the generic FS HUD (which was quite poor in my opinion) isn't all that exciting.
 
Hmm... You probably haven't played FS2 for some time. ;)

Because it's clearly not the generic FS2 hud. Both the hud option menu graphics and the hud graphics itself has been altered. The hud now looks more like WC4 as FS2 imo.

Look at the original FS2 hud for comparison:
 
The deeper sense for this update was just to give more information about the possibilities for the HUD customization, since we received a few question in that matter. Of course it's more useful for people not familiar with freespace.

Regarding the HUD gauges, while the most are in the same position like in vanilla freespace (because that's not moddable yet), we have still upgraded most of them at least a little :)
 
Maj.Striker said:
Pardon me for sounding negative...but that's just the typical Freespace 2 Hud? Why would you need give us a preview of a feature of a game that's been out for years? As much as we definitely want to see more of Saga...giving us pictures of the generic FS HUD (which was quite poor in my opinion) isn't all that exciting.

Simply because most people are unaware of this functionality (imo people were complaining that comm pictures were too dark, although it was just my personal HUD customization)
 
Maj.Striker said:
Pardon me for sounding negative...but that's just the typical Freespace 2 Hud? Why would you need give us a preview of a feature of a game that's been out for years? As much as we definitely want to see more of Saga...giving us pictures of the generic FS HUD (which was quite poor in my opinion) isn't all that exciting.

The layout is the same, but the graphical style has been altered. And whatever else you might say about FS2, don't insult the HUD. The FS/FS2 HUD is the best in the space sim genre. Period. No other game comes close to displaying the same volume of information in the intuitive manner that Free Space did, WC included.
 
hurleybird said:
The layout is the same, but the graphical style has been altered. And whatever else you might say about FS2, don't insult the HUD. The FS/FS2 HUD is the best in the space sim genre. Period. No other game comes close to displaying the same volume of information in the intuitive manner that Free Space did, WC included.


Is that a good thing though? My first thought of those screeshots was how cluttered it was. Yes you have alot of info but it seems like it might be pretty distracting and such.
 
I don't think any cockpit-less game is in the running for best HUD. I know WIng Commander premired this particular 'innovation', but it's *exactly* what Chris Robets complained about in interviews when the first game came out -- games that have a 'DAMAGE - 10%' meter instead of showing you what state of disrepair your ship is in.
 
AD said:
Is that a good thing though? My first thought of those screeshots was how cluttered it was. Yes you have alot of info but it seems like it might be pretty distracting and such.

Thats why its good you can change it!
 
AD said:
Is that a good thing though? My first thought of those screeshots was how cluttered it was. Yes you have alot of info but it seems like it might be pretty distracting and such.

true, but it is the layout for 640*480 resolution. The 1024 layout is much more comfortable
 
Indeed, the 1024 HUD is much better, you can see actually were you fly to :)

But Loaf has a point here, Cockpits were one of the things that made me liking the flying style of WC

Im pretty sure, we will get that for the main release. Modelling cockpits is already possible and the visible ship around you looks really good. The only problem that prevent us from already using them, is that still some HUD elements can't be moved. Maybe someone noticed that we were able to move the gun and fuel indicators to the side of the radar where they belong (not visible in this images), but we must also be able to move the target display, the radar and at least the energy control. A different weapons gauge would also be handy (though I doubt that we will get the image like one WC had)

But with the main release this cockpit will most certainly be possible, especially since there is still quite some time left for the coders to do that :)

Here as a reminder, that image shows the current HUD in 1024 resolution, it not as distracting as it looks in the option screen above

http://wcsaga.com/media/news/16-09-01.jpg
 
Thanks for the update.

I agree that the HUD looks quite cluttered in 640x480, although it does seem to convey a lot of information. If it's adjustable and scales well with higher resolutions then it shouldn't be a problem.

Otherwise, it's looking good! :)

Bryn
 
AD said:
Is that a good thing though? My first thought of those screeshots was how cluttered it was. Yes you have alot of info but it seems like it might be pretty distracting and such.

Besides the resolution stuff mentioned above, a lot (all? been ages since I've played FS) of those indicators can be set to just show for a short while, when the info they convey changes, then turn back off again.
 
Tolwyn said:
Simply because most people are unaware of this functionality (imo people were complaining that comm pictures were too dark, although it was just my personal HUD customization)

Seriously, when you guys post screenshots, you need to make them brighter. We're not just giving you a hard time about this because we like to pick on you. These shots are very dark - parts are almost black. I've looked at them on a couple monitors here, including a very bright LCD. Use the brightness options that you're talking about.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
I don't think any cockpit-less game is in the running for best HUD. I know WIng Commander premired this particular 'innovation', but it's *exactly* what Chris Robets complained about in interviews when the first game came out -- games that have a 'DAMAGE - 10%' meter instead of showing you what state of disrepair your ship is in.

The Damage % is hull damage. Subsystem damage/repairs is given as a seperate percentage until their at 100% then they disappear. Besides a % is better than WC's basic green/yellow/red. While I do love cockpits some of wc's earlier ships were taking up way too much space. (not that I should complain, mine are pretty bad, just not in the front view)
 
The screenshots look cluttered here because most FS2 displays are not persistent, as somebody else pointed out already.

WC3/4 system damage reports for your own fighter are in percentages, so it suits what FS2 does just fine.

IMHO if the "two large brackets" in the center was deleted (blank transparent textures?) along with non-WC extra information (eg. wingmen health check dots) then it would suddently look a lot more like a WC3/4 cockpit.
 
ScoobyDoo said:
The Damage % is hull damage. Subsystem damage/repairs is given as a seperate percentage until their at 100% then they disappear. Besides a % is better than WC's basic green/yellow/red. While I do love cockpits some of wc's earlier ships were taking up way too much space. (not that I should complain, mine are pretty bad, just not in the front view)

It actually has a damage percent? That's awful. I didn't even look at it, I was referencing the old complaint about exactly that.


And how the hell could some part of a *video game* take up too much space? This isn't Excel, we're not looking for the absolute most efficient and businesslike way to kill whatever Freespace's lame equivalent of the Nephilim is...
 
Definitely really cluttered in the lower res, but at 1024 (which I use), it looks almost exactly like a WC3/4 hud (aside some the extra info at the right.

Oh and of course WCP also had damage percentages.
 
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