Bigger Enemy Indicator

[Edymnion]

So the server I was on closed down, and I started up on a new one. One thing I had forgotten about while tooling around in my frigates and capitol ships on the old server, when you're in nothing but a piddly little miner ship that doesn't even have a hull or weapons, just bare power and salvage arrays, a single pirate can really tear you up.

Thing is, lot of them seem to be able to open fire on you before the red triangle indicator becomes obvious enough to let you know they're even there. I mean, if you're mining a red asteroid at fairly close range, you're not going to spot that triangle until you're taking damage, and when you're in a naked ship, damage means you're dead. Especially these days where system damage starts shutting down systems that weren't even directly hit.

Ideally in the finished game I'd expect there to be some battle music or something to make it obvious when enemies are in the area, but until then, a nice stopgap "Hey, there's bad stuff about to happen" indicator would be really useful. Like maybe put a flashing red circle around the target reticle in the center that you can't miss seeing.

Something that immediately pops something up where it can't be missed as soon as anything red gets within radar range so that you have enough warning to turn and run or to activate your defenses.

 

[cyberus111]

Flashing circle good, red maybe not so much. Too many people have red green issues (like me) and red on black yuck.

Flashing circle with color options (ie red orange yellow not suggesting unlimited) VERY nice idea

 

[Edymnion]

Yellow would work. Heck, just changing the shape of the white reticle from a circle to crosshairs would work as well.

Just some kind of clearly visible distinction for as soon as enemy ships would show up on your navigation menu. I finally got up enough money to buy sufficient amounts of shielding that I don't have to run and hide every time a pirate flies by, but for a while there I was practically OCD about checking the nav menu for red targets to give me enough of a heads up to run back to homebase and dock.

 

[Deleted member 433088]

Interesting, and I must agree. Most often than not, the first sign I get of pirate activity is seeing "shooting stars" moving in a different direction than the acceleration streaks, or just flat-out getting rekt when starting out. That is, until checking the nav every couple minutes and every time I enter a new sector becomes a reflex.

I'm not sure about slapping something extra on the targeting reticle, and as cyberus said colours are sometimes troublesome, but your idea of changing the reticle's shape itself into crosshairs seems nice: simple, hard to miss, and unobstructive if done well.

 

[ltmauve]

Yeah, I'm gonna agree with changing shape.

Too many people have red green issues (like me) and red on black yuck.

You can adjust the colors to get colorblind friendly stuff, look in /data/config/gui for the files. I'm not sure if someone has come up with a red-green colorblind combination though.

 

[kiraen]

I'd rather a pulsing / flashing of the screen border, in case i have my inventory or some other window open. But as long as there is something it would be an improvement. Color is irrelevant to me.

 

[ltmauve]

Maybe a *ping* and an icon flashes in the quadrant or corner of the screen that the enemy is coming from?

 

[alterintel]

On a related topic. While they're fixing that can there be something done about the target triangles being covered up by the hot bar?

 

[Comr4de]

I've wanted an "INCOMING MISSILE" notification for the longest time

 

[cyberus111]

On a related topic. While they're fixing that can there be something done about the target triangles being covered up by the hot bar?

Oh wow, I thought that was just my setup.

Yes please lets fix that.