Color Coding Unit Stats

[thejetset]

I did a search and found a post from 2005 and 2006 so I thought I would bring it up again after all these years.

It would be nice to have some color coding to help quickly see what individual soldier stats are inside of a unit.

Currently, there are two areas on the screen that show soldier stats.

• WEAPON AREA: This is at the bottom of the screen It switches between GREEN weapon and YELLOW weapon. Basically, this entire area is dedicated to showing which weapons are being carried and how the squads are divided.
  

• SOLDIER STATUS: This is pure GREEN text in the lower left hand corner of the screen. This shows what the soldier is currently doing i.e... Medic, Firing, Aiming, Spotting, Cowering, Casualty etc ...
  

My suggestion for improving this is the following:

• Incorporate the "Soldier Status" directly into the "Weapon Area". The actual weapon could be made a little bit smaller to leave room for the additional text that is currently displayed in the "Soldier Status" area.
  
  

• Color Code!... Color Code the Weapon to display soldier health. (Green = Healthy, Yellow = Hurt, Red = WIA, Red Outline = KIA ... don't eliminate the WIA and KIA from the unit so we can see the overall casualties of the unit) Color code the status text depending on the soldier action:
  
  

• WHITE text for general actions: Spotting, Hiding, etc ..
  
  

• BLUE text for "Medic"
  
  

• ORANGE text for "Cowering"
  
  

• etc .........
  
  

This will greatly help to quickly digest the information.

Also, some information could be toggled above the floating unit icon on the screen or incorporated into the color of the unit's floating icon. .... Individual soldier information could be toggled onto the unit's base-plate. Currently, this base is fixed to represent unit health. .... It would be nice to be able to choose this to represent something different ... like maybe C2 status.

Here is a screen-shot from back in 2005 of someone trying to explain what I am saying above.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd194/vinnart/loacationcasualty-1.jpg

[Vinnart]

I made that photoshop illustration. The idea of having the weapon turn red to show what weapon is down has been discussed much, and it is my understanding that BF has something in mind down the road for this. As far as troops that have vanished from the map I personally would not want them to stay in the roaster becuase it just adds clutter to the area, and they are irrelivent at that point IMO becuase they are gone. If keeping track of how many casualties were to be included I think it would look the cleanest by having a minus with a number in lower right corner of squad weapon panel. a simple -2, -3. that keeps the casualty tally.

There has also been discussion of combining the soldier stat text in with the weapon panel. If this route is chosen I believe using icons instead of words for the different actions would process by the mind faster, and easier. Icons are also more moddable than words.

The soldier stat text is hard coded, and cannot be any other color but green. To decipher, and see the actions easier, and faster i suggest you try a mod i made that you can find in the repository called Vin's animated text.

[thejetset]

I like the idea of using icons for the soldier stat inside of the weapon panel. That would be very quick and easy.

Does your animated text mode work with BN??? I have all of the CMx1 games but don't have ShockForce.

[Vinnart]

The one for CMSF is not compatable, so do not use that one. There is a CMBN version that works, and it is in the CMBN repository. Here is link.

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=1143

[thejetset]

Thanks Vinnart. I will check it out this weekend!

[Battlefront.com]

As much as I would like the casualties to be retained in the UI, there are inherent problems with this from a data management and display issue on the back end. I am very, very much hoping we can work through those issues with the next major release. Unfortunately, it's a significant issue. Otherwise it would have been in CMx2 from the start.

Steve

[Vinnart]

As much as I would like the casualties to be retained in the UI, there are inherent problems with this from a data management and display issue on the back end. I am very, very much hoping we can work through those issues with the next major release. Unfortunately, it's a significant issue. Otherwise it would have been in CMx2 from the start.

Steve

Steve, are you referring to the ability to turn red AT ALL WHILE STILL ON THE MAP, or are you referring to red casualties weapon icons staying to show a tally AFTER they have disappearing form the map? The just turning red, and staying while still on the map I think is the most important aspect to show what weapon is down.

I am glad to see that this concept is something BF would like to implement. Hopefully the issues can be worked out. The animated text mod though has helped much in noticing casualties in soldier stat text at a glance until something better is implemented. That does not show what weapon is down though.