Water indicator moved to ship status display

[Anvilfolk]

Hello, sailor-friends!

 

As per Mr. Henry d'Esterre Darby's indication that this might be useful, here's a suggestion.

 

Current situation:

- The Ship Status Display contains hull armour (often confused with hit points), leaks, and system damage indicators.

- The Navigation Display (ND) at the bottom left contains wind information, direction information, sail information and crew information, as well as flooding indication.

 

Many new people (in the forums and in-game) have wondered why they sink when they have repaired, and thus have no leaks and some "HP" to spare (i.e. armour). The general intuition given from the current UI is that damage that can sink the ship is shown in the SSD, and navigation information - including non-critical, navigation-related damage (e.g. sail status) - is in the ND. This means the flooding indicator on the ND doesn't usually make sense and is totally overlooked early on. People expect damage that can sink the ship to be reported in the SSD.

 

Proposed changes:

- Move the flooding indicator from the ND to the SSD. Mark it as "Water Level" or "Flooding".

- Name the armour display as "Armour". You don't necessarily sink when out of armour, but you sink when out of "HP".

- Perhaps put the ship outline around the Armour indicator, for new players to see which sub-indicator corresponds to what part of the ship.

 

I feel that this might make the UI immediately more intuitive for new players, with relatively minor changes.

 

There are a couple of cons. The UI will take more space, and I'm worried that with a smaller flooding indicator it will be harder to estimate whether you're taking on water or not. Perhaps a little arrow indicating an estimate of how much water is getting in would solve this.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

As I mentioned in the other topic, this is an excellent suggestion and would add a lot of usability to the interface.  

[Rafael]

Also a small thing but if we could have the ship damage indicator vertical with front at the top that would be preferable to the current horizontal arrangement.