Easier way to see damage in combat

[GSwarthout]

I really dislike that you have to hover your mouse over a moving starship in order to see what damage your ship has taken during combat. I prefer the way this is handled in SAIS, letting damage be shown continuously for the active ship.

Does anyone else share this peeve?

Is there a workaround?

[PvK]

When stuff is going on, I use Pause both to review damage and to give orders. Unless I'm role-playing Ripcord O'Reily, then it seems (more fun and interesting to me, and) only fair to be able to use Pause, since these are supposed to be spaceships full of crew and computers, not one guy on a desktop computer with a mouse and CRT controlling a whole fleet.

PvK

[TaoLibra]

GSwarthout said:
Does anyone else share this peeve?

I don't actively hate the new damage display, but I agree that the old one in SAIS was more appealing. Presumably, the new method was chosen to save screen area for the view of the battle; but I'd happily sacrifice some of that screen area for the old SAIS damage displays.

Maybe it could be made an option, in a patch…?

[ZylonBane]

I hate it. In the name of making battles more immersive, or impressive, or whatever, they basically made it so you have to use pause to keep up with your ships' conditions.

Yeah, it's really fun trying to get a reading on a tiny fighter that's zipping across the screen. Or on a big ship surrounded by Zorg fighters teleporting all over the place so the view keeps jerking around.

Just put little hull/shield bars under each ship already, guys.

[PvK]

I agree it'd be nice if it were an option to view it that way.

However, I would still use the pause key, because I don't like clickfests for giving orders, either.

PvK