Would I be at a disadvantage if I played Quake Live with an HUD that displayed damage to death “instead of” health and armour numbers?

Question

There are many custom HUDs available for Quake Live; most make all numbers larger because, hey, everything is important right?

Obviously, this can't be the case. Something has to give.

I believe that damage to death is more important information than health and armor counts. Maybe the health and armour count would be handy to have around to know what item should pick up first, but I believe a far more common scenario is questions like "can I be oneshotted by a railgun this very moment"?

All of the points made in this quickly closed question do not apply to Quake 3 — damage is distributed between armor and health independently from the source¹. There are no side effects to having low health.

In my opinion, this would also help understand what these numbers really mean. Say, for example, you have 25 health and 0 armour, then picked a red armour. Now you have 25 health and 100 armour. Quick: will a railgun (110 damage) oneshot you?

[Answer: yes. Indeed, 75 damage are enough to kill you (-25 to health, -50 to armour). Good luck calculating that during the game…]

The only real downside would be not knowing what I should be looking for: health or armor. However, I believe this is a question separate armour and health bars would answer more than adequately. (more on this below)

Is there something I'm missing from the big picture? Why is there no mod that tries to do this? Is keeping different counters this important in Quake Live?

_{¹The only difference would be for the lightning gun, which due to rounding deals 5 armor damage and only 2 health damage.}

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EDIT:

To make myself crystal clear here, I'll post a picture of what I had in mind:

Separate bars would answer the "what I should be looking for: health or armor" question, but the actual numbers (the "count") wouldn't be displayed. Why would you want it? This is my whole question.

Hope this helps.

Asked by badp

Answer

This is something of an expanded comment, more than an answer in itself.

There are two effects that your choice of compound HUD has in comparison to a default display of two numbers.

• Instead of displaying the numbers of each value, you have a bar displayed. The effect is advantageous to those who work better on visual differences and relative changes, but disadvantageous to those who rely on values and absolute changes.
• There is a compound display for the post-calculated "damage limit". This is advantageous to those who cannot do a quick calculation immediately, and disadvantageous to anyone who relies on seeing the separate counts.

This is a matter of information substitution, not addition or subtraction. You are given exactly the same information as everyone else, the only difference is how it is rendered, and how well you interpret that information. The HUD itself provides no advantage or disadvantage.

Answered by n/a

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What does the Lock in the Blue Circle next to my Quest mean?

Question

I was playing Lord of the Rings Online, and I noticed a lock icon in a blue circle next to a quest in my tracker. What does this mean? Is it related to the quest title being blue in the quest menu?

Answer

I determined by experimentation that the icon indicates that a quest is "locked" on the quest tracker, i.e. placed there manually, as opposed to the "free floating" or automatically displayed quests. Quests placed on the tracker manually will not be removed until they are finished or manually removed.

It is completely independent of quest title color.

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Modifying UI in Star Wars: The Old Republic

Question

I was wondering if, like World of Warcraft did it before, Star Wars: The Old Republic has tools to create your own UI. Does anybody know of any resources about that?

Answer

Right now there are no addons (UI or otherwise) supported by Star Wars: The Old Republic. It may or may not change in the future, but there's no information I can find right now that confirms that either way.

In the words of Georg Zoeller:

What we've said is, regarding the question 'Will there be addons at launch' is "no, not at launch".

This statement indicates nothing more than that there will not be addons at launch. Nothing more, nothing less.

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Skyrim Personal Chest Sorting?

Question

I have purchased the home in Whiterun and been storing a bunch of items in my chest in that home. I noticed that that chest only has one category where is shows everything instead of like my regular inventory which has weapons, appeal, food, books, etc... My question is if there is a way to get that type of categories with a personal chest or if a different chest that I can use for storage has this feature? It is just annoying that if I want to start doing alchemy with everything I have collected, I have to go through every single item and see if it is an ingredient for alchemy instead of going to the ingredient category and easily getting each one of them.

Answer

Not in the base game.

Your only real option is to self-sort. Luckily, your house in Whiterun has multiple chests (when fully upgraded), including a chest near the alchemy station, so at the very least you can store certain items in certain chests to keep things straight and ordered.

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What does the icon next to your squad leader's name mean?

Question

Most of the times (always?) there is an icon next to the squad leader's name (see picture below). I'm not talking about the class icon which is visible for all squad members, but rather the icon between the class icon and the name. Sometimes this is a star but I've also seen it be what looks like an ammo clip as well as a bomb blast or something.

It seems to indicate some sort of upgrade the user has attached but I'm not sure I'm correct. An also, what is the reasoning behind:

• What upgrade is shown - you typically have multiple upgrade/perks available at any given time
• Why only for the squad leader? Isn't it just as interesting to see this information for all members of the squad?

(note: I found this image online, it looks slightly different on my ps3)

Answer

If it is a star, then it means that they are the squad leader. If it is an ammo clip or something like that, then that means that this person has a squad perk equipped.

So, in order on the above picture, we have:

• Squad Sprint
• Squad Flak
• Squad Explosives
• Squad Cover
• Squad Suppression
• Squad Frags
• Squad Ammo

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What do these bars below my inventory at the Deploy screen in Battlefield 3 mean?

Question

I've noticed that in the Deploy screen of Battlefield 3, there are all these bars below my various weapons and other associated doodads and specialities that fill up the more I use them. What do they indicate? What happens when they fill up all the way?

Answer

The bar represents your progress towards the next unlock in that weapon group. The more you use a certain weapon class, vehicle, etc, the more you points you will earn toward an additional unlock in that category. You can see a more detailed view of this progression in your battlelog profile:

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How do I read TankBall 2's interface?

Question

Whenever I play TankBall 2, I can't help but notice the mysterious numbers at the top left of the screen...

I figured out pretty quickly that the red bar with the time in it represents the amount of time remaining in the game, but I can't make heads or tails of the numbers above it. How should I read this interface?

Answer

The blue numbers indicate your own offensive performance:

Hits (points) / Kills

The red numbers indicate your own defensive performance:

Times hit / Deaths

The red bar indicates your current health, and the numbers inside of it indicate how much time is left in the current game.

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Also, the large tank icon, when clicked, will open up the team selection menu. The grey arrow down by the chat will also open this menu when clicked.

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Is there a way to visually display a unit's range?

Question

Is there a way to show any unit's range visually?

When you siege the Siege Tank, the range-circle will be shown, like here. Is it possible to show similar circle for Spine Crawler, Roach, etc.? I want this especially for the Spine Crawler, to be able to position it precisely to break the pylon-cannon ramp prison.

Answer

In the original starcraft there was no way to tell short of memorizing.

In starcraft 2 blizzard added this for a couple of units

• Siege tanks in siege mode
• spine/spore crawlers while being placed
• point defense drones
• missle turrets
• photon cannons

While roaches are still a no go, you can use crawlers to break such a siege. Just remember they have the same range as photon cannons

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What do these weird icons next to my health and magic bars mean?

Question

When grinding away in a dungeon as Louie in Recettear, I noticed that I have these weird icons next to my character picture:

But...I don't really get them. What are they supposed to indicate, and what sort of different icons are there in the game?

Answer

These icons are your special skills. Each adventurer has a selection of special skills they can perform using Button 2 (default X). You can switch through them using Button 3 (default C), the current skill being highlighted. These cost SP to do things more than a normal attack. And, just because, each skill is illustrated with a cute image of some girl that represents the attack.

You can view the skills of any particular adventurer in the pause menu by checking that adventurer's Status, and then hitting Button 1 (default Z). This will give you an overview of all of your adventurer's general capabilities and qualities, as well as their list of special skills in the bottom left. Each skill listed will explain what that skill does, as well as show the corresponding girl icon. The SP cost is not listed, however, so you'll have to figure that one out yourself.

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Keep walking after releasing W key in WoW

Question

I started playing World of Warcraft and I don't know what I did that I kept walking in one direction after releasing the W key. I've tried to repeat this behavior, like clicking in the horizon, but I was unsuccessful.

What is the shortcut or way to keep walking in one direction without keeping pressed the keyboard constantly?

Answer

Num Lock should toggle continuous walking ("auto-run").

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