read original here: aff2aw.com/blog-10.html
Many RTS games have a info panel in thier HUD. This panel is used to display many different types of information, mostly about the in-game units. Using such an info panel adds a lot more information about the unit stats without adding too much extra HUD elements. Till now 2aw did not have such a panel, I’ve created a new HUD element for the UI and now things seem to fall into place. the info panel in 2aw will display all crucial information about anything you select, it shows what the stats are on the things you want to buy, such as cost, damage and a little info about the unit.
A cool thing I did with the info panel is adding the stats to produce an aggregate view of the selected group. In many other games when you select a group of units it just shows you their icons and maybe their health bars, in 2aw I did it a little differently: Instead I aggregate the stats, meaning all stats of the whole unit are combined to give you the stats of all the selected ships. So you get the total cost of the group you just selected, total damage per second (DPS) and total hull + shields (the two “health” bars 2aw units always have) This gives some interesting game play/strategy implications: For instance you can select the full force of your group and see how much DPS they deal and compare their health to that of the enemie’s. Health/DPS gives you a rough number of seconds the fleet would deal damage untill they are destroyed. The info panel also tells you the speed, you can look at how fast the goup is, and the one you want to catch relative to your group and see if you would able to catch them.
This simplefies making a informed strategy to destory the enemy fleet without too much guessing. Pro players useing complex strageties now can more easily formulate strategies for assured victory, at least so you always hope. By having the stats exposed and aggregated you don’t have to memorization so much anymore, and can assign battle groups to tasks by looking at their info, making it easier to become pro.