We should have an option under interface that let's us choose between the current model of showing HP in percent and one that shows the total and remaining HP.

For example
A Centurion Rev C has lost half of his armor:
Old system: 50%
New system: 3500/7000

Maybe we should also have the option to only display remaining HP so it would only show "3500" in this example.

sounds like a great plugin

Hopefully we get that through the game and don't have to make a plugin first

From a tactical stand point this is not very smart. It is easier for the brain to process a 2 digit percentage than look at a 4 digit number and process in the middle of PvP.

I do not see why this would be a bad option, as suggested. I would probably use it in VR as is would remind me how much total HP I had chipped away rather than %. Options are good I think?

+1

Wash, this will be entirely optional and some people just prefer it that way.

the only reason I kinda like this is because there is a certain satisfaction that comes with escaping with the least amount of armor remaining. Knowing the exact amount of armor left is more satisfying than seeing "0.0% armor".

One issue with this is that the client only knows other ships' armor with low precision. This is why if you compare the percentage of health that your game says you have to what somebody else sees in the sector list, those values will often not match up. When a number is being presented as a floating point percentage with only two or three significant digits, this is a lot less obvious and annoying than when it's presented as a four or five digit integer. You automatically understand that 82% doesn't necessarily mean your target has exactly 0.82 * 21000 = 17220 hitpoints; you automatically assume there might be some rounding error. If the game says they have 17220 hitpoints, on the other hand, a normal person would assume that this number is exact.

This gets even worse with high armor targets like a capship. If you see a percentage that doesn't seem to move when you shoot it, you just assume that you did so little damage that it's not being reflected yet. No problem. But when you see that the armor is at 828530, you fire several rounds of gauss, and it still reports as exactly 828530, you begin to suspect that something is wrong. Then you do a little more damage and suddenly it jumps to 822627.

So, the problem with implementing this, even as an opt-in feature, is that people are liable to try it out, notice the "weird" behavior, and assume it's a glitch. That results in bogus bug reports wasting dev time, bad impressions in the people who don't bother to report it and find out it's correct behavior, and potentially bad reviews. Generally speaking, it's not a good idea to implement features that make your game look bad.

That said, your client should probably know your own ship's health with full precision, so I see no harm in allowing this for your own ships only.

Greenwall gets it hehe
+1

One issue with this is that the client only knows other ships' armor with low precision.

Never understood why that wasn't fixed.

@Pizzasgood
I only thought about adding this for your own ship anyways. It was meant for the HUD where you can see your money, ship model and so on. It would be great if the low precision for other ships could be fixed and we would be able to see the exact hitpoints of other ships but for now it should be fine with just your own ship.

"Never understood why that wasn't fixed."

You're assuming it's a bug, but it could be an optimization. To perfectly represent values greater than a million requires at least twenty bits. However, if you only need to deliver that value as a rough fraction so that people can gauge each other's relative health, you can condense it into just five bits, which will provide a resolution of 3.125%. That's good enough, and it lets you send more packets with less lag in busy sectors.

I guess I understand that in the context of changing values (i.e. when someone takes damage and that value is updated to all the players in range). But in the context of a resting/static armor level I don't understand why the precise value can't be relayed to all parties. In the end it's probably way more technically involved to make this change than it's worth...

Greenwall you already can find out your ships exact health.

Go to inventory and look at the local inventory, you can click on the ship you are flying and it will say Armor: xxxx/xxxx

I suppose somebody could make a plugin to display it on your hud.