One of the most beloved plugins of players in VO is called "targetless". A simple visit to the player creations forums will show just how popular and important this plugin has become to this game.

I think it's time to consider incorporating the simpler functions of this plugin into the actual game. Perhaps target display/selection is the most commonly agreed functionality that everyone uses.

Incarnate, I think this plugin is a case where your player base has created and approved some functionality for years that deserves some degree of integration. Everyone I know of in game is using this plugin except for brand new players..

1. Display targets in sector as a list on the HUD.
2. List is sorted by category selected by the player (players, NPCs, nearest, most damaged)
3. Player can select a target from the list using the number keys by the associated list item number.

This plugin solves some deficiency in functionality and I commend the original authors for the idea and insight.

In sectors with considerable amounts of activity, it is otherwise extremely difficult to switch to particular targets or combat multiple targets because you would normally be required to either repeatedly push the next target key or actually find the particular ship visually and get it near your reticle.

Authors of the plugin and others have gone on to add additional functionality to the plugin like these:

4. list of loot in sector
5. saving of ore readings on scanned asteroids

While I personally think all of the features of this plugin deserve consideration for integration into VO. I will leave this suggestion however for just the ability to list NPC/Player on the HUD where they can be selected from easily.

Part of the challenge in integration is trying to find some solution that gives reasonable thought to usability across platforms and user experiences.

Plugins that simply throw lots of data onto the HUD tend to be pretty PC-specific. I'd like interfaces down the road to be more accessible to mobile and VR, where we can't just "put more stuff on the HUD".

We're at a bit of a crossroads point right now, where a lot of interfaces are actively being re-designed (for instance, the entire menu system), so this might be better suited for a point after that's all a bit further along.

Anyway, I'm well aware of "targetless" in general, and the popularity of the plugin. We do back-propagate ideas from plugins every once in awhile, and targetless definitely has some things we should examine.

But, we have some ground to cover on other fundamentals of design, first, which will inherently make it a bit clearer how additional data should be integrated.