Reconfiguring your alt's HUD

By default, the heads-up display (HUD) for alts shows certain things all the time, others when you mouse over items and others when you have an item selected.

In tinkering around to find the acceptable values for each of the menu and slash commands that control the HUD, I found a set of settings that, to me, gives a better picture of the world of foes and friends around you.

Some of these settings can be set in the Options menu, but two are 'blocked' there and require a slash command to set. You can also edit and reload your OPTIONS.TXT file to change the values quickly. Here's the table, taken from the newest update of the Guide (sorry, this did not paste as cleanly as it should have...

(Ha! Just figured out how to send a link to an online PDF page, so Click Here for a better version of this!)

Setting / Menu Item  Default  Menu Option Range  Gunner’s Choice

ShowArchetype              2                        All                    2

ShowSupergroup      2                        All                    0

ShowPlayerName      1                        All                    1

ShowPlayerBars              6                        All                    6

ShowVillainName      6                    0 2 4 6                    1

ShowVillainBars              6                    0 2 4 6                    6

ShowPlayerReticles      6                    0 2 4 6                    4

ShowVillainReticles      6                    0 2 4 6                    4

Reticles cannot be set to 1, “show always”

And here's the menu/function equivalents for the option values:

Status                                                  Menu Option                  /setoption Value

Off / Not Displayed                                      Hidden                                0

Always Displayed                                  Show Always                            1

Display on Mouse-Over                    Show on Mouse-Over                2

Display when Selected                    Show when Selected                4

Display when Mouse-Over or Selected    Mouse-Over or Selected                6

The defaults either show too much info (do you really care what SG most players belong to, especially after you've teamed with them), or not enough - villain names and bars especially. Selection reticles can be annoying when you mouse over a big group, too.

So my choices show player archetype only on mouse-over; player SG never; player name all the time, and player bars only when moused or selected. (You get all the information in the Target window when a player is moused/selected, so duplicating low-value info like type and SG in the UI can be avoided as clutter.) Reticles are shown only when selected, not on mouse-over. (You can still tell you have a player pointed at because their name gets a tad bigger.)

For villains... names are shown all the time, bars are shown only when selected, and reticles are only shown when targeted. Makes for a much cleaner display, especially in combat.

All of these can be set by Options | Windows menu items... except the villain options and player reticles. To set any of those to "always show," you have to use a slash command or edit the OPTIONS.TXT file. Which, in my recommended settings, means you have to set one value using those methods, as the others can be set in the menu.

Use /optionset ShowVillainName 1 to always turn on villain name. (You can use similar commands to set the rest, or use /optionsave to create an options file, edit it, and then /optionload to load the changes.)

Why set villain names on all the time? Because you can then see villains further and with name/relative level color all the time. You can cruise around street-hunting, seeing white-to-orange candidates easily easily among the worthless lowbies and scary bosses. And - the game often displays villain names, in color, much further than other visibilities, so for both street hunting and large open map searching, you have a better view.

What's really interesting, and may be a bug or a temporary matter, is that visibility of villain names seems to be related to their perception/aggro range. As you approach a group, the higher the relative level, the further away you will see the name. That is, you'll see the purple boss name first, then as you close in, the red lieutnants, then the yellow mobs, etc. VERY useful.

If you do nothing else, I suggest setting ShowVillainNames to 1. (And notice that the menu then shows it as "Always"... but you can't re-select that option if you change it.)

Now if we could just get some sort of offline tool that lets us make adjustments to this in a single UI. Something that imports the files and allows for customizable exporting (perhaps creating a bind file for use later for specific alts). A bit overcomplex, but heh.

You can edit both the options file (pretty easy) and the windows file (a bit more cryptic) off line. I can't think of a need to completely configure the UI offline when you can do it interactively and simply save/load/share (and tweak offline).

You can edit both the options file (pretty easy) and the windows file (a bit more cryptic) off line. I can't think of a need to completely configure the UI offline when you can do it interactively and simply save/load/share (and tweak offline).

Need is such a strong word. :p

Need is such a strong word. :p

Yes, I forget about those who Pine to play the game even when they're not playing the game... :D

Is there a reason why we can't set Reticles to Show Always? I know it would be clutter, and probably tax our computers, but is that all that's stopped it from being an option?

Probably both those things, and because they're tied to actual targeting etc.

I don't think I'd want to look at a zone, mission or base full of reticles. :)  It's already a big enough PITA that base NPCs count on the villain spectrum, so they all have perma-names if you have ShowVillainNames on.

I found this guide tremendously beneficial, especially the part about setting "show villain names" to always. That made a huge difference in my ability to pick bosses out of a group of baddies. Thank you!

Glad to have some degree of granularity in the options for displaying these, I just wish the game stopped displaying health bars completely on defeated targets. I like having bars on most of the time, but when the corp....defeated start piling up, all their black bars become such a distracting mess, lol.

thanks for this. now I can go take out them Malta Sappers first, and not worry about having no End. 😃

And yes, it does help with the hunting/non-door missions