An example of GAE's HUD.
The HUD, or Heads Up Display, is the official name for the information which surrounds the game window, such as the resource window, at the top, which tells how many of each resource you have (and the maximum of it you can have).
Explanation[]
Resources[]
Unit[]
In GAE, you must hover over the unit's icon to see more information about the unit. In regular Glest and MegaGlest, they are shown directly in the unit infobox.
- HP, EP - The current and maximum health points that a unit has. When this reaches zero, the unit dies. If a unit has EP (this example does not), or Energy Points, this is also shown below HP. Some commands such as a spell might use EP.
- Current Action - The current action the unit is taking is shown here, such as stop, move, or attack.
- Armour - This is a number amount which helps protect the unit, and the type of armour, which multiplies the damage based on the damage multiplier, which depends on the type of attack the unit is hit by.
- Sight - This is how many cells a unit can see, as a radius, away from them. Fog of War and the Shroud of Darkness clear when they pass into a unit's sight (the latter is temporary). Enemy units cannot be attacked if outside of a unit's sight.
- Kills and next level - The total number of enemy kills the unit has done so far. The term in parenthesis is the next level (a kill count where stats will increase and an additional name will be prefixed to the unit) and how many kills is needed to achieve it.
- Consumables - If the unit consumes any resources of the type consumable, they are shown here.
- Commands - The buttons in the main area are commands that may be issued to the unit, such as attack, move, etc.
- AutoAbilities - The buttons at the bottom let you toggle on or off whether or not the unit will automatically attack, automatically repair, etc.
Engine differences[]
Aside from the looks of the GUI themselves, GAE is able to fully customize its HUD via a widget's configuration file, which allows full customization of the HUD, including menus and information displays. GAE can also move around its HUD by clicking and dragging. MegaGlest is able to display a single image which will be placed around the game window.