HUD

Heathen Engineering's Terran's presents its HUD as the 'Terran ITS' or Integrated Technology Systems. In the game world you are a Terran pilot and are physically and mentally part of your ship. The ITS is the view your pilot sees - not dissimilar to an Augmented Reality UI or Virtual Reality UI concept. Terrans, while advanced, are still 'human' at the base level and sort and organize information just as we do today. The ITS thus takes on much of the same feel and functionality as a real world desktop computer operating system and has many of the same functions and limitations.

When in space the ITS switches to an 'Observer' view, being effectively a 3D person orbital camera. In the space view or 'Observer' view the camera can be controlled by simply moving the mouse, and its 'behaviour' can be toggled switching it between several defined views such as Free (orbital), Fixed (over the shoulder) and Forward (similar to first person).

While controlling the ship from the Observer the secondary (right click by default) will slow time and allow you to use the menus of the Observer UI to issue orders to fleet members, change targets and weapons and so on. Note that this does not stop time, but does prevent movement and manual fire control; the degree to which time is slowed depends your character's skill and development.

Getting Started
On your first boot up of the game Terran will load and display the ITS 'settings' panel as well as a 'Welcome' panel. Note that on subsequent loads you will be taken directly to the Dashboard however you can access the 'settings' at any time from the Dashboard and you will find the information presented by the 'Welcome' panel in the 'Archives' app.

The Welcome panel introduces you to the concept of the ITS, and asks you to give your self an alias; thiswill be your saved profile name. It also gives you the opportunity to personalize the display as you wish, such as changing the colouring of UI elements.

Once done with the Welcome panel which you can close at any point, you will be taken to the Dashboard (assuming you stepped through the Welcome portion), or taken to the settings and profile view if not. You can navigate to the Dashboard at any point by clicking the [ITS] button located on the 'Copilot' in the upper left of your screen or navigate back to the Settings by clicking the gear icon.

Once you are all set up and configured you can view the available notifications (left side of the Dashboard) and start your adventure. Or you could open up the ship editor and tweak your ship design, though at this early stage you will have limited parts, tools and manufacturing capability available to you. You can listen to some music while you browse the archives, galaxy map and other information streams available to you.

Pilot View
When in combat, or otherwise working with space outside the ships internal systems, the ITS will switch your view to the Observer. The Observer is a drone system giving you a much wider view of your immediate surroundings than shipboard sensors can. The UI elements in this view are all pulled to the point of focus (centre view) to keep all relevant information in your field of vision.

With the Observer active, the ITS AI will assist in ship control and can be set to orient the ship with the Observer e.g. look to turn and separately you can instruct the Observer to orient with the ship that is the Observers control and movement will be 'local' to the ship as opposed to the default 'global' mode which is independent of ship orientation.

Your Observer can navigate anywhere around the ship up to several kilometres away with negligible latency, but will attempt to maintain constant line of sight with the ship for optimal communications. You can activate a secondary mode wherein processing is accelerated at the cost of control to other systems such as navigation. In this mode time may appear to be slowed as your own cognitive processing is being amplified by the ITS improving your tactical and strategic decision making performance.

Apps
ITS Apps or simply apps expand the functionality of the pilots ITS. The Terran ITS comes standard with a full host of apps which will enable and display as the pilot needs them.

Core Apps
Core apps refers to the basic applications used by a pilot day to day. These core applications are always available to the pilot and are in general deeply integrated with other systems and components of the ITS.

Dashboard
The Dashboard app provides the pilot with quick access to information and the other apps available to them and is the default view the pilot is presented with when logging in or after closing all active apps. Many apps will present a widget or similar presentation on the Dashboard allowing pilots to execute common app functions without needing to fully engage the app in question.

The left panel of the Dashboard will present the pilot with a digested and summarized list of know opportunities and important events as 'Notifications' and can be used to plan and engage as required. The upper portion of the left panel is the 'Copilot' and provides constant access to the low level systems of the ship and quick control of key apps.

Media Player
The media player manages the pilots available media including both recreational media such as music and function or even calcified media such as briefings, intelligence reports and so forth. Recreational media such as music is arranged into 'playlists' and the pilot can define there own playlists from the media player widget on the Dashboard.

Ship Editor
The ship editor provides the pilot with the necessary tools for ship design and submitting manufacturing requests. In addition the Ship Editor includes a simulation protocol enabling pilots to test there designs in practical scenarios before submitting them for manufacturing. The ship editor can also be used to modify the pilots current ship assuming the necessary components, resources and pilot skill of course is available on board.

The Ship Editor also includes a widget integration with the Dashboard which provides a summarized view of the current ship design and available ships the pilot can transfer to.