One of my main gripes with playing this game, especially when doing tactical cruiser duties, is the lack of overview when somebody uses an F-key tactical message. The audio message is usually loud and clear, but it is often quite hard to find out who exactly is calling. Especially on a tac, where others' lives depend on you, I find myself ignoring calls for aid because I usually don't have the luxury of peering into the vastness of space to try and find out who's calling.

I therefore suggest the following (insofar these changes are not already coming with the UI update):

1. Tactical cruisers are informed visually by calls for repair on the map, by having the ship calling for aid pulsating green. All other classes just get the current feedback.

2. Calls for backup / Regroup / Follow me pulsate blue on the map, visible to all classes.

3. Calls to engage or point out a target do not get a visual map feedback, mostly because that will make lighting up targets too easy.

The logic behind this is the following: The poor visual feedback we have now makes it difficult to find out which of your allies is calling, which usually means that if you don't see the visual shoutout, you're not likely to start looking for it (also because the message tends to stay visible for only a few seconds). Making it visible on the map tells you where to look, just not who exactly is calling. That means that tracking the caller is easier, shifting the decision process from "Will I bother looking for them" to "Can I offer assistance?" This last approach is far more tactically rewarding than the first, because a player is encouraged to a) take in account his own position on the battlefield, 2) decide whether the distance between him and the caller is within reachable bounds, 3), will it aid the team if I abandon my current position to head for the next. For tactical cruisers, such a system is even more rewarding, because they are the lifeline on the battlefield and may mean that a teammember who is about to die and calls out for help on time actually gets helped. Now, the time needed for people to track down who is calling is too long, which often means that the F-key commands are in vain.

The UI is getting an over haul with steam, so this maybe addressed then.

Our team definitely wants to revamp the callout system and make it even more useful than it is currently. Adding better callouts, and just more choices in general. Not exactly sure as to when we could expect that to be implemented, but we'll share that info as soon as we have it!

I'd be happy with just a faster display of the health bars when I aim at a ship. When playing tac cruiser it's hard to see who needs healing the most and I don't have time to mouse over every ship in the vicinity for 1 full second. Also nice would be an option to display them at all times.