To start, I really like the health bar in sunless skies, it’s very noticeable. During combat, it’s usually easy for me to glance over and see the health whenever I’m hit; however, the heat bar is a bit more difficult to keep track of. I tend to check it while firing my weapons, but that’s also when I’m focusing on aiming, which leads to a lot of hasty glancing, and most of the time I just guess at how hot my engine is. I was wondering if there was an easier way to keep track of heat during combat; maybe put it near the health bar (considering how gun malfunction indicators also appear below health), or somewhere closer to the center of the screen, like having some telling sign on the locomotive itself. Has anyone else had this problem with heat?
I haven’t had many issues with this myself. I found that using the sound cues I could keep track of it decently well. After a while I’ve also just gotten used to how often I can fire my weapons before risking overheating. Any time I get a new weapon I play around with it in a wide open area to just get a feel for how often I can fire. Developing a sort of rhythm to firing helps. Take battles slowly and strafe to keep yourself safe and in no time you’ll be killing enemies and rarely, if ever, taking hits from the more predictable shots.