Skip to main content
Table of Contents
< All Topics
Print

Badges Above Characters

Posted
Updated
By

Short letter-codes flash above the heads of characters and creatures on the map — this is Last Frontier’s “battlefield language.” At a glance they tell you who’s poisoned, who’s pinned down by fire, who can be finished off, and who answers to whom. Let’s break down what they mean.

First things first: what’s above a character is not your status panel

The game has two different layers of indication, and they’re easy to mix up. The status panel is your own HUD at the bottom of the screen; it shows your conditions. The badges above characters on the map are a separate layer that the game draws right over the creature figures, and that nearby players can see. This article is specifically about those over-the-head badges on the map.

Most of these badges look like a letter code with a “severity” number after a # sign — for example, RAD2 or TOX1: the higher the number, the stronger the effect.

Survival: radiation, poison, and cold

Three “field” indicators show how badly a character is being worn down by the environment. An important detail: onlookers are only shown a rough severity scale, while the exact dose stays private — only the character’s owner knows it.

  • RAD# — radiation load. A public rough severity from 0 to 3; the raw exposure level stays hidden from others.
  • TOX# — poisoning (toxin). Also a public 0..3 scale.
  • FRZ# — accumulated cold and frostbite. A value of 1 means ordinary hypothermia, higher values the degree of frostbite. Remember: in Last Frontier it’s the cold that creates the survival pressure.

Combat states and threats

These badges tell you what’s happening to a target in combat — and help you decide whether to finish it off, fall back, or keep pressing.

  • BLD# — bleeding rank: the target loses health over time.
  • SND# — Sunder rank: the target’s defenses (DT threshold and DR resistance) are temporarily lowered — the perfect time to strike.
  • EXEC — the “execution window.” It appears above a living target when its public health drops to 35% or below: you can land a finishing move.
  • Blue bar (suppression) — a compact blue gauge is drawn above a suppressed creature, proportional to the number of suppression stacks. A suppressed shooter aims worse, runs slower, and attacks less often. Melee does not cause suppression.
  • Amber bar (overwatch) — a countdown above someone holding a sector at the ready: it shows the remaining seconds and flashes red toward the end. An amber sector-preview of the direction is briefly drawn next to it.

States like shock, blinding, loss of mobility, limb wounds, poison, bleeding, and critical condition change a fight more than a single icon might suggest.

Wounds and control

Precise (aimed) hits and control effects leave separate marks above the target:

  • EYE — eye/vision struck;
  • SHK — shock;
  • ROOT — immobilization;
  • INJ — injury.

Stealth and theft

The infiltration layer hints at where there’s something worth grabbing and who’s sneaking nearby:

  • STL — an NPC has an item that can be stolen (other observers can see this mark);
  • SNK — a noticeable sneaking creature;
  • AMB — a sneaker frozen in an ambush position.

Command and companions

The “topology” of groups is also visible above characters — who’s the leader, who’s following whom:

  • ALLY — a member of a team group; LEAD — the group leader;
  • FOL / HOLD — direct follow/hold-position orders;
  • DOG / PET — companion animals (dog/battle beast).

Technical devices

Deployed devices show their type and command status: type — TUR (turret), SCT (sensor), DRN (drone); command status — CMD (your device), OWN (someone else’s controlled device), OVR (a neutral target to hijack).

“Your eyes only” badges

Some marks are visible only to the character’s owner — these are indicators of your build on your own creature:

  • ACT# — the number of active non-permanent abilities;
  • PER# — the number of permanent abilities.

These badges go together with the status panel and stamina and help you keep an eye on what’s currently “switched on.”

And then there’s the flickering text (those aren’t badges)

Don’t confuse the persistent badges with floating combat text — one-off pop-up messages that disappear on their own. Players often ask about them, so briefly: limb wounds (EYE/ARM/LEG), armor penetration (AP), disarming (DROP), knockout (KNOCK/SLAM). Explosions pop up charge types (EMP, TOX, FLA, FIR, CHN), and a morale break under suppression shows a red PANIC caption above the fleeing NPC. These are one-time hints about an event, not a persistent character state.