Badges Above Characters

A row of small icons lines up above the heads of characters and creatures on the map — this is Last Frontier’s “battlefield language.” At a glance they tell you who is poisoned, who is wounded, 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 are 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.

The badges are icons, not captions: no words and no numbers are written above a head. An icon answers “what is happening,” not “how badly.” It lights up as soon as the condition becomes visible from the outside, and goes out when the condition passes. The exact figures — your radiation level, your dose of poison — stay private: only you see them, while everyone nearby gets the bare fact.

The icons line up in a single row above the character’s name. If you travel in a group, a small group mark sits at the left of that same row: one for the leader, another for the other members.

Survival: radiation, poison, and cold

Three “field” icons show how badly a character is being worn down by the environment.

• Radiation — a glowing green radiation trefoil.
• Poison — a green skull with a smear below it.
• Cold — a pale blue tile of cracked ice. Remember: in Last Frontier it is the cold that creates the survival pressure.

Combat states and threats

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

• Bleeding — a dark tile with red streaks: the target loses health over time.
• Sunder — a steel shield with burning orange cracks: the target’s defenses are temporarily lowered, so this is the moment to strike.
• Execution — a red skull with burning yellow eyes. It appears above a living target when its health drops to 35% or below: you can land a finishing move.

Two bars are drawn above the head separately from the icons:

• A blue bar — suppression. The longer it is, the harder the target is pinned down by fire: a suppressed shooter aims worse, runs slower, and attacks less often. Melee does not cause suppression.
• An amber bar with a number of seconds — overwatch. The shooter is holding a sector and will fire at whoever steps into it. The bar flashes red toward the end of the countdown. You see your own sector highlighted on the ground as well; someone else’s you do not.

Wounds and control

Aimed hits and control effects leave separate icons above the target:

• Eye injury — a glowing red crescent.
• Shock — a blue lightning bolt.
• Immobilized — a glowing blue arc-shaped clamp.
• Limb injury — a small pale bone.

The yellow cross: this character needs help

A large yellow cross appears only above player characters and means the person is already noticeably impaired: it stands for Injury, Critical condition, Toxic debuff, or Radiation sickness. One icon covers all four — it says “this character is in a bad way,” and if the cross is above you, your status panel tells you exactly which.

Stealth and theft

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

• A coin above an open palm — the character carries an item that can be stolen.
• A pair of teal footprints — a noticeable sneaking creature.
• A narrow red blade — a sneaker frozen in an ambush position.

Command and companions

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

• A green crown — the group leader; a green shield — a member of your group.
• A green arrow — a follow order; a green open palm — a hold-position order.
• A dog’s head outline and a paw print — companion animals: a dog and a battle beast.

One more icon in this layer is a yellow exclamation mark: it lights up above someone you hit by your own carelessness. It is a warning, not a verdict — once the character calms down, it goes away.

Technical devices

Deployed devices show two things at once — what it is and whose it is.

Type: Turret — a pale blue barrel on a mount; Scout drone — a blue quadcopter seen from above; Combat drone — an orange quadcopter; Device — a blue gear.

Ownership: a green check mark — the device is yours; crossed orange tools — the device is under someone else’s control; a purple lightning bolt — the device belongs to no one and can be hijacked.

The name above a character no longer disappears while they speak: the line of speech runs beneath the name, the health bar sits below it, and the label rearranges smoothly. Players who have left the game are marked «offline», in the language of the game.

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

Don’t confuse the persistent icons with floating combat text — short captions that pop up over a target and disappear on their own. They are written in words, in your language: “Armor pierced,” “Knockout,” “Collision,” “Weapon dropped,” “Eyes injured,” “Arm injured,” “Leg injured.” Explosions pop up the charge payload — “EMP,” “Toxin,” “Blinded,” “Burning,” or a combination of them — and an enemy whose morale breaks under fire lights up “Panic.” These are one-time hints about an event, not a persistent character state.