Health and Armor bars in-game
Health and Armour (especially Health) are vital in order to stay alive. If they both run out, the player dies. Health can be replenished with a Health Pack and armor can be replenished with an Armour Pickup.
Health
Health, as the name suggests, is the most important in order to survive. In TimeSplitters 1, it is accounted for by a green bar, and in TS2 and TSFP, as an orange/red arc down the left of the screen. If a player sustains damage in any form, the bar/arc is depleted at varying rates and amounts. The amount depends on what type (and to what degree) of damage is sustained, some examples are given here:
- Shot Wounds: These vary from weapon to weapon and also according to which part of the body is hit. For example, a shotgun deals high damage at close range, and a headshot from a sniper rifle can be fatal to the player. Sustained hits from machine gun fire cause lesser impacts individually, but more impacts by number, depending on the duration of the damage time.
- Proximity to an Explosion: Depending on the distance, this can cause slight damage if the player is caught in the short aftermath of an explosion from a grenade, or instant death if the explosive in question detonates at the player's feet.
- Fire: From a flamethrower burst, or from another character, or from a burst ignited gas pipe, if a player is set on fire they will lose health at a continuous rate, until they either lose all health and die or find a way of extinguishing the fire, which halts the health drain but does NOT replenish it.
- Falls: Most characters are immune to damage from falls from surprising heights, but falls into a pit with no visible bottom, or down a drop which has been deemed fatal by the map's design, will kill the player instantly.
- Environmental or Story Based factors: An example of this is in the Khallos Express Level, when as part of the story Harry Tipper and Cortez are trapped in a room being filled with toxic gas, breath is shown by a bar in the top of the screen, which depletes at a constant rate, if this bar runs out the player suffocates resulting in immediate death.
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As a general rule of the games, if the player's health counter runs to zero at any time, the player dies.
Health is depleted when the player is attacked or is on fire. Killing a player means completely depleting their health bar.
Armor
As in reality, and as is the norm for many first-person-shooters, armor acts as a shield against damage, and is depleted in place of the player's main health reserve (until it is destroyed). Unlike health, which is available from the beginning of any game, armor must be found in the form of an Armor Pickup. In all three games, these can be found in two forms (given here as they are in MapMaker):
- Armor "Lo": If the player has no armor, or armor at a level below 50%, this pickup will generate armor up to 50% of the bar, but no higher. This is authentic with respect to the fact that armor "lo" is usually a smaller type of armor, such as a breastplate or bulletproof vest (depending on the time period), and for this reason would only give a set amount of protection.
- Armor "Hi": Logically, this armor pickup will replenish the current level of protection afforded to the player up to 100%, regardless of how much (if any) armor the player already has, these pickups are generally larger than armor "lo", in TSFP resembling a full torso body armor suit.
When the player has armor and is on fire or being attacked, the armor must be depleted first before the player can lose health. Armor tends to go down quicker than health, especially when the player is on fire. In a fire situation, the armor is depleted at a continuous rate until it is burned away or the player extinguishes it.
Like health, Armor is depicted as a bar in TimeSplitters 1, or as an arc on the right of the HUD in TS2 and TSFP. However, armor has a blue bar (health is depicted as a red arc on the left in TS2 and TSFP, and a green bar in the original TimeSplitters). The more the bar or arc is filled, the more armor the player has remaining.