The lowest system/server chat row is positioned over the running-character icon and stamina bar. In a five-row example, this affects the fifth visible row even though the text has been kept short enough to stop before the microphone indicator.

Additional information

Adding two whitespace-only chunks after the visible lines moved the text above the HUD in the local test. Removing them made the overlap visible again. This was a formatting workaround used during testing, not a chat/HUD layout modification.

The public Chat implementation positions a fixed set of chat row widgets using a common line height. The precise layout cause of the overlap has not been confirmed.

Related archived report: T169480 — messages.xml messages are barely readable. A comment there also reports server text appearing behind HUD elements.

1. Start a local server and connect a player with Game Messages enabled.

2. Send five short visible lines through the standard message API. To reproduce the tested arrangement in one call, pad each line with ordinary spaces up to ChatMaxSystemLength, then concatenate the five blocks:

string text = "";
for (int i = 0; i < lines.Count(); i++)
{
  string line = lines[i];
  while (line.Length() < ChatMaxSystemLength)
    line += " ";
  text += line;
}
player.MessageImportant(text);

3. Do not append any additional empty block below the fifth line.

4. Observe the bottom chat row against the running-character icon and stamina bar.

The attached init.c supplies the five tested rule lines and sends the resulting message once, five seconds after connection. Each visible line is 81–85 ASCII characters long; the padded payload is 5000 characters.

Actual result

The fifth row crosses the running-character icon/stamina HUD area. The text and HUD are harder to read where they intersect.

The lower boundary of the chat area should sit above the stamina HUD with an appropriate margin. Chat rows should remain clear of the icon and bar as the number of displayed rows changes.