Arcade UI problem Thread

Hey guys I'm currently working on a arcade top-down multiplayer space shooter, the game is very fast paced but I have to display information such as health and power-ups. originally I had this information all displayed at the bottom of the screen however during a recent play test players found it hard to constantly have to dart between the players ship and the information displayed at the bottom of the screen and then loose their ship due to the fast paced nature of the game. Are there any suggestions or examples you can think of that could address this issue?

Well, first idea that comes to my mind is to show those states at the spaceship directly? Health could be represented by how broken your ship looks like. Other UI elements could be displayed next to the ship directly, if they're small enough (amount of bombs or special ammo etc.).