EvE OS - this and that, UI and small game mechanics

James_Amton · July 4, 2017, 11:40pm

The more I get into programming myself, the more I see how much the UI of EvE is lacking the actual feel of playing a game but rather makes me wonder why there isn’t a console yet. Furthermore, I have analyzed my playstylem which mostly consists of med-largescale PVP and ratting, and came to the conclusion that I spend a considerable amount of time with waiting for modules, what is still waiting and takes some part of the fun away for me.
Speaking in general, the design aspects of the UI may be very informative with its tabs and structured appearance but they are hard to access and sometimes even don’t make quite sense, specifically talking of the icon bar of which only a few icons are very oftenly used and thus mostly eats up space on the suers’ screen. I will therefore elaborate on the points I see ingame which are still in need of a lot of work in my eyes.

Combination and chaining of actions

With the upcome of Citadels we saw a chaining of multiple actions on them in terms of docking and immediately undocking, which would have required the player to first wait for some time until they could hit undock on regular stations. Although there is a chance that this happens on citadels as well, it is a very handy feature and provides some smoothness to the game.

This smoothness, however, could be used in various other parts of the game.

1a) As a pilot of various ships I oftenly see myself in the situation in which I need to swap drones for a different set, which of course requires me to first recall the current ones, then start the other group and then assign them to their target. This requires a lot of micromanagement and oftenly results in a stressful situation under certain circumstances. Therefore I suggest to implement a “swap” functionality for dronesquads which are waiting in the dronebay, which combines the recall and start in one single action.

1b) The same applies to the reload mechanic of turrets and whatever else uses ammunition. At the moment, the process of swapping ammunition, charges or scripts consists of turning off the module, waiting for the cooldown, swapping to the desired charge and then activating the module again. I think there should be the option to combine the process of stopping the weapon and swapping the ammunition.

1c) Toggling the turnoff of modules is something I honestly desire the most since I oftenly run with roundabout six active modules and missclicking one would oftenly mean stopping its execution. In addition this is one of the “features” I don’t see the deeper meaning of. It appears completely senseless to me to restrict a user from reverting their action.

Centralize information, increase hover-over information and accessibility

2a) I oftenly see myself in the situation in which I have a unknown module or object in my inventory and want to see its stats, or at least know what its use is, however for this I first have to right-klick or doubleklick on it and browse through the tabs - this is inefficient in terms of time and also clutters my screen, not to speak of that I have to close the window again. I therefore suggest moving a compressed part of the information into a hoverover box which summarizes the sues of the object and shows some stats, resistance enhancements for shield hardeners for example as well as a little text which states that the hardener increaes resistances but stacks with other such effects.

2b) Planetary interaction needs some UI love in my opinion. Except the overview of the player’s colonies and the PI mode of planets, there’s no other way of gathering information about planets and especially comparing information of resources on the planets of a solar system.
I’d suggest the implementation of a new overview window which allows a user to do all three things: Manage their colonies on other planets, list all planets in a solar system together with their resources and the extent of the deposits as well as the option to click on a planet and view it in the planetary mode.

Logout
I can’t grasp why a user has to completely close a client once their socet closes or they want to log out - it’d save loads of work on the user-side if they were thrown back to a simple in-client login screen or the character selection.

Last words
This is my little list of things I think could be improved in the game in order to provide some more accessibility and a overall better feeling of the game. There may be people who disagree with me, but I hope that these people put in at least the same effort into their responses as I put into this thread. Maybe we can get a good discussion started, otherwise I hope the mods will be with us

James_Amton · July 5, 2017, 2:27pm

No reactions?

Este_DeStirr · July 5, 2017, 2:56pm

James, there is a QoL thread in this forum where each of your ideas can be seen by CCP karkur and CCP Punkturis, the two best devs to see it.

They have provided a simple format for your ideas, with your reasoning, and they are watching the thread, so I’d recommend posting these (one per post) there. They can (and probably will) note them and pass along where appropriate.

gl

–Este

James_Amton · July 5, 2017, 8:27pm

Thanks for the reply, will definitely converty my post accordingly to the specified rules and make sure to get it posted in there by Sunday!

bbb2020 · July 5, 2017, 8:31pm

Before you go to the QoL thraed there is a thing or two you might consider.

[quote=“James_Amton, post:1, topic:8687, full:true”]

Speaking in general, the design aspects of the UI may be very informative with its tabs and structured appearance but they are hard to access and sometimes even don’t make quite sense, specifically talking of the icon bar of which only a few icons are very oftenly used and thus mostly eats up space on the suers’ screen. I will therefore elaborate on the points I see ingame which are still in need of a lot of work in my eyes.[/quote]

I expect you are referring to the Neocon menu. If that’s the case then here are some thing you can do to it.

Click-drag edge to change the width of the Neocom, allowing more or fewer buttons to fit.
Add additional buttons to the Neocom by dragging from the Neocom Menu.
Remove buttons using the button’s context menu
Move buttons by click-drag.
Right-click the Neocom for menu to lock it, move it or set it to auto hide.

[quote=“James_Amton, post:1, topic:8687, full:true”]

Combination and chaining of actions

With the upcome of Citadels we saw a chaining of multiple actions on them in terms of docking and immediately undocking, which would have required the player to first wait for some time until they could hit undock on regular stations. Although there is a chance that this happens on citadels as well, it is a very handy feature and provides some smoothness to the game.

This smoothness, however, could be used in various other parts of the game.[/quote]
I’m not fully familier with the way Citadels works, but docking / undocking from a station is a “session change” and changing that is not something one just do.

Read more about what a session change is in this Helpdesk Article: Session Change.

Now this is a good idea, as the drone mechanics is one of the oldest mechanics in EvE and really need a change. Unfortunately, the code that make the drones tick, is so old it’s referred to as “legacy code”. Good luck getting CCP to touch that.

In the meantime you could use shortcuts (what many a player do).

Skift+R to make drones return to drone bay.
Skift+L (you have to set this one yourself in settings) to launch drones.
F to engage drone.

[quote=“James_Amton, post:1, topic:8687, full:true”]

1b) The same applies to the reload mechanic of turrets and whatever else uses ammunition. At the moment, the process of swapping ammunition, charges or scripts consists of turning off the module, waiting for the cooldown, swapping to the desired charge and then activating the module again. I think there should be the option to combine the process of stopping the weapon and swapping the ammunition.[/quote]
Yeah, that is a click to much, but again; if you are use to using shortcuts its not hard.
F1 to stop your guns (if you have them stacked) and then right click to swap ammo and then F1 again to engage target.
Of cause it’s not one action, so Yeah!

[quote=“James_Amton, post:1, topic:8687, full:true”]

1c) Toggling the turnoff of modules is something I honestly desire the most since I oftenly run with roundabout six active modules and missclicking one would oftenly mean stopping its execution. In addition this is one of the “features” I don’t see the deeper meaning of. It appears completely senseless to me to restrict a user from reverting their action.[/quote]
That can be a tricky one.
What stops a player from disengaging and reengaging a module to make the modules stats obsolete?
Lets say you have a shield booster fitted. The first time you click on it, it start by doing 1 boost to your shield.
If you then accidental click it again it will run for the duration of time, set by its stats. Lets say 6sec.
Then you want the be able to say; oops, and then click it as soon as you discover you mistake. Lets say that is after 2sec. You want it to start again, mening giving a boost?
How long should the timer run for, for it to not give more or less boost, than the 6sec set by its stats?

[quote=“James_Amton, post:1, topic:8687, full:true”]
2) Centralize information, increase hover-over information and accessibility

2a) I oftenly see myself in the situation in which I have a unknown module or object in my inventory and want to see its stats, or at least know what its use is, however for this I first have to right-klick or doubleklick on it and browse through the tabs - this is inefficient in terms of time and also clutters my screen, not to speak of that I have to close the window again. I therefore suggest moving a compressed part of the information into a hoverover box which summarizes the sues of the object and shows some stats, resistance enhancements for shield hardeners for example as well as a little text which states that the hardener increaes resistances but stacks with other such effects.[/quote]
That is an idea many will find useful. You have my vote on that one.

[quote=“James_Amton, post:1, topic:8687, full:true”]
2b) Planetary interaction needs some UI love in my opinion. Except the overview of the player’s colonies and the PI mode of planets, there’s no other way of gathering information about planets and especially comparing information of resources on the planets of a solar system.
I’d suggest the implementation of a new overview window which allows a user to do all three things: Manage their colonies on other planets, list all planets in a solar system together with their resources and the extent of the deposits as well as the option to click on a planet and view it in the planetary mode.[/quote]
Wont that like take away the whole idea of planetary interaction, as a game mode.
You select a planet and scan it to see what deposit it holds. If you don’t find what you are looking for, you select another planet from your overview (assuming you are in space) and scan that.
If you are good enough at it, you can, in overview, by the planets description (Barren, Storm, Lava etc.) get an idea what they hold.
I don’t do planetary interaction, so I don’t know really.

[quote=“James_Amton, post:1, topic:8687, full:true”]
3) Logout
I can’t grasp why a user has to completely close a client once their socket closes or they want to log out - it’d save loads of work on the user-side if they were thrown back to a simple in-client login screen or the character selection.[/quote]
Please join the 10.000 others that has requested feature. That will be something if they implemented that.

Fly safe

Cade_Windstalker · July 6, 2017, 1:11pm

[quote=“James_Amton, post:1, topic:8687”]

Combination and chaining of actions

With the upcome of Citadels we saw a chaining of multiple actions on them in terms of docking and immediately undocking, which would have required the player to first wait for some time until they could hit undock on regular stations. Although there is a chance that this happens on citadels as well, it is a very handy feature and provides some smoothness to the game.

This smoothness, however, could be used in various other parts of the game.[/quote]

The Citadel thing is a hack. It’s still doing the waiting you get on a Station, it’s just hiding it behind a delay when it happens. As the other poster said, you can’t get rid of Session changes, they’re a fundamental part of Eve.

[quote=“James_Amton, post:1, topic:8687”]1a) As a pilot of various ships I oftenly see myself in the situation in which I need to swap drones for a different set, which of course requires me to first recall the current ones, then start the other group and then assign them to their target. This requires a lot of micromanagement and oftenly results in a stressful situation under certain circumstances. Therefore I suggest to implement a “swap” functionality for dronesquads which are waiting in the dronebay, which combines the recall and start in one single action.

1b) The same applies to the reload mechanic of turrets and whatever else uses ammunition. At the moment, the process of swapping ammunition, charges or scripts consists of turning off the module, waiting for the cooldown, swapping to the desired charge and then activating the module again. I think there should be the option to combine the process of stopping the weapon and swapping the ammunition.[/quote]

I’ve had this thought myself, here’s why it won’t happen.

The short answer is server load. The slightly longer answer is that what’s actually happening here is a series of actions on the server. First the server has to tell your client that the drones are back or the gun has stopped cycling, then you need to give the input to your client to swap ammo or drones or whatever, and then the server tells you that’s all okay and done.

Of the two ways CCP could make this sort of swap automatic the one less likely to break things is to get the server to let you queue actions. The problem is that this has the potential to massively increase server load, because each queued action has to be checked and handled on the server where as before the server just had to process a client request rather than worrying about triggers and chains of inputs.

The other is to let the client queue things, but that gets uncomfortably close to botting and has serious potential to screw things up for a player as well. Like accidentally telling your guns to reload at the end of a cycle when you’ve still got ammo left.

Again, server says no. What you’re doing when you tell the module to turn off at the end of its cycle is telling the server to terminate the ongoing cycle at the end of the next one. Again, removing this has implications for server load and runs smack into the wall known as “Legacy Code”.

Funny thing, people have literally been requesting exactly the opposite recently with respect to some of the new hover tooltips and pop-ups. Go figure.

I think if you think for a minute about all the different modules in the game and what information different players are going to find useful you’ll realize this is a massive amount of work and highly impractical.

For example, just looking at a Shield Hardener, you don’t just want the resists, you might also want the fittings, cap use, skills required, and probably some other stats I’m not thinking of. That tooltip is now massive, and it has to be customized pretty much per module type at the least which is hundreds of modules.

That’s pretty much a waste of dev time for something that’s already handled just fine by that popup you dislike. Plus the potential problems and annoyance on small screens with a giant popup full of stats.

[quote=“James_Amton, post:1, topic:8687”]2b) Planetary interaction needs some UI love in my opinion. Except the overview of the player’s colonies and the PI mode of planets, there’s no other way of gathering information about planets and especially comparing information of resources on the planets of a solar system.
I’d suggest the implementation of a new overview window which allows a user to do all three things: Manage their colonies on other planets, list all planets in a solar system together with their resources and the extent of the deposits as well as the option to click on a planet and view it in the planetary mode.[/quote]

That PI needs a UI rework is not news to anyone, especially not CCP. That it’s not high on anyone’s priorities list is also not news.

Basically no one spends enough time using the UI because PI is such a fire and forget thing these days for this to be something for CCP to spend time on it. My guess is we won’t see this touched until CCP figures out how they want to rework PI in general to make it something other than passive income.

[quote=“James_Amton, post:1, topic:8687”]3) Logout
I can’t grasp why a user has to completely close a client once their socet closes or they want to log out - it’d save loads of work on the user-side if they were thrown back to a simple in-client login screen or the character selection.[/quote]

Because this is the cleanest and least error prone way to deal with this. The alternative is basically a button that just closes and re-launches the client, but that introduces the potential for a lot more bugs and problems. Better to just have the user fully close the client and reopen it. Less chance of catastrophic bugs.