- How would you improve PI?
Torvald Uruz
Here’s a few things I personally want:
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Templates - Let me save entire templates for a planet that way setting up isn’t a literal enemy of my wrist.
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Easy “Reset all” extractor button on the PI interface rather than going to each planet and reseting each extractor.
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Enable a hexagon pattern option - rather than having the facilities goes wherever you set them, let us choose to have a hexagon pattern view where the facilities fit perfectly.
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Allow us to send material from the launchpad to the POCO without undocking.
Stitch Kaneland
Less clicks, ability to save templates for planets/setups
Nala Queen
As I have already written, I would go there with the PI so that the infrastructure of other players on a planet is clearly visible, and these spots are then blocked for other players to build up, which currently means that some Spots are overfarmed while others go to waste!
RGC Godfather
I believe PI isnt extremely user friendly and it’s not very well explained. people need to use third party things such as youtube in an effort to teach themselves. So making it a little more user friendly and easier to understand
Dutch Gunner
I think PI could be improved if players can have standard setups that they can place in one go instead of placing each structure and setting each link up manually.
Grima the Mad
Updated tools. Pre-configured industry chains, sort of acting like fits, would go a long way in speeding up at least the set-up phase of PI. Also after some more thought, visibility of other players PI chains on the planet.
Kilyavi Alaailaa
It’s difficult question. PI is time, converted to isks. If you simplify it, the price will fall and compensate for the simplification.
If you complicate it (more difficult production line, more options, as in the Factorio game) - this will require a lot of work and an unpredictable result.
But although it would be interesting.
Kshal Aideron
As I stated above, I don’t PI. This isn’t my idea of fun. Maybe that’s where I’d start… making the set up and actually doing it not suck. Don’t ask me what this looks like in real life though!
Gideon Zendicar
PI is always gonna be boring or it would need a major overhaul that would break the dev time needed to do so - passive income on an account level that can not be messed with will rarely be a really exciting thing to do. Dev time elsewhere is prob better used
Personally, as a PI enjoyer, I would L O V E a snap together option. Please let me have an option so my OCD can have straight lines or hexes, even. an auto continue option on the mining part would be great as well.
Hotkeys, Copying layouts, and combat interactions with the larger world
two fixes in mind:
1: A single button to refresh the extractors, having to do each one individually is cancerous
2: building templates that you can use on any planet, having to set up PI piece by piece is soul draining
First I would remove the overlap penalty on multiple players using the same area and change it for a somewhat different mechanic. I understand why it exists, but PI is an activity very very few enjoy and most do because they “have to”.
Id prefer see consistency and simplicity instead of the current system.
I would also add sharable templates so setting up your planet wasn’t tedious.
Let someone with more PI experience improve it.
I don’t do PI at all, but make the UI more accessible and easier to understand
I’d take inspiration from some of the games that Zachtronics made to add in a solid production “design” game.
I only dabble in PI, I am old and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is always a possibility (along with arthritis) Templates and save set-up features along with ‘process all’ buttons would be nice
mobile app interface with much simpler UI
Add templates for typical setups would help immensely with reducing the initial setup time.
The Oz
Planet management in EVE app.
Larkness
Make P.I. structures visible and bring back orbital bombardment guns, to allow you to shoot them!
Dujek Oneye
I am tempted to say “make it very lucrative to do on exactly one character”. In some ways, my main issue with PI is that it so highly is better to do on a huge number of characters, and then it feels repetitive and like a chore. If it is supposed to be done on many characters, then good tools to share it between your own characters, or even selling setups on contract to other people to help them set it up faster, etc.
Rico Shikkoken
Glad you asked! One simple issue with PI is the visuals, circles with cogs in is not visually appealing and this needs a complete overhaul.
The next and arguably more important is how hard it is to set up planets. This is why I am suggesting the copy and paste feature for PI. Let’s look at an example based on factory planets I actually set up once:
the factory planets use 20 factories and can produce things with 3 ingredients, to route an output takes 4 clicks (click the factory, click the recipe, click the destination, click create route) which is 4* 20=100 clicks. Then for the inputs it also takes 5 clicks, (click the storage, click the item to route, click create route, click the destination, click confirm), which for all the factories for a 3 ingredient schematic is 20* 5* 3=300 clicks. So to change recipe one needs to click at least 100+300 = 400 clicks (this does ommit potentional other steps). This makes for very tedious gameplay and taking time off work for repetitive strain injury.
If it was possible to select a factory, that has inputs and outputs routed, ctrl+c, select another factory and crtl+v which adds the same schematic and the same input/output routes. If the appropriate connection does not exist for a route it does nothing and returns an error.
Using the above copy and paste method for our example, one could instead set up 1 factory for 5* 3+4 = 19 clicks, then the remaining 19 with 19 clicks (click factory, press ctrl + v) for a total of 38 clicks. A very significant reduction and the saving of much tedium.
So that’s for factory planets. For resource extraction planets I am considering an idea that removes the setting up of resource extraction programs and instead just have nodes that continuously extract until a full destination that may be dragged around. I haven’t thought enough about the consequences of this though to add it to the list (any feedback is appreciated).
Alcoholic Satan
Being able to copy paste setups to multiple planets
Sol Weintroub
Not competent to answer this question.
Lady Death Strike
Cool a real question, with Pi I would make it a one button, set it and forget it. Like a master button that restarts your Pi. So what every your Pi was set to last, (1 day or 1 week etc) it will automatically restart your Pi on every planet, (it would give you the option via checking box’s what planet you want to effect, it will have an do on all planet check box as well. ) this should make restarting Pi on all your planets less then 1 minute. More over maybe expand it to 12 planets.
Dario Kaelenter
First some credit to CCP for the recent change in halving PI material volumes - that alone has really had some positive impact on PI. Much less micromanaging required now. In the past just all that daily clicking used up my motivation and time available for Eve. I thought it would be cool to have a couple of add on build structures (at various cost levels) that could be used to adjust CPU and PG balance. Also remove the cost of links as some planets like Gas Giants are so large that even with your smallest distance possible between nodes you lose so much PG to just the links as it’s based on distance rather than “length”. Some way to reduce the clicking to save my poor mouse buttons! Some work was done here that made a real improvement but there is room for more. Moving extractor heads can be frustrating as instead of the head moving the UI decides I want to rotate the planet instead. Having the option to save a formation similar to probes and then move all of them in one go would be a blessing!
Storm Delay
One click global/planet extractor reset Templates
Kontan Rekor
I have never done PI, but if I were elected I would definitely put forth an effort to experience far more about EVE than I currently do. My priorities until then are to continue focusing on what I already know and what I’m good at.
Gabriel Bemenacth
Make PI pvp less obscure. make competition on of resources visible and more relevant.
Dhuras
I use PI but that’s not really a focus of mine, Its… fine as is? Perhaps some additional interactivity as a raid-able objective to create more ways to start smaller fights would be interesting.
William Chen
I know, PI is way too clicky, but I think if you know how to do it once you should not have to keep doing it over and over, so an in-game macro? or PI setting up could use “save this set up” similar to how save a fitted maybe?
Cael Caderu
Personally, I stopped doing PI because the rewards weren’t worth it for me and I found it to be a chore. I’m very happy for the people that enjoy it, and would generally defer to them about improvements. I know reduced clicking for setup would be a big help (templates, perhaps?), but it’s not really an area of expertise for me.
Arhont Sibirski
Don’t mess with what works. =) Since I’m a planetarian a lot, I sometimes think that templates for planets would come in handy. But I’m afraid it wouldn’t solve anything.
Twan Molengar
i think with the recent change to volume off PI is a start into the right direction PI the difficulty of setting up right is also why it is very profitable for certain people that have masterd the art of PI so im not sure its something that should be reworked completely.
Rots Mijnwerker
Some ideas, not total fixes.
- I would love to have ship tree style menu for PI - implement a chart for each T1 you can double click to see T2 etc. the UI around it would be excellent.
- PI missions - there are no missions for new players that really introduces them to the mechanic in my opinion, we need to lean into the mechanic to have it anyway. Right now it’s another part of indy that in most cases is considered monotonous.
- Players should be able to see PI command center numbers from other players on each planet via pull up from the customs office or in the planet window.
MILINT ARC Trooper
Evil Scientist Smile. There are many ways to do so.
- The current concept of shrinking P.I. m3 didn’t factor in [ignorantly or deliberately is to be fully investigated] the issues of various other moving parts of the P.I. set up. So in shrinking the P.I. m3. Links can now move massive amounts of goods, without thought and consideration of optimizing P.I. flows like in the old days. Also P.I. now can be perfectly converted. Because the amounts going in at T0 P.I. are smaller than before, but then the T1 P.I. is smaller too. 14 day runs generate perfect 14 day conversions. And this material is necessary for larger capitol construction. [Which kind of undermines CCP attempt to contain run away Capitol Production.]
- Also by shrinking P.I. we have also eliminated the P.I. hauler [IE Epithal] in most situations and the job can be done by BR, Cruisers, or even frigates now. This is not a well thought out ecosystem thought process.
- Buff all the m3 of Links, Storage, Planetary HQ [you can launch cans of goods into space from there.] meaning these links become larger, and storage becomes larger. [No need to shrink the P.I. goods]
- Buff the m3 of Planetary Interaction holds like the Epithal from [67,500m3 at Lv 5] to 67,500m3 at Lv 1. with potential 125,000+ m3 at Lv 5. And to add even more icing to the cake. Add specialized cargo hold modules. In this case a planetary interaction hold cargo expander. We can push this ship now to 250,000m3-350,000m3. This of course would mean there would be downsides to the ship in question, but also the ship itself would become used more because of that unique advantage. Again BUFF NOT SHRINK.
- Allow players to contract P.I. to move it from POCOs [via contracted the items from the POCO itself]. This alone would make for some massive content generation by factors of magnitude. I know there are players who hate and despise hauling, but there are players who love doing it. So one could benefit or generate content this way.
- P.I. Integration Cooperation. If you are part of an alliance or corporation, you can weave separate P.I. networks together to move or trade P.I. goods between networks. Increasing the scale and efficiency of P.I. set ups. Instead of having multiple characters that you have to tab through, why not just have them all work on one planet shifting resources between each other until they are together at a final shipping character? Seems more logical progression I would say than the clunky set ups right now.
- P.I. PVP. Now this might be a bit of a moonshot. [all puns intended] Why can’t we aggressively interfere with another players P.I. set ups? One way, would to be using the different extractors to negatively affect the yields of a hostile players P.I. set up. In much the way a player can self-neuter their P.I. set ups by making the extractors too close to each other or overlapping. The other is well return of orbital bombardment of P.I. setups to destroy them or disrupt them requiring players to either secure the planet and the space around it. Maybe some sort of “ground raiding/sabotage party mechanic as well?” Also theft and siphoning…let’s use those Mobile Siphons to steal P.I. materials. Maybe make an extractor option where you can use siphoning/stealing if you place the extractor close to a hostile extractor. So many interesting options. So conflict over P.I. sites and locations becomes a thing generated content.
Corporal Fillip
mostly reduce steps for design
Amelia Duskspace
I dont have much knowledge here, as I havent done much in industry.
- How would you improve the entire corporation UI?
Torvald Uruz
Honestly the one thing I can think of is a structure/station menu in the Corp UI. It’d be nice to see all of the citadels or stations that the corp uses, with a description of why or what that structure is for. Sure there is the offices tab, but I think an entire tab dedicated to structures would be nice, with some kind of text are to explain the structure.
Stitch Kaneland
Not sure on this one as I don’t have much interaction with it
Nala Queen
At the moment I don’t see any need to change the corperation UI!
RGC Godfather
I believe that corps have received a good bit of update lately. I also feel its much further ahead compared to other games with guilds.
Dutch Gunner
I would like to see it be more intuitive compared to how much of a struggle it is currently to assign roles and give authorisations and be sure that it works as you want it to alongside the standings regarding alliance and non-corp and non-alliance entities.
Grima the Mad
Some of the things I would like to see is a simplification of the tools, not by a reduction in function or anything like that. Something like a unified dashboard for the most important features. Some more granularity on the last online times would also be nice.
Kilyavi Alaailaa
Make the interface more user friendly, with a tree of dependencies and an obvious order.
At the moment, the corporation UI is a jumble of checkboxes and lists, for which you need to spend many hours of external guides.
Kshal Aideron
Oh boy, how much am I allowed to write here? I HATE the corp UI (and the way permissions are set up btw). I’d 100% support an overhaul of the entire thing. I’d also 100% support a better way to save things vs. having to save before going onto the next section even though you’re dealing with the same character still
Gideon Zendicar
Declutering as a whole is needed just the menus/tabs are not really structured in a way that is intuitive. Previous CSMs have asked for that but it seems to be a bigger thing to change than people think it is. Would be interesting to know exactly why.
D’ceet
As an alliance director for Gooseflock Featheration, and director in Goosefleet, there’s a few things I would like to see changed. Billing messages coming in by the dozens instead of one monthly bill would be a great start, followed up with an update to the actual interface to bring it up to speed with the new EVE UI
Medicine Tetro
start again from scratch, with a focus team made mostly of new players trying to lead a corp.
Drake Idon
As my corp consists of me and 3 friends I dont really interact with the corp menu, however having to grant roles through the role and title management tabs is extremely clunky, a big QoL for large corps like training corps would be allowing multiselection;s on the member list letting you grant/remove roles from all of them with a single right click
(also transaction logs for LP ty ccp)
Dark Shines
The overall UI has a lot of options that just aren’t used and add a lot of fluff and confusion to the interface.
I would like to see specific information provided on what each role does, like what they have on the website, but ingame.
I’d also love a mode to test the role. Yes I can do it with an alt, but as the ceo, creating a role and then being able to test it would be a small QoL improvement.
Hopefully these brief outlines answer your questions well enough!
Pandoralica
Moving the corp UI outside game into a sort of account management type in the browser would be a good first step.
Gustav Manfred
No idea, I don’t use it at all, only in an alt corp atm
Phantomite
Throw it all out and start again - doing so by giving corporations the new system, with a button to switch their membership over to it (at a downtime) once they’re happy with their setup.
Mike Azariah
The corp UI makes sense to me MAINLY because I am a Certified Novell Administrator. But it is arcane and obscure to most folks. CCP once printed out all they knew about corp mechanics . . . I saw the book, it was 100+ pages. And we keep tacking on more and more features, titles, tasks, and possibilities. It is not a sexy topic and in theory only bothers those select individuals who try to run corps, alliances, coalitions but damn if it does not need streamlining and/or a full tutorial on how all of it works.
I do want to say this, though, there are a LOT of good answers to these questions spread across a lot of very good candidates. But make no mistake, we do not get to go to Reykjavik and nail these demands to the church door. CCP does, in some years, give us (the CSM) a chance to present ideas, elevator pitches or full presentations. Some have taken root and some have fallen on barren ground.
You are looking for CSMs who may represent YOU so use these battery question posts as a way to get a feel for what sort of person you might be voting for. Will they be good people to represent you and can they communicate well.
m
Yondu Quill
never been in aliance level leadership, for corporation please see 7. Corps can or could be done better on responsive mobile app.
Velonad Tyldamere
The corporation UI is a big beast, I’m uncertain how I’d change that at this time, and I might amend my reply to that specific one with some details.
Howevrr, one detail that I’d personally like to see changed would be to move corp assets to the assets tab, so you can at a quick glance check both personal and corp assets from a single window.
The Oz
I don’t know whether it can be saved. I think it needs to be re-done entirely.
Larkness
Allow CEOS/Directors to compile ingame training packages using AIR, and bring in fleet-up functionality to FC roles, so you can compile doctrines at a corp and alliance level, and be able to see how many people can fly the ship/s and use their fittings!
Dujek Oneye
Make it possible to kick people without removing roles (not counting the waiting period). When I was a director I spent way more time working with the corporation UI, and I am admittedly a little rusty on the details, I had more thoughts on this at hand. There is a lot. Rather than having individual points to change, it is much more in need of an entire rework. Looking at how zkill tracks kills in what timezones and activity, etc, the advertisements should also be able to populate stuff like pve/pvp/timezone, to give people a realistic view of what the corp actually does, as currently people say they do everything and really let down AUTZ players who join EUTZ corps who only mine while the AUTZ players are sleeping and never PVP…
Rico Shikkkoken
The information we need in the corporate UI is there but like a lot of UIs in eve, it is often difficult to find. UI design is way out of my field of expertise and it is best given to someone who is an expert. CCP possess the resources to hire an expert to overhaul their UI and this is something I will advocate for, for a lot of the UIs.
Alcoholic Satan
The UI in general needs help. There’s so much that isn’t used, and sometimes it’s so clunky I’d just throw it out and start over.
Sol Weintroub
Every UI is a matter of habit. Whatever you do, some people will say that the previous was better.
Dario Kaelenter
It’s getting there. Some areas are pretty ok as they are. I think the main issues are some tabs that take a while to populate so clicking on one tab while it has a sub-option tab selected can waste a bit of your time before you can click to where you really want to be. Main area I guess that could do with work is the member management area which can be pretty confusing. Leverage the work done on the implementation of the ACL system could be used to cover some of the Corp functions. At least some pop up or help on what some of the items and options there mean would help many figure it out as one look and most people’s brains explode! There is the Title system which kind of is a half way update put in a while back on the way to something ACL like that could be iterated upon to quickly give the level of access you want to members.
Storm Delay
I’m not a UX/UI designer, I have more thoughts about how they should rework corporation roles (more granularity) than about how the information should be presented to players. Some pagination for the member list would be nice though, to avoid long loading times in large corps.
Kontan Rekor
Same as my answer for #7, but I will say that the whole ‘roles’ section of managing a corporation is really confusing at first.
Gabriel Bemenacth
Oh god I have no idea. I love the projects though! Need to explore it more.
Dhuras
I’m not certain, I’m no wizard with UI design, I’d have to defer that question to CSM’s with a better brain for it. I can give a yes/no to what seems like it would/wouldn’t work well if shown something, but I’m not someone who would likely come up with their own design for it. Just not my wheelhouse.
William Chen
I’ll be honest, I have never run a Corp, The closest I came to was being a Test Diplo, and even then I don’t think it was the same plan field, from that standpoint I feel like a member’s sp, assets, and location should be visible to the corp lead? I don’t know if that’s too much info, but a lot of that is already done on third-party websites like Auth, it really should be implemented in the game already. I know it may be redundant but that one less window needs to be opened on my browser I guess.
Cael Caderu
Probably my single greatest struggle with the corp UI is searching for character names when I do roles updates for members. One issue is the delay that kicks in if you have to do a bunch at once. Another issue is trying to search for short character names with <3 letter names (the search doesn’t work properly).
Arhont Sibirski
Too few analytical tools. There is no option for alliance control over corporations. (Who puts up a citadel, and you have the whole alliance gets the opportunity to participate in official wars, and you can’t even find out who it was). In general, corporate and alliance instruments are extremely weak. I can’t even make a selection based on alliance pilots.
Twan Molengar
This is something i honestly have no opinion on i have not spend much time inside the corporation UI and also not much of a clue how it exactly works.
Rots Mijnwerker
Entire is huge but ill knock out the things about corporate UI that i have always wondered “why?”
- Corporate Logos and Insignias - I think we need to be able to make corporate logos like we do alliance logos hands down.
- Projects - a new mechanic which i hope dearly we expand upon- being able to make isk awards or awards with other items drug and dropped into a hangar would be excellent. Making this truly something that acts like your corporation is an agent much like highsec and lowsec agents. I see alt of promise with this but currently think it is clunky.
- Titles - I believe we need to be able to make more titles (you can make 16) which lets a CEO or director make presets for various roles or needs (this is how i run my corporation currently) I would love to be able to color code these outside of typing in color numerics. An example of one of my title names in order to to do this is ‘<.b><color=#ffffb482>USTZ</b.>’ this is ridiculous.
- Corporation asset safety should be a mechanic. - Aternatively a Corp project could be a courier type project/mission.
- Corporation Decorations should be easier to create - and be able to have an isk award attached to them. Here’s an example of my corps decoration setup (this is page 1) it took one of our directors two months to create this… that’s absurd.
MILINT ARC Trooper
[sweats] I am not particularly fond of CCPs UI design ethos. Alot of the UI from the baseline UI to the most intricate UI interactions are so counter intiutive that any massive change literally leaves us all groping in the dark trying to figure out how to reset the UI so it works again for us. I have the unlucky issue where the UI likes to fully reset from time to time. So I am constantly having to re-juggle my preferred way of UI usage. I move notifications to the left with local on my right. The constant gerrymandering of various mechanics of the UI by the CCP Fingerpaint UI developer is getting annoying to a degree that is nearly driving me to use a scroll and compass to play this game. I have seen the corporation UI once or twice on streams, and it looks rather archaic in my perspective. But I think all the UI needs updating, and severe QoL pertaining to anything that interacts with the UI needs to be considered.
One major issue is the color of contacts/standing. it’s too narrow in the game. That needs to be expanded because then it allows players to contextually identify various players in the corp structure. It shouldn’t be Blue/Light Blue/Grey/Orange/Red. We need more colors to allow players to ID targets, keep track of corp members. You got a suspected Spai in your structure, put him as Yellow Standing so you can watch his activities. Got a player who doesn’t roam or follow up on pings. Give him the Pink of Shame. New Recruit you want have trained up until they get their first medal. Light Green. Maybe even different icons etc. We all know the blue/yellow/red [orange as well] skull icons. why not allow players to be icon marked. Pilot A is a tackle specialist…special icon for that guy. Pilot B is a back up FC icon for that. This guy has director or special access…icon and color scheme for that
Organize your people in a structure system, so you can quickly sort things out. any form of corporate or military structure or one of your own could be emulated visually to help track and keep things organized. There is a huge amount of potential that could be done and help the corporations and alliances keep track of things. Colors and Symbols help people organize and structure things. So any UI needs to be quick and easy to intuitively understand and visually universalize to any player regardless of what side of the world they are on. Currently we really don’t have that.
I think this is just the tip of the iceburg. I had to kind of pare it back…but you can probably by looking at the original post even further add things in. I think you will like the P.I. concept especially the PVP side of it…
Corporal Fillip
little thought on it, but the tabs are not graphically showing relationships and responsibilities
Amelia Duskspace
Similar answer here, I havent worked much with corporation UI. I will say the one aspect I would change though is being able to multifit ships from corp hangars.