How to: Enable additional text informations on all brackets in space

[Soldier_Forrester]

This is a repost from the old forum since it’s a very frequently asked question: Always Showing Ship Bracket Text Option - EVE General Discussion - EVE Online Forums

Result: Brackets with text labels are always shown for all ships on grid, not just the one you have selected.

This is an unsupported option, and if you turn it on, you do so at your own risk.

Here is a picture of the folder and file

On your computer, go to "%localappdata%\CCP\EVE". You should see a bunch of folders, one of them will be named after the path of where your shared cache is located, and will end with tq_tranquility. Inside that folder will be more folders, one of each of your profiles you have created in the launcher.

Open the folder for the profile you want to change, then open the prefs.ini file (if it’s not there, make sure you’ve launched the EVE client at least once with that profile active). Add the following line to the file, then save the file and restart your client if it’s running.

bracketsAlwaysShowShipText=1

To edit your brackets, visit the EVE-Uni website and navigate to the advanced overview manipulation found here: Overview manipulation - EVE University Wiki
You can also use this Java Tool: EVE Online Custom Ship Labeler

For those of you using OSX

(You can find the folder you need here:
~/Library/Application Support/CCP/EVE/users_library_application_support_eve_online_sharedcache_tq_eve.app_contents_resources_build_tranquility/settings/prefs.ini

Or search for the “prefs.ini” file and take the one in the TQ path)

I have been using this feature for over 4 years now.
Known issues:

• Depending on your computer, you can experience FPS drops with many players on field, I can feel a difference with +200 players on grid.
• The little icon showing where your ship is if you are zoomed out disappears, therefor I usually have the tactical overlay enabled to stay aware of my position in space
• Doesn’t work on pods
• Grids can quickly become crowded with shipnames when fleets anchor up - I recommend limiting the informations you show in your brackets to a minimum (I do: Shipname + range in a single line)
• When switching from a tab with brackets enabled to one with them disabled, the brackets can get stuck on your screen, click on them to make them disappear
• When hovering the mouse between multiple overlaying brackets, the client doesn’t know which one to focus and rapidly switches between them until you move your mouse away

Special thanks to CCP Logibro

[Cypherous]

You do realise there is literally an ingame option for this right?

[Soldier_Forrester]

This is not the same.
Note how all brackets show additional text informations next to them, instad of just showing ships as simple icons in space.
The option in your screenshot can be used to disable brackets compleatly to improve performance in big fights.
An alternative to showing all or no brackets can be found if you rightclick your current overview tab, there you can apply an overview setting to your brackets aswell.
I changed the title to make it more clear.

[Soldier_Forrester]

This way of client modification is actually specificly allowed by CCP, as seen here if you scroll all the way down:

Known & Declared Exploits

[Ember_Niagara]

Thank you for reposting this, @Soldier_Forrester . And yeah, @Cypherous it’s not the same thing as “show all brackets,” which shows more space items. This is a totally different thing.

To see the difference, launch to space. Go somewhere crowded, with lots of players. Click a player. Look at their ship in space. Zoom out. Now look back at Forrester’s screenshot.

On your screen, you will see that you only see Ship Type and Distance information next to the one ship bracket you have selected. The other players are just bracket blips, no text. However, on Forrester’s screenshot, it’s showing indiscriminately on ALL visible player ships (except his own ship).

I have this enabled almost all the time. I find it to be insanely useful for visually judging distances and identifying exactly where a person is near me.

P.S. CCP, if you notice this thread, please please please please PLEASE consider upgrading this to an official feature! It is so incredibly useful, I wish it had a toggle on/off button in-game or be integrated with the Overview Settings. This is a massive quality of life improvement just waiting to happen.