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PhoenixofMT
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Posted - 2011.01.30 03:17:00 -
[1]
The only post I could find on this topic was a couple of years old and locked down. Since it seems it hasn't been addressed yet I'm bringing it back up.
I think the premise of the current arrangement system for the scan probes is quite sound. Unfortunately, it is difficult to use because of a few design choices. I've found that scanning down a few signatures is enough to give me a head ache and make my eyes water.
PROBLEMS: 1. The color scheme of gray probes on black space or bright gas clouds can be very difficult to see.
2. The shadow extending horizontally from the probe to the sphere often makes it even more difficult to see what you are doing (especially when there are half-a-dozen probes crowding around a signature). If you can find a convenient view point with a slightly brighter area of nebula in the background, this shadow can reduce the contrast to make it almost as bad as empty space. It also hides other probes if you are looking from a very high or low aspect.
3. The color indicating the active arrows is dark (navy?) blue which doesn't contrast very well with the gray of the probe or the above-mentioned color scheme and almost impossible to make out when viewing the arrows edge (see #4). On several occasions I've grabbed a probe directly to move it in the horizontal plane (two directions at once) only to see it shoot up or down because I didn't see that the Z-axis control was active.
4. The orientation of the arrows extending from each probe are fixed. If you rotate the view a certain way the arrows become narrow lines, making it difficult to select them in the above-mentioned contrast hell.
5. The system map has an issue where clicking a certain way will recenter the view on an object. This would be very handy if it worked reliably, but I can only ever get it to happen on accident. It's very unhandy when maneuvering in a tight pack of probes with overlapping spheres and a bunch of celestials in the background, mostly because I can't use it to center back on the signature or even a probe. The trigger seems to be a very precise combination of click and drag that is only repeatable by accident.
All this conspires to make aligning probes incredibly tedious and eye straining. It's a pretty straight-forward interface, but it's harder to use than it should be.
PROPOSED FIXES: 1. Make the probes a brighter color and perhaps remove the nebulae background and/or add artificial color (a slight gray tinge even) to empty space to improve the probe's contrast.
2. Get rid of the shadow circles. I can tell the horizontal orientation of the probes from the lateral control arrows.
3. Choose a better contrasting color for the active arrows.
4. This might be a bit tricky, but make the arrows rotate around their extended axis to always present their face to the view point (except, of course, when viewing them point-on). The same effect could probably be had by making the arrows more 3-dimensional i.e. made from cones and cylinders.
5. This one may fit better in a bug report but, either make the center-view-on-selection event a deliberate feature (even adding it to the context menu) or get rid of it.
I welcome feedback,
Phoenix
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Zombie Jeebus
Amarr Alt Holdings llc
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Posted - 2011.01.30 08:11:00 -
[2]
One of the better thought out ideas I've seen lately and the first I will simply /sign
(using more than 4 probes is bad though.. skill a bit more/rigs/cheap faction probes [pick one] and you shouldn't need the extras cluttering you up anymore.)
This is not the alt you are looking for. |
SGT FUNYOUN
Gallente
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Posted - 2011.01.30 08:47:00 -
[3]
Yeah I have my probing skills up pretty high but i still use a minimum of 5 probes per drop. I use the 4 outer to extend my scan range and the one in the center as a "Cheater" for the middle.
I am singing this with +1 please. Yargh. I be SGT Funyoun. King of the Pirates!!! |
Tico
BURN EDEN
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Posted - 2011.01.30 09:29:00 -
[4]
/ signed
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Caleb Defiance
Templars of Space
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Posted - 2011.01.30 09:36:00 -
[5]
/signed
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PhoenixofMT
Gallente
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Posted - 2011.01.30 22:32:00 -
[6]
I also see now that the orbit rings for the system like to disappear when viewed from above or below. This could also use improvement.
Amazingly, I've just been able to center view on things like planets and moons just by clicking on them. Maybe I've just been trying to recenter on objects that DON'T let you do this. In that case LET OTHER STUFF (like partially scanned sites) DO THIS. It would probably be even more annoying on probes, but other things would be fine.
--Phoenix
Phoenix |
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