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Aerin Osaa
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Posted - 2003.07.26 17:23:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Aerin Osaa on 26/07/2003 17:24:11
Admit it, the current drone interface is horrible. All those menus to navigate just to get your drones killed, and its very laggy during combat. So here is my proposed solution:
It is all done by a simple drag-and-drop interface as follows:
Attacking:
You select the drones you want to attack with and drag them onto the locked target icon of the ship you want to attack. Another option would be to drag them onto the crosshair/brackets of the ship you want them to attack. The same procedure works with mining drones and asteroids. If there are ever other drone types (like repair drones) then the same will work here.
Return and Orbit:
Select the drones you want, and drag them out into space somewhere.
Scoop:
Select the drones and drag them into your drone bay.
Launching:
You select your drones in your drone bay, drag them out and drop them. If you drop them in space they will orbit, and if you drop them on a target they will attack.
Suggested additional behaviour:
Defend:
Drag your drones onto a portrait in the gang box, the crosshair/brackets of a nearby ship/container or possibly a portrait in a chat window. The drones will then defend this ship as if it was yours (orbiting and attacking ships that target it etc.) Doing this with a repair drone will make the drone repair that ship.
Updates to drone control window:
Make the drone health bar update as the drones loose health.
Put in a separate bar for shields and for hull/structure
Have a little blob or something that flashes orange as a drone is targeted, and red when it is attacked.
If you click the blob, the ship that is targeting the drone will become your active target, and if its not already locked, your ship will try to lock it (if it has a free slot)
Make the window keep its size as all other windows do. Its really annoying that it shrinks to its default everytime i launch my drones.
Have three buttons at the bottom: "select all", "select all combat" and "select all utility" (for miners and repair drones etc)
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Dianabolic
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Posted - 2003.07.27 10:24:00 -
[2]
Like the ideas, I would also like to see the possibility of grouping drones.
That way we could, for example, group all EM damage drones into group 1, explosive damage into group 2, etc.
Being able to then assign buttons to these would make drone combat far more efficient.
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Supersonix
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Posted - 2003.07.27 17:49:00 -
[3]
All good ideas. I would also se a 'Status' line that says what the drone is doing. So that you don't bypass a drone and it does nothing. Let me show you an example: When I want to mine I set my drones to 'Mine Repeatatly' (bad spelling?  ) and then it sould say in the status line: 'Mining repeatatly'. And if they're just orbiting the status line should say: 'Orbiting'. Something like that.
Support the Alternative market proposition. Clicky clicky. |
Aerin Osaa
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Posted - 2003.07.27 17:53:00 -
[4]
Both grouping and drone status sound like very good ideas.
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Claren
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Posted - 2003.07.27 19:27:00 -
[5]
I would prefer a hotkey for drones.
Combatdrones are a weapon, but needs too much clicking and fiddeling to be effective. If you are attacked there is no time to open dronebays, launch drones, select all drones and tell them to attack. They should be accessible from the highslot quickkyes (F1, F2, and so on) like other weapons. Pressing the approtiate key should launch drones and set them to attack active target.
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Sarf
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Posted - 2003.07.27 21:55:00 -
[6]
i was thinking about this and i figured that it might be better to have drones assinged to groups like a RTS game.
have both the drone bay and the drone control windows be like the assed window. ie expandable sumb groups.
The drones would by default be part of the combat group or the utility groups, in the drone bay and drone controll windows you could drag them between groups to arange them.
A button to create new groups.
Then to launch the drones you could r-click on the drone and launch it, or you could r-click on the group header and launch that group.
When they are deployed they would respond to the same commands as they do now, but you could also issue them order to there group and all the drones in that group would do it.
this way you could break your drones into mineing groups, and heavy, light drones and be able to easyly control them insted of selecting all and issueing a command.
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Harmor
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Posted - 2003.07.28 05:48:00 -
[7]
Great ideas!!! I can't wait for repair drones too. Already assigning a drone to repair the other drones/ships would help alot!!!
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Aerin Osaa
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Posted - 2003.07.30 11:57:00 -
[8]
*bump*
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Trixian
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Posted - 2003.07.30 13:53:00 -
[9]
Edited by: Trixian on 30/07/2003 13:56:40
Edited by: Trixian on 30/07/2003 13:55:43
How about just removing the drone window all together and instead make launched drones icons signify that, so one can tell the difference by looking at them (Would require redesigning the icons, but IMHO they allready need a "facelift"). By this I mean that the icon of the drone never leaves the dronebay after it has been launched, but changes it's icon. Along the top of the dronebay window (next to the minimise and close icons) one could place small squared buttons. One for launching the selected drone(s)\group, one for scooping them (no more accidential scooping to cargo) and one to make them do their designated task (attack\mine) and one to recall them to orbit. This would effectively remove the need for an extra window popping up when using drones. Come to think of it, all "inventory" type windows could have similar buttons too. Cargo and cannister windows could have them for stacking and sorting.
Or am I just being silly?
Stupid people do stupid things, smart people outsmart eachother, then them selves. |
Ruffles
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Posted - 2003.07.30 14:17:00 -
[10]
We previously raised lots of good ideas for drone use.
Groups, launching set types. Selecting all miners/combats. Etc etc etc... Selecting the group you wanted to issue orders to, and it making all drones in that group do what you asked. Plenty more fine ideas.
We got a few menu changes, and multi-select launch. Whilst grateful for those, I still feel there are a lot of the other ideas that could also bring more usability to this area.
I don't think you will see the re-appearance of more changes to this facility. Sadly the threads are back in the pages now, if I could even get the impression they were even reading this thread, I might go and try to dig up the references.
I dont think you can expect many more changes in this area.
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