While it's nice that you're improving the drone UI, what the drone UI needs isn't improving. It's re-doing. And, before that, re-thinking.

And I fear that adding polish to the current (fundamentally flawed / limited) drone UI will make CCP less likely to consider a full overhaul in the near future ("What, and waste all the time we spent polishing the old system?").

For example, the drone UI should allow players to:

• Quickly and easily launch, recall and activate specific drone groups directly (using both keyboard shortcuts and on-screen icons).


• Have a simple, unified "default action" shortcut (ex., pressing "F" should make mining drones mine).


• Also allow players to assign keyboard shortcuts to specific drone actions (ex., create a shortcut to "repair target" that will not make your combat drones "attack target", or a shortcut to "salvage target" that won't make your combat drones destroy it, and so on).


• Allow individual drones to belong to more than one group (ex., I might want a group with all my light drones, one with all my heavy drones, and one with all my thermal-damage drones, which includes drones from both of the first groups).


• See drone HP while drones are docked.


• Allow grouping of drones of different types (I know this is a problem with the current UI / command structure, but it wouldn't be if the other changes mentioned here were implemented).


• Target-lock own drones instantly (they're in constant communication with my ship - that's the whole justification for "bandwidth" - I shouldn't have to wait 20 seconds to lock one before I can start repairing it).


• Allow logistics drones to repair my own ship (yes, there are gameplay implications, but objectively only for logistics ships, and they can be dealt with by tweaking those ships; the idea that my repair drones can't repair my own ship is just nonsensical). Ex., telling logistics drones to "repair" with no target selected would make them repair the owner's ship (so there's no need to allow self-locking, which I guess would require too much debugging; alternatively, they automatically repair the parent when orbiting).


• Etc...

I don't think the features listed above are particularly hard to implement (from a UI design point of view), but they might be incompatible with the way Eve does things internally (and they're certainly incompatible with the current UI design).

To implement these things, "drone groups" shouldn't be treated as containers, but rather "indices" (essentially presented as a "virtual drone", whose orders are then relayed to every member of the group), and there should be direct access to specific drone actions through icons in the drone UI (draggable to the module shortcuts), instead of making players go through sub-menus.

For example, next to each drone (and to each group), there would be small icons for:

• Deployment button: Launch / Return to bay (ctrl+click to "disengage and orbit owner" instead of returning to bay, alt+click to "scoop drone", ctrl+alt+click to "abandon").


• Action button: Engage (perform default action for that drone type). The icon would be different depending on the drone type (combat, logistics, salvage, etc.) and would be draggable to a target. Simply clicking it would perform it on the current target. On a mixed-type group, the icon would send a "perform default action" command to each drone in that group (or be a bit smarter and figure out which action the player is more likely to want, but the generic command would generally be fine).


• Behavior button: Rules of engagement (click multiple times to cycle between "passive (orbit parent)", "guard (defend parent)", "assist (follow parent's attacks)", "aggressive (attack any enemy in range)"). This would also apply to drones assigned to someone else.

Each of these icons would be draggable to the "module" icons (right side of the HUD), and that would link it to the keyboard shortcut currently assigned to that slot (ex., if I drag the "engage" icon from group "MyDroneGroup" onto the first module icon, then pressing F1 would cause an "engage" command to be sent to the virtual "MyDroneGroup" drone, which would then relay that command to all drones in its index).

It sounds more complicated than it is (hard to explain just using text). The whole thing would take up the same amount of screen space as the current drone UI; the damage indicators would be smaller (circular, clock-style) and half the space would be used for the new direct-action / draggable icons.

I know this is unlikely to happen any time soon, I just urge you to not think of current UI "polish" as a long-term solution. The drone UI needs more fundamental changes to stop feeling like something out of the 1990s.

Speaking of drones, it would be nice if the drones in the bay would show damage bars like they do in space...

For example, the drone UI should allow players to:

See drone HP while drones are docked

Allow logistics drones to repair my own ship (yes, there are gameplay implications, but objectively only for logistics ships, and they can be dealt with by tweaking those ships; the idea that my repair drones can't repair my own ship is just nonsensical). Ex., telling logistics drones to "repair" with no target selected would make them repair the owner's ship (so there's no need to allow self-locking, which I guess would require too much debugging; alternatively, they automatically repair the parent when orbiting).

Is there any change with respect to the problem where trying to drag locked targets into rows would often open the radial menu on them instead? Trying to press and hold long enough to be able to move the target without opening the radial menu is quite difficult.

I haven't read all of the feedback, only OP first post, and I was hoping to find the radial menu added to "Drones" menu element of UI in the space. I was surprised there was no proposal of it in post.

Original post has been updated

Hi all,
"Jump through to X" added as primary option for black ops

Edit (August 18th):

• "Jump through to X" added as primary option for black ops

"Jump through" as in the Blops BS jumping or the bridge option for Blops ships on the pig?

I would marry you if you did this one thing.

if i warp away drones will automatically go into distant space.

Yes that means i no longer loose my drones every time i have to bail or warp out!

right now the only way to achieve this is by selecting the drones to 'return to bay' and then warp off before then return home.

example i warp to pin drop my sentries and then burn to optimal and start orbiting... i realize i forgot antimater and have to warp back to pos to pick some up.

so now i have two options either burn back to the sentries to pick them up and then warp to the pos. (lame and slow way)

or i select the drones to return to bay and just warp off... they appear in distant space and when i warp back i still maintain control.

just please make it so i dont have to select them to return home first for them to go to distant space...

Would I have no say in the matter? Maybe I don't want to marry you mister, have you considered that!

Anyways, I won't be changing any of that (even though being Mrs. MeBiatch would be kind of awesome) , at least not now. But wouldn't reconnecting to your drones when you get back solve your problem?

its not that easy.. you have to fly really close to drone and scoop them in the drone bay to get them back... but for some reason when they appear in distant space (only way to do this with non fighters is to select recall to drone bay and while they are flying back to you you warp away) and then warp back to grid they then appear in local space and you have full controll over it.

its not like with probes where you can just select reconnect to them anytime you like...

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I just want to make sure we are on the same page... do you know there is a shortcut to "Reconnect to Lost Drones" (ctrl+shift+r)?

Would I have no say in the matter? Maybe I don't want to marry you mister, have you considered that!

Anyways, I won't be changing any of that (even though being Mrs. MeBiatch would be kind of awesome) , at least not now. But wouldn't reconnecting to your drones when you get back solve your problem?

Drone change is a decent stopgap measure but anything short of being able to drag drone groups onto module slots on the UI, and press the hotkeys for those slots to launch/recall those groups, is a subpar solution.

Hi all,

Drone changes:

• Drones and dronegroups can be dragged from "Drones in Bay" folder onto "Drones in Local Space" folder to be launched
• Drones and dronegroups can be dragged from "Drones in Local Space" folder onto "Drones in Bay" folder to be pulled in
• Drones can be dragged into groups (as long as they can be grouped with the ones that are there already)... if the drone and the group you dragged it on are not in the same place, the drone will be launched/picked up and moved to the group
• Main drone groups ( "Drones in Bay" and "Drones in Local Space") will no longer randomly collapse
• Opacity of sub groups has been reduced
• Sorting of drones and drone groups has been changed... now first all the groupless drones are listed in alphabetical order, and then all the groups (instead of alphabetical order where groupless drones would land between groups).

edit.. sry wrong button, will edit for feedback... -.-

Makes sense to me Can't promise anything though.
Just a question... would dragging a drone to a guy in the WL to assign it to them be of any value? (not saying I'll do it, just wondering.

How about right click person in watchlist -> Assign drones? I have wanted to have this so many times =) When you start having 80+ people in a fleet and finding that one guy with a name that starts with R it gets pretty annoying.

Also: Being able to have different drones in a group. So like 2x Ogre II's, 2x Hammerhead II's and 1x Hobgoblin II. Right now it is a pain to launch for the bandwidth of certain ships for optimal usage.

Isn't this already possible? I have mixed drone groups that I fly out of my "odd" bandwidth ships.

It's possible on Sisi now \o/ Haven't tested much drone stuff so good to see it added. Not currently available on TQ.