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.

Moving the targets around has been changed. Before, you had to hold the mouse down on the target for a while, it would pop out and you could move it. Now you just drag it right away, you will get a "ghost" target and the target itself is not actually moved until you drop it. This is more in line with how drag/drop works everywhere else in the game.
I hope that solves your issue

Is there any possibility that the radial menu will work for the drone bay menu? That would be awesome.

I think the drag/drop may be just as good though, will have to try it.

First of all, I'm very confused, what is quoted is not what the post says but anyways.... perhaps

Edit: ok, maybe the post just hadn't update after being edited or some magic

Sorry, I did edit it to be more clear.


I will have to try the drag drop from drones in space to the drone bay.

My original question was whether the radial menu would work when clicking on a drone from the drone bay menu.

I find myself pulling one drone in to the drone bay which usually means right click menu hell. It would be quite lovely if we could use the radial menu for such things as returning a drone to the drone bay or to tell a specific drone to engage target.

Is that more clear?

karkur I love you and this is awesome to play with on SiSi.

Is it beyond the realm of possibility that one day this could be iterated to simply dragging the group out of the window and 'into space' as it were, instead of having to drop directly on the 'Drones in Local Space' tab?

Hi all,

If the clicking time is very short and the mouse does not move in that time(=radial menu is not used), the click will register as a click (for example to select a target when Radial Menu delay is 0... which is btw not recommended)

:3
And no... not at all... let me see what I can do
(but could you do me a favor and think hard about if that could be problematic )

I'm unsure if this is easy to do or not, but I get really frustrated when I get podded and try to use the radial menu to quickly warp to a celestial or customs office and the Warp-To location is different. Usually it's at the top of the circle but sometimes not. Can this be made more consistent?

Nice job.

Like mentioned above, will be very nice to connect the "assist drones" option to the Watch List.
MrTiddles - there is already a quick way to attack with drones, you can just key-bind it (it will send all active drones to attack your selected target).

am wondering if you guys could add another UI change reguarding drones.

During fleets we normally have the whatchlist visible at all times. When we deploy drones, in order to assist, we have the alphabetical options avaiable tru a list. If you remember right click on deployed drones "assist" option.

Could it be possible to implement the following: When selecting "assist" before the alphabetical list put the names of the dudes on the wl that so the assign can be quicker?

This simple change would be cool.

am wondering if you guys could add another UI change reguarding drones.

During fleets we normally have the whatchlist visible at all times. When we deploy drones, in order to assist, we have the alphabetical options avaiable tru a list. If you remember right click on deployed drones "assist" option.

Could it be possible to implement the following: When selecting "assist" before the alphabetical list put the names of the dudes on the wl that so the assign can be quicker?

This simple change would be cool.

What? Warp To to should always be in the same spot(10.30... never at 12 o'clock)... the point is exactly to have it consistent .... could you explain better what you mean?

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.

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.

All those drone UI changes are nice, but what about a keybinding to launch drones? That's what's really needed.

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.

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.

Hi all,

Drone changes:[list]

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

]

Great changes, really looking forward to this.

Don't know if it's been said already or not, but it would also be wonderful if you could add Jump Bridges and Titan/BLOPS bridging to the overview buttons and radial menu.

Drone changes: [...]

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?").

[...a lot of stuff....]

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.

Is there any chance that drone groups could someday be assigned to module hotkeys?

By that I mean:

• Drone group would show up in the active modules display next to the HUD
• The hotkey to activate would launch that group
• Activating them again would cause them to attack the currently selected targeted
• The hotkey that would overheat a conventional module would cause the drones to return and orbit
• "Overheating" the drones again would cause them to return to the bay.

Or is the current system, on some level, working as intended? I always figured that, because drones can engage targets semi-autonomously, that the reason there is no hotkey to launch them was that it makes it harder for bots to use them.

I think we all agree that the drone UI needs to be redone.

I don't think those small tweaks will change anything about that, but they will hopefully make the drone UI just a little bit more usable until then.

When you say "change anything about that", do you mean about the fact that we all agree it needs to be changed, or do you mean there are actually some plans / commitment on CCP's part to re-do the whole drone UI at some point?

Basically what I'm asking is:

Do you have a "proper" drone UI / drone command structure up your sleeve (designed and waiting to be implemented, perhaps on the next major expansion) ? Or is that still at the stage were "we agree it needs to be changed, but we don't really know how or when (or if) we're actually going to change it" ?

Pretty much still at the "we agree it needs to be changed, but we don't really know how or when (or if) we're actually going to change it" stage although I know our UI designers have been experimenting a bit with it.

And color coding... I haven't really thought about it, but I think it would be more for our designers to decide on anyways

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.

Hi all,

In Odyssey 1.1. my team, Team Pony Express, will be adding the Radial Menu here and there, and also making a few other changes to it. We have also been working on some other small UI changes:

Radial Menu added to:

• Members in Fleet Watchlist
• Fleet members (oops, I forgot to add it to the flat list, will fix )
• On squares in route
• On system name in "next in route" (radial menu for the stargate there, allows you to jump to the system)
• Bookmarks in People & Places (or window popped out from one of the bookmark folders)
• Bookmarks in system map

Changes we are making for the Radial Menu:

• Added a small icon on Radial Menu options that are range options so it's clearer they are different
• Added indicators to show what item the radial menu is open on (for brackets it's a whitish cirlce, entries in list it's a highlight)
• Set Destination is now primary action for Asteroids, Stations, Solarsystems, Moons, Planets, Stargates when they are not in current system (accessible through bookmarks in People & Places)
• Removed "Bookmark" from Drones
• Fixed duplicate options on Drones
• Warping to fleet members now works
• If the clicking time is very short and the mouse does not move in that time(=radial menu is not used), the click will register as a click (for example to select a target when Radial Menu delay is 0... which is btw not recommended)
• (maybe some other thins i'm forgetting now )

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).

Other Changes:

• Now possible to drag skills from Info windows to skillqueue or any input field such as chat to create a link
• Now possible to drag skills from charactersheet to input fields to create a link
• Camera movement when jumping has been smoothed out a lot
• Attributes and their values in Info windows are now listed in one line, making the values easier to read

We are still working on some things... and when the time is right I will probably update this thread, but until then I should probably not say too much.

Please give those things a try and let us know what you think

Pretty much still at the "we agree it needs to be changed, but we don't really know how or when (or if) we're actually going to change it" stage although I know our UI designers have been experimenting a bit with it.

By "change anything about that" I meant that no one is going to go "No, OMG, we can't redo the drone UI now, karkur just spent X time on adding drag/drop!!"

And color coding... I haven't really thought about it, but I think it would be more for our designers to decide on anyways

If the clicking time is very short and the mouse does not move in that time(=radial menu is not used), the click will register as a click (for example to select a target when Radial Menu delay is 0... which is btw not recommended)

Yay finally :) But why is setting the delay to zero (still) not recommended?

When you select a wormhole or jumpbridge, the action buttons do not relate to any of the possible options. You have to right-click and select GÇ£enter wormholeGÇ¥ or GÇ£jump though to xxxGÇ¥. It would be much easier if the action buttons switched to these options at this time.

Please can you make it so :)

Don't know about jump bridges, but I have jumped through hundreds of wormholes using the radial menu on them in the overview, so that is not correct. Also warped to them or aligned, when on grid but in warp range.

Of course it works only on grid though, as wormholes are not visible when not on grid.

Apologies, I didnGÇÖt make it clear in my original post.

I was not talking about the radial menu as I never use it, I was referring to the row of action buttons above the overview pane.

What? Warp To to should always be in the same spot(10.30... never at 12 o'clock)... the point is exactly to have it consistent .... could you explain better what you mean?

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.

Slightly off-topic, but while you're playing with menus and whatnot, would it be possible to add an alphabetic sort to the folders in the "add/edit bookmark" dialog?

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.

Fantastic Idea!


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

I didn't change any rules.. when testing I frequently get the "you can't have drones of different types" type of message (for example when trying to mix salvage drones with combat drones).
Could you give me specific examples (drone names) of what works on Sisi now that doesn't work on TQ?
(and if something has changed, we might just decide to keep it that way, we'll see)

Kosetzu probably doesnt know how to create groups in his drone bay. I didnt, until 6 months ago, when i was whining about the same and a friend told me how to.

Nausia & 3D sickness induced by Stargate transition animation remains an issue. Option to turn off gate animation or forced Camera swing would resolve as per "Camera Shake" option already in preferences. Use of F10 kludge fix eventually breaks client namely - map information, rendering on grid and the associated loading sequences of both.

Radial Menu added to:

• Members in Fleet Watchlist
• Fleet members (oops, I forgot to add it to the flat list, will fix lies, it is there )
• On squares in route
• On system name in "next in route" (radial menu for the stargate there, allows you to jump to the system)
• Bookmarks in People & Places (or window popped out from one of the bookmark folders)
• Bookmarks in system map

When creating a bookmark, folders are now listed in alphabetical order