Noticed Casiella posted this up on his blog and curiosity got the better of me, so I tried as well. 106 words.
On an unrelated note, RL has kept me very busy the past several weeks, which is why I haven’t gotten around to posting anything substantial. I’ve also been testing out the APB beta with a few friends and that has sucked up much of the remaining time. I should hopefully be updating the blog properly later this week.
Silver Knight has started a contest to celebrate the opening of the new OOC forum, Backstage@Eve-Inspiracy. It launched several weeks ago and has attracted quite a bit of activity already. He is offering up one billion ISK in prizes (500m for the winner) for the best short description of a crew member. Read the full details and guidelines for the contest here. I’ll be helping to judge the entries, otherwise I would definitely be entering the contest myself.
On a personal note, posting has been a bit delayed as I’m dealing with finals right now. Finishing up tomorrow so hopefully I’ll have the first in character post up over the weekend. After that I’ll be aiming to establish a more consistent posting schedule.
I’ve seen a lot of guides and discussion about how to setup your overview for combat. What I haven’t seen much of is discussion about the UI as a whole, and especially not how to make a good, efficient, layout. While the EVE UI cannot be customized as much as the UI in other MMOs (WoW and WAR in particular), CCP does provide us with a number of options to tweak the look and functionality of the interface. Having a well configured interface can contribute to better performance in combat. This post will look at my own UI configuration and the reasoning behind the setup of the windows. It is unlikely that many will find my exact setup useful, either due to screen resolution or their own preferences and habits. I hope that outlining the thought process and reasoning behind my layout will help you improve upon your own setup.
I suppose actually showing the setup may be helpful (click the image for full-size):
To begin, the primary goal of setting up the UI in this way was to minimize the amount of mouse movement necessary between the more important UI elements. Some secondary objectives were to also minimize eye movement necessary during combat and to provide as much information as possible without excessive clutter. Keeping all of the UI elements essential to combat close together was the most important part of the setup. In my view the main elements that should take priority over all others are: Selected Items, Overview, Targets, the HUD circle, and Drones. These five elements will be in use no matter what kind combat (or mining, I suppose) you are participating in. Yes, drones are a slight exception, but having the window close to the rest will prove beneficial should you need to use them (more likely than not).
I find the position of Selected Items (SI for short) relative to the Overview and Targets to be critical. My placement of SI above the overview and near the targets means I don’t have to move my mouse far to select a new target (from either the overview or locked targets) and then use the approach, orbit, or lock buttons. Especially useful when dealing with invulnerability timers, as it’s easier to spam the SI lock button than to continuously Ctrl+click to lock. Targets placed vertically next to the overview makes it easy to cross-reference who you have locked vs. the targets on field. It also speeds up unlocking old targets and selecting new ones (great for drones).
A quick note on the overview. It is helpful to have it as tall as you can make it (within reason) and wide enough to include the columns you need to see. In my case I couldn’t expand the overview enough to include a corp ticker column, but the information isn’t as important so tweaking the UI further would have been a waste. For reference I have IC, Name, Distance, Velocity, Type, Angular velocity, and Alliance Ticker included on the overview. Angular fits easier than transversal when you are short on space. They provide the same type of information so choosing one or the other is a matter of preference.
Keeping the HUD circle and modules display right next to the locked targets is hugely beneficial. For the clickers out there it speeds up target switching. If you primarily use hotkeys it keeps your eyes close to your own ships health while you gleefully watch your enemies defenses fail them, wouldn’t want to find yourself in hull all of a sudden and not notice because you were too focused on the enemy now would you? The proximity of the drones window to the HUD was partly chosen because I had no other place to put it. Though it turned out to be a good spot. You can watch the status of your drones without distancing yourself too much from your ship and module status. It may be a bit further from locked targets than some may like, but in my case I run drones almost entirely through hotkeys (aside from deploy) so it’s less of an issue personally.
Now for the less prominently featured windows. First, the scanner: it is positioned as close to the overview as possible without blocking important parts of the screen or compromising it’s information value. The fleet window is stacked with the scanner. In most situations you will either need to see the fleet window (for broadcasts) or the scanner (scouting and smaller gang work) so you don’t lose much functionality by grouping them together. The watch list is placed as close to the targets and modules as it could be without looking ugly and out of place. Because the names on the watch list will start to blink red when taking fire, it is easier to monitor it passively (changes in color and movement attract the eye) even though it isn’t as close to the other windows. The local window is kept thin and has some room to be expanded vertically for those really busy systems. Nothing much to say about the main chat window, it’s in a unobtrusive spot that can be kept open so you can keep an eye on fleet chat and intel channels.
Just a few more closing comments on the overall setup. You may have noticed that none of the windows actually touch the edge of the screen. Keeping about 10-15px of space between the window and the border leaves room for you to see the brackets at the edge of the screen when panning the camera around. I have to thank Bacchanalian for pointing this out, an immensely helpful tip. When moving the targets around, it’s really useful to be able to lock more than six targets. The 7th target is displayed on a second column or row, sometimes these can show up under existing windows if you aren’t careful. Test this out before using a setup in combat, at least for the sake of future expansion (e.g. you start flying logistics). Just locking a bunch of things on a station or logging on to Sisi before committing to the changes would be a good idea.
As with any change of this sort there may be a short adjustment period as you familiarize yourself with the new setup and adapt your habits and muscle memory. Once you get past that the new (improved) UI setup should feel completely natural and hopefully more efficient.
Post up your own setups or thoughts on mine in the comments section.
Update: I’ve had several people ask me about how I got my UI setup this way. There are only two less obvious settings which you need to know to move it into these positions. Moving the HUD circle and moving or modifying the alignment of the target list. The HUD circle is pretty quick, just click the arrow below the circle and there will be an option to ‘Align Top’ (example here). For moving the targets around you may need to minimize the surrounding windows first to see the anchor. Just right click it and the option should be there. Everything else is a matter of moving windows around. It’s helpful to turn the snap distance of the windows to a minimum (under Esc > General Settings > Windows) of 3px to keep windows from gluing together unless you want them to.
I’ve spent quite a lot of time scouting throughout my EVE career. During my time flying with Star Fraction I wrote up a guide on fleet scouting which received many positive comments. Recently I gained some more experience with roaming null-sec gangs and null-sec scouting in general while flying with Rote Kapelle. Decided to have a look over it again and update it. The version I’m about to link is the result of those efforts. I wouldn’t say it’s an exhaustive guide, but it should address all the major elements of being a good scout.
The PDF version is over at EVE-files, download it here. Alternatively I posted a copy of it on the new OOC forum, EVE-Inspiracy.com which I encourage anyone interested in role playing or EVE related fiction to check out. Take the time to register and join the discussions, it’s a new community venture which should become a great resource for the RP community as a whole.
Check out the guide after the break. Comments and suggestions are appreciated.
Jumping on the blog question bandwagon seems like a good way to get started. Logan at Eve Opportunist and several others have already posted about this topic. It’s interesting to see all the different ship naming conventions in play. I won’t list all of mine, simply because there are too many and that’d get boring to list. 82 ships total though about 15 of them are unfit, and this isn’t including ships my alts use either. My naming schemes used to be a bit more consistent, but the last several batches of ships I acquired have had a bit more of a haphazard quality to their names.
Other ships I have: Ishkur 2x, Cyclone 4x, Harbringer, Tempest, Drake, Bellicose (I don’t know why), Exequror, Omen, Rupture x4, Thrasher x4, Incursus x12, Punisher x5, Ares, Crusader, Stiletto x2, Taranis x4, Sabre x2, Maelstrom, Sentinel, Coercer, Vigil 2x, Mammoth.
I have a few other ships I want to buy soon, making this list even longer (so long as they don’t all blow up). Daredevil, Scimitar and the Broadsword are at the top of the list right now.
