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Launch Drone Hotkey

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Lord Haur
Star Frontiers
Brotherhood of Spacers
#41 - 2013-04-21 21:50:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Lord Haur
Aura of Ice wrote:
Lord Haur wrote:
Aura of Ice wrote:


I did consider the scope of this... it's exactly why I am so irked...

Return to Drone Bay has a hotkey.

You claim all of these external logistical considerations must be, well, considered for "Launch Drones" hotkey, such as "types of drones and which ship they belong to" (paraphrasing you heavily) but you must admit that to the Programming Layman, it would seem logical that if you can program "Return to Drone Bay" then you should be able to program "Launch Drones"...

No? Is that so unreasonble?


The return to bay hotkey operates under the same principle as return and orbit/engage target: the context required is defined as all currently controlled drones in space.



How about CCP makes their own, permanent subgroups labeled 1-10 (rename-able of course to your liking) that each have a corresponding hotkey, much like f1-f10 or ctrl+1-10 or num1-10?

I mean, the subgroups are already there. Hotkeys, from what I gather through the grapevine, are themselves inherently not difficult to program. So program those 1-10 subgroup to be hotkeyable, and make them permanent.

I just thought of this. Is there something wrong with my solution?

I have 20 groups of drones in my carrier.

Of course, the better solution would be to make the hotkey require a mouse click, much like ctrl+click to lock target. Whether that's possible or not, I don't know.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#42 - 2013-04-21 21:50:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Aura of Ice wrote:
How about CCP makes their own, permanent subgroups labeled 1-10 (rename-able of course to your liking) that each have a corresponding hotkey, much like f1-f10 or ctrl+1-10 or num1-10?
Too limiting and just a time-wasting stop-gap measure. If they're going to do it, they should do it right so the problem doesn't reappear four hours after patch release. Arbitrary and static limitations like that aren't even fit for EVE's '90s-style programming — it's something that went out of style in the 1970s. Lol

Want to guess how many different viable drone flights can be stuffed into a 100,000m³ drone bay? Blink
Setaceous
Nexus Prima
#43 - 2013-04-21 21:56:04 UTC
Bloody hell Tippia, it's almost like you've never used drone groups before. Not even my ships that only carry 5 drones use the default group anymore. My Gila has 7 groups. As I understand it, you seem to be saying that a context sensitive Launch button would be impossible to create because some people might not organise their drones?
Aura of Ice
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#44 - 2013-04-21 21:59:22 UTC
Lord Haur wrote:
Aura of Ice wrote:
Lord Haur wrote:
Aura of Ice wrote:


I did consider the scope of this... it's exactly why I am so irked...

Return to Drone Bay has a hotkey.

You claim all of these external logistical considerations must be, well, considered for "Launch Drones" hotkey, such as "types of drones and which ship they belong to" (paraphrasing you heavily) but you must admit that to the Programming Layman, it would seem logical that if you can program "Return to Drone Bay" then you should be able to program "Launch Drones"...

No? Is that so unreasonble?


The return to bay hotkey operates under the same principle as return and orbit/engage target: the context required is defined as all currently controlled drones in space.



How about CCP makes their own, permanent subgroups labeled 1-10 (rename-able of course to your liking) that each have a corresponding hotkey, much like f1-f10 or ctrl+1-10 or num1-10?

I mean, the subgroups are already there. Hotkeys, from what I gather through the grapevine, are themselves inherently not difficult to program. So program those 1-10 subgroup to be hotkeyable, and make them permanent.

I just thought of this. Is there something wrong with my solution?

I have 20 groups of drones in my carrier.

Of course, the better solution would be to make the hotkey require a mouse click, much like ctrl+click to lock target. Whether that's possible or not, I don't know.


Well, ok, but subcap ships don't often have that many drone groups. Out of all the ships in EvE, what proportion can actually hold more than 10 feasible groups of drones? Now, this is again speculation on my part, but I'd venture to guess a pretty small proportion...

Not to say we shouldn't care about you guys with 20 drone groups, but so many people could benefit from what seems like a minor programming change at best...
GreenSeed
#45 - 2013-04-21 22:01:32 UTC
small list of things eve is missing and could be fixed with a small patch:

- unlock all targets hotkey
- hotkey to launch drone group A, B, C, etc.
- merge of salvage and loot on the same operation.
- auto off on tractor beams once they tractor something uncer 2.5km
- "warp to drones"
- indicator, on guns or on the HUD, of the relation between the angular speed of the target and the tracking speed of the current guns aiming at it.
- dance pole on the CQ.
ISD Ezwal
ISD Community Communications Liaisons
ISD Alliance
#46 - 2013-04-21 22:02:20 UTC
Topic moved to feature & Ideas Discussion.

ISD Ezwal Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs)
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#47 - 2013-04-21 22:02:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Setaceous wrote:
Bloody hell Tippia, it's almost like you've never used drone groups before. Not even my ships that only carry 5 drones use the default group anymore. My Gila has 7 groups. As I understand it, you seem to be saying that a context sensitive Launch button would be impossible to create because some people might not organise their drones?

I have 16 groups, and that's just to cover the various combos I take out in the Ishtar (plus a few more for other ships). So no, I've used them… and that's just it: each of them would be a separate launch button, and each of them has to be assigned to that one ship.

I'm not saying that they're impossible to create. I'm simply saying that it's not as trivial as the OP suggests, since we have that context sensitivity and need to incorporate it into both ship fittings and the HUD somehow — problems that don't exist for the in-space drone commands or for other weapon types.

Aura of Ice wrote:
Well, ok, but subcap ships don't often have that many drone groups. Out of all the ships in EvE, what proportion can actually hold more than 10 feasible groups of drones? Now, this is again speculation on my part, but I'd venture to guess a pretty small proportion...
Sure they do. As soon as you start getting into drone clouds, the groups start to swell…

The 16 20 I have in total (unless I've forgotten some) are:
· One each for Light, Medium, Heavy drones for the three relevant damage types, labelled appropriately.
· One each for each type of sentry drone, labelled by range bracket.
· A shield and an armour rep group.
· An Ewar group.
· And one generic group each for L/M/H/Sentry drones, for ships that don't need to care about damage types. Forgot about that one.
Lord Haur
Star Frontiers
Brotherhood of Spacers
#48 - 2013-04-21 22:06:41 UTC
Setaceous wrote:
Bloody hell Tippia, it's almost like you've never used drone groups before. Not even my ships that only carry 5 drones use the default group anymore. My Gila has 7 groups. As I understand it, you seem to be saying that a context sensitive Launch button would be impossible to create because some people might not organise their drones?

Here's a list of the drone groups in my Archon:
T1 Bouncers
T2 Bouncers
T1 Curators
T2 Curators
T1 Gardes
T2 Gardes
T1 Wardens
T2 Wardens
T1 Warriors
T2 Warriors
T1 Valkyries
T2 Valkyries
T1 Berserkers
T2 Berserkers
EC-300s
EC-600s
EC-900s
EV-900s
Fighters
Armor Logistics drones
Shield Logistics drones
Salvage drones Cool

Tippia's point is that if you're going to implement different launch group hotkeys for groups, why should there be an arbritrary limit on the number of groups with an assigned hotkey?
Aura of Ice
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#49 - 2013-04-21 22:10:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Aura of Ice
Tippia wrote:
Setaceous wrote:
Bloody hell Tippia, it's almost like you've never used drone groups before. Not even my ships that only carry 5 drones use the default group anymore. My Gila has 7 groups. As I understand it, you seem to be saying that a context sensitive Launch button would be impossible to create because some people might not organise their drones?

I have 16 groups, and that's just to cover the various combos I take out in the Ishtar. So no, I've used them… and that's just it: each of them would be a separate launch button, and each of them has to be assigned to that one ship.

I'm not saying that they're impossible to create. I'm simply saying that it's not as trivial as the OP suggests, since we have that context sensitivity and need to incorporate it into both ship fittings and the HUD somehow — problems that don't exist for the in-space drone commands or for other weapon types.


Maybe I can clarify a bit more my idea... for one ship, you have a drone window with the "Drones in Bay" group that you customize to your liking atm...

Subgroups you can create. Sure, great.

You don't have to change this, just make a permanent 1-20 subgroups (all invisible until in use) and then have them be renameble (which seems to be already in game) and then have them hotkeyable.

Should the pilot choose to use all 20, sure go for it. Should he/she choose to use 5 or less, great! Should he/she choose to say, dangit I have 45 groups of drones, well then jeez you already win EvE so stop complaining! :P

This doesn't require any change to any other menus, I don't really see any other considerations necessary here.

I guess this really does belong in the "Suggestions" forum now... As I am now formally suggesting permanent subgroups 1-20 under "Drones in Bay" That are invisible until in use that are rename-able that can be hotkeyed. No other changes needed... I think...

EDIT: I should clarify that you wouldn't be limited to 20 drone groups, you can make more, only the first 20 are hotkeyable...
Setaceous
Nexus Prima
#50 - 2013-04-21 22:13:17 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Setaceous wrote:
Bloody hell Tippia, it's almost like you've never used drone groups before. Not even my ships that only carry 5 drones use the default group anymore. My Gila has 7 groups. As I understand it, you seem to be saying that a context sensitive Launch button would be impossible to create because some people might not organise their drones?

I have 16 groups, and that's just to cover the various combos I take out in the Ishtar. So no, I've used them… and that's just it: each of them would be a separate launch button, and each of them has to be assigned to that one ship.

I'm not saying that they're impossible to create. I'm simply saying that it's not as trivial as the OP suggests, since we have that context sensitivity and need to incorporate it into both ship fittings and the HUD somehow — problems that don't exist for the in-space drone commands or for other weapon types.

The way I envision it is, that if you select a group or individual drone, both the launch button and the hotkey become available for that group or individual drone only. It's still a two step process, but it would make getting whole groups (or groups of mixed drones from each group) out of the bay a lot faster than the current process.

And, if that launch bar (from the image linked earlier) was available....I'd like to think all drone users would be extremely happy Big smile
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#51 - 2013-04-21 22:17:34 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Aura of Ice wrote:
You don't have to change this, just make a permanent 1-20 subgroups (all invisible until in use) and then have them be renameble (which seems to be already in game) and then have them hotkeyable.
Oook. Now you've made a completely different, very difficult problem: having each ship remember what its drone groups are named, and having each drone remember which group they belong to for which ship. I wouldn't be surprised if this was even more complicated than assignable groups.

…and it's still a very silly and horrible and restricting arbitrary limitation that shouldn't be there.

Quote:
I should clarify that you wouldn't be limited to 20 drone groups, you can make more, only the first 20 are hotkeyable...
…at which point you've fallen afoul of the whole “problem will reappear 4 hours after patch release” issue. If you're going to solve a problem, do it properly or don't do it at all. Stopgaps have this nasty tendency of just making things worse.

There are 24 hotkey slots on my HUD. That's at least 6 (arguably 12) too few already, and if I can hotkey drone commands, I should be able to assign them all to different groups. Carrier pilots will want it anyway, and arbitrarily letting them assign more than subcap ships is even more horrible a design than the current one.

Lord Haur wrote:
Tippia's point is that if you're going to implement different launch group hotkeys for groups, why should there be an arbritrary limit on the number of groups with an assigned hotkey?
…also, this.
Madbuster73
State War Academy
Caldari State
#52 - 2013-04-21 22:20:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Madbuster73
Do any of you guys actually know what you are talking about???

There already IS a BUTTON for launching drones, you are just not able to link it to a hotkey
And its NOT the leftclicking menu I am talking about.

When you select a group of drones a button called "Launch Drones" will light up in your "selected item" window.
That button is for LAUNCHING drones....

The only thing CCP has to do is make a HOTKEY for it.

So then when you SELECT your drones you can press the hotkey and your drones will launch.
If you dont have drones selected it will simply not launch anything.

ITS EASY!!!!!
Aura of Ice
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#53 - 2013-04-21 22:21:18 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Aura of Ice wrote:
You don't have to change this, just make a permanent 1-20 subgroups (all invisible until in use) and then have them be renameble (which seems to be already in game) and then have them hotkeyable.
Oook. Now you've made a completely different, very difficult problem: having each ship remember what its drone groups are named, and having each drone remember which group they belong to for which ship. I wouldn't be surprised if this was even more complicated than assignable groups.

…and it's still a very silly and horrible and restricting arbitrary limitation that shouldn't be there.

Quote:
I should clarify that you wouldn't be limited to 20 drone groups, you can make more, only the first 20 are hotkeyable...
…at which point you've fallen afoul of the whole “problem will reappear 4 hours after patch release” issue. If you're going to solve a problem; do it properly or don't do it at all.

There are 24 hotkey slots on my HUD. That's at least 6 (arguably 12) too few already, and if I can hotkey drone commands, I should be able to assign them all to different groups. Carrier pilots will want it anyway, and arbitrarily letting them assign more than subcap ships is even more horrible a design than the current one.

Lord Haur wrote:
Tippia's point is that if you're going to implement different launch group hotkeys for groups, why should there be an arbritrary limit on the number of groups with an assigned hotkey?
…also, this.



Well, I'm not even talking about hotkey "slots" to be taken up. You can have them simply be "hotkeyed" without slots, with some kind of representation in the existing drone menu.

Renaming drone groups is already in game, last I checked, and that doesn't seem to pose a problem right now in having those same groups be recalled, or dispensed for that matter. I'm still not sure as to your objection here.

If a drone group is launched from ship A, is it really that hard to make sure it returns to ship A, and not ship B?
Lord Haur
Star Frontiers
Brotherhood of Spacers
#54 - 2013-04-21 22:21:29 UTC
Hate to repeat myself, but multiple hotkeyable groups really isn't the optimum solution. Instead, make the hotkey require clicking the desired group, much like the "lock target" and "warp to" hotkeys require holding and clicking the hotkey target.
Aura of Ice
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#55 - 2013-04-21 22:23:40 UTC
Lord Haur wrote:
Hate to repeat myself, but multiple hotkeyable groups really isn't the optimum solution. Instead, make the hotkey require clicking the desired group, much like the "lock target" and "warp to" hotkeys require holding and clicking the hotkey target.



I see how this could alleviate the need for a large number of hotkeys...

Why not...BOTH! Twisted

I must sound like a greedy little piggy now but please CCP... I will be ur best friend if you do this for me and all of my fellow drone users! (I mean, like... SOON! Before I die!)
Madbuster73
State War Academy
Caldari State
#56 - 2013-04-21 22:23:53 UTC
Do any of you guys actually know what you are talking about???

There already IS a BUTTON for launching drones, you are just not able to link it to a hotkey
And its NOT the leftclicking menu I am talking about.

When you select a group of drones a button called "Launch Drones" will light up in your "selected item" window.
That button is for LAUNCHING drones....

The only thing CCP has to do is make a HOTKEY for it.

So then when you SELECT your drones you can press the hotkey and your drones will launch.
If you dont have drones selected it will simply not launch anything.

ITS EASY!!!!!
Litair
Nleesh
#57 - 2013-04-21 22:35:47 UTC  |  Edited by: Litair
Madbuster73 wrote:
Do any of you guys actually know what you are talking about???

There already IS a BUTTON for launching drones, you are just not able to link it to a hotkey
And its NOT the leftclicking menu I am talking about.

When you select a group of drones a button called "Launch Drones" will light up in your "selected item" window.
That button is for LAUNCHING drones....

The only thing CCP has to do is make a HOTKEY for it.

So then when you SELECT your drones you can press the hotkey and your drones will launch.
If you dont have drones selected it will simply not launch anything.

ITS EASY!!!!!


The thread is called "Launch Drone Hotkey", so it's fairly relevant that there isn't a hotkey in particular.. I would think. :o

But on second thought that might be what you're saying as well.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#58 - 2013-04-21 22:41:46 UTC
Aura of Ice wrote:
Well, I'm not even talking about hotkey "slots" to be taken up. You can have them simply be "hotkeyed" without slots, with some kind of representation in the existing drone menu.
You're talking about having 20 groups — those are the limiting factor.

Quote:
Renaming drone groups is already in game, last I checked, and that doesn't seem to pose a problem right now in having those same groups be recalled, or dispensed for that matter. I'm still not sure as to your objection here.
The objection is that you've just completely redesigned drone groups. I'm going to have to be snide here and go back go the whole “learn the subject before suggesting stuff” for a while…

Right now, you create global drone groups. You then populate these groups by dropping drones into them (and launching the drones to make it final). This assigns a group to every individual drone. If you toss them into your hangar, leave them there and then put them back, that group flag will still tell them what group they belong to. In my hangar, I can have 40 Hobgoblins, each assigned to the Thermal Light group. As soon as I toss one of those into a ship, that ship will display the Thermal Light group in the drone window. It's a very simple yet dynamic system that deals well with replacements and lets you get away with creating just a few groups.

What you're suggesting is that, for every ship, there will be a separate list of drone group names. For every drone, there will be a list of every ship and which drone group it should go in for that particular ship. If not, you have a situation that, in my Myrm, I have Hobgoblins in group 1 (Thermal Mix), but when I move them over to my Ishtar, they will end up in group 1 (Long-range sentry), where they definitely don't belong… so they have to remember “group 1 for Myrm 1; group 5 for Ishtar 2… now where do I go in Myrm 2 and Ishtar 1?”

Madbuster73 wrote:
When you select a group of drones a button called "Launch Drones" will light up in your "selected item" window.
That button is for LAUNCHING drones....

The only thing CCP has to do is make a HOTKEY for it.

So then when you SELECT your drones you can press the hotkey and your drones will launch.
If you dont have drones selected it will simply not launch anything.

ITS EASY!!!!!
It's also ugly, lacks generalisation, and doesn't offer much in the way of improvement. You're saving a single mouse click, and you still have to fiddle around with the mouse in the drone window to have it work. …oh, and you steal focus from windows that should probably retain focus. While borrowing from the overview interaction is a neat idea, the reason it works there is because the overview can be navigated without a mouse, and because the same shortcuts transfer intuitively between mouse-manipulated overview, keyboard-manipulated overview, and mouse-manipulated in-space brackets.

For done hotkeys, I want to not have to touch the mouse at all. I want something along the quick “F8 (select “LR Sentry” group, fan out commands), 1 (select command 1 — Launch and attack locked atget)” key combo.
Aura of Ice
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#59 - 2013-04-21 22:57:32 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Aura of Ice wrote:
Well, I'm not even talking about hotkey "slots" to be taken up. You can have them simply be "hotkeyed" without slots, with some kind of representation in the existing drone menu.
You're talking about having 20 groups — those are the limiting factor.

Quote:
Renaming drone groups is already in game, last I checked, and that doesn't seem to pose a problem right now in having those same groups be recalled, or dispensed for that matter. I'm still not sure as to your objection here.
The objection is that you've just completely redesigned drone groups. I'm going to have to be snide here and go back go the whole “learn the subject before suggesting stuff” for a while…

Right now, you create global drone groups. You then populate these groups by dropping drones into them (and launching the drones to make it final). This assigns a group to every individual drone. If you toss them into your hangar, leave them there and then put them back, that group flag will still tell them what group they belong to. In my hangar, I can have 40 Hobgoblins, each assigned to the Thermal Light group. As soon as I toss one of those into a ship, that ship will display the Thermal Light group in the drone window. It's a very simple yet dynamic system that deals well with replacements and lets you get away with creating just a few groups.

What you're suggesting is that, for every ship, there will be a separate list of drone group names. For every drone, there will be a list of every ship and which drone group it should go in for that particular ship. If not, you have a situation that, in my Myrm, I have Hobgoblins in group 1 (Thermal Mix), but when I move them over to my Ishtar, they will end up in group 1 (Long-range sentry), where they definitely don't belong… so they have to remember “group 1 for Myrm 1; group 5 for Ishtar 2… now where do I go in Myrm 2 and Ishtar 1?”

Madbuster73 wrote:
When you select a group of drones a button called "Launch Drones" will light up in your "selected item" window.
That button is for LAUNCHING drones....

The only thing CCP has to do is make a HOTKEY for it.

So then when you SELECT your drones you can press the hotkey and your drones will launch.
If you dont have drones selected it will simply not launch anything.

ITS EASY!!!!!
It's also ugly, lacks generalisation, and doesn't offer much in the way of improvement. You're saving a single mouse click, and you still have to fiddle around with the mouse in the drone window to have it work. …oh, and you steal focus from windows that should probably retain focus. While borrowing from the overview interaction is a neat idea, the reason it works there is because the overview can be navigated without a mouse, and because the same shortcuts transfer intuitively between mouse-manipulated overview, keyboard-manipulated overview, and mouse-manipulated in-space brackets.

For done hotkeys, I want to not have to touch the mouse at all. I want something along the quick “F8 (select “LR Sentry” group, fan out commands), 1 (select command 1 — Launch and attack locked atget)” key combo.


I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill, here...

If you set group 1 to your Hobs Thermal Mix, then your hotkey for group 1 will launch group 1.

If your group 1 in any other boat happens to be something else, you press the hotkey for group 1, yes, you guessed right, launch group 1!

As of now, hotkeys aren't even available at all... Even if your scenario is true, who cares? At least the people who want to use hotkeys will be able to use hotkeys, and you can go about launching drones and assigning drone groups as you do.

You make it sound like it's rocket science to come up with a reasonably elegant solution to this all...

Let me reiterate: No need to change ANYTHING else, just make hotkey 1 launch whatever your group 1 is. Great! Hotkey 2 launches group 2... Great! You can name Group 1 or Group 2 ANYTHING you want.... Great!

Simple! You switch to another boat with totally different groups, guess what... You press hotkey 1, launches group 1 still.. Amazing!

Let's adopt a "can do" attitude instead of a "impossibru!" attitude, please!
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