Player Features and Ideas Discussion

For the impatient: jump to the bold part

Players have voiced their dissatisfaction with the current drone interface for a long time. The main problem is that drones can't be used like modules. To launch a certain flight of drones, you have to meddle with the right-click menu in the drone window leading to misclicks, lost time and infuriation . Those lost seconds decide over victory and defeat especially in frigate pvp
(Now don't give me that 'learn to fly' bs - everyone misclicks once in a while)

If i recall correctly, CCP have announced their discontent with the way drones work in general (and thus may reconsider the existing drone mechanics). However a whole revision of the current drone mechanics and interface would take quite a bit of work and a long time, so i am trying to offer a very small (code-wise) addition to the UI, that would improve it greatly.

Here is my proposition:

- Grouped drones can be used just as modules, by grabbing the folder/rider in the drone window and dragging it to a free module slot of the combat UI. The slot now depicts the biggest drone of the flight (for example you'd have a slot with a nice little picture of a Hammerhead T2 beside your turret and AB slots) and (just like it works with other modules) gives information about the stats of the flight like dps, damagetype etc

note: the algorithm for calculating and reporting the drone dps of mixed flights is already there - it's used in the fitting screen

- left-clicking on this 'drone module slot' would launch the flight. Once they are in space, another left-click will order this flight (and only this flight) to attack the selected target

- since you can't overheat drones, one could use shift-click (or whatever hotkey you use for overheating) to recall the corresponding flight to dronebay

These additions would make it way easier and faster to handle multiple flights of drones especially on ships with odd bandwidths that rely on mixed flights.
We have a lot of unused module slots - why not utilize them?
Even if you don't assign hotkeys to these 'drone module slots' (like F1 for the first high power slot) the proposed method will still be a lot faster and less prone to user mistakes than using the right-click menu.

Also there would be no need for altering the existing drone UI. It is simply an addition to it and thus could be implemented comparatively quick.

Edit to answer some of the question raised below:

The current drone UI would still be in place and used for managing groups and monitoring drone health

Those 'drone modules' wouldn't cycle like grouped turrets (combined drone cycle times make no sense, since it is dependent on eachs drone location) . It's simply a different way to access some group-specific commands that only are available in the right-click menu atm.



a bit offtopic:
Using several (grouped) flights of drones requires those groups to be 'closed' in the drone window (otherwise we would need the whole screen to manage them.
When launching a flight of drones those groups are then still closed and don't depict the health bars of the drones in space.
If you 'open' the droneflight in space and then scoop them, the group remains open, leading to either a lot of micromanagement or a very confusing drone window.

Drone groups in the bay should be closed, while those in space should be open by default.



Now it's time for flame. I insist on every squid fanboy voicing their wish for us gallenteans not to have a convenient UI

Cool, needs improvement.
1st of all drone bay is one big mess that needs users discipline to keep in order using labels.
I'd add auto drone grouping:
By Tech Lvl, Size, Damage type, of which you choose at least 2

What it'd look like Tech\Size\Dmg:
T1
|->Light
|--->Kin
|--->Therm
|->Medium
|->Heavy
|->Sentry

Or Size\Dmg\Tech LVL:
|->Light
|--->Kin
|----->T1
|----->T2
|--->Therm
|->Medium
|->Heavy
|->Sentry

When launching drones size counts the most, as they fight best different size enemies.
Probably then, this should be default setting.
With drones maintained in order this way, you could drag one of groups or sub groups to UI and use like modules.
Counter used for ammo on turrets would be used to see how many left in bay, tool tip how many in space.
Custom groups would be sweet but kind of unnecessary with this kind of organization

Maybe so but you have one folder per kind of drones, right?
And how many is there:
2x3x4=24combat
2x4 =8 Sentry
6 ECM\Web
2x6 maintenance
1 salvage
Up to total of: 51 kinds, not counting fighters,fighter bombers
Drones drop like flies in PVE these days so every time you lose one, you also have to move it to proper group.
Maybe drag it? Nope, only context menu.
I use drones extensively and it would make my day, as it would for any carrier pilot.

Also drone window could be split in tabs so u can see their hp, and forget using it for launching

Impressive idea Sun, the only issue I'd see with implementation is if the "module slot" actually require the item to be a module in code. If that is the case, this simple change blows up into some sort of new monster for the coders.

sry but i don't see an improvement in this
it takes 20 seconds to set the groups up just how you need them
auto drone grouping would come with annoying barriers when trying to set up mixed flights

the current system is actually the fastest possible - if we get rid of the right-click menu

i already voiced my wish for a customizable radial menu, but thats a bit off-topic here (and would need a bit more work)

hurray for drone module buttons ^_^

Nice idea!

I have a small proposal to improve it and keep it more in line with other weapon systems, though.
Your proposal for "1st click = launch; 2nd click = attack; Shift-click = recall" is a little unintuitive. I think it would be better if you tie the clicks to target selection, i.e.: If you have no target selected, one click will launch the drones, if you then select a target and click again your drones will engage. So far almost the same as your proposition. However if you already have a target selected while you have not yet launched your drones, the frist click will launch the drones AND imidiatly send them to attack.
Regarding the recalling of drones, I think if you have no target selected and the drones are idle, or if you have a target selected and the drones are actively fighting that target, the click should recall the drones to bay and if your drones are fighting or idle, and you select a new target, the click would send them on the new target. Having your own ship in focus and clicking the button while the drones are idle or attacking would recall the drones to orbit (since that is seldom used, the extra step of having your ship selected is a minor burden).

In that way you would have the most often used commands for drones (launch, attack, recall) built into an intuitive system, as "click with no target and drones in bay = launch, click with target and drones in bay = launch and attack that target, click with no target and drones launched = recall to bay, click with target and drones launched = attack that target, click with yourself as target and drones launched = recall and orbit"

As a pilot who flys gallente often. this is a great idea. Im tired of being in a vexor and having my dps flying around all over the place because the drone attack button doesnt work when clicked on certain windows.

The problem I have with the module analogy is that modules are generally pretty simple, but there are a range of commands you can send to drones. If you "de-activate" the "module," do they just stop attacking? or return and orbit? or return to drone bay? or only the injured return to drone bay? You could make an argument for each.

I suppose you could have a module with a radial menu in the style of the scanner: flights of drones could be loaded like ammo; the module could be activated to launch the loaded flight and deactivated to recall them to the drone bay. Every other command could be issued from a click-and-hold to bring up the radial menu. This would work for salvaging drones as well, because all you have to do is launch and forget with those.

As with every other addition of a radial menu, the right-click options would remain in place.

As a Gallente Pilot I support this product and/or feature.