Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I posted this mockup in the latest thread about UI and drone changes, as a suggestion to what needs to be done. But I thought it was a bit too complicated so I tried doing another.
Drone UI mockup #2: http://i.imgur.com/ElFXFg0.jpg

Simple, uses existing mechanics and icons, and removes most of the need to right click on things. Make it so CCP!


additional thoughts...

It would be a nice bonus if the icons automatically update to whatever drones you have deployed, so you can see which F1-F5 key activates which drone, if you have a mixed group out. So the icons shown in the mockup would actually be empty drone launchers.

I suppose there isn't a whole lot of point to grouping the drones, since you can just hit F to make all deployed drones attack a target. But I don't know, maybe some people would prefer to click an icon. Also, grouping drones and pressing F1 makes them more consistent with guns. Consistency is always good. The current methods can be maintained for people who prefer that. You can simply deploy your drones and press F and not bother activating the module option at all, if all you want to do is send all drones to the same target.

The individual control via F1-F5 is what I am really wanting. Doing it through the right click menu of the drone menu is a good way to wear your wrist out.

EDIT: narrow drone menu variant: http://i.imgur.com/SgSkjnL.jpg

- Capital ship pilots only get 5 dronelauncher modules just like subcaps, but they can drag an entire group of drones onto a module so that they can control up to 25 drones, split into 5 groups, via F1-F5.

yeah looks very clean. the problem however remains how you assign a drone to those drone module buttons, a carrier can have 25 drones deployed i think... those would be a lot of buttons.

I prefer the one shown by CCP at Fanfest 2012.

cheap rip off of my idea that i posted in many drone topics. and about the no reason to group drones i highly disagree here i cant wait til that option comes in play, because if you fly a carrier you can launch way more drones and there is no sense to send 14 fighters to a single rat battleship

my list of sugestions

1. you must be able to see drone damage in bay
2. a carrier should be able to repair drones/fighters in bay i mean its a freaking carrier
3. you should be able to make groups and control them as turrets (example carrier with 12 fighters 4 fighters on F1 and 4 on F2 and 4 on F3) so you can control drones better
4. attack/mine/repair with same button, if i am mining i need to right click group and select mine same for repairing with logi drones
5. drone assist/guard must be possible from fleet window and or the watchlist
6. focus fire option is great but it still spreads
7. sentry drones should receive a bonus from *race* specialisation skill i dont care what but they should gain something also ofc they need the *race* specialisation to use them i would say lvl 3 or 4

edit: for point 3 en 4 i like to add (or clarify) that if you press F to engage all drones will always attack that target but if you use the groups you can remove a few and put them on another target. example

i attack an enemy carrier and press F so all my fighters attack that target if i select another target and press F1 the 4 fighters will engage the new target and the rest remains on current target. this way you can controll the fight way better specialy in carrier

Maybe he is referring to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME2815NN-Xc

Around the 1:30 mark there are some UI mockups involving drones. They are more of a total redesign and not very close to what we have now, like mine is. The functionality isn't totally clear to me. It looks like they were playing with the idea of having drones on F1 keys though. Thank goodness. Hopefully we will see it on TQ at some point.