Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The current "show other player's networks" is total useless. No one cares where the buildings are.
Showing the extractor processing buildings does NOT tell which resource is being mined and where the heads are.
Besides the buildings are tiny and finding their command center can be hard. Pffft! it can be on opposite side of planet from rest of network!!!

Deconfliction is best served by showing all extractor head positions matching the current selected resource -- in either scan planet mode or the extractor head setting window. Plotting heads will immediately show if someone is already extracting from that nice juicy deposit. And while there may be heads in the same physical area that are extracting non-selected minerals -- we don't immediately care about that.

Show the physical extractor circle as the extractor head owner sees when they set it up. But no need to show links back to the extractor processing center that controls the head. No need to show buildings! Sending the client a list of heads which are set to extract that resource with relevant center position & radius should be a rather mild task for any given planet. However, an excess data (planet overloaded) condition could be set to abort this PI function should the list become too burdensome (e.g. list reaches 200 heads prior to completion). Standard EVE client-server caching of recent requests and dirty cache updating should make this a trivial server load compared to user experience improvement.



If you want to got a few steps further toward excellence (maybe linked to skill level?) include...



(1) graphical distinction between active extraction and heads gone idle. (Fairly essential)

The ultimate would be some indication of how long idle (time stamp?). Is that player just busy and late to reset PI by a few hours or days? Or have they abandon PI or possibly stopped playing EVE and their PI heads have been idle for weeks, months, or years?
(P.S. you might consider a decay function similar to anchored cans once a PI network is idle for a year.)



(2) label or click to link to whom each head belongs (far less essential but allows normal diplomacy)




(3) Some sort of color coding to better show when multiple heads have layered overlap (least useful I hope)

Maybe top layer having distinct color and click and then some way to see and access lower layers.

Might possibly occur when multiple players have let PI go idle and new players layered on top then old players start
re-activating. If corp, alliance and outsiders with various standings have different priorities then this could be diplomatically useful. Showing more than 3-4 layers distinctly is not necessary as things cannot be quickly sorted out and diplomatically resolved & it should be obvious to anyone that there is no profit to further layering of extraction heads.

Though any PI user might want to try their hand at PI diplomacy - this last item might better be linked to customs office owners and an ability to kick/tax/wardec PI users...if keeping the UI simple for standard Joes and Jills is a concern.

Does "show other player's networks" even work - I don't really do pi but I had a quick scan through a few planets in a busy area once with it enabled and couldn't see anything (had a good look wasn't just I couldn't find a small pin on the surface).