Player Features and Ideas Discussion

What got me started on this was my fellow Goon, Gommel Nox. Capsuleers are rallying to help him out here.

Over the last couple days, Gommel has been out fighting as a Reaver, of all groups to fight in, and he's been holding his own. I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw his name in a broadcast for shield reps. I had no idea he was out with us. Waiting for my basis to lock him felt like forever.

Another big part of those skirmishes was following fleet broadcasts from the FC. The more tricky ones were the align broadcasts. I'm sure you're familiar with fleet broadcast history, and how following them involves using the right-click menu.

Several ships were lost on both sides, due to not being aligned with the rest of the fleet. But this isn't about that.

My mind has turned to Gommel over the last day, and I think helping him is helping everyone. Specifically fleet gameplay, and the interface for it.

http://i.imgur.com/A6iPno4.png

In this mock-up, I've moved the fleet broadcasts out of the history table. Gommel uses a TrackIR and a mouthpiece that registers right-clicks or left-clicks. Even with the conventional mouse that most of us use, we end up chasing items in the broadcast history down the window as more broadcasts come in.

I was on logistics, so ignoring shield rep broadcasts wasn't an option. I struggled to chase the align broadcasts.

My suggestion is based on providing hitboxes for the mouse, so that it's easier to comply with broadcasts.

If someone makes a travel broadcast, it shows up as a hitbox in the top right corner. Some align points are planets or asteroid belts, which you have to navigate a right-click tree to find for yourself. Basically, if you can't keep up with the broadcast history window, you're in bad shape.

The travel hitbox should have radial menu functionality for warp distance. But if the player wants to do it the simple way and warp to zero, especially for a route through several jumps, they can return to that hitbox and simply left-click so their ship will perform the next part of the journey (warp, jump, dock, etc).

The only thing I see needing to be added is an Orbit broadcast.

Something I learned during training in the Army applies here: under pressure and stress, people's fine motor skills go out the window. PVP is a valid source of this type of stress. Large hitboxes solve this issue in a big way, I think.

The targeting icons are greyed out because they've only been tagged by the FC, and require interaction from the player to comply. Normally a lock requires Ctrl-click, but I think these greyed out hitboxes should only require a normal left-click.

Broadcasted targets, tagged (numbered) targets, and shield repair broadcasts can fill up the client's targeting area and the player can choose to comply with them as needed, especially if they're logi.

Players who don't need to see the logi broadcasts can ignore them and not have those targets greyed in.

This also allows for a fleet member to minimize overview, and I think that's kind of nice. They can zoom in on their ship or zoom out, but more importantly they can be freed of two windows: Fleet tree and Overview.

http://i.imgur.com/cI8WE3f.png

Again, -WITH an FC- you can afford to minimize overview and skip the nitty gritty, and instead have a switcher that changes the sets of icons you see in space.

This also makes any touch-interface (tablet?) perfectly capable in PVP (including logi), under the command of an FC.

Could be very usefull, even for us handicap-disabled folk (i figured "normal" was bound to trigger someone from tumbler) as on occation the small lines are hard to right click even for me in a frantic fight or flight...

That said i thought reavers didnt exist? (:P)

The current Fleet UI is very sub-par and in much need of some love, this is a reasonable suggestion.

Supported.

Enjoy your accidental mis-double-click because someone broadcasted something else?