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EVE New Citizens Q&A

 
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Probing UI tips?
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dave3NG
Finite Future
#1 - 2012-02-16 12:32:42 UTC
If I am probing for something in an empty part of the solar system, it's quick and easy. Alternatively, if for example it's at the centre of the system, and there are plenty of planets, asteroid belts etc.. it can be fiddly, especially since I don't have the highest of resolution monitors (1360x768).

When I try to click on the arrow to move the probe, it instead selects whatever is in that spot in the system, (planet, sun, belt). If it's a small busy system this becomes time consuming zooming, moving the map, and finding a workable point to move a probe.

Just seems odd to me that the time and difficulty of scanning any object is based on an awkward UI more than any possible reward for the find. Any tips or options I've missed to alleviate this issue?

TIA for any advice
J'Poll
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#2 - 2012-02-16 12:49:54 UTC
dave3NG wrote:
If I am probing for something in an empty part of the solar system, it's quick and easy. Alternatively, if for example it's at the centre of the system, and there are plenty of planets, asteroid belts etc.. it can be fiddly, especially since I don't have the highest of resolution monitors (1360x768).

When I try to click on the arrow to move the probe, it instead selects whatever is in that spot in the system, (planet, sun, belt). If it's a small busy system this becomes time consuming zooming, moving the map, and finding a workable point to move a probe.

Just seems odd to me that the time and difficulty of scanning any object is based on an awkward UI more than any possible reward for the find. Any tips or options I've missed to alleviate this issue?

TIA for any advice


Agree that on smaller screen probing means lots of zooming in and out and panning the camera around stuff. But then again on my laptop (1280 x 800) it isn't quite a problem if you get the hang of how probing works.

Some suggestions:

Use the alt and shift abilities that are now available to probing, alt will move all probes closer/further from their point of origin while with shift you can move them all together in the same plane (meaning you don't have to relocate every probe seperately).

Also a tactic that I use is first probe every single celestial with 1 probe at 4 AU (or generally any planet at 8 AU will work) as any signature that has to be probed is located max. 4AU from a known celestial, this way you can quickly narrow down around which planets the signatures are and then start probing with multiple probes at the planets you know that have signatures around them.

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dave3NG
Finite Future
#3 - 2012-02-16 14:44:40 UTC
Used shift, but not alt. And the last tip is very good too. Thanks
Xerces Ynx
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#4 - 2012-02-16 15:28:41 UTC  |  Edited by: Xerces Ynx
I'm doing it this way:
1. Warp to sun at 0m
2. Fire one probe set for 32AU and scan
3. If the system is smaller than 28AU and scan probe returns no results (or results you are not interested in) recall probe and change system or do something else
4. Fire 6 more probes (skills needed!), set 4 of them in a cross on a plane, one probe above and one probe below. All range spheres (except the center probe) should overlap in a center (not much, I use the width of the center probe box). So, you have one probe in a center, four probes to the sides, one probe above and below. With some practice you can set this up very quickly. Drag probes by the arrows not located above any celestial to avoid selecting it. If the system is bigger than 28AU, hit analyze now.
5. Choose a signature readout, move all probes (shift key) until signature mark is in the center of this probe setup (note, it's a 3D environment!)
6. Lower the range of all probes (shift key) and tighten them (alt key) until spheres are overlapping in the center again. Hit analyze.
7. GOTO 5 until the signature is scanned out in 100%.

You can also speed it up a bit by firing a center probe and 4 side probes on a one plane. Scan with this setup and fire one or two probes (above and/or below) when signature mark becomes yellow.

Error reading signature file: /home/xerces/.signature: No such file or directory
J'Poll
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#5 - 2012-02-16 15:36:15 UTC
Xerces Ynx wrote:
I'm doing it this way:
1. Warp to sun at 0m
2. Fire one probe set for 32AU and scan
3. If the system is smaller than 28AU and scan probe returns no results (or results you are not interested in) recall probe and change system or do something else
4. Fire 6 more probes (skills needed!), set 4 of them in a cross on a plane, one probe above and one probe below. All range spheres (except the center probe) should overlap in a center (not much, I use the width of the center probe box). So, you have one probe in a center, four probes to the sides, one probe above and below. With some practice you can set this up very quickly. Drag probes by the arrows not located above any celestial to avoid selecting it. If the system is bigger than 28AU, hit analyze now.
5. Choose a signature readout, move all probes (shift key) until signature mark is in the center of this probe setup (note, it's a 3D environment!)
6. Lower the range of all probes (shift key) and tighten them (alt key) until spheres are overlapping in the center again. Hit analyze.
7. GOTO 5 until the signature is scanned out in 100%.

You can also speed it up a bit by firing a center probe and 4 side probes on a one plane. Scan with this setup and fire one or two probes (above and/or below) when signature mark becomes yellow.



Good and constructive post Xerces, and actually the fastest way to probe stuff, I personally only use 4 probes and it works very well. Only occasionally need a 5th for the really hard stuff.

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Xerces Ynx
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#6 - 2012-02-16 15:47:21 UTC
J'Poll wrote:
Good and constructive post Xerces, and actually the fastest way to probe stuff, I personally only use 4 probes and it works very well. Only occasionally need a 5th for the really hard stuff.

I don't have skills for effective probing with four probes, so I chose quantity over quality ;)

Error reading signature file: /home/xerces/.signature: No such file or directory
Ursula LeGuinn
Perkone
Caldari State
#7 - 2012-02-16 16:30:19 UTC
I prefer to change the probes' scanning range by keeping the entire group selected in the scanner window and using the right-click menu. It's more precise and a bit faster than grabbing and dragging the edges of the spheres within the actual system map.

I imagine a lot of people do this already, but those of you who resize manually might want to give it a try.

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Kilrayn
Caldari Provisions
#8 - 2012-02-16 17:49:07 UTC
Ursula LeGuinn wrote:
I prefer to change the probes' scanning range by keeping the entire group selected in the scanner window and using the right-click menu. It's more precise and a bit faster than grabbing and dragging the edges of the spheres within the actual system map.

I imagine a lot of people do this already, but those of you who resize manually might want to give it a try.

I still do as much as possible without the menu. I like to keep my focus on the map personally. ATM, I only use the menu for analyze/recall functions.

To the OP though, everyone will develop their own tricks/shortcuts over time. It seems you may just have to zoom in/out more than most will. You may also want to go to your solar system map options and turn off some of the UI objects, like asteroid belts, stations, etc. This should clean up some clutter if you haven't done that already.

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Ajita al Tchar
Doomheim
#9 - 2012-02-18 21:08:30 UTC
To avoid the problem of clicking on planets and moons and whatnot instead of probes' arrows when setting up the initial formation, I do this: launch all the probes you're going to use, then shift-drag the entire group somewhere where they aren't over planets or bookmarks, do NOT hit analyze though, it'll just waste time. Once the probes aren't mixed up with celestial objects on the map, arrange in your preferred pattern. You only have to do this once now that we have the easymode alt-drag function to move all probes around the center point.

Also, when it comes to 4 probes vs. more, it's true that you only need 4. However, using more gives you higher strengths faster, which often means significant time savings. For example, with a well-skilled character I can get over 25% results with 8 probes at 8au for a lot more signatures than if I were to use 4 probes, which can tell you right away whether you want to spend any extra time scanning down the site in case, for example, you don't care about gravimetrics. It also makes it possible to get these >25% scan results for multiple signatures in one go since with probes at 8au, the overlapping area is quite large and can be the location of more than one signature. Plus, with eight probes you can do setups like 4 probes at 8au, then 4 probes at 1au in the center. This can be a quicker way of scanning if your skills are good enough as often you don't even have to resize or move probes unless you need to get some tiny signatures down to 100%. So, Astrometrics 5 isn't entirely useless Blink But definitely not required.