Player Features and Ideas Discussion

ok, i've spent a good portion of the last year pvp'ing in what i consider one of the most exciting parts of eve, frigate fights! fast paced and fun stuff.

as you know, flying ships in eve isn't as control intensive as a flight simulator, or even a watered down fps, like fighters in bf2/bf3. stil i've noticed a lack in navigational options and would like to propose some additional buttons to the navigation menu. there is plenty of room in the nav bar for a few more buttons (at least on my screen). the current menu has a few options:

1. approach
2. keep at range
3. orbit at range
4. click in space, which seems like it alone would be enough enough, but really limits you to head in that direction, or keep turning into something and often results in a mad click fest.

my proposals for additional buttons:

1. another orbit at range button. this allows you to set 2 ranges, 1 for say that enyo you want to stay @ 19.5 km from, and another for that juicy tornado you want to orbit @ 3.9km. this not only allows you to switch ranges on the fly without having to right click, selet orbit at range, and then choose from one of many 5km increments, but also affords specific ranges of your choosing opposed to the 5km increments that you're limited to.

2. another keep at range button. for ships you don't want to orbit much in due to tracking issues for instance, this allows you to have at least 2 different ranges, perhaps one for 1 type of ammo, and another for another type you carry for different targets. again, this gives much greater control by having pre-selected optimals loaded, and responsiveness in just one button.

3. keep away. i want a button that turns my ship in the exact opposite direction of my selection, and keeps moving away indefinately. think the exact opposite of approach.

4. "fly-by", or "strafe". this is a combination of appraoch and keep at range buttons. let's say you have it set for 10km. your ship approaches and flies right by the target, continuing to move out past it until reaching 10km, then turns around and re-approaches and passes again, shooting back out to 10km. it keeps performing these passes until instructed otherwise, or the target is dead.

5. or as an additional feature, make the buttons programmable. make it so my current orbit button can be changed to a 2nd keep at range, or vice versa. this way i can customize the navigation menu to the way i want to fly my ship.

before anyone says, oh well the quick switching of ranges and furious clicking in space is good pvp... i'd like to offer another point of view. if this were an fps, with joysticks or the benefit of proper m/k setups, then i'd agree that the 'reaction/twitchiness' of pvp'ers would be important, but in eve, i think it's much more about the work you put in long before you even get in the fight, including which fights you take. once you're in a fight, you should be easily able to pilot your ship the way you fit it.

thoughts? additional button ideas? likes?

uhh... idk what your overview looks like, but mine has plenty of room for more buttons.

also, i'm sorry you feel that all the clicks are important to you and that you don't want it simplified. they're just not that important to me, i have games where they are, they're called fps's.

either way, you're still going to be clicking around like mad anyway, this only simplifies a few things, lik what approach orbit you might use, and if you've switched ammo, what range you'd like to stay at. so it's not a wholesale bailout on clicking as you seem to believe (not that i care about sacred cows, or that you've spent a lifetime learning to click into someone...). if you're any good at that, you'll keep right on breaking mouse buttons left and right no matter what.

i really prefer simplification to complexity in this aspect so... yea... a few more buttons please!