So this post was initially a response to blog banter 53, but it sat, drafted but not edited, in my google docs folder for far too long. However, it’s still relatively pertinent, and I wanted to post some more “ideas posts” / position paper stuff, so here it is.

Erlendur tweeted: “Is the overview really the best way to be aware of what is around you and where it is?”

Yes, it is– the best existing way. That said, it’s still a pretty poor one. The game would be better off with the overview’s functions split off into several different pieces, and I’ve been looking for an excuse to articulate those for a while now.

As it stands on TQ today, the overview is both the best way to be aware of everything on grid with you and the best way to quickly navigate the universe. It’s average as a means of tracking where something is (good for distance, not good for vector or velocity), and it’s only average as a way of telling what’s around you (you see everything that fits in the list).

The killer feature of the overview is its scannability. It’s a spreadsheet in space– maybe even the spreadsheet in space– but the one thing spreadsheets excel at is displaying a bunch of data in a very small area, allowing for quick assessment and comparison.

That said, “spreadsheets in space” is a dirty phrase, and minimizing UI elements turns EVE Online into an incredibly rich, immersive space experience. But eventually it ends up like backpacking trips– amazing views, but you start to miss everyday conveniences like “heaters” and “running water”.

So, what would a better alternative look like? To figure that out, let’s first break down what the overview actually provides for different users. For those just flying in space, the overview provides the simplest form of navigation and interaction with objects. Celestials of interest are clearly presented in a list, and if you set a route, the next warp is clearly highlighted and sorted to the top of the list.

Should this wayward pilot find themselves in a bad part of town, the overview provides the heads-up and some of the risk assessment. SOP upon jumping into a gatecamp is to take a deep breath and assess your chances of warping or burning clear, and those chances depend a lot on what’s on grid with you. Solo Dominix? Buhbye. Three rsebo’d interceptors with interdictors alongside? Yeah, you should crash the gate.

And then there’s combat. The overview is the way spaceship combat happens, period, and how well it works for this largely depends on how long the target list is. If it’s shorter than the overview window, you’re golden. Longer, and you’re looking at a nightmare. I’d forgotten how bad it actually was until I FC’d RvB Ganked recently. We took a big fight with Brave Newbies and my target calling at the beginning was abysmal. The mission-runner needs to hit the right rats, the skirmishing PvPer needs to see which targets to kill and when to bail, the grunt needs to lock and fire on broadcasts and sic drones on tackle, and the FC of a big brawl must organize an incredible amount of position and composition information.

Now that we’ve broken this down, let’s address each use case. Navigation is the easiest– imagine (better) bracket filtering and highlighting, along with brackets “behind you” showing up around the edge of the screen. If you’ve indicated an interest in a particular sort of bracket, such as stations and stargates, they should be large and easy to see, along with their labels. A search function would aid in finding, say, a planet. Type ctrl-f and begin typing the name of the thing you want, and all matching brackets are highlighted. If there’s only one result, the tracking camera can swing towards it.

Navigating like this would be more immersive and perhaps easier than the overview version today. But that’s the easy problem– harder is to address how to detect and react to threats on grid.

The strength of the overview in this area is in its scannability, so imagine enhancing that. With celestial data gone, all you’re looking at is fellow pilots on-grid and NPC ships hanging around. You may care about one or the other or both. Either way, you’re taking in important information quickly and flying your ship and all that jazz. You need a general overview sometimes, and you also need to drill down into specifics.

So, replace the overview with an informative HUD, perhaps across the top of the screen. This HUD would provide lists, breaking ships down in a manner similar to eve-dingo and similar d-scan tools but with perhaps more ability to selectively expand what’s on the grid (“there are 40 lokis? great, pull out just the lokis.”). Color ships according to the same metrics as the overview colors them now; show sizes to help the new player see what’s going to be too big to take on.

For the pilot who’s just flying in space, this provides enough information to make combat decisions. For a small enough number of ships, don’t even worry about breakdown, just show it as a floating list in space. Maybe make it easier to target people on their actual ship in space, by implementing some way to get “close enough” (although, trying to target brackets can get you dead– it’s how I lost a Scimitar this afternoon).

That works for solo and small enough gang situations, but what about scaling? This is where the current overview works worst, and where an improvement would most be needed. For this, I’d like to see the tactical overlay repurposed as an FC view on a battlefield. Right now it doesn’t do much; it could do so much more. Imagine a view which zooms nice and far out and dims the background noise of planets and nebulae. In this view, show ships not as brackets, but as single dots, positioned in space. Highlight ships differently based on what category is selected, emphasizing the important ones and de-emphasizing the others.

In this way, you can distinguish your fleetmates and allies from others on grid while still paying attention to the important enemy ships. The tactical view should indicate visually which ships are within your fleet’s average optimal (assuming a roughly doctrinal fleet and computing without logistics ships, this should be fairly accurate) and falloff ranges. Stuff in space would be similarly de-emphasized, unless it’s relevant (e.g. “don’t crash into that asteroid”). Brackets are visible far-off, anomalies– the system overlay– are hidden.

Meanwhile, fleet *members* fly and fight on the normal space view, with broadcasted targets showing up in the HUD which would ordinarily show a breakdown of ships nearby. Those whose job it is to fly their ships can do so, and the FC can adequately command their forces.

While I’m willing to hear differently, this setup could work well for missions, too– simply replace “players” with “rats” above, and “dots” with “red crosses”. In any event, there do exist options outside the overview– CCP just needs to explore them. And then playtest. Extensively.