New default overview in testing
Intrepid capsuleers!
The overview window is the most important tool at your disposal in EVE Online. It's used for orientation, traveling, fighting, resource gathering... everything you do in space. Customizing the overview to suit a capsuleer’s needs is important but can be daunting for new players. We are therefore changing the default overview for new players to make it more useful and to make the transition to using custom overview packs easier. This will be achieved by making new capsuleers familiar with the more advanced use of the overview features employed by corporations and alliances they might end up joining.
The new default overview is available now on the Singularity test server. We invite you to share your feedback on the EVE Forums.
The default overview currently provided satisfies the basic needs of new players, but the real power of the overview lies in the ability to customize it and to import settings shared by other, more experienced players. Creating good custom settings for the overview is a skill that requires time and practice, so it is quite popular to use overview packs shared and recommended by the EVE community. In addition, when pilots are flying together, a shared and standardized overview can make fleets more effective and enjoyable.
There are a few popular overview packs that were looked at for inspiration on how to improve the default overview. The main feature of the community overview packs that we wanted to surface in the new default overview is the usage of predefined groups of presets matching a specific tab, allowing capsuleers to quickly adjust the overview to the situation at hand.
Transition
Before going into the details of the changes, it's worth stating that the release of the new default overview will not automatically change the current settings on existing accounts. However, when you reset the overview after the release, it will transition to the new defaults rather than the old defaults.
The overview settings are stored on the machine locally and are associated with a specific account on that local EVE client instance only. That means that your account's overview settings might be affected differently depending on several conditions when starting your client for the first time after the new default overview feature release.
Here are the possible outcomes:
| Scenario | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Fresh EVE client install | The account gets the new default overview |
| New or existing account added to local client after the release | The account gets the new default overview |
| Existing account used on local client before the release - using default overview settings | The account keeps the previous settings but the legacy defaults are now stored as custom settings |
| Existing account used on local client before the release - using custom overview settings / overview pack | The account keeps the previous settings and they continue to be stored as custom settings |
Please note that in any of the above scenarios, when you reset your overview settings or client settings, your overview will reset to the new defaults and your previous settings will be lost unless you export them in advance and import them again afterwards.
A New Default Overview
As mentioned above, one of the goals for changing the overview is to structure the overview so that its tabs have predefined sets of presets to be used interchangeably.
| Tabl Label | Presets | Function |
|---|---|---|
| General | 6 | The "main tab". Applicable in most situations and the additional presets allow for specific activities (FW, NPSI fleet, Incursion fleet) |
| Targets | 24 | When you only want to see the targets (valid player targets) or only your fleet |
| Mining | 1 | Same as General but with all asteroids and asteroid belts |
| WarpTo | 4 | Only the objects you can warp to, visible beyond your grid (celestials, global beacons, etc.) |
| All | 1 | Show everything you can see |
Tab Presets
Each of the several presets in the "Target" group display only the non-friendly ships of a specific type (frigates, battlecruisers, carriers, etc.). Other presets have more nuanced use cases, presented below. For more details regarding the types and states included in all presets, please head to the FORUM THREAD. Default presets for default tabs are marked in bold. They will always show up at the top of the preset selection list.
| Preset Name | Use Case |
|---|---|
| ' All ' | Everything you can see |
| ' General ' | Similar to the General preset we have today |
| ' Mining ' | Similar to the Mining preset we have today but also showing asteroid belts |
| ' Target Capsuleer: All ' | All targets you can shoot at including drones. No friendlies. Useful for solo/small fleets. |
| ' WarpTo: Escape ' | For quick warp out |
| ✜ General: Clean - No Wrecks, Collidables | Enables focusing on killing the NPC without the wrecks and collidables cluttering the overview |
| ✜ General: Factional Warfare | Focused on FW activities |
| ✜ General: Incursion | Focused on running Incursions |
| ✜ General: NPSI Fleet | Handy preset for joining "Not Purple - Shoot It" fleets |
| ✜ General: War Targets | Useful in highsec only. It shows war targets but no neutrals |
| ✥ Target Capsuleer: All - No Drones | Suited for larger-scale combat where there might be hundreds of drones on the field cluttering the overview |
| ✪ Friendly: Fleet | Displays all ships in your fleet only |
| ➲ WarpTo: Dock | Enables warping quickly to a station or structure to dock (ignores docking restrictions) |
| ➲ WarpTo: Jump | Displays only the objects to warp to that can be used to jump to another system or to a site pocket |
| ➲ WarpTo: Point of Interest | Useful for exploring New Eden by finding interesting objects that might be hidden otherwise |
Default Presets for Default Tabs
| Tab | Default Overview Preset | Default Bracket Preset |
|---|---|---|
| General | ' General ' | Show All Brackets |
| Targets | ' Target Capsuleer: All ' | ' Target Capsuleer: All ' |
| Mining | ' Mining ' | Show All Brackets |
| WarpTo | ' WarpTo: Escape ' | ' WarpTo: Escape ' |
| All | ' All ' | Show All Brackets |
More Columns
The new default overview will have seven columns instead of five. The default width of the overview window is also being expanded to show all columns and the width of some of them is being adjusted to maximize the use of space.
New columns set:
- Icon
- Distance
- Name
- Type
- Size
- Velocity
- Angular Velocity
The size of your target is the most important tactical information together with its velocity, but the Size column is missing from the current overview and is rarely seen in overview packs. This is because more advanced players already know the approximate size of the entity they are looking at just by its icon (frigate, cruiser, etc.).
New players have yet to gain that experience and knowledge, so seeing the actual size displayed helps create a correlation between the target size, icon, and the effectiveness of weapons against it. In addition, seeing the actual size information should help with understanding the scale of ships or other objects in space, which might be difficult otherwise due to the lack of visual reference.
In addition, the combination of Size and Velocity provides useful information when attacking with missiles and the combination of Size and Angular Velocity when using turrets.
Appearance
The current Appearance settings of the default overview are being replaced with the Appearance settings from the Z-S Overview Pack. This includes the blinking settings and the order of priority of Colortags and Backgrounds, thus only the Colortags will be blinking and all Backgrounds will have static colors.
Pilots with a kill right currently have higher priority than pilots with negative standing because the former can be engaged, while the latter may not necessarily be if you are in highsec.
Brackets In Space
In the new default overview, the in-space brackets will display the information in two lines and use text formatting to emphasize specific information.
First line shows:
- Type (ship type/structure type)
- Alliance ticker
- Corporation ticker
Second line shows:
- Pilot name for ships / structure name for structures
- Distance
Credits and Feedback wanted
After reviewing the packs that are recommended by the community and talking to the CSM and our in-house EVE players, we decided to take the Z-S Overview Pack as the starting point for the new default overview. We talked with its creators, Zirio and Deuce Syundai, and they provided invaluable feedback regarding the design behind it.
The current Z-S Overview Pack was built as a fork of the SaraShawa Overview and is the result of the efforts of a few players over the years. We want to thank them for their great service to the community and for inspiring us:
- Sarah Schneider - the creator of the original Sarah's Overview Pack from around 2012-2013
- Oh Takashawa - maintainer of the SaraShawa Overview - initially based on Sarah's Overview Pack
- Zirio - the "Z" in Z-S Overview Pack - design, technical implementation, maintenance
- Deuce Syundai - the "S" in the Z-S Overview Pack - design and implementation
We also want to thank all the other overview pack makers out there. You can find some of them listed on the EVE University Wiki.
We believe that these changes to the default overview will make new capsuleers more adept and even allow them to jump into the next fleet fight. The new default overview is available now on the Singularity test server. We invite you to share your feedback on the EVE Forums
o7
PS.
During our talks, Zirio mentioned that he is stuck in a carrier somewhere in deep nullsec and it would be great if we could help him out. The only way we can do that is to ask you guys, the community, to help him evacuate. If you have ever used the Z-S Overview Pack and wanted to give back a little, reach out to Zirio and organize the evacuation. He can be reached on the EVE Online Official Discord under the handle “Zirio” (Zirio#6801). It would be nice if you didn’t awox him but... well, we can’t stop you.
