More on EVE Online's tactical overlay
21st July 2008 – 2.17 pmI worked out that what I had thought was a graphical glitch in EVE Online is in fact a useful feature of the tactical overlay. When I had the tactical overlay displayed and was activating various modules I was getting some changes in intensity of the overlay, and didn't know what was causing it. Zooming out a little further I noticed something I hadn't before.
The overlay presents a series of concentric circles, centred on your ship, with markers for every five kilometres. Before I had zoomed far out I suppose I had assumed that the concentric rings were shaded with a translucent white to help indicate the ship's relative position, but that isn't the case. The translucent white colouring extends to give an indication of the ship's targeting range, outside of which the translucent colouring disappears and the rings are entirely transparent apart from the markers.
When mousing-over a fitted module that has a range, this range is represented on the tactical overlay too. The module's range is indicated by a extra layer of translucent white colouring, making it slightly more opaque, distinguishing it from the ship's targeting range and keeping both ranges distinct. If zoomed out enough, the range is presented as a sphere around the ship rather than just rings.
This colouring of the various ranges is a great visual indication of the ship's capabilities without having to remember numbers or scan system readouts, adding to the utility of the tactical overlay in combat.
One Response to “More on EVE Online's tactical overlay”
Thanks for the info, I thought the overlay just showed circles and that that was all.