EVE is all about control. As everyone knows, internet spaceships is serious business, thus we push our controls further and further. Lower response times with proper shortcuts, manage overviews and tabs to give crucial information as soon as possible, hold directional scan close, to access it without lag. We try to sharpen any possible edge over our foes – perfect control with good response time is what wins more battles than even the shiniest faction mods.
One player decided to push boundaries of controls in EVE to whole new levels. Merging his talent electronic engineering with love for EVE, he created a fully functional remote control panel! Now, he wishes to share his creation with others players. The broader EVE community convinced him to start a crowd funding auction and he generously complied. I had the pleasure of chatting with him about it.
Hello Hijel, You are the creator of EVE Online control panel (see above) which You now want to share with others via Kick Starter project (link). Could You explain, where did You get an idea for such creation?
I guess it all started with wanting to create a physical Capacitor display that would sit under my monitor, allowing me to hide the in-game display and free up some valuable screen space. As I looked further into it, I found that there is currently no way to get that live data from the game.
I knew I wanted to build some type of “gizmo” for the game, and since my day job consists of making control panels, instruments systems, and HMI’s I decided to go with what I know.
The panel I created allows you to use longer keyboard shortcuts (like CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+F1) for your most used items, with a single button press, and save the shorter keybinds (like ALT+F1) for other tasks.
That sounds really cool! You seem to be combining Your in real life job with passion to EVE Online. Speaking of which, when and why did You started playing?
I’ve been playing since 2009, (at least that’s what my employment history tells me). It took me a few tries initially, to get into the game. It’s very overwhelming when you first start out…there are just so many options. I tried mining for a while, then went to a bit of trading, then tried my hand at some ninja salvaging but once I tried PVP, I was hooked. I joined up with a great bunch of guys at Flying Dangerous and they taught me the basics, and I’ve been with them ever since.
I think once you find your niche, you’re hooked for life. That’s why I believe things like The Angel Project that Sindel runs is so important. Getting new players the help they need to find their passion, keeps the game strong and growing.
Great to hear, You are such passionate person. But what exactly convinced You to start this kick-starter project?
Really, it was the response I received with the Reddit post. There were so many people that pledged support for it, so I put in the work and got it done.I’m not sure if there is a market for this kind of thing, a custom controller could be applicable to so many games. So, the best way to figure that out is to crowd fund it. This will give me a good idea of “how many people want it”, versus “how many people want it and will pay for it”.
Your Kickstarter goal is 9950 Canadian Dollars (aprox. 7700 USD and 6750 EUR), a customer needs to pay lowest of 319 CAD (aprox. 245 USD/216 EUR) for DYI variant, to highest custom made model for 495 CAD (aprox. 380 US/335 EUR). Could You explain costs of the project?
People don’t realize how much money and time it actually takes to produce something like this in small quantities, the initial reaction is “Why does it cost so much?”. My response to that is:
1) The kickstarter is in Canadian Dollars. If you’re in the USA…. check the current exchange rate.
2) Most of the items needed to build the panel come from the US, so I have to import it, pay duty and taxes, on top of paying the crazy exchange rate.
3) I’m building these myself. I don’t own any robots unfortunately, so you have to factor in the time it takes to produce one of these.
4) and finally, the time to create the software, for 3 separate OS’s. I want it to be user friendly, and easy to configure. The only way to do that is to write custom software, and that takes time.
One of the larger costs is getting the front panels laser cut. The material is expensive, and I can’t do anything to change what they charge for labour. I was, however, able to get the laser cutting cost down over 60% by ordering in volume.
That sounds reasonable. Speaking of parts and software, how does creating such control panel looks like? What are the steps needed to turn few metal and electronic scraps into such fancy gizmo?Going from a pile of parts to a finished product takes Time, Patience, Caffeine, a dash of OCD, oh and did I mention Caffeine?
The thing that took the most time on the prototype was just deciding what to put on the panel, and more importantly what to leave out. The design took a while to take shape. From there its all soldering and coding until you get it where you want it.
As You mentioned You already produced one control panel for Yourself. Do You use it as a pvp pilot and if yes, would You say it is useful?
Yes, I use it and it works as advertised*!
It does take some getting used to, breaking old habits takes a bit of time. I find myself still using those silly keybindings sometimes, and then I look over at the panel and realize I can just press a button, hah.
I really hope Your Kickstarter project will succeed. Do You have any final thoughts You would like to share with our readers?Thanks! It was good to talk with you, if anyone has any questions or comments they can hit me up in game any time or add me on twitter @ludicrous_disp
Fly Dangerous o7
At the moment of this writing Hijel’s project has already gathered 913 CAD out of 9950, just few hours after posting. With 20 days to go, he’s got a great chance to succeed. I love EVE because of people like him, capsuleers with a passion using their in real world skills to improve their and others’ gameplay. What do You think about it? If You want to order a panel or just support his cause, go to the kickstarter page and do it now!
