One thing I'm sure you've noticed about Eve is that space (as in room on your screen, rather than the empty black thing that has stars in it) is at a premium. There are a lot of windows that you'll probably want to have visible, and unless you're fortunate enough to play on a very large monitor you're probably going to struggle to fit it all on.
The default screen layout is, it's fair to say, pretty impractical for PVP. Most people make some basic changes until they find it bearable, others go for a more radical approach and reorganise the whole thing for maximum efficiency. Take a look at a few screenshots and videos of experienced players in PVP, and you'll find a whole range of different layouts built to suit the user's needs.
I'd like to take a moment to talk through the layout I'm currently using, as well as why I chose to set it up this way. Remember that there's no right or wrong here, it's all based on preference.
You can see my current layout below (click the link to see it full size). This is something which has evolved almost constantly since I started PVPing, although I've been using roughly this layout (aside from a few small changes) for perhaps the last three or four months. I have to say, I'm very pleased with it so far.
My screen resolution is 1680 x 1050, which seems fairly common. I do sometimes run Eve on a smaller screen (although generally not for PVP) and I find that I really struggle to get everything that I want on there. If your monitor is smaller than this, you're probably going to need to cut back on a few 'nice to haves' and focus on just the parts you really need.
The left side of my screen is mainly for passive windows - these are the ones which I look at often, but only rarely have to interact with. This lets me take in key information at a glance without needing to look all over the screen.
The right side on the other hand contains all of my active windows - these are the windows I use to give orders, or otherwise interact with on a frequent basis. Keeping them close together minimises the amount of mouse movement required during combat, and makes it easier to micromanage my ship. The layout on this side is a little less conventional and took some getting used to, but once I got over the initial unfamiliarity it has proved to be very effective.
1) The local window is probably the most important information on the screen, and it always needs to be visible when you're in lowsec or nullsec. I'm not really interested in what people are saying in local (hence why it's quite small), what I'm really interested in are the people. The new option to show a compact member list is really useful here. I used to have my local window the whole length of the screen (with the chat channels only getting half the space that they do now), but in the places I've been living recently I find the current height is usually enough. I leave a bit of a gap at the top for the system details and also enough to see my route when I have a destination set.
The right side on the other hand contains all of my active windows - these are the windows I use to give orders, or otherwise interact with on a frequent basis. Keeping them close together minimises the amount of mouse movement required during combat, and makes it easier to micromanage my ship. The layout on this side is a little less conventional and took some getting used to, but once I got over the initial unfamiliarity it has proved to be very effective.
1) The local window is probably the most important information on the screen, and it always needs to be visible when you're in lowsec or nullsec. I'm not really interested in what people are saying in local (hence why it's quite small), what I'm really interested in are the people. The new option to show a compact member list is really useful here. I used to have my local window the whole length of the screen (with the chat channels only getting half the space that they do now), but in the places I've been living recently I find the current height is usually enough. I leave a bit of a gap at the top for the system details and also enough to see my route when I have a destination set.
2) I like to have my people and places window open all the time, so that I can quickly make bookmarks on the fly or type in a system to set my destination. I've recently started merging my cargo in here too, although whether I have that open depends on the ship - for active tanked ships it can be useful to see how many cap boosters you have left, and also allows quick consumption of combat boosters when you need them.
3) In this gap, I keep my watch list and my combat log - the combat log is more use solo (and I admit I don't use it as often as I should), while the watch list obviously applies more to fleets. Now that you can have 15 people on your watch list, this takes a little more space than it used to.
4) Various chat and intel channels. I used to have this one much smaller (to give more room to local), but these days I have a lot more channels that I casually lurk in so giving them a little extra room is nice.
5) The overview is a mix between a passive window and an active one - obviously I use it to lock targets, but once the fight is underway I don't really have to interact with it other than to lock a new target. I am however very interested in the information it provides. With that in mind I keep the overview fairly out of the way, but give it plenty of room. I plan to write a separate article on overview setup, so won't go into any more detail on my overview just now.
6) I keep my selected item window below the overview rather than the default of above - this is something I have to click on often to issue approach/orbit commands, so it makes sense to have it as close to the other active windows as possible. Keeping it close to the overview means that I can still issue commands relating to an object on the overview (such as aligning to a gate) easily. Getting used to this one was particularly hard, and it does have its drawbacks - while I find it makes issuing commands in combat much easier, it does make giving align/warp commands a little more tedious given that overview entries fall to the top of the window.
7) The drone window is something I've never really found a good place for - it sticks out a bit more than I'd like here, but having it close to my locked targets and other active windows makes sense.
8) Moving my locked targets to the bottom is probably my favourite change - having this just above my modules makes managing modules which are spread above multiple targets much easier - in a single glance, I can see which modules are active on which targets (and how close those targets are to being destroyed) as well as their cycle timers and heat status. This is also incredibly useful if you activate modules by clicking, since it speeds up the process of selecting a target and activating a module on them considerably. As I mentioned earlier, having this close to the selected item window is important, as I'm regularly clicking back and forth between these two areas.
9) Finally, we have the directional scanner. Like the overview this window is partly for information, however it's also something I'm clicking on almost constantly when I'm in a hostile situation. I also keep the fleet window stacked with this - while not ideal, I didn't really have anywhere else to keep it and it's another one which it's useful to have open all the time. This is particularly true if you're flying logistics, and locking targets via broadcasts.
As I mentioned earlier, all of the above is simply my preference. You might find some of it works for you too, or on the other hand you might find something else which you think works even better! My request to you is this: Take a screenshot and load your layout up to imgur (or the image hosting site of your choice) and post it in the comments. If possible, include a sentence or two on what you think works well about it, and why you have it the way you do - I'd be very interested to see what you're all using!
