Hotkey Heaven

Little do people realize that EVE can be played quite easily with a few keyboard shortcuts. Many players will move their UI all around to make it to where clicking from one thing to another is a short distance, but I've found that hot keys are the best and most effective way to get the most out of the game. Unlike other games, EVE actually has great key binds already made by default.



Navigation Hotkeys

First things first, navigation. These shortcuts make EVE life so much easier. Instead of having to open the contextual menu and choose what you want to do, you can easily click to accomplish the same thing. How it works is you hold down a key, and click the bracket icon in space, or the target on the overview. For instance,highlighting a station in the overview, then pressing "D" will warp you to the station, and dock; or dock if you are in the docking perimeter. With this said having an "escape" or "scan" overview tab makes this even more convenient as you can have all the stations, jump gates, and whatever else you want in a short list.

To list the other default keys, here is an itemized summary (You can find these key binds by pressing ESC in game and looking at the "Shortcuts" Tab):

Q - Approach
W - Orbit
E - Keep At Range
A - Align To
S - Warp To
D - Jump/Dock/Activate
T - Show Info

Just with those few keys makes navigation much easier. Orbit, and Keep At Range obviously use the default value set in the contextual menus.


Module Hotkeys

Other important hot keys include the module keys. The default for modules are F1 - F8. I've found it easier to switch them to 1 - 8 instead especially if you have a "MMO" type mouse with 1 through "Equals" buttons on it. For PvP players, setting rack overload keys makes life much easier as well. The default keys for these are a bit much, but I found that changing them to Ctrl-Q/Ctrl-W/Ctrl-E (High/Mid/Low) works quite well. Those strokes are only used by window management key binds, so chances are you won't ever use them anyways.


Drone Hotkeys

Last are the hot keys for the drones that so many people seem to overlook. Still use your mouse to launch the drones, but the default key to assign drones to a target is "F", and to make them return to the drone bay is "Shift-R".


Engagement Hotkeys

Some of the most important hotkeys in EVE are the target, and overload. The target hotkey "Ctrl" works like the navigation keys in the sense that you can select something on the overview, and press the key to lock, or hold the key down and click your target. The overload you will still need to click modules, but by holding down "shift" you can overload the clicked module.


After about an hour of using these keys in game, I'm sure you'll find that you have more time to think instead of looking for things on the UI.

Enjoy, and fly safe!