Table of Contents

The Overview

About

The Eve Online Overview is, in short, one of the most important windows you see on your screen when you are undocked (in space). The Overview is your eyes in space, your primary means of knowing what objects are in space around you, and which objects you can interact with. Understanding how the Overview works and how to setup up this feature properly is very important and should be a priority, especially for newer players.

Setting up your Overview not only affects what is displayed on your overview window and how that window is displayed, but it also affects what indicators or icons you see in space (this is called “Brackets”). These settings also affect other features as well, such as the Directional Scan (D-Scan).

Fast Setup - Import ready to use pack

SaraShawa Overview Pack

Current version: 10.5
TL:DR Join in-game channel named “Sarashawa-Overview”
In the remainder there are detailed instructions.

Step 1: Reset your overview settings
- Open the overview settings by clicking the box on the top left corner of the overview:

- Select the “Misc” tab and check all the boxes if they are unchecked, especially “Move entries with broadcasts to top”, then press Reset All Overview Settings button

Step 2: Join in-game channel named Sarashawa-Overview
- Click “+” on any chat window or use the EVE button top left , the choose “Social” and then “Channels”

- input the name of the channel by typeing “sarashawa-overview” into the input box then press “Join”

Step 3: Import the overview settings
- Read the motd for changes, but if its the first time proceed to import the overview by clicking the overview import links, one by one, in order they were given from top to bottom with small pause maybe few seconds

Step 4: Adjust the overview windows as needed
- Resize the columns that are too wide, place the mouse on the border between 2 columns, then hold left mouse and drag left or right

- Resize the window by placing mouse on the left border and draging while the left mouse button is pressed

- If you have preference like me to hold it on the right edge under the “Selected Item” window, adjust the width of “Selected Item” window to match the overview so you dont have problems with appearance of locked targets.

Step 5: Toggle on the “Special Bracket Display”
- You can't see celestial brackets like moons and planets?

- press the keyboard combination “SHIFT+ALT+X”

How to operate the overview

SaraShawa Overview Pack

When you complete the installation of the ovewrview pack, you will notice that your overview tabs have changed and that there is more of them.
You can configure them for various scenarios or dynamically adjust in the battle to perform your tasks better.

It is advisable that you don't touch the first (travel) tab, main tab and warpout tab and leave them as they are.

Short description of overview tabs:
Travel - Switch to if you are traveling through congested area and need NPC stations or gates that are otherwise obscured by other entities. Beware there are no ships displayed on it.
main - this is the tab you use usually most of the time, either for travel or pvp.
3 to 7 - useful filters with preloaded defaults for enemy fighters, logistics, drones, salvage and friendly (blue) ships.
warpout - moons and sun - you want to warpout to the moon, because if planet has many moons enemy will have less chance to land on you if they are following, because they will assume you went for the planet as they saw you warp in that direction. If you need NPC station or a gate, use travel tab.

Examples:

1. You are an SS carrier and have been told to engage enemy fighters:
- select tab number 3 with fighters, or of you changed that before select a tab and then right click on it, go to “Load Preset To Tab” and pick # hostile: fighters

- note that you can have more granular filter by choosing light, support or heavy fighters

2.You are HAW dread and have been ordered to shoot enemy battleships alphabetically:
- select desired tab, rightclick it and “Load Preset To Tab” # hostile: battleships

- sort the targets alphabetically from A to Z by clicking the “name” column header so that the triangle is showing up (arrow up)

- if you click one more time, the triangle will be oriented down, indicating the reverse sort order from Z to A

3. You are fleet FAX and were told to take care of friendly capitals:
- load preset % freindly: capitals
- sort by distance so that you can warn friendly capitals if they are leaving the reps range
- is is also heavy TIDI, so you “Load Preset to Brackets” % friendly: capitals brackets to reduce the clutter

- note the “Show all brackets” option at the top of the menu

4. You are tackle frigate and were told to defend the fleet from enemy booshers:
- load preset # hostile: cmd dessies
- sort by distance arrow up

So with “Load Preset to Tab” we can control what is displayed on the overview, and with “Load Preset to Brackets” we control what is displayed in space. Sometimes, when an FC expect heavy TIDI, you will be asked to “go potato mode” in case of which you need to turn of the brackets. To turn off the brackets, you can use the menu on the top left off the overview and use “Hide All Brackets” option

Keyboard combinations:
Toggle show all brackets Alt-Z
Toggle show no brackets Alt-Shift-Z
Toggle Special Bracket Display Alt-Shift-X (moons)

Note that the command to toggle brackets will apply to your selected overview tab.
- if you click another tab in heavy tidi, it may load long time as brackets are enabled on that tab
- when you are done with battle, or login next day, remember that you are not showing brackets and you need to toggle them back on
- you can dedidate one tab for tidi and always keep it with brackets toggled off

More Overview Packs

Zirio-Syundai Overview Pack
- Z-S overview is popular but very complex, and according to some people “bloated” compared to SaraShawa, however a lot of people use it
- Join the in-game channel Z-S Overview and follow the directions in the MOTD, or open the github page https://gitlab.com/Arziel/Z-S-Overview-Pack

UnbendingLight Overview Pack
- Join the in-game channel UBL-OVERVIEW and follow the directions in the MOTD

Manual Guide

If you were directed to the wiki to “unfuck your overview” either while in fleet or reporting in intel, here is your first immediate step before doing anything else. Even if you load one of the overview packs below, you should always double check to make sure that your colortags and backgrounds are correct (the guide for this is located on the second step of the Overview Setup section of this article).

If you were directed to this article by your friends, FC, or fleetmates, there is a high possibility that something is wrong with your overview. To understand why what you are seeing is wrong, you need to get into the 0.0 mindset that security status means nothing. Many friends, Romans, countrymen have a negative security status or are even outlaws in low/high sec. The default overview has -5.0 security status (named 'outlaw' before Retribution patch) and 'security status below 0' placed as a priority over certain standings in the colortag and background list. You don’t need to be concerned with an alliance member's security status. All friends should be blue. (Otherwise, NBSI.)

Understanding the way your overview works or performing steps to “unfuck your overview” means you will ensure that your overview:

IMPORTANT: The following advice and settings are for traveling and doing activities in nullsec. If you spend a lot of time in highsec or lowsec you want to make sure you are aware of Outlaws, so you are not surprised like a little Carebear when you get jumped because you thought you were safe. It's also necessary to note that even if you have followed other guides from other sources to setup your Overview, you might still want to follow the procedures as listed below since there are high chances that some parts are different.

Accessing Eve's Overview Settings

Your Eve Overview settings can be accessed by clicking on your settings box (4-lines) on the top left of your overview window. To open the menu, select 'open overview settings' (near the bottom). Make note of the other options in this menu because it will be useful later when loading and saving overview profiles.

Once the settings window is opened you will see something like this:

The overview can also be opened at any time, including inside a station, with a keyboard shortcut. It is undefined by default, but can be set by using the Escape Menu shortcuts tab. Alternatively you can open the overview settings any time by typing “/open overview settings” pressing enter.

Eve Overview: Profiles

A basic overview window displays only one overview tab. You can add up to four additional tabs to your overview, resulting in total of five standalone tabs, each displaying a variety of profiles (or the same profile if you want to). Each profile contains a rule set on what space objects are to be displayed and which ones should never be displayed.

Space objects, as mentioned, and what's displayed on the Filters-Types section of the overview settings is what the game interprets as a particular existence of an item or a displayable defined state. For example, a Thrasher is a ship in which the state of whether it's displayed on your overview or not is controlled by whether you activate the filter type of Ship-Destroyer. Each definition of objects in Eve have a particular category in which they fall in to. Other examples are non-asteroid rocks or space debris, which your ship can bump into, and are categorized as a “Large Collidable Object”.

Each of these space objects also have a “state” attached to it. This state affects all filter type definitions on a profile. A small ship or a frigate can be a friendly frigate or a hostile one. The states tab defines which of the filters you have selected is displayed on your overview. If you have a set of ships ticked on one profile, you'll need to define whether you want them displayed at all times, regardless of the ships (or any objects) state. You may want to only display those ship types if they're hostile, or only if they're friendly to you.

An overview profile is a set of collective rules that defines which space-objects are to be displayed, in what state, on a particular tab in which you've assigned that profile to.

Eve Overview : Brackets

Brackets are those tiny icons displayed in space (outside of the overview) that shows you what objects are there and which ones are displayed on your screen, such as:

Learning What Things Mean

Real Time Object Status (Yellow Box / Red Box)

These terms are used when other ships or a random objects interacts with your ship. These will be displayed on your overview and your brackets (in space).

Overview Setup

aka “Unfucking Your Overview”

Below are the necessary steps to setup your overview properly. Bear in mind that if you have previous experience on referencing to different sources of how-to setup your overview, such as the Eve University Overview Guide, ours are quite different in some ways.

The Retribution patch introduces a whole new way of configuring how your overview displays objects with certain states. Aside from the introduction of the new flags such as Suspect and Criminal flag, the new overview also allows us to further group entities by separating them between appearance (the icons displayed) and their backgrounds, which was not possible before. This allows us as a community heavily based on standings, to easily identify between friendlies, neutral, and hostile entities to further extend how the overview present this information to us in real time. To know what these changes entail and how it effects you after completing the steps below, please make sure to read the Using Your Overview section of this article.

IMPORTANT! The tutorial below was designed with nullsec living as the primary consideration. Please take note that if you spend a lot of time in highsec, there are various things you may want to be aware of. Some of those things are the mechanics of -5 standings (previously named Outlaws) and all variants of aggression flags (Suspect, Criminal, Bounty, and active Kill Rights).

STEP 1 - Your Filters

This first step is necessary only if you are not using any overview pack or in other terms, this particular step is only for those of you who want to customize your own overview! If you prefer to use an already built overview, you can skip this step and follow the instructions listed on the Overview Packs section of this wiki article. Just take note that you still need to do the Step 2 of this tutorial regardless of whether you use an overview pack or not and regardless of which overview pack you are planning to use.

Introduction to Filters

The filters tab contains all the necessary options in relation to what items or space objects are to be displayed on your overview window. This section controls what objects are going to be displayed on your overview and when they are going to be displayed. This might be confusing for newer players, but here's an example. Say there is an Oracle on grid with me (on grid means that I'm “in range” with and can interact with him), if I have Battlecruisers ticked on the “Types” tab (since Oracle is a Battlecruiser), I should be able to see him on my overview right? unfortunately, the answer is 'not always, it depends', hence the 'when' part of the equation comes to play, if the Oracle is a friendly entity (for example, he's one of my corp mates) and I have the associated friendly state turned ON (Pilot is in your Corporation), then I would see him on my overview, otherwise, he will not be shown at all.

IMPORTANT! The settings on the filters tab are not shared across overview profiles, this is a good thing because it means you can have multiple different profiles with different functionality. For instance, you can have a profile that shows only hostile stealth bombers by ticking only stealth bombers on the “Types” sub tab and all relevant hostile filter states on the “States” sub tab. You can save each change by accessing the save profile settings from the top left of the overview window and hit “Save Current Type Selection As”.

The Filters are divided into two sections, Types and States.

Types lists the definition of the 'what' part of your overview profile, meaning, you decide what objects to display on your overview profile by enabling or disabling items in this section.

States define 'when' your selection of types will actually be shown on your overview. The “Types” section lists the type of space objects to display. The “States” list determines in which situation it will be displayed. There are several commonly used configurations for states, which can be used in conjunction with any relevant filter setup.
Please note that the list below is only a guideline, you are free to make up your own:

Common States Configurations
Hostiles Only Blues Only All
Shows you Hostiles and filter out friendly entities Shows you friendlies, undefined states maybe shown Shows everything regardless of their state
Pilot (agent) is interactable Pilot (agent) is interactable Pilot (agent) is interactable
Pilot has a killright on him that you can activate Pilot has a killright on him that you can activate Pilot has a killright on him that you can activate
Pilot has a limited engagement with you Pilot has a limited engagement with you Pilot has a limited engagement with you
Pilot has a security status below 0 Pilot has a security status below 0 Pilot has a security status below 0
Pilot has a security status below -5 Pilot has a security status below -5 Pilot has a security status below -5
Pilot have bad standing Pilot have bad standing Pilot have bad standing
Pilot has bounty on him Pilot has bounty on him Pilot has bounty on him
Pilot have excellent standing Pilot have excellent standing Pilot have excellent standing
Pilot have good standing Pilot have good standing Pilot have good standing
Pilot have neutral standing Pilot have neutral standing Pilot have neutral standing
Pilot have no standing Pilot have no standing Pilot have no standing
Pilot have terrible standing Pilot have terrible standing Pilot have terrible standing
Pilot is a criminal Pilot is a criminal Pilot is a criminal
Pilot is a suspect Pilot is a suspect Pilot is a suspect
Pilot is an ally in one or more of your wars Pilot is an ally in one or more of your wars Pilot is an ally in one or more of your wars
Pilot is at war with your corporation/alliance Pilot is at war with your corporation/alliance Pilot is at war with your corporation/alliance
Pilot is at war with your militia Pilot is at war with your militia Pilot is at war with your militia
Pilot is in your alliance Pilot is in your alliance Pilot is in your alliance
Pilot is in your corporation Pilot is in your corporation Pilot is in your corporation
Pilot is in your fleet Pilot is in your fleet Pilot is in your fleet
Pilot is in your militia or allied to your militia Pilot is in your militia or allied to your militia Pilot is in your militia or allied to your militia
Wreck is already viewed Wreck is already viewed Wreck is already viewed
Wreck is empty Wreck is empty Wreck is empty

Saving Your Overview Profiles & Filters

This first step is the most tedious part of the process. It's also the second most important part of this tutorial and the only way to actually configure your overview to accommodate requests or instructions from the FC, such as “Load up your bombing profile!”.
So, let's begin.

IMPORTANT! Quick reminder that this process needs to be repeated for every overview profile you want to save or add to your overview. You may need to do this several times before proceeding to Step 2.

  1. Decide what this profile is for. It can be something like general PvP, PvE, or for ratting. It can be a specific PvP profile, such as a setup that shows only hostile Battlecruisers, or just hostile Stealth Bombers, or something else, but keep it in mind.
  2. In your Overview settings window, switch to the Filters tab, then on to the Types sub-tab.
  3. Select (enable) items that you think is relevant to what you've planned for this profile. For example, a basic PvP profile should at the very least have all the ships ticked, gates, sun/star, interdiction probes and wormholes; a stealthbomber-only profile should have similar setup but without gates and only stealthbomber on the ships category.
  4. When you think you got what you need, switch to the States sub-tab.
  5. Decide what to display or in which state those items you've selected are going to be displayed. Hostiles only? Friendlies? Or just disregard any state or status attached to them? When you have decided, pick one of the three guideline as listed on the Common States Configurations table above and set which ones are enabled and which ones are not according to what's listed.
  6. Go to the top left of the overview settings window, click on that small box with four lines and select “Save Current Type Selection As”, then name your current profile setup. To make sure it's saved correctly just reclick the small box and see whether your profile name is listed there.
  7. Repeat.

Note : It is highly advised to set up a 'Podsaver' overview profile containing only bounce points made of celestials or warpable points in space. Common recommendations are Moons and Custom Offices. This is a popular use of the last of the five overview tabs (explained in a later section of this tutorial) to quickly GTFO when you're dead, dying or just needing to bounce from a PvP engagement.

It is recommended that you have at least three profiles set up, one for traveling, for PvP, and a Pod Saver. It is highly advised that you take advantage of all five. Examples for the remaining two may be a profile for hostile drones and one only showing friendlies. Once you have set up your overviews, you may continue to Step 2 of this tutorial.

Note : If you don't feel like building your own profiles by saving different set of filters. You may want to check out the overview pack section of this article. Bear in mind that you're highly advised to try out and read the steps as mentioned in this article and regardless of whether you're using an overview pack or not, you would still need to do at least the step-2 part of this setup.

STEP 2 - Display

The settings below are arguably the most important steps to take in configuring your overview. These settings determine what space objects are considered hostile by your overview, what are friendly, which ones are to be displayed and in what form. These settings determine whether your fleetmates are displayed as a fleet member, a neutral or even a hostile entity, if he has a certain flag attached. Which is why this is important and in you must ensure that these settings have been done and were done properly and correctly at all times regardless of whether you did your own filter settings (profiles) or using an overview pack!

IMPORTANT! These settings are shared between overview profiles, so you only need to do it once.

A. Broadcast Settings

This is not required but it will help a lot when you are involved in a larger scale engagement or when there are lots of short ranged items cluttering your overview and the FC is using broadcasts to call targets or instructions.

B. Colortags

Simplified STEP-2 of this tutorial

This section is not only about colors, it also determines whether something is displayed on a certain state (hostile, neutral, friendly, etc.) or the other.

  1. In your Overview settings window, switch to the Appearance tab, then on to the Colortags tab.
  2. Ensure Use small colortags is unchecked (the default is checked).
  3. Make sure everything's ticked (all is enabled) in this section.
  4. Right click on Pilot has security status below -5 Red Skull - Pilot has security status below -5 and change the color to orange Orange Skull - Pilot has security status below -5.
  5. Change the ordering to follow the below pattern/settings, further explanation regarding the coloring and ordering can be seen on the last step (Using Your Overview) of this Overview Setup tutorial. Please take note that the ordering was done on purpose and each color was set with several considerations taken place beforehand.
  6. Aside from the Pilot has security status below -5 Orange Skull - Pilot has security status below -5. It is highly advised to not change the coloring any further for any of the items on the colortags section. The reason for this is that the various coloring used by the default colortags settings will be used to further differentiate between different space object state/items and because we will be using the backgrounds settings to group generalized states (as shown on the next step).
  7. Change your colortags order to the following (you can drag each items listed up or down) :
    • Red Star - At war with your corp/alliance Pilot is at war with your corporation/ alliance
    • Orange Star - At war with your militia Pilot is at war with your militia
    • Turquoise Skull - Pilot has a limited engagement with you Pilot has a limited engagement with you
    • Fleet Member Pilot is in your fleet
    • Green Star - Member of your corporation Pilot is in your corporation
    • Blue Star - Member of your alliance Pilot is in your alliance
    • Dark Blue Plus - Excellent standings from your alliance/corp/self Pilot has excellent standing
    • Light Blue Plus - Good standings from your alliance/corp/self Pilot has good standing
    • Purple Star - Member of your militia Pilot is in your militia or allied to your militia
    • Orange Skull - Pilot has security status below -5 Pilot has security status below -5
    • Red Skull - Pilot is a criminal Pilot is a criminal
    • Yellow Skull - Pilot is a suspect Pilot is a suspect
    • Purchasable Kill Right Pilot has a kill right on him that you can activate
    • Red Minus - Terrible standings from your alliance/corp/self Pilot has terrible standing
    • Orange Minus - Bad standings from your alliance/corp/self Pilot has bad standing
    • Blue Star - Member of your alliance Pilot is an ally in one or more of your wars
    • Yellow Skull - Pilot has a security status below zero Pilot has security status below 0
    • Neutral Standing Pilot has neutral standing
    • Neutral Standing Pilot has no standing
    • Blue Chat Bubble Pilot (agent) is interactable
    • Black Skull - Pilot has a bounty Pilot has bounty on him
  8. Make sure that the order are setup correctly!.
  9. Turn ON the blink state (you can do this by right clicking on an item and hit the blink context menu), for below items. Notice that the blink state represents targets you are free to shoot at regardless of where you are (hisec/nullsec) :
    • Red Star - At war with your corp/alliance Pilot is at war with your corporation/ alliance
    • Orange Star - At war with your militia Pilot is at war with your militia
    • Turquoise Skull - Pilot has a limited engagement with you Pilot has a limited engagement with you
    • Orange Skull - Pilot has security status below -5 Pilot has security status below -5
    • Red Skull - Pilot is a criminal Pilot is a criminal
  10. The blink state will also be applied to your chat window, so if you prefer to have them turned off, you're free to do so.
  11. Additional Note : Corpmates are listed with a higher priority than fleet members to provide more comprehensive information regarding who's who in fleet. This will not affect your overview display as long as you have the background set up properly as described on the next step.

C. Backgrounds

Same as colortags but this section applies to background display rather than displayed icons.

  1. In your Overview settings window, switch to the Appearance tab, then on to the Background tab.
  2. Check and make sure everything's ticked (all is enabled) in this section.
  3. Change the background colors and ordering follows the below pattern/settings, further explanation regarding the coloring and ordering can be seen on the last step (Using Your Overview) of this Overview Setup tutorial. Please take note that the background coloring and the way it is ordered was done on purpose and each colors were set with several considerations taken place beforehand.
  4. To change the order of items, you can drag them up or down. To change the background colors, you can right click an item and select the color according to the list below.
    • Red Background Pilot is at war with your corporation/ alliance
    • Red Background Pilot is at war with your militia
    • Orange Background Pilot has a limited engagement with you
    • Light Purple Background Pilot is in your fleet
    • Dark Blue Background Pilot is in your corporation
    • Dark Blue Background Pilot is in your alliance
    • Dark Blue Background Pilot has excellent standing
    • Dark Blue Background Pilot has good standing
    • Light Blue Background Pilot is in your militia or allied to your militia
    • Light Blue Background Pilot is an ally in one or more of your wars
    • Red Background Pilot has terrible standing
    • Red Background Pilot has bad standing
    • Orange Background Pilot has a security status below -5
    • Orange Background Pilot is criminal
    • Orange Background Pilot is a suspect
    • Orange Background Pilot has a kill right on him that you can activate
    • Grey/White Background Pilot has security status below 0
    • Grey/White Background Pilot has neutral standing
    • Grey/White Background Pilot has no standing
    • Grey/White Background Pilot (agent) is interactable
    • Grey/White Background Pilot has bounty on him
  5. You may want to disable any blinking state on all backgrounds, some people may find it distracting, some may not. We'll be using the colortags to define any blinking states it's highly recommended that you turn off any blinking on the backgrounds to avoid clashes with the colortags and to reduce any additional load on your pc during heavy fights!. For this part, it's up to you to decide. To disable blinking, just head to the items that blinks on your screen, right click and hit the blink option.
  6. Double check and make sure the above is done correctly with both the ordering and the color settings. You'll see that the coloring is neatly grouped and that we're only using 6 colors and 3 groups of coloring (red+orange, purple+dark blue+blue and grey/white), it will be explained why on the last step of this tutorial.

D. E-WAR Notifications

Continuing with the Appearance tab, switch to the EWAR sub-tab. This section is quite simple, just tick them all and you're done.

STEP 3 - Columns

This section determines what columns are displayed on your overview window, same as appearance and background, this configuration is also shared between all of your overview profiles, so you only need to do it once.

  1. In your overview settings, go to the Columns tab.
  2. Below are the recommendations on what should/needs to be displayed on your overview. However, different people may have different preferences regarding to what is shown and where it should be placed. It's highly advised that you figure this out on your own depending on your playstyle, so this order is provided only as point of reference.
    • Icon
    • Tag (can be hidden if not necessary)
    • Distance
    • Name
    • Type
    • Angular Velocity
    • Transversal Velocity (can be hidden)
    • Corporation
    • Alliance

STEP 4 - Ships

This is where you customize the display of your brackets (what you see in space). You can leave it as default if you want.

Note : If you're using an overview pack, there's a high chance that it will come with it's own 'Ships' section configuration, if that's the case, all you need to do is activate (switch) to this tab and leave it as it is, this will trigger the client to update the bracket display as defined on the overview pack.

STEP 5 - Tabs & Brackets

This section defines the relationship between each of your overview tab and which profile they use to display the brackets. This is also where you can enable the additional overview tabs if you haven't configure the overview.

Overview Tabs

You can rename each tab to your liking. Each of the listed rows defines a tab configuration for that exact tab on your overview. The 'Tab Name' refers to the name of the tab. 'Overview Profile' refers to what profile is currently active on that tab, while 'Bracket Profile' defines the overview profile used to display brackets in space.

Make sure you have all the five tabs activated as compared to just one tab active (the default state of overview settings). If you are using an overview pack, all five tabs should be enabled automatically. If you're doing this the first time, on your own, you need to set them up by naming all five tabs and assign the overview profiles you've made during the first step of this tutorial. You can switch tabs on the fly later on without needing to access the overview settings by right-clicking the profile tab in your overview window and selecting a profile you want to be activated on your current active tab.

Note : If you're using an overview pack, the only thing you should do afterwards (after the pack installation) is to assign which overview profile's active on which overview tab. Most of the time this is not necessary since some overview packs have them configured beforehand and on some overview packs you might see some garbled text on the “Tab Name” section, this is normal and you can leave it as it is.

FINISHED!

You are now set, congratulations and good job!

Now we're going to explain a few things regarding why your overview is setup this way. Some of you might have been using the old “Unfuck Your Overview” settings and some might have been following the Eve University's Guide to Overview, the rest of you may have never done this before, but regardless, it is recommended for you to read this to know why your overview is setup this way.

First and foremost, we need to remind ourselves that we are not a highsec entity, like most other nullsec organizations, we 'discriminate' between pilots, corporations, and alliances by standings set by our leaders, our ourselves. If the alliance or coalition said Pilot X is a friendly entity, then Pilot X should appear blue on everyone's overview (in terms of in game tactical state, you can be friends with a bacon for all we care). The main purpose of the current overview setup is to “Significantly simplify the correct overview presentation of an object while retaining the most prevalent object state to display”. The changes to the overview mechanics in the Retribution patch allow us to do things that we could not do previously.

The way we're doing this, is by grouping every available state into the simplest format possible to make it easier for players to interpret each objects they see in space by reassigning them to their basic nature from your perspective by making use of the background colors. Which means, as you've noticed by the backgrounds we use, what you see in space will be divided into three primary groups, each with similar color schemes (red with |orange | |purple, |blue and |light blue | and |white) :

In addition to the generalized object state schemes, the changes made by CCP following the Retribution patch also allows us to set the colors and ordering between colortags differently from their backgrounds counterparts. This means, for instance, regardless of whether several different friendlies whom shown to you as dark blue on their backgrounds, the colortags will always show you the difference between friendlies. Below are several scenarios which should provide you some ideas on what will/should be shown on your overview :

Good Job!

Now your Overview is set.

Overview Packs

If you can't be bothered to setup your own overview or want to standardize your settings among groups, corporations, or alliances, you may want to use any one of these overview packs below.

Before you proceed : It is highly recommended that you follow the guide to build your own overview pack. This will help you understand how the overview settings interact and how the overview works in general.

Overview packs are pre-built set of overview profiles and in most cases, include their own set of settings, such as bracket, types, states, and labeling. This allow players to quickly import several overview profiles at once. There are also many other features which can be included on overview packs in comparison to your basic overview, depending on each of the overview packs currently available in public, two of the most common features most commonly overview packs promotes are :

Overview packs are not official products made by CCP, they are custom-built, third party releases. Until today, overview packs are not a sanctioned product nor it is considered an exploit, so it is fairly safe to use until CCP says otherwise.

There are several other advantages of using or releasing overview packs. One worth mentioning is that some overview packs were designed with many considerations and standards. This is especially important in some corporations, big alliances or coalitions. For instance, many of the overview packs may release set X profiles which is used on important scenarios and in turn used by many members of certain organizations. There is also benefit of standardization across these profiles, such as more likely to have a lot of usable features according to what activities they do on a daily basis including the way they do combat, fleets, or other non-pvp activities. Building your own overview can be better in some cases, however, using the same overview pack across many players at once enables you to follow and issue commands with confidence that everyone will receive the same set of instructions.

Other Resources

Some other resources and reading material regarding Eve Online's Overview: