Console customization?

[Jackard]

Are the devs planning to add more ship interactables and displays? Will there be diagrams or other instruments like radar? Will there be flight sticks? Holographic displays? Sound devices like alarms or speakers? Can you make buttons different colors depending on variables?

The info I found on youtube and the wiki makes it look like displays are limited to blue and white colors, and information is only presented in text or bars. Also all of these elements were bolted into place, which looked pretty ugly since it obscured the actual display.

Since the players are robots, could devs just make sitting in a chair update your UI/HUD with relevant information? (as set by the ship designer)

 

[MAXD]

Too many levers on the control table make every one looks like a DJ not a pilot! XD

 

[Jackard]

I mean there's gotta be a better way of controlling ships than having a bunch of giant bulky levers everywhere.

 

[CalenLoki]

Game is not even in Alpha yet, so don't judge visuals by tech-demo videos.

Sensors are a hot topic, because ATM game has huge emphasis on manual combat. And radars could lead to automation of shooting and spotting, or just the later. So don't expect them until we test how combat flows without them.

Flight sticks will probably come together with mouse/controller/hotas support.

No info on rest, but seeing how the game develops, I'd expect them sooner or later.

Regarding HUD, devs try to avoid these, to make ship design more important. Clever placement of displays is important as well.

 

[Vis]

Yes, I have been wondering the same thing, because the cockpits of fighters and ships in this game are just the ugliest I have ever seen in a game. XD They need to make buttons and switches like 1/4 the size of the ones they have shown because there is just not going to be enough room to fit all the controls for my fighters and ships. They need to make it so you can customize the colors and graphics of controls and displays because blue and white just won't fit the color scheme of everyone's faction and the bars look really ugly. What if someone wants round gauges on their ships? They also need transparent/glass displays that we can fully customize to make our own HUDs. There NEEDS to be HUDs... HUDs are a super important thing for a fighter to have. You don't want to lose track of the enemy because you had to look down in your cockpit to see some piece of critical information.

 

[quantin]

We need a control column in game!And some mouse control,please!

 

[Jackard]

Regarding HUD, devs try to avoid these, to make ship design more important. Clever placement of displays is important as well.

Why? If so they're passing up the perfect excuse to display information in a clean and efficient manner. Just jack your robot into the pilots chair to get pilot readouts. Same for gunner chair and so on.

Each ship having an interface customized by the designer or owner. This is also ship design.

 

[MAXD]

HUD can be a point in design. I was troubled with all kinds of bad HUDs. It really count in a real combat! Not only for cool!

 

[Jackard]

When you think about it, the bolted displays are already a HUD — just a really, really terrible one.

 

[Burnside]

Yes, I have been wondering the same thing, because the cockpits of fighters and ships in this game are just the ugliest I have ever seen in a game. XD They need to make buttons and switches like 1/4 the size of the ones they have shown because there is just not going to be enough room to fit all the controls for my fighters and ships. They need to make it so you can customize the colors and graphics of controls and displays because blue and white just won't fit the color scheme of everyone's faction and the bars look really ugly. What if someone wants round gauges on their ships? They also need transparent/glass displays that we can fully customize to make our own HUDs. There NEEDS to be HUDs... HUDs are a super important thing for a fighter to have. You don't want to lose track of the enemy because you had to look down in your cockpit to see some piece of critical information.

You say this, but if your command chair goes down, you'll need to be able to press those buttons.

 

[Vis]

You say this, but if your command chair goes down, you'll need to be able to press those buttons.

That will be true no matter what. If you are in a fighter than it won't matter because the whole fighter will most likely be blown up. The command chair could be in the very center of the ship in the CIC. If the ship gets damaged enough to reach that deep into the ship than the ship will be dead anyways so it won't matter. You could always also put in a backup chair. But the problem with the way things are now is that I won't have enough space for all the buttons and will need 2 chairs that I will have to keep switching between. XD

 

[Burnside]

if you have that many functions you need to keybind, you're no longer flying a one-man fighter

 

[Vis]

if you have that many functions you need to keybind, you're no longer flying a one-man fighter

You must not have seen the cockpit of many fighters.

 

[Burnside]

Irl gauges also track functions and systems that don't really exist in the game, you're misapplying the expected level of complexity.

 

[Vis]

Irl gauges also track functions and systems that don't really exist in the game, you're misapplying the expected level of complexity.

No, I'm not at all. The big ugly levers needed just to control a fighter take up most of the space on a control panel. You need one lever to increase and decrease speed, one to pitch up and down, one to roll left and right, one to yaw left and right and maybe even one to strafe left and right as well as one for up and down. Because that is a thing space fighters could do. You're just thinking on too simple of a level. Maybe your fighters will only need the basic controls to fly and shoot a weapon... But there are tons of other features fighters could have.
What if I want to...
1. Switch between weapons?
2. Switch the mode of fire for those weapons, from 'full-auto', 'burst fire', or 'semi-auto'?
3. Adjust the convergence point of my weapons.
4. Turn my fighter's range finders ON/OFF?
5. Turn my fighter's navigation lights ON/OFF?
6. Turn my fighter's landing lights ON/OFF?
7. Raise or lower my landing gear?
8. Turn my fighter's cockpit lights ON/OFF?
9. Turn my fighter's radio transmitter ON/OFF?
10. Turn my fighter's radio receiver ON/OFF?
11. Turn my fighter's generators ON/OFF?
12. Turn my fighter's engines ON/OFF?
13. Turn my fighter's thrusters ON/OFF?
14. Open/close my fighter's canopy?
15. Open/close my fighter's fuel door? (Needed in cockpit for automated refueling system)
16. Open/close my fighter's ammo stores? (Needed in cockpit for automated reloading system)
17. Eject from my fighter when it gets too damage and is flying out of control?
18. Change the channel or frequency my radio transmitter is transmitting on?
19. Turn my fighter's network relays ON/OFF?
20. Change to different network relays?

I'll stop here at 20 things because otherwise this list will just be so long people will find it annoying to scroll passed.
But that stuff will need a lot of buttons, switches, and knobs for all those functions.
A lot of that stuff will also need some gauges/displays but there could also be a function to switch to different modes where all the gauges/displays only show what is needed in that mode.
I'm sure there is a lot of other things that people could add to this list, both ones that I have thought of but didn't list and even ones I didn't think of, but there is a lot more complexity then you think.

 

[Burnside]

Some of those wishlist items aren't really viable (yet) as implementable features for any type of craft. Otherwise 20+ features plus basic controls shouldn't be too bad, but I still think asking for smaller buttons is almost pointless when your entire reason for having small buttons is being able to press them all manually. That kind of feature overload won't be point-and-clickable in combat, so there's still no reason not to put most of those secondary systems into side panels off the main flight view.

 

[Vis]

Some of those wishlist items aren't really viable (yet) as implementable features for any type of craft. Otherwise 20+ features plus basic controls shouldn't be too bad, but I still think asking for smaller buttons is almost pointless when your entire reason for having small buttons is being able to press them all manually. That kind of feature overload won't be point-and-clickable in combat, so there's still no reason not to put most of those secondary systems into side panels off the main flight view.

Asking for smaller buttons is not at all pointless. The current buttons are way too big. You don't need buttons that big taking up that much space when you are sitting that close to them. And most of the functions I listed you wouldn't need during combat. The super important stuff you would need keybindings for, but for all the other stuff you should have a button for. Plus we don't know for sure if you can have keybindings for functions that don't have a button. All functions might still require a button even if you do have keybindings for them. And there could be many more functions added into the game later that add to this list, but that is why you need to be thinking ahead.

 

[Burnside]

the chairs keybinding things lets you push the buttons or levers with the keybinds, keybinds don't happen without command chairs, out of a chair it's all manual

 

[Vis]

the chairs keybinding things lets you push the buttons or levers with the keybinds, keybinds don't happen without command chairs, out of a chair it's all manual

So you still need the buttons there then? That means we need smaller buttons so we can fit all those functions whether there is a keybinding for it or not. You of course will want to keybind the important stuff so you don't have to look down in your cockpit during combat, but we will still need room for all the other stuff. If we get a HUD that we can customize, we will also need buttons to adjust the brightness and color of the HUD. XD I'm not at all saying they should take away the big buttons, but the control panels have a very limited amount of space on them, so we need some smaller buttons, switches, and knobs to fit those functions on there.

 

[Burnside]

probably not getting a HUD. And if there's a button within range of the chair, you can keybind it, so there shouldn't be any that you can press that aren't on a keybind