What you see is a glorified DIY joystick controller with a LCD (‘MFD’) and plenty of RGB inspired by a VF-1 (Block 6) Valkyrie of the Macross franchise.
I use it mainly to play Elite Dangerous, Star Citizen, X4: Foundations and plenty of other Space Pew Pew.
It’s mobile and can be stashed easily because my battlestation is, unlike most gaming rigs, also my workstation and has to move a lot. It’s also frequently occupied by my kids who also love clicky buttons and compete with me for stick time :D
It’s completely DIY and made on a budget (no really). It’s also Work In Progress, like probably any home cockpit out there.
For the PC it’s just a joystick and an additional display. The magic starts to happen when I manage to interface with the games to display live game data and adjust the blinken lights depending on the current ship telemetry.
Am I crazy? Yes, probably. It’s a hobby and when Corona happened indoor hobbies became kinda a thing again 🤓
Edith says: Should have added this from the beginning: I do foster a project website that has additional details, pictures and videos: 🌐 https://SimPit.dev (yes it’s slow - hold the line :P)
Videos are usually mirrored to 📹 https://tube.tchncs.de/a/bekopharm or 📹 https://www.youtube.com/@BekoPharm (pick your poison).
Additional content may be found on 🌐 https://beko.famkos.net/category/simpit/ or on ☠️ https://hackaday.io/bekopharm
Nice battle station
One question, did you play this on Linux? =P
Yes.
inspired by a VF-1 (Block 6) Valkyrie of the Macross franchise.
I knew that layout looked familiar!
It’s really “the best” I found without going down the realism route.
Spent a lof of time figuring out what I want :)
…also huge fan of the franchise since… dunno… forever I guess?
I hope you’ve joined the Linux User Group - LUG - Org in Star Citizen.
We’re steadily gunning for the top ten spot in org sizes. (Currently the 14th largest)
We met on the Mumble like 3 days ago :P
Alas yes, join the SC LUG. It’s the best LUG out there [for penguins] 🤣
This confused the living shit out of me for a good five minutes, seeing a sidey on the MFD but a battlestar in the main screen and an X4 HUD.
Mission accomplished 😜
Edith says: This is mostly because I don’t have any icons for X4 yet. The HUD app (written in React) can switch that on the fly but I’m really not big on the gfx side and that’s also a lot of hot needle coding going on. Currently also experimenting with Rive animations that are more suited for classic MFD applications. See this [unlisted] demo snippet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suik2_baUfU
I want to see you play “Simon says” on this thing.
I want to see you play “Simon says” on this thing.
I’m not even surprised: https://wokwi.com/projects/328451800839488084
So yeah… I could 🤓 Would have to adapt this for my Mega but that’s details…
That’s a really awesome setup!
You went through all this trouble and you’re not even playing it in VR? Tsk tsk
There’s always the one that can’t grasp that VR is not for everyone (or that making something is also a hobby).
I’m just yanking you chain. In all seriousness though, I’m curious if you could enable finger tracking on a headset and line up your physical buttons with the virtual ones. Could be insanely immersive if the scale is correct!
Looks very impressive!
Very impressive! Maybe when the next global pandemic flares up, I’ll build something similar >:)
You just made my 10yo self massively envious… all I had was a couple cardboard boxes, fake dials, some blinkenlights, DIY switches and paper code cards, and some paper tube graphite heaters fed from an old high voltage TV cap that I’m still unsure how didn’t set the whole thing on fire.
my first version was cardboard too and I also call it my little fire hazard 😜 The backside is really ugly. Thanks for your comment. My 10yo self is very proud and happy that I finally built this.
Where’s the dedicated DRADIS monitor?
funny that you’d ask: https://tube.tchncs.de/w/faN4WZixzaRqusUCn8fEpP
that’s just a video loop though 🤓
Excellent! So immersive!
How much I wish for a modern BSG sim…
So say we all :)
At least we’ve Diaspora I guess.
Everspace spoiled me and set the watermark too high for any space combat sim.
I’m tired of glorified arcade plane dogfights.
Then again, I wish there was a sim that was similar to the Expanse combat-wise.
So I guess you know about Hunternet Starfighter or Rixer already?
First time I heard about them, but looked right my alley if it wasn’t because it’s multiplayer.
I can’t invest the same amount of time as most players…
I’m a bit confused, are “, ,” and “Space Pew Pew” the names of the games?
“, ,” also known as SPACE
Wait… does Markdown not work for kbin too??
No, I just wanted to emulate Tim Curry in Red Alert.
Sounds like Markdown went Markunder on your Lemmy client? 🤔 Try the source of this post maybe: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/5164302
Space Pew Pew is more a category ;-)
I edited this and removed the Markdown. Hope it shows now?
Makes sense now! Thanks for fixing it
Do you play Star Trek Fleet Command?
Star Trek Fleet Command
Nope. I’m aware of various bridge command sims though :)
It’s just not really my cup of tea.
Ooh, can you tell me some?
I know of http://www.novaimages.de/bridgesim/#media_images
There’s also Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator and I know at lease one guy who plays and works on a Empty Epsilon bridge.
For SC there is this madman in Florida (chrchr): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1w6eAHwfFo
Is it good?
That’s so cool. Do you have any videos showing off the build process or final product
Plenty but mostly snippets only. Nothing cohesive for a while (3 kids don’t leave much energy for YT).
There is a project website: https://SimPit.dev (slow af, backyard hosted but ads and tracking free) There’s also a PeerTube channel: https://tube.tchncs.de/a/bekopharm/video-channels I did make one of those dreaded YT Shorts (not going to do that again - that’s just pain): https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BoJHZQpK2Iw
Other sources may be derived from the project website or my blog 🤓
Smol update here too: Made a tiny demo video show-casing the cockpit in action in Elite Dangerous 🙃
Pick your poison:
https://tube.tchncs.de/w/1nokGf66oWj34EdMvxYbSn / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXofGR4GRLk
Just slaughtering pirates (wasn’t in the cockpit for months) but you get to see it from a first person perspective this time because I strapped the camera to my headphones 🙃
