Simulator

Thank you SDV. I'll get some pictures going on it soon. In the meantime...what do you think about control setup? I had played around with the thought of a joystick on both sides of the chair, but then opted for the throtle control bar. What would be the best way (using EoC as an example) to control a spacecraft? Foot pedals are great for taking care of the thruster override keys, since anyone who drives is used to using foot pedals. But what other options do you think would allow for maximum control of a ship? I'm kinda leaving the planning stage and getting into the construction stage, so if I'm going to make any changes, it has to be soon.

An ironic side-note: I'm trying to get away from keyboard flying and design realistic controls, but it seems most likely that spacecraft (should they ever be built) will be flown by keyboard.

Don't count on the keyboard thing too much, pilots are extremely used to using the flight stick and throttle control bar, and they will probably have quite a bit of influence in the making of the control setup design, should it ever happen.

Like the setup, general flight/combat manuvering on the right side with throttle on the left sound like a good idea, maybe attach the autopilot controls on throttle bar ?, with an extra button to activate the autopilot buttons, so you dont hit them by accident.

On second thought forget that, would end up confuseing, don't want that to happen.

But have the autopilot buttons right in front of the T-bar, so you only have to stretch your hand/arm a bit, that might work no?

You could include the manual LDS drive activation key on the T-bar, goes for the undocking key aswell.

Then there is the hud command menu, but I guess you will be using the hat function on the flightstick for that hm?

The foot pedals are a great idea, no suggestions on that point, oh and make sure you have good long armrests, or it will bee a pain in the posterior sitting in there, flying for any lenght of time.

God's, i'm probably going to have wet dreams about having one of those myself, when I go to bed(kidding).

Once again good luck with your project.<img src=icon_smile_cool.gif border=0 align=middle>

"Overreacting conveys
understanding, hmm sounds better in danish.
Overdrivelse fremmer forståelsen.

Buttons on the throttle bar are an excellent idea! I can place three or four momentary-contact micro-buttons along it's length, run the wiring for them to the patch board, and be able to use them for any key-press I need. Great!

Since the switches will be wired to a patch board, then to an encoder, I will be able to make any switch in the cockpit activate any key-press on the computer, anytime I wish. The challenge is placing the switches in the correct positions where they will be easy to reach. Another challenge is the type of switch. I like toggle switches... makes you feel really cool reaching over your head and flipping switches (like in the movies), but toggle switches don't work out very well when activating keystrokes in a game; for instance: I flip a toggle switch that turns off flight assist, but since the switch is a "off/on" switch, what the computer recieves is flight assist off/on/off/on/off/on/etc. I had decided to use a type of toggle switch that is spring-loaded to return to off positon, but it won't really have the same cool feel as a regular toggle switch (the things I do for atmosphere...really). Buttons are ok, but I want to stay away from an "arcade" feel. It may be possible with one of the more expensive encoders, to do the standard toggle switch and have the encoder transmit only one impulse to the computer, which would solve this problem. I'll have to check it out.

I'm rambling...and will stop now. Thanks again SDV, it's a great idea.

Hmm. That's quite a challenege you've set yourself Shane. Definitely looking forward to the end result. No worries on the post size .

If you get around to writing a full specifications document, I'd be happy to give it some disk space, so you can link to it from here.

Thanks SoupDragon. I appreciate all the help and support from you and your forum. I'll get some specs together.

For those keeping up with the project, it seems the Hagstrom Keyboard Encoder KE-72, which is the model I'm going to use for the simulator, will allow me my toggle switches. It has the ability to program each control seperately, and can be set to transmit only one keystroke to the computer until I touch it again. Solves the problem of the toggle switches neatly. An amazing piece of hardware...

Our monkey hands can use a joystick to change direction

towards you = look up
away from you = lok down

to the left = turn ship left
to the right = turn ship right


And the foot pedels

left foot pedals = left wing down/right wing up

Right foot pedals = right wing down/left wing up

the joystick is controlled by the right hand and the left hand gets a keayboard all to itself

This keyboard would be just like your normal keyboard on the computer
it could even be on an arm so that it rotates and could be in your lap if you only wanted to use the keyboard

This would mean that certain functions would be shared by both the throttle stick and the keyboard. I found it easyier to use 'w' to go forward instead of the stick anyway

Jwk...comander of =HEMP HUNGRY MONKEY=
www.i-war2.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=310