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.

Three monitors form a wall around a box that embeds a fourth monitor, many buttons and switches in various colours are also implemented. Some LED display the status of a spaceship. The computer game that is played with this contraption is Elite Dangerous Odyssey

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

Three monitors form a wall around a box that embeds a fourth monitor, many buttons and switches in various colours are also implemented. Some LED display the status of a spaceship. The computer game that is played with this contraption is Fly Dangerous

It’s completely DIY and made on a budget (no really). It’s also Work In Progress, like probably any home cockpit out there.

Picture of the building phase of the frame. One unpainted panel is already screwed to the wooden frame. Other panels do not exist yet or are still cardboard mockups

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

  • Strayce@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    7·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • Beko Pharm@discuss.tchncs.deOP
      3·
      1 year ago

      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

  • Crotaro@beehaw.org
    3·
    1 year ago

    Very impressive! Maybe when the next global pandemic flares up, I’ll build something similar >:)

  • jarfil@beehaw.org
    3·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • Beko Pharm@discuss.tchncs.deOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • Luci@lemmy.ca
    3·
    1 year ago

    I’m a bit confused, are “, ,” and “Space Pew Pew” the names of the games?

      • Jessica@discuss.tchncs.de
        4·
        1 year ago

        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!

        • Beko Pharm@discuss.tchncs.deOP
          1·
          1 year ago

          I see. In theory that’s possible but there is no game that has this as virtual cockpit as well. I know this exists for e.g. “real” jets but it’s really not for me. Getting motion sick fast (even from shaky YT videos), wearing glasses and like drinking my beer while simming.

  • interolivary@beehaw.org
    2·
    1 year ago

    Ha, that’s fucking awesome. Also probably the only way to make E:D actually fun to play 😅 I put in about 100h before I got tired of how shallow it ultimately is

    • Beko Pharm@discuss.tchncs.deOP
      3·
      1 year ago

      Not going to defend ED but this type of game is usually more about the journey especially with friends. Yes, the grind is unreal and also nothing for me which is why I almost completely ignored engineering so far. I do enjoy other parts of the game though.

      100h? My would you look at my SC playing time: just 57h and half of that is walking back to the spaceport xD

      • interolivary@beehaw.org
        2·
        1 year ago

        Unfortunately I have no friends because I’m a bit of a twat, and while I get your point about the journey – it’s pretty much what I enjoyed for that 100h – it didn’t manage to carry me too far.

        Notably for the vast majority of that 100h (probably closer to 200–300h tbh, since I also played on PS4 when that was a thing) I explored; I absolutely loved the “magnificent desolation” of being out in the Black, and the slowness of explorer gameplay compared to the pew pew “careers.” I just wished there’d been more variation to the planets and the life you could find on them, more variation to Guardian ruins, and so on, and so it started feeling like I’m just seeing the same half-dozen planets and plants over and over, and it started feeling like a grind in itself. Tried my hand at some of the other career options but nothing really did it for me as much as exploration had, and I eventually sort of drifted away from the game. Never did much engineering to speak either beyond some easy to get FSD things and grind discoveries for a while so I could get a better ship (a lot of this was before the huge bump in exploration payouts so it really was a grind 😅).

        SC – or more likely their single player game, Squadron whatever – seems like I’d enjoy it, at least conceptually. Lessee if they manage to release Squadron, I might give it a whirl if it’ll run even passably on a Steam Deck (my only gaming device for the foreseeable future, although that might not be a relevant horizon when it comes to that game getting released).