The person charged with cockpit design should really be given some time in a Airline Simulator, perhaps then they would get a feel for flight deck lighting and audio/visual warnings, ALL airline manufacturers have spent millions on researching human/cockpit interface they do know what it's all about, they have the design philosophy NAILED....please FD send someone to a Boeing or Airbus Simulator so that they can gain a better understanding/experience of cockpit ergonomics ESPECIALLY the lighting.
Whilst they're there allow them to play with the FMS Flight Management System to acquire a deeper insight into how a real Nav/Flight management system functions. This would have the added bonus of giving the youngsters who play this game a advantage if they decide to become airline pilots, less to unlearn when they sit in a real cockpit.
Excellent idea. I know Braben beat on the breast of the lady, I think it was, cockpit designer and how wonderful she made it all look. The idea that it is all a hologram sounds nouveau and implies advanced technology, where in fact most technology in the game is just so so. (There is no internet, so corporations need to print literally tons of pledge/voucher paper that you carry for your Power.) Anyway.
But the fact is, you are quite right. In such a future - and the weird thing is, is that Braben is a science fanboy but he cannot seem to extrapolate very well into the future - surely cockpits would be modular. I am always for the modular approach. So, ability to customize. The cockpit needs redesigning, just about as much as most of the game. It needs to be modular, it needs hard panels, hologram elements.
It needs a minimap so you can see your travels. It needs to be able to be swapped for a mining panel so you can see certain information and hopefully the future of mining will be more about scanning for ore and setting ore priorities etc.
It needs more information. There is no definition. Most people have phones that feature more colors. And what do we get? Bobbleheads. Ick! Panels shopld be interchangeable, movable, to some degree scalable. Pabels need the config option to flip back on exit to a certain position, like contacts e.g. That will make VA users extremely pleased.
Designers should not just enter the simulator but talk to a pilot or two.
The best HUD for me would be a configurable way, say like turning on and off the orbital lines, an overlay of information on a panel connected by a very thin line to the FOV. I love that system. So it will say in a panel something like 'Asteroid Depleted' and from that block of text a hairline goes to the asteroid and connect with it. And when you lose sight of the rock, the line disappears.
Or you approach a station and a line will go from the blue target dot indicator whatyamahcallit to the station and upon getting to 7.5 Km it will point at a beacon at the entrance and if needed, curve around it. Because those pointers at the little station representation or utterly useless to me because after years of playing I still don't know the logic to them and no, I am not going to ever learn that because it is too counter intuitive.
This is the problem when science fanboys code a game, they think linearly like scientists and in mathematical mindsets, not visual-spatial.
