I've been having a bit of fun over the last few days trying to work out a possible cockpit design concept, and thought I'd share it with you all to see what you think. Following on from the idea of hardpoints on the outside of the ship, I thought it would be great if you could have 'softpoints' inside your cockpit, where you can install software modules for weapons and navigation systems, etc.
As you can see, I've mocked up an image with my limited artistic skills to give some idea of how one such configuration might look. Obviously there are details missing - the screens in the background would all be displaying info on them, and I imagine there would be hardware panels in the cockpit in addition to the software displays. As well as the semi-transparent screens, there could be different methods of image projection, overlays etc. but alas, I'm not artistic enough to draw them!
The big projection showing a map of the solar system would only be displayed when you called it up (and would look a lot better/have more info). Similarly you would be able to call up detailed displays for other ship systems - weapons, life support, damage, fuel, scanners, etc. Ideally each cockpit would still maintain a separate character depending on the number and location of softpoints, so a Sidewinder might have only 1 or 2, with the majority of displays being non-configurable hardware panels.
Much of the thinking behind the design is that in an MMO, you can't pause the game to change settings during a fight, so you need to be able to see menu screens at the same time as flying. Also, the customisation aspect would help make the cockpit feel more personal, as you got it set up just the way you like it.
Edit: The background pic is courtesy of "ESO/L. Calçada/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)"
Obviously, though, Frontier are going to go their own way on this, and I look forward to seeing what they do! As I said at the beginning, this was really just for fun.
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