(Suggestion) Frontier Made Replica Hotas Chairs to buy
- Thread starter Levianova
- Start date
Hello, Levianova. 
That's a good suggestion that I disagree with entirely, but in an entirely positive way. +1 and -1.
I don't care about chairs. At all. I've never even tried one. They look like great fun, but they're out of both my price-range and the physical space I have to house such things, so I give them little thought.
To go egregiously off-topic, if FD really want to get into the hardware side of things, what I'd like is for Frontier to co-design a HOTAS that is actually designed for ED - and both put it into the game as the standard flight-controller and license it to a good manufacturer as the official recommended controller for Elite: Dangerous.*
At the moment, what we see in-game is based around traditional flightsticks and HOTASes - but these aren't really something anybody should really want to control a ship in actual spaceflight with: Apollo 11 might have had the things, but they're frankly terrible for the job - AFAICT, they're all inherently designed for controlling aeroplanes in an atmosphere, or tanks on the ground, with a few added concessions for other purposes. I've not tried them all, mind, only a few - but from what I can tell, even the best of them seem painfully clunky, compared with any kind of bespoke space-focused design.
In my own rather-fantastic opinion, a good spaceflight HOTAS should have two mirrored, flatter throttle-like controllers, designed to be moved easily and precisely and - above all - purely with the palms of the hands, rather than the fingers and thumbs. The control-units should be optimised to maintain constant-touch between the digits of the hand and the buttons and other elements, minimising the risks of accidental or missed actuations.
The HOTAS should be an ambidextrous design, split like the Thrustmaster and switchable so that left- and right-handed players can use the device with equal facility. Each unit should have a small thumb-controlled trackball, designed to provide an additional higher-precision control of. say, pitch and yaw control on the one side and either lateral thrust or quick-look control on the other. That way, we get the accessibility and sheer fun of a HOTAS with the precision of a mouse & keyboard setup - at the moment, it seems to be effectively either one or the other.
Controls which currently tend to appear on the bases of HOTASes should be moved to inner-positioned projections from the units, that move with the throttle-like sticks, so they're always easily reached with the thumbs and players never, ever have to look away from the screen, once they know the HOTAS. There should be more of them, enough that all the major functions of ED's UI are available without ever reaching for a keyboard or other device.
That's what I want - and that's all assuming FD likes the idea of playing with hardware, obviously. If they don't then no worries.
Levianova, once again, I apologise for going off-topic - and I thank you for an inspiring post.
*(... and by "good manufacturer", I mean not bloody Saitek. Even allowing for enemy-action astroturfing, the sheer, stupifying number of complaints and bad reviews their hardware and software gets is astronomical. Possibly, their recent acquisition by the generally-very-reliable Logitech may make a major difference in the longer run, but as of yet, it's not showing in the reviews I'm seeing.
By way of contrast, the older Thrustmaster I'm using has survived a few years of heavy abuse and two house-moves, with nothing worse than a couple of slightly-less-responsive buttons to show for it. I've no idea who the company are, beyond being the manufacturers / licensors of my HOTAS, but they deserve a round of applause for reliable design. Even my best, old ZX Spectrum joysticks weren't any more durable than this - and they usually took a right and proper hammering before going wrong.)
That's a good suggestion that I disagree with entirely, but in an entirely positive way. +1 and -1.
I don't care about chairs. At all. I've never even tried one. They look like great fun, but they're out of both my price-range and the physical space I have to house such things, so I give them little thought.
To go egregiously off-topic, if FD really want to get into the hardware side of things, what I'd like is for Frontier to co-design a HOTAS that is actually designed for ED - and both put it into the game as the standard flight-controller and license it to a good manufacturer as the official recommended controller for Elite: Dangerous.*
At the moment, what we see in-game is based around traditional flightsticks and HOTASes - but these aren't really something anybody should really want to control a ship in actual spaceflight with: Apollo 11 might have had the things, but they're frankly terrible for the job - AFAICT, they're all inherently designed for controlling aeroplanes in an atmosphere, or tanks on the ground, with a few added concessions for other purposes. I've not tried them all, mind, only a few - but from what I can tell, even the best of them seem painfully clunky, compared with any kind of bespoke space-focused design.
In my own rather-fantastic opinion, a good spaceflight HOTAS should have two mirrored, flatter throttle-like controllers, designed to be moved easily and precisely and - above all - purely with the palms of the hands, rather than the fingers and thumbs. The control-units should be optimised to maintain constant-touch between the digits of the hand and the buttons and other elements, minimising the risks of accidental or missed actuations.
The HOTAS should be an ambidextrous design, split like the Thrustmaster and switchable so that left- and right-handed players can use the device with equal facility. Each unit should have a small thumb-controlled trackball, designed to provide an additional higher-precision control of. say, pitch and yaw control on the one side and either lateral thrust or quick-look control on the other. That way, we get the accessibility and sheer fun of a HOTAS with the precision of a mouse & keyboard setup - at the moment, it seems to be effectively either one or the other.
Controls which currently tend to appear on the bases of HOTASes should be moved to inner-positioned projections from the units, that move with the throttle-like sticks, so they're always easily reached with the thumbs and players never, ever have to look away from the screen, once they know the HOTAS. There should be more of them, enough that all the major functions of ED's UI are available without ever reaching for a keyboard or other device.
That's what I want - and that's all assuming FD likes the idea of playing with hardware, obviously. If they don't then no worries.
Levianova, once again, I apologise for going off-topic - and I thank you for an inspiring post.
*(... and by "good manufacturer", I mean not bloody Saitek. Even allowing for enemy-action astroturfing, the sheer, stupifying number of complaints and bad reviews their hardware and software gets is astronomical. Possibly, their recent acquisition by the generally-very-reliable Logitech may make a major difference in the longer run, but as of yet, it's not showing in the reviews I'm seeing.
By way of contrast, the older Thrustmaster I'm using has survived a few years of heavy abuse and two house-moves, with nothing worse than a couple of slightly-less-responsive buttons to show for it. I've no idea who the company are, beyond being the manufacturers / licensors of my HOTAS, but they deserve a round of applause for reliable design. Even my best, old ZX Spectrum joysticks weren't any more durable than this - and they usually took a right and proper hammering before going wrong.)
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Hello, Levianova.
That's a good suggestion that I disagree with entirely, but in an entirely positive way. +1 and -1.
I don't care about chairs. At all. I've never even tried one. They look like great fun, but they're out of both my price-range and the physical space I have to house such things, so I give them little thought.
To go egregiously off-topic, if FD really want to get into the hardware side of things, what I'd like is for Frontier to co-design a HOTAS that is actually designed for ED - and both put it into the game as the standard flight-controller and license it to a good manufacturer as the official recommended controller for Elite: Dangerous.*
At the moment, what we see in-game is based around traditional flightsticks and HOTASes - but these aren't really something anybody should really want to control a ship in actual spaceflight with: Apollo 11 might have had the things, but they're frankly terrible for the job - AFAICT, they're all inherently designed for controlling aeroplanes in an atmosphere, or tanks on the ground, with a few added concessions for other purposes. I've not tried them all, mind, only a few - but from what I can tell, even the best of them seem painfully clunky, compared with any kind of bespoke space-focused design.
In my own rather-fantastic opinion, a good spaceflight HOTAS should have two mirrored, flatter throttle-like controllers, designed to be moved easily and precisely and - above all - purely with the palms of the hands, rather than the fingers and thumbs. The control-units should be optimised to maintain constant-touch between the digits of the hand and the buttons and other elements, minimising the risks of accidental or missed actuations.
The HOTAS should be an ambidextrous design, split like the Thrustmaster and switchable so that left- and right-handed players can use the device with equal facility. Each unit should have a small thumb-controlled trackball, designed to provide an additional higher-precision control of. say, pitch and yaw control on the one side and either lateral thrust or quick-look control on the other. That way, we get the accessibility and sheer fun of a HOTAS with the precision of a mouse & keyboard setup - at the moment, it seems to be effectively either one or the other.
Controls which currently tend to appear on the bases of HOTASes should be moved to inner-positioned projections from the units, that move with the throttle-like sticks, so they're always easily reached with the thumbs and players never, ever have to look away from the screen, once they know the HOTAS. There should be more of them, enough that all the major functions of ED's UI are available without ever reaching for a keyboard or other device.
That's what I want - and that's all assuming FD likes the idea of playing with hardware, obviously. If they don't then no worries.
Levianova, once again, I apologise for going off-topic - and I thank you for an inspiring post.
*(... and by "good manufacturer", I mean not bloody Saitek. Even allowing for enemy-action astroturfing, the sheer, stupifying number of complaints and bad reviews their hardware and software gets is astronomical. Possibly, their recent acquisition by the generally-very-reliable Logitech may make a major difference in the longer run, but as of yet, it's not showing in the reviews I'm seeing.
By way of contrast, the older Thrustmaster I'm using has survived a few years of heavy abuse and two house-moves, with nothing worse than a couple of slightly-less-responsive buttons to show for it. I've no idea who the company are, beyond being the manufacturers / licensors of my HOTAS, but they deserve a round of applause for reliable design. Even my best, old ZX Spectrum joysticks weren't any more durable than this - and they usually took a right and proper hammering before going wrong.)
---> http://www.thrustmaster.com/press/t...-gameplay-experiences-announced-new-t16000m-f
HOTAS designed in collaboration with FDev for ED. Beyond that, drastically redesigning the HOTAS prototype is a big ask for such a narrow market.
OP, love the idea, I wouldn't hold my breath though. Frontier may end up collaborating if approached, but I doubt there'd be much of an incentive to up and start a manufacturing line due to the same reasons as re-prototyping the HOTAS. There's several guides around for building your own "flight chair" if you're really interested (or you can buy one, if you're made of money).
I don't think they claim that it was actually designed in collaboration with FD. It looks like a regular TM hotas with some orange paint on it.
The throttle is a slider, rather than a trditional rocker. Small change, but apparently a decent number of people wanted a similar action to the throttle in ED.
Do you have a source?
For the action? Youtube, reviews, a cursory glance.
For the number of people looking to purchase it? I thought about it myself, however they were sold old for the first 4 months of production.