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
      4·
      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