DevTracker: Cockpit

There are a couple of quick points I can make about the cockpit interface:

A modular interface that can be manipulated by Commanders would be extremely difficult and time consuming to implement. You have to remember that almost all of our holographic displays are placed "in the game world" as opposed to being "stuck on the screen". So whilst I agree that giving Commanders options is good in principle, the practicality of implementing such a system is rather doubtful.

We really want to avoid clutter in the main view area. We have all these cool ships and effects occurring; the last thing I want to see is a network of HUD lines and numbers all over them.

Our close-quarters game play is slower than a conventional flight simulation engagement. We're not flying aeroplanes, we're flying armoured space ships that can, generally speaking, take a bit of a pounding, re-route system power and perform a number of tasks not useful to fighter planes. In general, this gives us a little bit of leeway in terms of Commanders having more time to use elements that aren't front and centre.

As an aside, we're looking (at some point) to make a change to the head camera movement works, so that when you pitch significantly harshly, the bottom placed holographics will only leave the screen temporarily, as opposed to what happens now (they are gone until you soften the pitch). There will also be passes to increase legibility of some HUD options (basically, we're not completely happy that the interface is final yet), though I'm not expecting a complete overhaul.

Of course, this is just our reasoning; I don't expect everyone to agree with me.

I guess though, the most important fact here is that we don't believe that pilots are truly hamstrung by the interface, though it's different in some ways from a more conventional HUD. The most significant element that we didn't want Commanders to have to search for – distance – is pinned next to the ship itself. Weapon information is on the brackets nearby. Shield strength can be gauged by colouration of weapon impacts. Everything else lives in the various holographic panels around the dash.

It's perhaps similar to a "follow the arrow" issue we had internally. Back in the day, we used to have an arrow point to a targeted ship when it was off screen. Contextually this was completely reasonable – after all, your sensor pretty much knows where the target vessel is in relation to you.

But when we used it, we found that all we ever did was look at that darn arrow. The whole game, in all its glory, had been reduced to a simple sprite. So we removed it, and instantly, the game felt more engaging. Suddenly we found that we could lose targets if we didn't pay attention. Suddenly the sensor was useful, and so it goes.

So this is where we've ended up. It's possible that the interface will be tweaked and changed in various ways, so by all means, feel free to point out where you think it isn't working, or could be made better (or highlight bits that you think work well). But at the moment, we're reasonably happy with how things stand.