Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => The Babylon Project => Topic started by: OverDhill on September 08, 2013, 08:54:25 am
-
Is there any cockpit mods for B5. The ones for Freespace 2 look pretty nice.
-
I'm wondered this myself - a Starfury cockpit would be pretty neat.
-
Currently there are none ... There was an attempt once at least for the Aurora, however that community member left for parts unknown...
However a making a cockpit mod might require a bit more work since you can't just stop with the Aurora (and our Badger & Tiger) and the Thunderbolt... If one fighter gets a cockpit all should get one which will be hard enough for cannon fighters (the Blue Star, Nial, Lintira, the Frazi and Sky Serpent interiors have screen time in the show; the Sentri and Drakh fighters are not shown from inside; the Vorlon and Shadow fighter(s) can except as they are organic and probably don't have any kind of reconzable interior; the White Star can be except as well as it hard enought to fly in 1st Person due to size)...
-
Cockpits that are seen by the pilot in a future era just don't make sense. We already have helmets that let pilots see 360 degrees through their plane. All the pertinent information is projected onto the helmet. Why would anyone think that 250 years later pilots would go back to using them? The only time they would be used in fighters would be if the primary display was somehow damaged/disabled. So not having cockpits was something I've always seen as correct in FS2 and in TBP. Really didn't like them in Diasproa either but at least there was back story of things not being networked to support that.
-
Cockpits that are seen by the pilot in a future era just don't make sense. We already have helmets that let pilots see 360 degrees through their plane. All the pertinent information is projected onto the helmet. Why would anyone think that 250 years later pilots would go back to using them?
[...] So not having cockpits was something I've always seen as correct in FS2 and in TBP.
For a technical part you are correct... and as far cannon B5 cockpits appear to have been designed with a similar design in mind (only the Sky Serpent and the Thunderbolt are way different)
But from an immersion perspective it is whole different animal ... and one of personal preference.
E.g. FS's fighters were a touch more generic than say the rebel fighters in X-Wing because there was nothing but the stats and one HUD gauge that set them apart from another. It didn't feel like swaping out the ship you were flying between mission just the number of guns, turn time and speed.
When in X-Wing you were given a Y-Wing for mission, you knew you were sitting in a Y-Wing right from start because that bomber had a unique cockpit which set it apart from any other craft you had to fly in that game.
Some people (Star Citizen had a poll about that if you are in the need of figures) like having a visual reminder on the which ship they are flying. It adds a memorable feature to each ship.
And as long as it is not too much of a gameplay problem (obscuring to much of the viewfield) I'm fine with it.
-
I'm using the generic cockpit mod with helmet hud. Ship hud crashes the game. If you need it, send a PM.
-
Cockpits that are seen by the pilot in a future era just don't make sense.
And yet, Cockpits that are seen by the pilot in a future era just don't make sense. We already have helmets that let pilots see 360 degrees through their plane. All the pertinent information is projected onto the helmet. Why would anyone think that 250 years later pilots would go back to using them?
[...] So not having cockpits was something I've always seen as correct in FS2 and in TBP.
For a technical part you are correct... and as far cannon B5 cockpits appear to have been designed with a similar design in mind (only the Sky Serpent and the Thunderbolt are way different)
But from an immersion perspective it is whole different animal ... and one of personal preference.
E.g. FS's fighters were a touch more generic than say the rebel fighters in X-Wing because there was nothing but the stats and one HUD gauge that set them apart from another. It didn't feel like swaping out the ship you were flying between mission just the number of guns, turn time and speed.
When in X-Wing you were given a Y-Wing for mission, you knew you were sitting in a Y-Wing right from start because that bomber had a unique cockpit which set it apart from any other craft you had to fly in that game.
Pretty much this - I really enjoyed this about Starlancer too. And in those other games, visibility was never really an issue for combat (not for me anyways). Lack of cockpits was something that always bothered me about the Freespace series. Sorry, I just love anything that enhances my immersion that much - it's also a key reason why I've thrown money at Star Citizen.
Besides, in the actual B5 series they show Starfury cockpits with active instrumentation from a pilot's POV a number of times. Technically it's less "canon" to not have them (although understandable due to the overhead required to implement them - 0rph3u5 does raise valid points about the logistics of this.)