***WARNING: Half asleep, and i get ramble-ly(?) when I'm tired.... you can skip this and check out the ***RECAP*** at bottom if i bore you, because this is something YOU MUST SEE!!!!***
Just thought you would like to know about this neat little toy I found. i have been searching for something like this for a long time, and was beginning to think that if i wanted to build an instrument panel for a space fighter sim, i would have to build my own hardware and then i would have to do it for each game. we have all seen those neat looking flight sim setups that people have put so much work into. all they lack is a toiletseat under the chair cushion, a microwave, (since some of them already have a fridge, lol) and a Mr. Coffee maker. I think at one time we have all wished that we could have an instrument panel that mirrored what was available to us in freespace, wing commander, privateer, or the privateer remake and most especially in the evochron mercenary game, which has oodles of instrumentated eye candy in the cockpit. aside from getting a degree in hardware design, or paying thousands of dollars for some not very well adjusted tech saavy fanboy of the mustachioned, track suit wearing, pocket protectored, coke bottle glasses wearing 37 year old virgin who insists you refer to him as his proper united federation of planets rank and title, Lt. Commander Jeff "kobiyashi maru killer" Geoffreys III, esquire, to build one for you.......(yes, we all know a jeff....)... then you are probably, and in some cases literally, SMURFED.
Sure you could always lay down a grand or more to get some nice shiny hardware panels (USB) that you could easily program to do just about everything any freespace mod could dream of, and still have 4/5ths of the keys left unmapped, such as in the saitek pro flight setup, but you will still feel like a dork, flying around in your peppy little spaceship with the UBER retro controls you salvaged from an old earth (ie modern/todays) airbus passenger plane. you would probably feel like someone had plopped you in the seat of the newest generation of experimental fighter, able to jump as far as any capship, take a massive whooping due to its 4 independant and redundant omnidirectional shield emitters, and your hybrid plasma beam/disruptor/feminine massager that some shady agency just backwards engineered from some unknown alien uber race, and when you gleefully turn on the cockpit lights, it looks like they ripped the control modules straight out of kirk's old enterprise, busted them up, and repaired them with superglue, popsicle sticks and duct tape (which i firmly believe to still be a quintessential tool even in the 31st century!). needless to say, that given the cost of a setup like that (seriously like $1400.00) its not going to look even remotely like it belongs anywhere near anything futuristic, unless you are flying around in a mobile early earth aviation museum.
Back to the point of this post, and the reason that you are gonna be pooping yourselves in delight (those of you who havent came across this wonderful item). what we all want is a panel that we can put together like lego's and program any way we want, and make it look as cool as we want, and we want it to be cheap (relatively) and easy to do. Well..... the wait is over.
Please, feast your eyes on the ultimate accessory for any and all of us who have ever flown a flight sim, space sim, combat sim, or even a mech sim. (truthfully, it would be killer for ANY GAME that had more than a few keyboard key functions.)
http://www.chproducts.com/retail/mfp.html If there are any atheists out there, i highly suggest dropping to your knees, and thanking god for this wonderful gift. (or meditate on the buddha, make an offering to loki or thor, heck, even you devil worshippers, not to be confused with satanists, go ahead and sacrifice a... ummm... cockroach? to his infernal hornedness)
Though i have not the 200 dollars for one now, believe me, I will go on a ramen noodle diet to save enough for it, right after i get my nice little x52 stick and throttle. so if one of you lucky buggers gets your hands on this before me, had better start working on an underlay template that would match freespace. i imagine it would lend itsself nicely to the cockpit design of some of the high end mods you fine folks have here. and really, what could be better, than completely getting into the game's story, by increasing your immersion, putting all your obscure targetting systems (like the fairly superflous nearest enemy, and nearest enemy targetting you..... arent they usually one in the same target?)
at any rate, please forgive any typos, except for the lowercase i since i dont really care about those. while i pride myself on my linguistics, grammer, and writing ability, it all tends to blur together into neverending overly descriptive rant about something simple that i, like most of my former (and sadly, current) girlfriends tend to do, i take something simple (a link to something i think everyone who has ever wished for a custom controller will love with all their heart and souls) and i complicate the hell out of it, with an overly elaborate, albeit slightly amusing (i hope) anecdote to pique the reader's interest, and keep them awake through my rambling post (which i have failed to do for myself, at least 3 or 4 times just during the typing of this post).
ack. enough of this, my eyes will barely open at this point, fatigue has made them so dry..... so let me recap, for once, breifly, for those of you who hate rambles as much as my sleepy subconscious seems to adore them.
***RECAP***
This CONTROLLER is what every person on this board should have or at least desire.
yes, this truly is the programmable, fully customiseable, BUILDABLE (lego's, yay!!!) ALPHA & OMEGA of all controllers, EVER.
http://www.chproducts.com/retail/mfp.htmlAnd we need templates for it. i will work on one for you if no one beats me to it. but i may seriously just flat out sell my ps3 to get some cash for this thing.
Anyway, sorry for the long windedness of my post, but i feel that its content outweighs any ammount of half awake ramblings, and run-on sentences.
i will check EBAY and see if a used one could be procured thats still functional and cheap.
i will let you know if i manage to get one, and i will post any templates i manage to make for everyone else.