Hi everyone, I have my nose buried in catalogues busily planning what I need for concept simpit featuring Orbiter 2010 SP1, and it seems to me there are a number of significant hurdles, particularly for a non-programmer like me.
Problem One, Keeping the physical simpit synchronized with the simulated vessel.
One of the biggest problems I can see is keeping the physical cockpit in sync with the simulated vessel. I have already decided that most toggle switches actually need to be center sprung momentary switches, that will reduce the chances of getting things all out of synch, but I really need to have physical lights reflect the state of the sim, for example I plan on using an illuminated red lock in push button switch as the APU control, but if the APU runs out of fuel whilst docked for example, I could refuel the APU, then when I press my APU button (which is currently on and glowing red) it will switch off and the light will go out, but the vessels APU will start.. so now I have a simpit with a physical APU off condition, but the vessels APU is running... to counter that, I could use a momentary push button with an adjacent LED that reflects the actual state of the APU..
Now how the hell do I do that?
Problem Two, Visuals and Visual Systems Readouts.
I am really hoping there is a way to provide clean (no HUD) out the window visuals for projection or big-ass TV.. and then also feed things like fuel state, hull temp, HUD graphics, etc etc into external MFD's or similar for presenting on additional (ideally networked) displays. I see Orb Connect is out there, but I have no clue if it will be of any use, A think it may be possible to hack around with some remote "area" displays but that would be a real hack and probably not something I would really want to do.
Aside from those two fairly massive hurdles, it should be a breeze
Anyone have solutions to the big two issues I have mentioned?
Problem One, Keeping the physical simpit synchronized with the simulated vessel.
One of the biggest problems I can see is keeping the physical cockpit in sync with the simulated vessel. I have already decided that most toggle switches actually need to be center sprung momentary switches, that will reduce the chances of getting things all out of synch, but I really need to have physical lights reflect the state of the sim, for example I plan on using an illuminated red lock in push button switch as the APU control, but if the APU runs out of fuel whilst docked for example, I could refuel the APU, then when I press my APU button (which is currently on and glowing red) it will switch off and the light will go out, but the vessels APU will start.. so now I have a simpit with a physical APU off condition, but the vessels APU is running... to counter that, I could use a momentary push button with an adjacent LED that reflects the actual state of the APU..
Now how the hell do I do that?
Problem Two, Visuals and Visual Systems Readouts.
I am really hoping there is a way to provide clean (no HUD) out the window visuals for projection or big-ass TV.. and then also feed things like fuel state, hull temp, HUD graphics, etc etc into external MFD's or similar for presenting on additional (ideally networked) displays. I see Orb Connect is out there, but I have no clue if it will be of any use, A think it may be possible to hack around with some remote "area" displays but that would be a real hack and probably not something I would really want to do.
Aside from those two fairly massive hurdles, it should be a breeze
Anyone have solutions to the big two issues I have mentioned?