111 replies to this topic

[Joachim Viltry]

Here is a very quick and dirty comparison of the cockpit art, and various other information layouts within the Mechwarrior franchise.

I included the Tesla II pod layout as well, because 1- I like the Pods, and 2 - why the hell not?

I don't think we will be losing anything by going to a cockpit display layout, if anything it looks to increase visibility out the windshield. (and at least the cockpit is made to do something rather than just block the FOV with a fake display when you want to aim downwards like in MW4)

Edited by Joachim Viltry, 03 December 2011 - 02:46 PM.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Joachim Viltry, on 03 December 2011 - 01:52 PM, said:

-cockpits all the way, baby! I cut my teath as a young gamer, with cockpits in my SIM games- All the great classic SIMs had them, it was truly a sad day when we went from games like THIS
to games like THIS

Are you saying that Starsiege is a bad game?

Quote

^This is not desirable.

Verily.
I'd much rather have a regular CPit then.

[Joachim Viltry]

Alizabeth Aijou, on 03 December 2011 - 06:35 PM, said:

Are you saying that Starsiege is a bad game?

I wouldn't call Starsiege 'bad'... perhaps disappointing. Especially since Earthsiege 2 was the first 'real' game i played on a personal computer (ski free ain't a 'real' game).

The thing is, Starsiege could have been so much more. I will give it credit for trying though; and the ability to loan out a play disk to a friend was pretty neat. The Cybrid campaign was the best part for me; while the human campaign kind of fell flat and bogged down at times. Overall it felt like the story was trying far too hard; too many sci-fi tropes all in one place and all coming in far to fast at times. rebellion on mars... ancient alien relics on mars... immortal god-emperor... Machine sleeper agents/spys... ancient conspiracy... we're walking, we're walking...

In retrospect I am fond of it, but at the time I felt a bit cheated. if the Herc's had been a bit more like their predecessors in feel, I think I would have been more accepting of it as a package. (Still, Apocalypse all the way baby! too bad it lost that chin gun mount, between games...)

[CaveMan]

Just to further clarify my earlier remarks:

This is what an F-35's head-down displays look like




And this is the best representation I could find of the helmet HUD (the real thing can overlay night-vision and daytime footage from the aircraft's EOTS sensor too):



As you can see there's a big difference in the amount of info in the displays and in the HUD. The HUD is there to fill you in on the basics, the displays are there for when you want details.

[CaveMan]

(the editor is broken so I'm having to add this to a new post)

Personally, I want the HUD to retain the clean, simple, 80s graphics look it had in Mechwarrior 2. Just some basic colored lines, text and some dots.

But I'd also like to see HUD functionality extended, so that it can show you a wireframe overlay of the environment outside your cockpit (like the Image Enhancement in MW2, only as an overlay instead of replacing your normal vision), including allowing you to see the outlines of enemy 'Mechs and terrain through the cockpit wall (thus the Hunchback's blind side isnt such a big deal). When you use zoom or night-vision, instead of switching your whole display over as in the previous games, it should just be a region of the HUD that a camera view is displayed on top of, sort of like this:

[Captain Fabulous]

Love it, but I feel like I'm sitting too far back in the cockpit, personally. I want to see a larger field of view out the viewports, then be able to move your head inside the cockpit to look at all the different screens as I see necessary.

[tarvis]

I like most of the cockpit except for a few things.

1. The Compass/NAV screen. I don't see why there should be a display designed for this, especially in the location it's in. I think that would be much better on the HUD (could be built into the Mech or the helmet, either way is fine) Look at EarthSiege/EarthSiege 2 for an example of this.
2. Throttle/Jets. I understand that there be screens for them, but I think they'd be better off on the HUD as well. I'm sure they're duplicated in real HUDs/aircrafts anyhow.
3. I think the comm video screen would look better up next to the message screen instead of on the bottom.

Otherwise, this looks very cool! As for the whole Saitek joysticks issue, I think they're just placeholders for concept art purposes and will not look as such/be seen at all in the final game. It would be cooler if each mech had a different layout too, as long as the HUD is more or less the same (a la EarthSiege/EarthSiege 2)

Edited by tarvis, 04 December 2011 - 01:01 PM.

[Dihm]

Alizabeth Aijou, on 03 December 2011 - 10:41 AM, said:

Its from Classic BattleTech Companion, FASA 10975, from 2003. So that's a few years after the Unseen-issue.

Nothing to do with Unseen. I just think the art style looks wrong for Battletech. It looks like a Robotech cockpit.

[Scar]

As much as i like MWLL(at least as a stop gap before MWO release) - as much i hate its HUD. So, here is my try to fix main MWLL's HUD problems on example of MWO's Hunchback possible HUD - i hope it will be interesting for community and may be even for Devs. And i hope that MWO's HUD will be designed much better and professional, than MWLL's.

What i tried to achieve:

- Increasing combat awareness through the Combat Interface which concentrated around the reticle to allow the pilot to keep his eyes on the targets without unnecessary distraction
- Combination of reticle with head-on radar and zoom(this idea inspired by the one of the old MW games and on-HUD indication on Russian 4th gen.fighters)
- Intuitive legs orientation indication
- Comfortable navigation information presence
- Informative weapons readiness progress indication
- Minimizing the semantic information to avoid pilot's attention overload



P.S. It's only a fast made draft, but i hope someone may find some of my ideas interesting.

[Mechteric]

Scar, on 21 February 2012 - 11:02 AM, said:

As much as i like MWLL(at least as a stop gap before MWO release) - as much i hate its HUD. So, here is my try to fix main MWLL's HUD problems on example of MWO's Hunchback possible HUD - i hope it will be interesting for community and may be even for Devs.

The current MWLL HUD is temporary, the real deal is yet to come


Now, on to your suggestions:

- Combined reticule/radar: I think this is trying to pack in too much info into one tiny little space. It just won't work unless your reticule is massive.

- In-reticule zoom: Same problem of being too small, for instance the novelty of having this in Mechwarrior 3 was interesting at first, but now I realize as I get older I just can't see worth a damn on that tiny zoomer. And I'm only 28!

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 21 February 2012 - 11:50 AM.

[Scar]

CapperDeluxe, on 21 February 2012 - 11:48 AM, said:

The current MWLL HUD is temporary, the real deal is yet to come

Didn't know about that - great news, then!

Quote

- Combined reticule/radar: I think this is trying to pack in too much info into one tiny little space. It just won't work unless your reticule is massive.

Yes, it may be a problem for some people - but from my own experience in flight sims and looking at the real combat aircraft's HUD's, i hope this may work in MWO as well.

As example - Super Hornet's HUD indication.

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- In-reticule zoom: Same problem of being too small, for instance the novelty of having this in Mechwarrior 3 was interesting at first, but now I realize as I get older I just can't see worth a damn on that tiny zoomer. And I'm only 28!

Yes, local zoom, due to its small angular size, may be not comfortable in some situations/low resolution displays. But full zoom has its own drawbacks too - the 1st of them is a FOV degradation, which leads to the overall combat awareness degradation. Local zoom doesn't have such a drawback.

Edited by Scar, 21 February 2012 - 12:27 PM.

[Scar]

incredible cockpit and HUD - just like i wanted


/thread