Really Cool Cockpits

The Duel: Test Drive II
Data disks:
The Supercars
The Muscle Cars

Your job is to maintain inter-settlement communications towers at various airports and outposts in the Megastructure.

Land, fix, go on to the next one.

What could go wrong?

An astronaut in a purple and yellow suit is seen from behind, in the cockpit of their spaceship, surrounded on three sides by control panels. In the computer screen and also through the giant bay window, an asteroid floats in front of the ship.

It's Control Panel Sunday because I forgot yesterday; here’s a fantastic undated Fred Gambino artwork.

#retro #godot #gamedev #indiedev #FPS #solodev #sci-fi
Flying enemy, Chapter 2 boss

Chrontendo Episode 55 (00:16:13)

Chrontendo Episode 14 (00:20:09)

SCI_FI/SFLIGHT.GIF

Chrontendo Episode 52 (01:06:35)

The dash, and especially the steering wheel, look super, super cool.

This kind of thing is the antithesis of the sleek, smooth, touchscreen-everything approach of Muskist design.

A photo of an ad for the Phillips 8833/II monitor, with an offer for F-19 Stealth Fighter free with it. It has an illustration of someone playing the game on the screen back to back with a futuristic pilot in a cockpit.

"Land the F-19 Stealth Fighter - Free with the No1 Games Monitor."

From what I've heard from enthusiasts in the past and seen in YouTube vids, the Phillips CM8833/II was an excellent monitor and still prized today for their clarity and stereo sound.

📖: Amiga Action, December 1991

Chrontendo Episode 36 (00:13:59)

One of my big "they don't make anime like they used to" old fan complaints is that Cool Computer screens are a dying art

R-Type III: The Third Lightning (SNES, 1993, Irem). GIF from Tumblr user atari5200controller.

Screenshot of F-16 Fighting Falcon (MSX, 1984, Nexa Corporation) by MobyGames contributor Mario Hendriks. The MSX hardware is being pushed to its limits, drawing a dotted-line ground plane with a silhouette of an enemy fighter approaching us. The rectangular "cockpit" status bar shows displays of the current armaments, various warning lights, a simple radar, and a mission map.

Screenshot of Strike Commander (DOS, 1993, Origin Systems) from MobyGames contributor Neville. We're flying over a desert, dialing in a missile lock. The instrument displays are rather small at this distance; the game has sets of alternate views that zoom in on them to see in more detail, but most of the essential info is in the reflector HUD anyway.

Screenshot of iF-16 (Windows, 1997, Digital Integration) from MobyGames contributor Yearman. A higher resolution display means the instruments do not need to be zoomed in to read; we are on the runway awaiting take-off. Armaments, radar, and satellite map are visible in the digital displays, along with a reading of the selected waypoint and distance, and analog gauges for airspeed, altitude, and artificial horizon, with most pertinent information also being echoed into the reflector HUD.

Screenshot of Falcon 4.0: Allied Force (Windows, 2005, Lead Pursuit), from MobyGames contributor Yearman. One of Falcon 4.0's more realistic touches is carried over from civilian flight sims: the cockpit switches and buttons can be interacted with using the mouse. The cockpit is extremely detailed and photo-realistic. Properly reading and configuring the gauges and displays probably entails actual training - or at least, reading the several-hundred-page manual.

Various incarnations of the American F-16 "Fighting Falcon" fighter jet. Screenshot credits in the alt-texts.

Screenshot of Mechwarrior 2: The Clans early demo (DOS, 1994, Activision) from MobyGames contributor MrFlibble. In this early version of the game, the cockpit is still a set of 2D bitmaps. HUD elements indicate the mech's current heading and torso tilt, as well as altitude. In the cockpit panels are indications of the current target and their damage status, weapons hardpoints, heat level, and a set of bars on the right indicating the health of individual mech limbs. On the center screen, a computer reading shows a satellite map, speedometer, and a few other vitals.

Screenshot of Ultrabots / Xenobots (DOS, 1993, Novalogic) from MobyGames contributor Matt McLaine. From the cockpit of a Humanoid robot, the various display panels show our current heading in degrees, a message log, a throttle lever, damage reports for various sensors, and a large MFD in the center currently focused on the selected target. A large button (currently reading "VIPER") in the bottom-right corner can be clicked to swap us into the cockpit of one of up to four other active bots.

Screenshot of MetalTech: Earthsiege (DOS, 1994, Dynamix) from MobyGames contributor Rola. Our HERC's cockpit has two displays of weapons hardpoints (and a third one below the central screen), a radar, adjustable shield controls, and a few extra buttons to adjust the scanners.

Screenshot of Veritech: Variable Fighter Simulator (DOS, 1994, RYLO Software) by MobyGames contributor djindio. An unusual pick for this set, as this is technically a flight simulator more than it is a mech game, but it is a fan game based on the Veritech fighters from Macross. Here we are in the cockpit of one such fighter, in jet mode, on the runway. Several analog instruments are sectioned off to the left and right corners, with a grid-map taking up the center portion, and most other pertinent information placed in the HUD.

Various cockpits from DOS mech games of the early 90s: MechWarrior 2 (beta), Ultrabots, Earthsiege, and Veritech. Further details in alt text.

Faridah Malik's dropship cockpit from Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011, Eidos Montreal).

Chronturbo Episode 6 (01:15:36)

Screenshot of A-10 Tank Killer (DOS, 1989, Dynamix), from MobyGames user Servo. "The left wing has been hit!" says our backseat co-pilot, pictured in the lower left. A crude radar, satellite map, altimeter, and targeting computer are visible among the working instruments; the rest are non-functional.

Screenshot of A-10 Cuba! (Macintosh, 1996, Parsoft Interactive) from MobyGames user SiliconClassics. A higher screen resolution of 640x480 enables this cockpit to have more visibly functional instruments, including a compass alongside the HUD reflector, airspeed indicator, various switches and buttons, and an artificial horizon.

Screenshot of Silent Thunder: A-10 Tank Killer II (Windows, 1997, Dynamix) from MobyGames user WillowGreen. More of the landscape is visible due to the viewpoint being positioned slightly higher; as such, the artificial horizon has been raised, and some of the instruments on the panel are smaller.

Screenshot of Jane's Combat Simulations: USAF (Windows, 1999, Electronic Arts) from MobyGames user Yearman. The cockpit of this A-10 is significantly more complex than the previous three, with more realistic instruments including several whose function is not immediately clear to me. The MFD panel on the right side is currently displaying the landscape in greenscale.

The A-10 Thunderbolt II, over the ages. Screenshot origins and credits in alt-text.

The cover for Mechwarrior's DOS release from Activision with a striking render of a mech exploding in flame in front of an angled photo of what looks to be a physical cockpit with overlays on it, put together for the shot.

Mechwarrior's Japanese release, here titled Battletech. "Solid 3D Simulation of Mech combat," with an anime pilot standing with one knee up on a peak next to a battletech.

Two flavours of cool Battlech covers: 1989's Mechwarrior! Battletech enters the world of 3D filled polygons, following on the release of Crescent Hawk's Inception.

I love the cockpit perspective and moody lighting of the original release, with the 92/93 JPN release adopting an anime aesthetic.

First-person shot from the POV of a humanoid alien of some kind, in the cockpit of an advanced sci-fi spaceship. Instruments and heads-up display occupy an oval-shaped monitor directly below the windshield; the functions of them are unclear. We are flying over the surface of an Earth-like planet, banked left and bearing towards a snow-capped mountain range. The alien's arms and legs are visible, with tentacle-like appendages coming out of the sleeves.

UFO2.PCX - Artist unknown, presumed 1995. Sourced from sZeNE CliparTs, 1998, pub. mediaGlobe, via Discmaster: discmaster.textfiles.com/view/16456/s...

Working with an actual Unity coder to update some Wing Leader code! Which means now my cockpits need to support widescreen, soooooo, here's some updated renders fresh outta 3dsMAX!

A gorgeous illustrated ad of an angled sci-fi space fighter cockpit with some great depth so it feels like you're standing right there. Many glowy panels and a view of space that mimics what you see in the game.

📖 Bytes of Game Ads 📺

What a cool 3D-effect double page ad for ASCII's Cosmo Genesis (Star Voyager), a pretty nifty space shooter of the kind I'm fond of, where you hop around a grid similar to Star Master or Solaris.

A few of the many user interface changes that Descent went through. From February 94, to April 94, to June 94. From the Volition collection at The Strong.

star wars: episode iii - revenge of the sith (2005)

Cadillac Allante, designed by Pininfarina (1987)

missleA guy in a VR-looking helmet faces a screen showing a crystaline flying saucer hovering in a green field surrounded by three yellow upright tubes. A control panel below the screen shows off tetris-like buttons as well as three big glowing buttons: A red one reads 'missile', a yellow one 'saucer', and a blue one 'attack.'

It's Control Panel Saturday: Here's the uncredited 1983 cover art for the Atari game 'Encounter.'

God, that dashboard. Love it.

Opel Monza (1983)