Star Trek Geeks - Ever want to fly a starship?

Zarimax · 2003-10-30T11:13:50

I have this urge to fly ships from the Star Trek universe using detailed cockpit controls like you would find in modern flight simulators. Now I know that the "blinkies" on the controls of the Enterprise-D are mostly random and filled with junk numbers... But what if they weren''t? What if you could sit at the Conn of the Enterprise-D and bring up thruster control, warp drive, system diagnostics, starcharts, etc? Every button would have a function and you would have to learn how to lay in a course, power up the engines, and do everything else that a starship helmsman would have to do. As a proof-of-concept, I''m working on the various control panels you would find in a small shuttlepod. I''ve mapped out most of the thruster control system and I''ll try to get it working with a simulated shuttle soon. How would you use the thrusters on a shuttlepod, one might ask? Well here is what I''ve come up with so far: First, you need to press a button to set up a thrust vector plan, (there are several pre-made plans mapped to other buttons, but that''s no fun). Small buttons marked TVEC and CTVEC will fill this role nicely. TVEC will let you set a thrust vector in the direction you want to move. CTVEC will set a thrust vector in a direction exactly opposite of that, (a counter thrust vector). Now you need to plot that vector. X, Y, and Z keys will do this, along with an INVERT key to reverse those axies. You can select from pre-set vectors, like CURVEC which is your current vector of movement and FORW which is a vector extending from the bow of your shuttlepod. There are other forms of navigation, (set course to target, galaxy relative, etc), but I think those systems would be better used in the impulse and warp drive systems. Then, once you have your direction, you set the power level of the thrusters... THIRD, HALF, FULL buttons should take care of this. You could also set the power level manually. Finally, with your thrust plan layed in, press EXEC and you''re off! Until I have at least one control panel working and some screenshots, I''m not going to ask for help. But I would like some feedback on the concept. Any comments or ideas?