Hey GAF, I'm enjoying a bit of a personal resurgence with more involved gaming lately, thanks in no small part to a handful of games like Elite Dangerous and revisiting some DCS sims. In a continuing effort to improve my experience, I've noticed one thing a lot lately.

My desk sucks ass. Like inflatable balloon ass. My HOTAS (nor my two other joysticks preceding it) are terribly comfortable on it, and wheels are a complete shitshow.

So I'm looking into some ideas for a setup that isn't completely awful and I start finding things like the Obutto R3volution, Volair Sim, Omega Racing RS6 and rSeat cockpits.

Further looking led me to a whole lot more, including but not limited to things involving actuators, motion, or bulbous, wrap around displays designed to simulate 3D viewing. Kicky cool but perhaps a bit overkill.

But like staring into the abyss, this sort of shit starts staring back at you. And eventually all I could picture was my wallet growing a pair of arms and legs and then threatening me with a knife.

Some of these starter cockpits tout functionality that says they make for great desks and regular computer work. This is rad because a) I'm a software developer, so my ass is in the chair a lot anywho and b) my place isn't all that big so having an all in one apparatus would be swell, instead of having to look for a non-shitty standard desk large enough to also be good for this sort of thing.

The ability to swap out stuff like wheels and HOTASs on the R3v with the plethora of adjustable trays for other bibbity bobbities is making me lean towards that. I'd love to keep the budget relatively decent, so that I can at least justify the fact that I'd be spending a bunch on a desk and/or chair anyway so it's not that big an extra cost.

Does anyone here have experience with this sort of cockpit? And especially using one as an all-in-one solution where you do heavy amounts of regular KB/M usage on the thing and not just cars and spaceships? If so, what do you recommend? What are your thoughts on this sort of product on the whole?

Haha, I guess not?

This is a late reply but, in all honesty, i feel that at this point, making a cockpit is a huge waste of money..

Why?

VR

When VR hits the market, those 3 panels, all those modules offering so many buttons, MFDs and control boxes become useless. VR, immersion wise, will beat the shit out of 3 panels. It'll become the standard way of playing sims.

Having tried Elite Dangerous & DCS with VR DK1 + Thrusmaster warthog, i can tell you that it becomes very hard to find all the switches. Still usable, but i would have a hard time if i included other cockpit modules.

Hopefully, softwares like Leap motion's hand tracking will eventually become accurate enough that in DCS you'll be able to press buttons in the cockpit.

ColonelSkills said:

Some of these starter cockpits tout functionality that says they make for great desks and regular computer work. This is rad because a) I'm a software developer, so my ass is in the chair a lot anywho and b) my place isn't all that big so having an all in one apparatus would be swell, instead of having to look for a non-shitty standard desk large enough to also be good for this sort of thing.

Click to expand...

This is what I'd like to have, too. Something to play anything on, as well as do my regular internetting, writing, CGI work, etc, on. But the pictures on the websites don't give me enough information, no one is going to stock them locally to "test drive", and no one around here seems to own them to give any user reviews. And they're too expensive to just pull the trigger without more information. So we're kind of stuck.

The guy that posted his home made cockpit in "Gaming Setup" needs to post his...it's pretty amazing

Buggy Loop said:

This is a late reply but, in all honesty, i feel that at this point, making a cockpit is a huge waste of money..

Why?

VR

When VR hits the market, those 3 panels, all those modules offering so many buttons, MFDs and control boxes become useless. VR, immersion wise, will beat the shit out of 3 panels. It'll become the standard way of playing sims.

Having tried Elite Dangerous & DCS with VR DK1 + Thrusmaster warthog, i can tell you that it becomes very hard to find all the switches. Still usable, but i would have a hard time if i included other cockpit modules.

Hopefully, softwares like Leap motion's hand tracking will eventually become accurate enough that in DCS you'll be able to press buttons in the cockpit.

Click to expand...

I don't disagree, but I'm firmly of the mindset that VR needs to be paired with a decent input device. I am very, very fine with muscle memory on my existing HOTAS and other input setups and don't tend to glance at them.

VR replacing the displays? Definitely. Replacing the stick or other input devices? I'm not so sure.

If I had to make a trade, either no visual representation of my hand motions and there being a "real" switch bank and/or panel to interact with (and not seeing it represented in game) versus hand tracking and in pressing switches in VR with no physical feedback, I'd personally prefer the former. Perhaps I'm not embracing the future, but that sort of physical feedback is important to me.

Jedi2016 said:

This is what I'd like to have, too. Something to play anything on, as well as do my regular internetting, writing, CGI work, etc, on. But the pictures on the websites don't give me enough information, no one is going to stock them locally to "test drive", and no one around here seems to own them to give any user reviews. And they're too expensive to just pull the trigger without more information. So we're kind of stuck.

Click to expand...

Yeah, basically this. There's a handful of video reviews on youtube (linustechtips being a big one) and some people on various subreddits that say they've migrated to using the thing full time to great effect, and then a couple users here in the racing sims thread that say they prefer a desk. The problem is the only place that actually sells the damn thing in Canada at all is a full province and a half away, and I don't think anyone else has one locally so I'm kind of SOL on the try-before-you-buy front. Very frustrating.

Build your own stuff, it is way, way cheaper than buying anything pre built. There exists a stand that I use to create mobile, collapsable cockpits called WheelStand Pro. They are used to mount specific racing wheels, but you can do some work on them an attach anything you'd like. They aren't too expensive either, you can buy them online and sometimes on ebay for like $70. The shipping is the most expensive part.

I have two, one for a racing wheel, and one for a flight stick:







These things fold up into pieces that are about the size of a chair for easier storage. The car seat in the picture there is a work in progress, I have installed a transducer inside and given it an external USB soundcard to power said transducer. I also belong to a club where we are trying to build an entire motion rig:



All this is important, because in VR, this is how it winds up feeling:

Motion's a bit out of my price range, but I've looked into some build your own options, and someone from here suggested some 80/20 rails which looks like it was a super cool idea. Not quite as cost effective as your solution but it better on the multitasking front.

The transducer is a super cool idea though. Good call. I'd have to put some dampeners on the floor though since I am in an apartment.