How Can You Pilot a Starship Pushing LCARS Consoles?

[CaptainHoliday]

While in STO I am not interested in piloting my ship from the interiors, at least not a lot of the time, I've always wondered how people like Tom Paris could pilot a whole ship pushing buttons on a flat console.

It always gets to me. Even in the runabouts and shuttles there are just flat panels.

Shouldn't there be a joystick? In Insurrection, Riker used a joystick once, well they should use one all the time. My guess it that it probably looked too tacky.

Sure, a lot of what the later Federation starships did was automatic computer controlled navigation, but during space battles how do they manage all the manaueving and thrusting using a flat console?

Imagine trying to drive your case using a flat panel. Impossible.

It's one those things that make Star Trek unrealistic for me. And I am more entertained when I cam see something as realistic.

Even when ship interiors are added to STO, I would rarely if ever pilot a ship from the inside. I will just toggle to an external view to pilot. Interiors will be used for RP and socialization for me.

[Sjet]

I was wondering when your post of the day would show up.

The best explanation is that information displayed on the panels allowed for the control of the ship that would probably be easier than using a simple joystick. Computer assistance would help greatly with pitch, yaw, intertia factors that you usually see in shows like BSG being completely under the pilots control.

[Dominick-Kane]

ASDW :)
and maybe some other keys for the Z axis?

Tom Paris gave a note to what you're saying during the construction of the Delta Flyer and had a joystick installed.

[LordDave]

While in STO I am not interested in piloting my ship from the interiors, at least not a lot of the time, I've always wondered how people like Tom Paris could pilot a whole ship pushing buttons on a flat console.

It always gets to me. Even in the runabouts and shuttles there are just flat panels.

Shouldn't there be a joystick? In Insurrection, Riker used a joystick once, well they should use one all the time. My guess it that it probably looked too tacky.

Sure, a lot of what the later Federation starships did was automatic computer controlled navigation, but during space battles how do they manage all the manaueving and thrusting using a flat console?

Imagine trying to drive your case using a flat panel. Impossible.

It's one those things that make Star Trek unrealistic for me. And I am more entertained when I cam see something as realistic.

Even when ship interiors are added to STO, I would rarely if ever pilot a ship from the inside. I will just toggle to an external view to pilot. Interiors will be used for RP and socialization for me.

Dude, we play flight sims using a keyboard. which is basically a flat panel. It's not that different. It's really all about what your used to. I play with a trackball mouse. Most people would have great difficulty playing with one at first, but after a few months, it'll be second nature.

[Eagler]

It actually makes sense, really. A joystick only allows 2 degrees of freedom, whereas a space craft can move in 6 different motions. It has forward and backward, up and down, and side to side in terms of translational movement, and roll, pitch, and yaw in terms of rotational movement. A joystick usually only covers pitch and yaw, and would occupy an entire hand with just 2 degrees of freedom. Whereas with buttons, you can do all 6 degrees with both hands if the controls are close enough.

[Thibor]

Input = input regardles of the mechanism that delivers the signal.

It's a matter of what you're used to. The biggest hurdle in likely getting used to it would be lack of force-feedback. Then again, unlike feeling the back end of your car slip during a power slide, I'm not sure you'd get a similar tactile response from a joystick in space.