| Control Station | |
|---|---|
| |
| Category: | Functional Block |
| Status: | Functional |
| Function: | |
| Allows the player to pilot the ship, recharge suit power, and access ship systems. | |
| Fits large ship and station | |
| Mass: | 368 kg |
| Data Controls: | [edit] [purge] (?) |
Flight Seat (small screen) versus Control Station (large screen)
The 
Control Station is a variant of the Cockpit block that can only be installed on Large Ships. It looks nearly the same as the 
Flight Seat, except that it has a larger screen. The extra screen space is reflected in its crafting recipe, since it requires 6 more 
Displays to build. Unlike other cockpits, your first-person view is blocked when using it; this makes it mostly useful deep inside a ship. This block used to be called "Cockpit 2".
Recipe[]
To build The Flight Seat in Survival:
| Control Station | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Component | Large Ship/Station Required | Large Ship/Station Optional | ||
| Display | 10 | — | ||
 Computer | 100 | — | ||
 Motor | 2 | — | ||
 Construction Comp. | 15 | 5 | ||
 Interior Plate | 10 | 10 | ||
Usage[]
The cockpit is essential to steer spaceships or rovers, and can secondarily also be important as control seat for a stationary base. Its third function is providing Life Support for the player.
Press (F key) while facing the cockpit to enter.
- Once inside, your suit power and oxygen will attempt to recharge from the ship's sources; an unpowered cockpit will not recharge the suit--but it will maintain the suit indefinitely at the same power level.
- Pressing (K key) when seated will open the Control Panel, allowing access to the controls for functional blocks in the ship. Assign important control panel actions to your Tool Bar!
- Toggle Landing Gear, Connectors, Reactors, and Spotlights using the "P", "Y", and "L" keys.
- You can set one cockpit as the main cockpit of a grid. When a second player enter the cockpit of a ship yours is docked to, a message "a connected ship has taken control"[1] will appear.
Press 'F' again to exit the cockpit.
Steering[]
When you place the cockpit on a mobile grid, it defines the forward direction. Piloting ships and rovers uses the same controls as the engineer when walking:
- the WASD keys for horizontal movement
- the Spacebar and C key for vertical movement
- the mouse for gyroscopic yaw and pitch turning
- the Q and E keys for rolling
Make sure you read up what Gyroscopes and Inertial Dampers are and how to use them for steering.
| Yaw | Pitch | Roll |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
Tip: A different point of view helps when parking or connecting to a landing pad. To toggle between first and third person, press (V key). Hold (ALT key) and move the mouse to change the viewing angle in third person!
Controls[]
You can allow or disallow yourself to use certain cockpit functions. For example, the pilot of a straight-boring drill rig should not have to worry about drift caused by accidentally touching the mouse, so in this case, you'd switch off gyro control. Or if the wheels of a monorail tram are controlled by a timer block, you can switch off wheel control.
- Control Thrusters -- (For vehicles/ships with thrusters only) Whether the pilot's inputs can steer thrusters.
- Control Wheels -- (For wheeled vehicles only) Whether the pilot's inputs can steer wheels.
- Control Gyros -- (Only if there are gyroscopes) Whether the pilot can use mouse control for turning and tilting.
- Handbrake -- (For wheeled vehicles only) Add this action to a Toolbar slot to be able to come to a quick stop.
- Park -- Whether the parking Cockpit Controls by pressing (P key) are available
- Inertia Dampeners -- (For vehicles/ships with thrusters only) Whether assistive Inertial Dampers by pressing (Z key) are available.
- Show Horizon and Altitude -- See details about "Altimeter and Attitude Indicator" below.
- Main Cockpit -- Whether this is the main cockpit and other cockpits on the same grid cannot steer the ship.
- Enable target locking -- See Target Locking to learn how to make turrets lock on to targets.
- Set Up Action -- See details how to configure "Cockpit Alarms and Countermeasures" below.
- LCD Panel -- See LCD Surface Options for how to run scripts or display text/images on the built-in LCD panels of the cockpit.
Using Ship Tools[]
On ships with equipped Block Weapons, or with block tools such as Grinders, Welders, or Drills, the pilot should set up their controls before leaving the dry dock.
- Sit down in the cockpit.
- Press (G key) to open the cockpit’s Tool Bar config.
- Drag the icons for each type of block weapon or block tool to the hotbar for quick access.
This assigns a toolbar slot to select the tool that should become active when you RMB-click and LMB-click.
Additionally assign other block actions to other toolbar slots, such as AI turret range increase/decrease or parachute opening.
Quick Weapon Switching[]
MMB-click to switch between sets of equipped weapons. A single MMB-click will cycle between single-gun and all-gun modes within the same type (all Rocket Launchers, for example).
Double-MMB-clicking switches to the next weapon of the same type that has ammo loaded.
Altimeter and Attitude Indicator[]
While seated in the cockpit of a mobile grid in natural gravity, a cockpit displays planetary flight information on your HUD, an altitude and attitude indicator. If it doesn't, enable the Show Horizon and Altitude toggle in the cockpit's Control Panel.
- Note the artificial horizon near your crosshairs. This indicator is an important representation of your pitch and roll which otherwise is difficult to tell without a reference point.
- Your altitude in metres above ground is displayed in the middle of the HUD, as a number below the crosshairs. Knowing your height above the terrain is relevant when landing and flying to avoid collisions.
Note that the Cockpit does not display your height above non-terrain structures (such as stations or landing pads), nor your height above sea level (which would be useful while approaching/leaving a planet to know how deep into the atmosphere you are and how effective your Atmospheric Thrusters will be).
Tip: You can also display artificial horizon, altitude, attitude, and angular momentum, on any of the built-in LCDs in your cockpit.
Cockpit Alarms and Countermeasures[]
You can trigger an automatic reaction when your cockpit detects a hostile target lock on you.
For example, you can configure it to switch on defensive AI turrets, or play an audible alarm, or change to red lights, or release a merge block that drops decoys. Similarly, you will want to switch off your custom “Red Alert” as soon as you break out of target lock.
This is how:
Click Set up Actions to select from the available actions:
- The action in the first slot triggers when you are targeted.
- The action in the second slot triggers when you have broken out of target lock.
If you want to trigger more than one action per slot, build and select a Timer Block as action, and set up the actual actions inside the Timer block.
Other Cockpit Variants[]
- Main article: Category:Cockpits
Did you know? There are multiple variants of cockpits. They function identically, but differ in proportions, visibility, materials needed for construction, where the ports are located, and which ship-sizes they can be built on.
