Why Early Access?

“Early Access will allow players to take an active part in the development process. Their feedback will help refine the core mechanics, tune ship systems and gameplay parameters, and adjust priorities to keep development moving in the right direction.

Players will also be essential for testing the near-infinite variety of possible cockpit setups.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“It is expected to last for about a year.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“I plan to include more game content (missions, challenges, environments, ships and ship systems) and more core features such as motion simulators compatibility and Steam Workshop support.

During this time, I also intend to keep expanding the built-in models library to include the most popular devices.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“

Input

• Motion controllers: VR controllers can be used to interact with all holographic controls in your cockpit, including buttons, sliders and configurable 'Motion Controller Docks' for full ship control without additional hardware.
  
• HOTAS, joysticks and other flight controls: any input device can be used in Tinker Pilot with fully customizable bindings. Predefined bindings and models for the most popular devices are included.
  
• Hand tracking: the game includes optional support for SteamVR skeleton hand tracking data (works with Meta Quest hand tracking via SteamVR Link) and Leap Motion Controller (Ultraleap), best suited for use alongside HOTAS, joysticks and other physical flight controls.

Cockpit customization

• Elements placement: anything inside your cockpit (HOTAS, joysticks, motion controller docks, holographic panels, screens, virtual buttons, etc.) can be placed and scaled to your liking, and the cockpit editor allows you to organize the different components as a hierarchy of elements so that you can access and edit the sub-elements and arrange the groups as you prefer.
  
• Animation system: a generic animation system allows you to easily add movement to any element or sub-element in your cockpit and connect it to your inputs or data provided by the ship systems. This is great not only to make your virtual devices match the movements of your real devices, but also to add all sorts of effects to your virtual elements such as control panels or holographic controls.
  
• Binding system: every ship system in the game is designed as an interface with a series of actions and data that can be accessed by any element of your customized cockpit. Any action or ship control can be connected to any of your inputs from either a physical device or holographic controller. And thanks to a bidirectional binding system, you can also bind any of the exposed data/telemetry to any cockpit indicator or as a trigger for further actions.
  
• Custom model importing: the game includes the tools so that you can import your own models and integrate them into your cockpit.
  
• Serial devices interface: a built-in serial communication interface allows two-way communication with external serial devices (e.g., Arduino boards) so that you can easily create your own input devices and add all kinds of hyper-reality effects to take your immersion to the next level.

Gameplay

The game contains a few environments with different game modes:

• Free flight
  
• Basics tutorial
  
• Circuit time trial
  
• Hazardous waste elimination (3 levels)
  
• Hostile takedown (4 levels)
  
• Recovery mission

A faster-than-light drive is used to travel between environments, while the ship comms system lets you seamlessly manage your involvement in missions and challenges at each location. Other ship systems include flight systems (engines, sensors, linear/rotational stabilizers...), weapons, diagnostics, lights, actuators, scopes and a camera drone. ”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“There will be a small price increase after Early Access.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“I intend to use Steam, Discord and Reddit as the central places where players can share their feedback, contribute to the project and discuss new ideas.”