With GameGlass/Blackhog/etc making some waves, I think we can really see some attention from everyone from KBM, HOTAS, and even other Simpit people for the need for an eventual API and more robust keybindings. So I know CIG has responded to our questions before, so I was thinking if we could collect them all here(or a new stickied post), we can point to others who want the same thing. And then we will have a more unified front asking CIG for something thats going to benefit all players I think. What do y'all think about that? Linked below info might be out of date, but if you can find anything more recent, please comment and I will add it to the list. Thanks! Most Recent video I could find on the subject - > https://youtu.be/UCtG4Zpl9nA?t=197 Found a post from @grafton with some collected responses: Thanks for the callout! In addition to the citations in the OP, I believe this is relevant - Keybinds: “[Can we expect alternate key bindings to control the MFDs as opposed to being forced to use the mouse interaction system? I guess for me it would be more about freeing the player up to do that, to be able to set it whatever they want from a keybindings perspective. It’s something we haven’t really explored yet but I’ll see from a code perspective how hard it is to map that and go from there.” From: https://relay.sc/transcript/reverse-the-verse-february-2nd-2018and these - RTT and MFDs: “The Render To Texture feature is progressing quickly and an initial version is in the UI team’s hands to upgrade our 2D UIs. And we’ll also soon have the feature useable for 3D holographic projections to power our various holographic displays.” from: https://relay.sc/transcript/around-the-verse-universal-interaction and “The UI Visual team have been working on the visor vehicle status holograms which have been extensively rewritten to utilise the new RTT technology developed by the render team. Previously vehicles displayed on the HUD visor were constructed using the same hierarchy as a separate entity from the vehicle you were viewing. With the introduction of RTT the vehicle seen on the visor - or MFD - is now actually a rerender of the full vehicle. This means rather than being an imitation of the target, it’s now a true reflection of what’s in world or space and accurately reflects all the real parts and attachments like the thrusters and weapons. This was accomplished by building a list of the render nodes that were selectively rendered to a render target using a customer material shader we can apply the colour tinting to visualise the damage status of the vehicle parts whilst avoiding some of the more expensive features of doing a full physically-based forward render. This render target of the vehicle can then be rendered whenever the player selects the “own” or “target” view on the display. This was hardwired to exist on the helmet visor in 3.0 but in 3.1 you’ll be able to enable it on the MFD displays. The visor and MFD displays all have their own render targets - which the 2D UI gets displayed on - plus and optional camera that can show a vehicle too. Yes we have a render target object rendering other render target objects. It’s all very inception and can be quite confusing working out who’s rendering what some times.” From: https://relay.sc/transcript/around-the-verse-performance-and-optimization “ChronicSilence: The addition of allowing users to create API's to remove or automate many pleasant/tedious aspects of gameplay have been vital to keeping previous games alive. What features, specifically, do you have in mind for an API in Star Citizen? I think that's WAY too early to say, I don't think we specifically have plans for an API in gameplay, but there is a plan to have an API for the website to allow people to scrape data from their Org or whatever they're up to to deal with sharing that information however they'd like. What we don't want to do is have an API that might allow players to run around and say, auto-mine or do any of that kind of stuff because it sort of defeats the purpose of existing in the world. We are placing a lot of emphasis on not making the player do tasks that would be considered tedious, doing the same thing over and over again that doesn't have much challenge, so I would say, we're not going to allow automation of any gameplay.” from: http://scqa.info/?show=10FTC&episode=45&qid=4 and “Ghostwolf: Are there any plans to have any type of supported add on's in the game, in regards to UI customization or data collection? There are quite a few of us building elaborate Simpit set ups and would love to have the ability to configure additional screens for MFD's for valuable information. Yeah, so I think this is where we're sort of talking about having this API available from the game, to allow people to scrub some economy data, or also get inputs or date for secondary screens and stuff. So, longer term, yes. We've said we want to do that, so those are things that would definitely be on the list. They would not be obviously the first up, because let's get the game finished and get it done, and let everyone adventure around it, but long term we would. This is not going to be a short term project, I mean, it hasn't really been for you guys, because you've backed it and stayed with it. It's obviously taking longer, but it's going to be much bigger and I think, much better than everyone was originally thinking it was going to be because it's got a level of detail that's just going to be amazing. But, it is something we're going to commit to longer term and these are the sorts of features that once the base version is up and running, we'll start to add on this extra stuff. The more stuff that people can connect into it, the more that they'll be able to add their own, user generated content, and all that stuff. So that is something that we'd put on our long term roadmap, and have in fact some of it we've already announced that we would have an app that would hook into say, your mobiGlas, and you could check on like an account, or arrange for a meetup with people, or transfer stuff around in system on an app, and we've definitely talked about secondary screen stuff. We'll probably also do secondary screen stuff also for the high end Saitek HOTAS that we're developing with them, so yes. Long term, we definitely want to create some level of API for you guys, because I think it would add to – it's amazing what you guys have managed to do without us providing any of that, so imagine what if we did provide you something like that.” from: http://scqa.info/?show=10FTC&episode=66&qid=5 API will be available: “[API] API stands for Application Program Interface and is a way for people to write their own program, but use the services provided by the API. They plan to have an API for Spectrum, but a dedicated machine API so you can write your own APIs that aren't using your credentials. They have to be careful though as there's a game involved and Spectrum will be integrated into the game and they don't want to allow people to gain an advantage by creating APIs that give them an advantage.” And from @ender-jr: First, here is a partial quote of the 4.5 MUSD stretch goal: Extended hardcore flight sim controller support: Flight Chairs, multiple monitors, Track-IR, MFD (Multi Function Displays) and more on launch Second, here is a quote from the Happy Hour interview from June 2nd: Jared Huckaby (@discolando): ...another question from the chat here; Item system 2.0 will allow us special interaction with ship systems. Will we be able to click buttons on our ship to work those systems? Also, which I think that the answer is yes, but will there also be keyboard shortcuts to those systems as well? Kirk Tome (Lead Technical Designer): Yes and no. I mean, we'll maintain our current keyboard shortcuts for those, we'll implement the ones that I think we'll need quick access to, but for the most part every, all the interactions are going to go through the MFD's. So, you will throttle power that are coming out from the power plant to various systems through an MFD, you'll control how much the shields are asking for power through an MFD for shields, and also you'll flip through those various pages and then you'll control how those systems function via those MFD interactions. @CIG_ChadMcKinney ( Gameplay Engineer): Which should give, I think, more gameplay for multicrew ships, 'cause it means that if you have more hands available you can get more fine-grained with the adjustments... KT: Right, and that one person can be dedicated to a particular set of tasks. Mark Abent (Senior Gameplay Engineer / Bugsmasher!): And with the whole rebalancing of, you know, now that we are splitting all these components up, and we have design going through and figuring out how power and heat are supposed to work with these things, we have a better understanding of the whole system and how they all work, so that these MFD's that we have, they're actually going through an art pass to display that information in much more crisp, clear manner, so you know what's overheating, you know why you have no power, so that was one of the issues we had before, you have this MFD, it's showing you stuff but you don't know what that means. JH: what an incredibly good segue to my next question... If the devs think that access to an MFD via the interactive system is sufficient to satisfy Hard Core Flight Sim support, there is a wide disparity in thought. The API is a "future" project. An API would benefit from having the functions already keybind capable.