VR + HOTAS + Asp Explorer = Amazing!!!

[Deadeye313]

I have an oculus rift and yeah...it's amazing. Being able to look all around the cockpit. Craving your neck to try to keep visual on and enemy.

Even just having little chunks of debris bounce off the glass during a battle or mining is cool. To say nothing of the vistas while flying around.

I tried the game without VR and muddled through it because VR does take a toll on the eyes, but the game was actually harder to play without that ability to just move your head to see stuff.


I have a 4790k I7 and a EVGA 970 SSC and only suffer the occasional hiccup with it with default VR high setting.

[LionWalker]

I have an oculus rift and yeah...it's amazing. Being able to look all around the cockpit. Craving your neck to try to keep visual on and enemy.

I use a TrackIR and look around and keep an enemy in sight. Is VR really much different?
(wish I could try it)

[TorTorden]

I have an oculus rift and yeah...it's amazing. Being able to look all around the cockpit. Craving your neck to try to keep visual on and enemy.

I use a TrackIR and look around and keep an enemy in sight. Is VR really much different?
(wish I could try it)

Yes.

[Roger Wilco Jr]

Honestly, it's not the looking around that I'm anticipating. I feel the TrackIR does an adequate job for head tracking, and with my 32" monitor I can easily get lost in the game - not really seeing outside the borders. VR will certainly be more immersive though, only ever seeing inside and outside the cockpit.

What I'm really looking forward to is experiencing real 3D. They try to simulate it in 2D on a monitor, and it looks pretty good most of the time, but other times it just feels flat, especially when approaching planets. But with VR you will get the depth, seeing what is in reach of your hands, seeing outside the cockpit, seeing the hanger and ships a bit further away, and seeing stations and planets floating out is space. In combat, seeing ships moving away and coming closer, and really feeling it and experiencing it - not just inferring it from a 2D image getting smaller or larger. It's going to be a whole new experience, orders of magnitude greater than any other advance in computer gaming.

Hopefully I'm not building it up too much in my head.

[TorTorden]

Honestly, it's not the looking around that I'm anticipating. I feel the TrackIR does an adequate job for head tracking, and with my 32" monitor I can easily get lost in the game - not really seeing outside the borders. VR will certainly be more immersive though, only ever seeing inside and outside the cockpit.

What I'm really looking forward to is experiencing real 3D. They try to simulate it in 2D on a monitor, and it looks pretty good most of the time, but other times it just feels flat, especially when approaching planets. But with VR you will get the depth, seeing what is in reach of your hands, seeing outside the cockpit, seeing the hanger and ships a bit further away, and seeing stations and planets floating out is space. In combat, seeing ships moving away and coming closer, and really feeling it and experiencing it - not just inferring it from a 2D image getting smaller or larger. It's going to be a whole new experience, orders of magnitude greater than any other advance in computer gaming.

Hopefully I'm not building it up too much in my head.

I expect it's a bit of a package deal.
I am currently using and loving the tobii eye tracker, it took a long time getting used to but it has the benefit a reliable headtracker, I only need to disable it to use some station menus or look at a second screen.

I in fact expect going vr will be less efficient than my current setup.
But that doesn't need to be a bad thing

[Deadeye313]

VR is incredible in the game. Like it was built specifically for the oculus and Vive. The Oculus, which I have, is incredibly responsive; to the point where as fast as I move my head to look at a menu on my left or right, is how fast the headset responds. It will not be less efficient to look at the menus with VR, at least in the cockpit, because it's practially 100% efficient.

if there is one thing lacking, using the mouse is pretty awkward with the oculus, especially on the galaxy map so you have to learn to use hat switches to manipulate the map and sometimes the menus. An X52 is very, very recommended. The game was built for it.

[TorTorden]

VR is incredible in the game. Like it was built specifically for the oculus and Vive. The Oculus, which I have, is incredibly responsive; to the point where as fast as I move my head to look at a menu on my left or right, is how fast the headset responds. It will not be less efficient to look at the menus with VR, at least in the cockpit, because it's practially 100% efficient.

if there is one thing lacking, using the mouse is pretty awkward with the oculus, especially on the galaxy map so you have to learn to use hat switches to manipulate the map and sometimes the menus. An X52 is very, very recommended. The game was built for it.

Then menus aren't what I'm concerned with. I have freed those from the look at function and have a dedicated hat for them all (I have 72 mapable buttons on my Hotas so plenty to spare). In other words they neither lock my head look nor do the screens pop up or go away when I dont.

No what I meant is the more extreme angles for target tracking, I now easily go to the extremes of what the game let's me..
And quite honestly I'm not as limber as our in game character.
I physically can't look that far up or too the sides without possibly incurring some injury or pulling a muscle...

I should probably start stretching exercises now before I even have it...

[Roger Wilco Jr]

No what I meant is the more extreme angles for target tracking, I now easily go to the extremes of what the game let's me..
And quite honestly I'm not as limber as our in game character.
I physically can't look that far up or too the sides without possibly incurring some injury or pulling a muscle...

Since this weekend when I really got the VR bug again, I've really started noticing how unsatisfactory head tracking is and how flat the game can look. Sure, head tracking is loads better than mouse look or using hat switches, but it now seems so fake to tilt your head back, while gazing down, to see out the top of your canopy. And then everything you're seeing is in front of you instead of above or to the sides. Sometimes the illusion works, but not it's not working so much anymore. I'm sure eye tracking must have similar issues. And now I'm really noticing how fake the 3D looks on a monitor. Sometimes it's great, like around stations and ringed planets, but I can't help noticing how flat the front of the cockpit looks. When looking forward there is no depth at all.

I should probably start stretching exercises now before I even have it...

If VR headsets don't offer user programmable response curves, like TrackIR, then that is really something they should look into. I think it would be much easier to fake your brain into thinking you are looking up 60 degrees when you are actually only looking up 15 degrees when you can't see the top of the monitor, pictures on the walls, and the ceiling. Otherwise, get ready to hear some neck cracking sounds.

[TorTorden]

I should probably start stretching exercises now before I even have it...

If VR headsets don't offer user programmable response curves, like TrackIR, then that is really something they should look into. I think it would be much easier to fake your brain into thinking you are looking up 60 degrees when you are actually only looking up 15 degrees when you can't see the top of the monitor, pictures on the walls, and the ceiling. Otherwise, get ready to hear some neck cracking sounds.

That's the thing with VR, it's 1:1 tracking or bring out the puke bags, or it will be completely immersion breaking.
The main purpose of an HMD is to make things real and this is probably the second most important thing for it.
So yea, no shortcuts.

I even think ED completely disables the panel focus function with VR and has been since the beginning.
Simply because such a feature would feel far too voilent, it would be like someone grabbing your head, twisting it 45 degrees and pressing your face into. and considering how fast it is, the result would feel incredibly violent.

The eye tracker has probably less bugs (unless you get dirty\foggy glasses), it simply tilts the camera if your gaze goes out of center, your eye will naturally follow what it's looking at and the camera stabilizes itself since you naturally place the object of interest in the center.
You can of course move your neck when using it, but it's really not needed, only draw back is perhaps how close you need to have the tracker, and it must be directly mounted to the screen.

[Deadeye313]

VR is incredible in the game. Like it was built specifically for the oculus and Vive. The Oculus, which I have, is incredibly responsive; to the point where as fast as I move my head to look at a menu on my left or right, is how fast the headset responds. It will not be less efficient to look at the menus with VR, at least in the cockpit, because it's practially 100% efficient.

if there is one thing lacking, using the mouse is pretty awkward with the oculus, especially on the galaxy map so you have to learn to use hat switches to manipulate the map and sometimes the menus. An X52 is very, very recommended. The game was built for it.

Then menus aren't what I'm concerned with. I have freed those from the look at function and have a dedicated hat for them all (I have 72 mapable buttons on my Hotas so plenty to spare). In other words they neither lock my head look nor do the screens pop up or go away when I dont.

No what I meant is the more extreme angles for target tracking, I now easily go to the extremes of what the game let's me..
And quite honestly I'm not as limber as our in game character.
I physically can't look that far up or too the sides without possibly incurring some injury or pulling a muscle...

I should probably start stretching exercises now before I even have it...

The target tracking is more a thing with being like a real life fighter pilot tracking a target. In reality, about 90% of the time, I use the radar and just look slightly up and down except maybe during docking where being able to look at the station while flying toward the door really helps. So you can get away with not having to look up much. Down is rarely needed/useful except for the few ships with a glass floor like type 6 has a half bubble-like glass cockpit.

Looking left to right is a bit more important in that you need to look left or right to look at the side menus. You don't have to go as far as chin on shoulder but it would help.

The alternative is just swivel your whole chair and the oculus should take that as moving your head left/right.

Most of the time, even in VR, you'll be looking ahead just like you look ahead in a car and just glance at gauges; and a swivel chair should be able to handle the side menus fine.