How do you play now?

[Brandon31]

Some questions for all the fortunate pilots who are currently using either CV1 or Vive headsets. I am wondering if the headset has changed the way you play ED? For example - do you play for the same amount of time per session? Clearly the HMD does appear to improve the visual presentation but has it also improved your piloting skills at all? Are you more successful in combat? Are you more careful as a result of the added immersion and feeling of actually being there ie. do you die less? How does it feel if/when you go back to playing with a monitor, do you yearn to get back into the HMD, do you just not want to play on a monitor any more?

Or has owning the headset/s modified your ED behaviour in any other way? The brain is pretty good at working out eventually when its being tricked, do any long time users feel "less immersed" less "oh wow" than they did in the early days of their HMD usage.

I was also wondering if many of the HMD users are using Voice Attack. I would have thought that was a perfect marriage of tech. I use it to hand off all what I would call "non combat" (twitch response) commands to VA. (with Verity as a response voice-pack) whilst using a 360 controller or my TM Hotas. How do you HMD users go about achieving sufficient input to the game without a keyboard?

Sorry this post is a bit of a questionnaire, any feedback from HMD users would be appreciated - oh and how are you guys with glasses coping long term?

 

[Phord Prefect]

CV1 user here.

1) Somewhat shorter amount of time per session. More breaks during.

2) Piloting skills have gone through the roof. Like, literally. I twist and turn with a target ( npc or player ) and I can literally look straight up through the roof (canopy) at the offending target, take his measure, and adjust my speed, yaw, FA-Off etc to stay right in his back pocket. Was actually commenting to a friend earlier today. The Rift gives me an unfair advantage in a dogfight. Bigtime.... But, I'll take it Docking? Forget about it. The view in the Asp Explorer in VR is just superb. It's like flying a helicopter with a full plexiglass bubble.

3) Am I more careful? Personally, quite the opposite. I'm doing things I could never even "safely" attempt on a flat screen. I have no problem pulling a max-G turn in a Res site, with an asteroid skimming literally 10 feet from my cockpit. I feel as if I could literally spit a watermellon seed on it as I boost past at 300+ m/s. These are moves I could never, ever, EVER pull off on a flat screen. So... yeah. VR has made me more reckless

4) I'm only a week in, and the immersion level is as solid as ever. It's harder on the eyes/brain than flat screening the game for sure. But the day I go back to playing Elite on a flat screen is the day my Rift dies. Period.

5) Voice attack is money well spent. If you don't have it, get the trial. Just remember to train your Windows Voice app. Read all the text for a half hour. It helps greatly. After the trial just buy it. It works in many other games very, VERY well. Shines in Elite. You can program it to do just about anything.

 

[Brandon31]

CV1 user here.

1) Somewhat shorter amount of time per session. More breaks during.

2) Piloting skills have gone through the roof. Like, literally. I twist and turn with a target ( npc or player ) and I can literally look straight up through the roof (canopy) at the offending target, take his measure, and adjust my speed, yaw, FA-Off etc to stay right in his back pocket. Was actually commenting to a friend earlier today. The Rift gives me an unfair advantage in a dogfight. Bigtime.... But, I'll take it Docking? Forget about it. The view in the Asp Explorer in VR is just superb. It's like flying a helicopter with a full plexiglass bubble.

3) Am I more careful? Personally, quite the opposite. I'm doing things I could never even "safely" attempt on a flat screen. I have no problem pulling a max-G turn in a Res site, with an asteroid skimming literally 10 feet from my cockpit. I feel as if I could literally spit a watermellon seed on it as I boost past at 300+ m/s. These are moves I could never, ever, EVER pull off on a flat screen. So... yeah. VR has made me more reckless

4) I'm only a week in, and the immersion level is as solid as ever. It's harder on the eyes/brain than flat screening the game for sure. But the day I go back to playing Elite on a flat screen is the day my Rift dies. Period.

5) Voice attack is money well spent. If you don't have it, get the trial. Just remember to train your Windows Voice app. Read all the text for a half hour. It helps greatly. After the trial just buy it. It works in many other games very, VERY well. Shines in Elite. You can program it to do just about anything.

Excellent info thanks - very encouraging too, I was a bit concerned that VR might just be a bit of a short term gimmick type, thing where adopters return to monitor after a while, so hands on experience is of great value in my evaluation of which and when to buy. Waiting to hear from a glasses wearer with interest. I fully agree with you on VA as well, I cannot really imagine playing without it, docking is an example of a good handoff to VA - I just say "docking request" and sit back and enjoy the view as the docking computer does its thing. Its great being able to call selections of music from my library from in game as well.

 

[Lupin]

Apart from the graphics setting problem, navigation not as easy when playing with mouse and keyboard.

But yes I have to agree Voice Attack is money well spent. Having just added "Reset head/Reset view"

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

DK2er here, CV1 in the post.

ED absolutely improves your game, the ability to track targets absolutely negates and then some any slight disadvantage of pinpoint resolution.

I sold my rift in december and it has meant i have less of an urge to play now (but then a newborn in december also stopped my almost unlimited gametime so i guess i would have played much more without him)

i am champing at the bit to get back in my ship however as soon as CV1 arrives. Playing in VR is almost like playing a different game over on a montor. even A - B "boring" trade routes are exciting in VR imo.

 

[CMDR Rison]

I've been playing with the Vive this week. I do feel more in control of my ship. I've decided to learn how to fly flight-assist off for everything. I've always wanted to but now it seems easier, if not a little nausea-inducing at first. So immersive!
I do think I don't play for as long. Though I do find myself wanting to play more often.
Combat does seem easier as I can keep my opponent in view better.
I also have voice attack. I don't really require it as I have a Warthog HOTAS which has enough inputs for everything. But I like the immersion of being able to talk to my ship.

 

[B1ll Adama]

2 weeks in on the CV1 - immersion is as good as ever.

Take a few more breaks.

Not having enough time to hide in the loft and play PC annoys me more than ever now.. G/F doesnt get why i want to be in ED world rather than with her

Spending money on wheels and games and 'stuff'.

In ED, everything looks so good i bought a shiny new Asp Explorer and have been heading into the core exploring, never could do it before but now things look so good and just jumping and scanning is perfect as immersed and happy.

 

[vic]

I don't have a CV1, only DK2. but I can tell you even with the inferior dk2, I can NEVER EVER play ED or any game on flat monitor again (even a 46" one) !!
Not only for sense of immersion but for tactical space awareness too.

 

[Full_Ninja]

I started playing ED in the DK2 back in 01-2015 and had never played it on a screen. The immersion is unbelievable and I agree with everyone else that control over your ship is greatly enhanced. The reason you have such great control of your ship is the perspective change. Instead of looking at a screen representing what you are doing you are there really doing it.

After returning from a trip to Sagittarius-A and just over a year in ED VR I had a lot of system data to sell. I thought for the 1st time I'll switch to screen mode to do that because it can take awhile to sell all the pages of data. The 1st thing I thought when I switched to the screen was "oh wow they made an Elite Dangerous video game" that how convincing VR experience is.

 

[Spam]

Fly around slowly saying "wow" a lot.

 

[Jake Savage]

All of the above. I play more often, but for shorter periods. (Maybe an hour at a time) combat is defiantly easier, as you can keep your eyes on the target. I also find that I can now usually keep within about 500m of my target, whereas before I kept about 1.2km from the target. I think using a HMD gives you a big advantage in combat.
voice attack is excellent with Ed, and very useful with a HMD.
Iv had my Vive now for two weeks, and I still feel as if I am there, in the game. I don't think that feeling of being there will go away at all.
i did try ED with my monitor to see what it was like after the Vive, and everything felt small, and flat. Not anywhere near as good as being in VR. It felt like I was playing a flat game on my PC.. In VR you feel like you are there.

 

[Phord Prefect]

Fly around slowly saying "wow" a lot.

This, SO much. Some examples..

1) First time I came out of frameshift to a new system, sound cranked, engines screaming into that final deceleration, and the sun pops in and rushes straight towards you. Pushed back in the chair. " Woooah... " Start scooping fuel. " Oh wow... "

2) First time I landed and docked on a planetary base ( one of the bigger ones ). " Wow. *looks around*.. oh... wooow.... *docks like a leaf on the wind*.. holy s**t.... "

3) First time dogfighting in VR. Haz-Res flying a Vulture. Pretty much just a string of " Wow... holy crap... WOAH!.... oh s**t... GOTCHYA!... woah... wow... etc "

Yup. This first week in VR has pretty much been a steady string of "wow".

 

[Brandon31]

Thank you all for your informative replies here, a clear common consensus seems to emerge, that ED and VR is a marriage made in the heavens. I would certainly like to hear from any HMD users who wear glasses or contacts as to how they are faring also.

 

[Tepescovir]

With VR, you can fly far better as you are now in the game and are aware of things around you, but by it's nature it's a bit more demanding as you are twisting in your seat to look around etc so a few more breaks are natural.

it's simply the difference between what side of the monitor you are on. On normal games you are looking into the elite universe, With vr, you have stepped through your monitor and now IN the elite universe. Think TRON

 

[imski]

Thank you all for your informative replies here, a clear common consensus seems to emerge, that ED and VR is a marriage made in the heavens. I would certainly like to hear from any HMD users who wear glasses or contacts as to how they are faring also.

I wear a -2.5 in each eye with my specs and have had zero issues with the standard face pad on the headset.

 

[Jake Savage]

Thank you all for your informative replies here, a clear common consensus seems to emerge, that ED and VR is a marriage made in the heavens. I would certainly like to hear from any HMD users who wear glasses or contacts as to how they are faring also.

I wear glasses, and I find that they steam up. so every now and then I need to take off the vive and clean my glasses, I still see fine, but a little misty.

 

[CATPAIN KIRK]

Some questions for all the fortunate pilots who are currently using either CV1 or Vive headsets. I am wondering if the headset has changed the way you play ED? For example - do you play for the same amount of time per session? Clearly the HMD does appear to improve the visual presentation but has it also improved your piloting skills at all? Are you more successful in combat? Are you more careful as a result of the added immersion and feeling of actually being there ie. do you die less? How does it feel if/when you go back to playing with a monitor, do you yearn to get back into the HMD, do you just not want to play on a monitor any more?

Can't really answer if I'm more successful at combat as I haven't really played ED on a conventional screen except for maybe two hours of tutorials before receiving the DK2 in 08/14. Never even considered playing it on a conventional screen again, despite a triple 3D monitor & TrackIR setup.

Or has owning the headset/s modified your ED behaviour in any other way? The brain is pretty good at working out eventually when its being tricked, do any long time users feel "less immersed" less "oh wow" than they did in the early days of their HMD usage.

Of course the "oh wow" effect wears off over time (over 2000 hours ED on the DK2), but VR has become the new standard for me. I just completely lost any interest in playing 3D games without VR.

I was also wondering if many of the HMD users are using Voice Attack. I would have thought that was a perfect marriage of tech. I use it to hand off all what I would call "non combat" (twitch response) commands to VA. (with Verity as a response voice-pack) whilst using a 360 controller or my TM Hotas. How do you HMD users go about achieving sufficient input to the game without a keyboard?

I've licensed VA but don't use it. The TM Warthog has a more than sufficient number of buttons and switches to manage combat situations and there's no difference in switching to M/KB compared to non-HMD usage as I generally don't look at either when not wearing an HMD.