Another "VR is awesome" thread

[Coolbeans]

Hello fellow commanders,
Had some time at work today so I thought I would make my first post on my early impressions of this insanely great game. And away we go.

So I had put elite dangerous on my steam wish list a long time ago and just sorta forgot about it. When horizons launched it popped up on an email and I was like, oh yeah I need to buy that. I picked it up a little over a month ago and jumped in to the deep end. I have many hours in Eve online which has an insane learning curve, But nothing like elite. I work 50 hours a week so for the first week I did nothing but read forums and guides at work and spend 3 hours a night on the tutorials and learning how to fly a damn space ship. The whole time thinking this may be the game I wanted Eve to be. Now mind you, at this point, VR was still a novelty to me. I've seen the commercials for the phone VR but my last experience with it was in the 90s when it was just a gimmick. And About 3 months ago I just got a shinny new 34" badass monitor. I believe it was about 4 or 5 days in that i opened up the wrong sub forum with the unassuming name of ........Elite dangerous virtual reality. Within 2 days of reading that forum I ordered my Oculous Rift with the thought that I'll just send it back to amazon if it's what I imagine it is.

I'll put it simply.....MIND BLOWN!! This is what video games should be like. I then spent a week or 2 going over all the tweaks and settings to get the best experience possible. I am finally getting good with my new thrustmaster 16000m FCS hotas and am thinking I need a pilot chair, ohhh and I'm on a 980ti which until a month ago I thought would be just fine for the next year or 2, but noooo. So now I'm waiting for the 1080ti to drop . So I'm like a grand into this evil game with no end in sight. And my shinny new Acer 34" g-sync curved monitor is collecting dust.

Anyway I'm 135 hours in and have no idea how I can have so many hours in such a short time with 100s left to go I'm sure. I have been doing assasination missions mostly as they have allowed me to get good at docking and combat and the fundamentals. I got my vulture about a week ago and pimped it out and decided to start on the engineers. So I pack up everything at my home system, Wolf 562, and head to Deciat where Felicity is. Another 2 days of learning SRVs and surface prospecting and hopping around to get the materials needed. Now my ships have lvl 4 jump drives and it's time to head to the Dweller to get my pulse lasers upgraded. This game is just awesome sauce. Been gaming for 30 years and let me tell you, VR is a complete game changer. When I bought my Vulture and got in it the first time I laughed like a loon. The field of view is just epic.

I have especialy enjoyed reading the VR forums and all the first impressions and tips to get everything looking as good as possible, and would like to thank all the posters and tech gurus who have contributed. You have saved me countless hours of frustration. And thank you google. Mercy I remember the interwebs before there were search engines.......don't know if I'd be playing this game if it weren't for google. There is one common tip I have been ignoring. That is When your getting close to your destination, throttle down to 75% when your 7 seconds out so you don't overshoot. I throttle down at 5 seconds just so I WILL overshoot. A, I get to watch the planet zoom past and B, it seems to me you actually get there faster. I may be crazy but there it is.

I am old enough to to remember sitting down at this strange new game called pong and way back then I realized what my life long hobby will be . And up until now I have enjoyed playing games. Now I look forward to being IN games for another 30 years. Fly safe people and I'll see you in deep space......


I first posted this on December 24th but was my first post and seems to have gotten lost in moderation hell. So here it is again. About to hit 300 hours and still a nooblet

 

[Surround]

Awww man. I really want to get the oculus sounds like an awesome experience.

 

[DaviDeMo]

Awww man. I really want to get the oculus sounds like an awesome experience.

don't get the oculus if you want a full VR experience. Ok, the oculus is good for games like Elite, but the tracking (head, hands [controllers] and room scale) is a lot better with htc vive.
Imho VR experience is not just sitting and seeing in 3d, but it's walking in your room and see another world.

 

[Alec Turner]

Brilliant post Coolbeans, always love reading about people's first experiences with Elite (certainly when they're good ones anyway) and even more so when combined with VR (which is a complete game changer). Re: the expenditure, I basically bought a new PC (possibly would have done that anyway), a joystick, a TrackIR, an Oculus and a 1080 so ... yeah, it's certainly the most expensive game I've ever played but also easily the best so I'm more than happy.

On the subject of your 5 second overshoots, I'm with you, the 75% at 7 secs approach gets kinda boring. I've spent a lot of time with the Buckyball Racing Club trying to shave valuable seconds off the approach time and you're actually right. The absolute perfect approach is a sub 5 second eta where you skim past the nearby planet, using gravity braking to slow you for the drop at the last minute. But even if you muck it up and overshoot, it's still faster than the 7 second "safe" approach (and much more exhilarating as you say).

Fly fast commander!

o7

P.S. don't know if you have the Touch controllers yet but, although you can't use them with Elite, they're absolutely brilliant, an ergonomic design masterpiece and, with the 2nd sensor, basically mean the Oculus can do roomscale as well now so no need to get a whole new headset if and when you want to explore that route (there are some terrific Touch games available now) ... although I always come back to Elite afterwards).

 

[Kal Varrick]

I have to agree I got my CV1 last night and let me tell you it's like playing a completely different game. Spent hours just tweaking settings and flying around the station and a RES site. Holy cow... The sense of scale and depth is incredible.. It feels like my ship is gigantic and I love tracking ships with my head.

There are some obvious "first gen" VR things that need to be fixed like the god rays.. However, even with that said, the experience is truly something else. I knew it would be good, I just didn't know how good.

HOTAS + HMD + Voiceattack Multicrew Pack = Goodbye real world!

 

[Coolbeans]

Well I work 10 hour days and am on my feet most the time. Last thing I want is to spend my few hours a night gaming standing up. I game in a chair and it's gona stay that way. The basic rift set up is exactly what I need/want.

 

[SGTHACK]

I have had my Oculus about 3 weeks now. I must say, what an experience. I have the touch controllers too. They are awesome. I have had the best time in Elite going from 2D to VR. It is a totally different game. If one can afford it, you will never look back...I work on my feet too so it was an easy decision which VR headset to buy. Oculus set up is so easy also.

 

[vanfanel]

don't get the oculus if you want a full VR experience. Ok, the oculus is good for games like Elite, but the tracking (head, hands [controllers] and room scale) is a lot better with htc vive.
Imho VR experience is not just sitting and seeing in 3d, but it's walking in your room and see another world.

I'll counter that argument and say the rift especially for sims is a better experience due to the slightly better clarity and sweetspot of the lenses. When I owned a vive many months ago the difference in elite was startling in performance and clarity. The rift was just much better. I'm sure performance has improved with the vive but for elite I'd still recommend the rift. The head tracking should also be flawless especially with it having sensors on the front sides and back of the headset. If you're playing mostly seated games like elite get the rift.

 

[Azra'il]

VR is truly epic in every sense once you get it all setup. Hell it's consumed to many hours of my life already x_X
Use the Vive personally, but you can't really go all to wrong between the two major contenders. (So long as the new lawsuit against Oculus doesn't shut them down. Which.. isn't looking good for them as of this week :/)

Overwatch (Virtual Desktop - VR : consumed over 200 hours of my life.)
Elite Dangerous (VR - Consumed over 60 hours of my life in a rather short span and hundreds to come.)
Raw Data (VR - Around 10 hours; dozens to come.)
Subnatica (VR has consumed over 48 hours of my life)
Vivecraft There is an occulus version I believe, better than default minecraft support either way. (Full roomscale VR Minecraft, yeah, that means you can walk around your favorite minecraft server in real scale, swing your weapon in the real world and it flows and reacts seamlessly, notch and shoot arrows, gather water in a bucket by dipping the bucket into the water eg. reaching down in real life.. crouch and sneak by .. crouching in real life. Or keep it simple and just use keybindings on the controllers, user preference =p - Safe to say, stolen to many hours..)
Far Beyond : A space odyssey (VR - taken over two hours of my life and likely to consume somewhere in the area of 50+ when I have time to really dedicate to it.)

Arizona Sunshine (VR - TBD but suspected a huge time burner.)
Haven't had time, but know it'll consume my soul > Doom 3 BFG Roomscale VR
Fallout 4 VR when released this year. Vive exclusive I've 'heard' but who knows.
Skyrim VR Modded eventually one I'll try and lose months to...
GTA V VR when better polished.
Pneumbra series (makers of Amensia) in VR when I have the time to devote to it, since it's been modded in.

So it's not even as if it's still constrained to a tiny fragment of games anymore. Dive in, have a blast. If you love ED you'll probably love Subnatica for instance, dear god the immersion >_> just gotta remember to reset your HMD position (f12 I think?) after starting it up and your good to go, with a normal Xbox controller anyway. Had to rebind the directional pad a bit so up was 'set to slot 1' to make setting up the toolbar easier on the fly but otherwise it's an astoundingly polished game at this point.

 

[BaronVonDoon]

don't get the oculus if you want a full VR experience. Ok, the oculus is good for games like Elite, but the tracking (head, hands [controllers] and room scale) is a lot better with htc vive.
Imho VR experience is not just sitting and seeing in 3d, but it's walking in your room and see another world.

Have to disagree with you there.. head tracking on the Rift is faultless, and I have the Oculus touch controllers, which are also faultless, Vive wins in slightly larger playing area, other than that they are on par with each other.

Back on topic, yep, VR is amazing, I'm so smitten, I havent played anything that doesn't support VR since I bought it in October, even more so now I have touch controllers.. Without realising, I actually tried to pick my nose with my virtual hands.

 

[Enride]

don't get the oculus if you want a full VR experience. Ok, the oculus is good for games like Elite, but the tracking (head, hands [controllers] and room scale) is a lot better with htc vive.
Imho VR experience is not just sitting and seeing in 3d, but it's walking in your room and see another world.

I would say it depends on the intended use.
For flying/racing games, roomtracking and motion controllers are useless.
Considering the performance is more or less the same for the two brands, the Rift can actually be considered a much better purchase since it can be bought significantly cheaper without the motion controllers. So if the intended use is for racing/flying, the Rift is a much better value package.

I was completely mindblown by how immersive VR is and aside from ED and DCS, Id like to suggest anyone interested to try Dirt Rally. Omfg...
Im extremely happy with my Rift CV1 and the only thing that will make me think about purchasing another device is when one is released with a full peripheral FOV.

 

[Greyhawk]

I read the reviews and it all boiled down to the Vive being heavier than the rift. Glad I did because even the rift feels heavy after an hour or so. I currently have room scale with two sensors but its a small room!

I can get out of my chair and almost to the copilot seat at any rate.

 

[ATR-42]

i switch back and fourth.

there is something to be said about the graphics on a proper 2k (or better) PC monitor. The rift just cant do it. I find myself going back to 2d for a few weeks at a time or specific tasks in ED. combat, nothing beats being in the rift though.

 

[Beavis Tingleball]

^^^ I can confirm. A proper 2160p@60hz makes this playable on a 2Dscreen. I could not play this on my 1080p over the rift..

 

[DaggerSnake]

don't get the oculus if you want a full VR experience. Ok, the oculus is good for games like Elite, but the tracking (head, hands [controllers] and room scale) is a lot better with htc vive.
Imho VR experience is not just sitting and seeing in 3d, but it's walking in your room and see another world.

Sorry man, Oculus Touch controllers are the current benchmark in VR. I've tried them both and those controllers take it to the next level. The stand-up experience is the same.

Elite in VR is indeed amazing OP! Welcome to the club!

I do switch back and forth between VR and 1440 27" monitor. Im running a 980 and planetside kills me. The SRV has me in a cold sweat and nauseous. Only game that does it. FLying in space and CQC is the best, but once that SRV come out....hold on lunch!

 

[BaronVonDoon]

The SRV has me in a cold sweat and nauseous. Only game that does it. FLying in space and CQC is the best, but once that SRV come out....hold on lunch!

There's an option to lock the horizon in the SRV, helps a lot with the sickness, they have the same options in Assetto Corsa and Pcars(both awesome in VR)

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

Ah the SRV is a cat. You just have to get used to it, slowly

Welcome to VR Coolbeans.

I'm stuck in VR too now. I've played a bit of 2D (Warframe, Mechwarrior Online, Skyrim, Star Citizen) but I always come back to VR and ED specifically in less than a couple of hours.

Mountain Goat Mountain is infuriatingly addictive (my best is 400 on the dot)
Touch is great - I like Dead and Buried so far. UnSpoken didn't really do anything for me. Tracking is sublime and the ability to have different had motions tracked is great (thumbs, index finger etc).

Today a mate showed me Doom. I say down to have a bit of a go, looks nice. Lots of smoke in the second room. I tipped my head to one side to see if the smoke textures rotated like an inposter... of course they didn't its displayed on a monitor! Duh. Disappointed, I realised VR has had more of an effect than I'd like to admit!

VR 4 Eva.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

There's an option to lock the horizon in the SRV, helps a lot with the sickness, they have the same options in Assetto Corsa and Pcars(both awesome in VR)

Doesnt matter. Problem isn't the SRV but performance.
No matter how much you develop your vr legs, when performance tanks. That's it.
Hence why I don't really go above vr medium with a 980ti.

As for Elite in VR, I just can't play on a screen anymore.
It feels like trying to fly a ship over the Internet, with a Go Pro camera with a fish eye lense, attached to a pilot dummy's head.

It just feels WRONG.

 

[CptXabaras]

Doesnt matter. Problem isn't the SRV but performance.
No matter how much you develop your vr legs, when performance tanks. That's it.
Hence why I don't really go above vr medium with a 980ti.

As for Elite in VR, I just can't play on a screen anymore.
It feels like trying to fly a ship over the Internet, with a Go Pro camera with a fish eye lense, attached to a pilot dummy's head.

It just feels WRONG.

Eheh the description of 2D playing after having played in VR is perfect

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

Doesnt matter. Problem isn't the SRV but performance.
No matter how much you develop your vr legs, when performance tanks. That's it.
Hence why I don't really go above vr medium with a 980ti.

I'm on VR ultra with my 980ti and don't have any problems.