Please devs add a virtual keyboard to the galaxy map !

[arktisk]

i used that insanely powerful visualization tool affectionatly known as "windows paint" to mock up what im talkin about. i have my desktop keyboard in front of my HOTAS, so in the image i put it approximately where i would set it up to be when activated. that way, for those of you who cant touch type and have to remove HMD to use it, you can at least see where your fingers SHOULD be, and would be not only usefull, but alot more immersive!

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

thats not true at all. however, its not a lie either. the key is, and i cant speak for the rift's built in mic, but even if you have a fancier mic, stick with the built in HMD one. make sure AGC is enabled in windows settings, and if possible, eliminate as many sources of ambient noises as you can. a tv in teh background will destroy voice recognition, and even white noise such as from a fan can severly degrade the recognition. lastly, use windows voice training MORE THAN ONCE. yeah its annoying, but just like it says, the more you use it, the better it gets. for me its a rare occurance when voice attack doesnt register a command, and i use it exclusively for opening all my HUD elements, lights, shield cell use, silent running, and my favorite one, is my voice command for automatically targeting the nearest hostile target. its "HULKAMANIA"

my cousin was visiting, and he had ALOT of questions for my family members after hearing me say "HULKAMANIA" every 50 secounds or so during a combat CG, lol

What's not true?

I have an aircon unit producing lots of white noise during the summer and that has zero negative effect on voice recognition. Anyway, a virtual KB isnt here and might not ever come but there are workarounds that work, yet trying to help some people is like offering a pint of tap water to someone dying of thirst only for them to say 'actually, I only drink bottled water'.

 

[arktisk]

concerning not true, i was reffering to voice recognition being useless, and listed the possible reasons that it wouldnt be perfoming as it should.
i should point out that professionally, im an audio engineer, so believe me when i say no two peoples setups are going to be that comparable when it comes to enviromental factors interfering with voice recognition. im intentionally disregarding any software related causes here for simplicities sake, but room acoustics are also going to play a factor. so although your not having issues, someone who has a very empty room, with parallel walls, and depending on if its painted, or covered in wallpaper, or some other material, will greatly affect it as well. doing the windows voice training will help compensate for these possible enviromental factors as well.

regarding the virtual keyboard, im only suggesting being able to reposition the in game graphic of the keyboard inside most ships. it would be entirely nonfunctional, but its a qwerty layout, and would help you find your way across the keyboard if your not a touch typer. id LOVE to have a virtual keyboard in elite that would work with the "knuckle" controllers when they come out, though, if we are talkin about pipe dreams

 

[znôrt]

Yes, that would be absolutely great, a virtual keyboard for VR.

it is actually surprising that an interface designed specifically with vr in mind doesn't have one.

And maybe some kind of switch to get back to the 2D version of the galaxy map. I really hate it sometimes and wished I could properly use my mouse instead to point and klick..

i do use the galaxy map mostly (*1) with mouse and keyboard and it is really very navigable. you just have to forget about the pointer, and consider that the small selection circle is your pointer instead. wsad for movement on the zx plane, right mouse drag for y, left mouse drag for pitch, wheel for zoom (and zoom out for fast movement) ... it is actually very usable, except to select stuff and work with panels. that doesn't work well with mouse at all so i switch to hotas. text? yeah, touch typing more or less.

selecting bodies could be improved with a bigger 'snap' area, and a way to directionally 'jump' from one body to another would be a big plus.

*1 i use m&kb only for extensive exploring of the galaxy map, for quick selection while navigating i don't even let go of the hotas, it works well enough for simple actions. long distances with hotas though are a bit a pain and i revert to mouse.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

concerning not true, i was reffering to voice recognition being useless, and listed the possible reasons that it wouldnt be perfoming as it should.
i should point out that professionally, im an audio engineer, so believe me when i say no two peoples setups are going to be that comparable when it comes to enviromental factors interfering with voice recognition. im intentionally disregarding any software related causes here for simplicities sake, but room acoustics are also going to play a factor. so although your not having issues, someone who has a very empty room, with parallel walls, and depending on if its painted, or covered in wallpaper, or some other material, will greatly affect it as well. doing the windows voice training will help compensate for these possible enviromental factors as well.

regarding the virtual keyboard, im only suggesting being able to reposition the in game graphic of the keyboard inside most ships. it would be entirely nonfunctional, but its a qwerty layout, and would help you find your way across the keyboard if your not a touch typer. id LOVE to have a virtual keyboard in elite that would work with the "knuckle" controllers when they come out, though, if we are talkin about pipe dreams

Yeah, the bottom line is that voice recognition will adapt to most acoustic settings and accents and voice impediments.

 

[NeryK]

you just have to forget about the pointer, and consider that the small selection circle is your pointer instead.

That's the secret. And while it's completely counter intuitive with a mouse, it feels natural enough when using a HOTAS. I barely touch my mouse nowadays when playing in VR (which is most of the time).

 

[-={sAiTcH}=-]

I played on a friends Playstation 4 some days ago. The PS4 Edition has a virtual keyboard!

Hey frontier, why isn't there a virtual keyboard on the PC?!?

A glaring oversight on FDev's part. How do we get them to listen to listen to PC users, many of whom funded the Xbox and PS4 versions of the game!!!

 

[-={sAiTcH}=-]

Is it possible to dictate letters via voice attck or complete system names?
Could be a solution for you if it's possible :|

Definitely not a viable solution for explorers. Waaaay too long to phonetically spell out systems and bodies like Synuefe RG-B d14-13 5 b. Clearly a virtual keyboard is possible so why short-change PC users FDev?

 

[rp198419]

I sent the following to FDev 2 days ago:

"When I first started with ED (a long time ago now), I suggested that VR users would benefit enormously from having a virtual keyboard available, particularly when using the Galaxy Map.

I have read on the forums, true or not, that FDev have no interest or intention of introducing such a facility and that FD have said that it is up to Oculus to remedy this particular problem.

Given that many of us invested in Oculus CV1 (and, in my case anyway, a £2,000 PC) specifically in order to play ED, it is disappointing that the best VR game currently available does not inspire its brilliant devs to produce something as simple as a virtual keyboard. The state of the Galaxy Map in VR is in anycase abysmal (I sent a bug report last year and another this year and had precisely the same "we're looking into it' reply in both cases), so having a virtual keyboard available may at least relieve some of the frustration when entering star locations, etc.

There are many of us VR users who are asking for the V Keyboard. FD say they are a supporter of the Rift, yet FD also seems determined not to help its players, in this case anyway.."


As yet, there has been no response other than the automated aknowledgement of receipt.

It's been nearly 18 months now since I - and others - first requested this facility.

 

[vic]

Is it possible to dictate letters via voice attck or complete system names?
Could be a solution for you if it's possible :|

Absolutely possible. It's exactly what I do and works fantastic. I not only use it to dictate letters/numbers for system names in galaxy map, but dictating text chat to other players too. You just need to invest some time configuring it.

 

[vic]

Possible but quite annoying. You wouldn't enjoy that. Speech recognition is bad at best, good luck getting cryptic system names right. And I'm to old for spelling bee either.

A virtual keyboard isn't that difficult. Hey Frontier, let a trainee do the coding. He doesn't cost much and can't make any major errors.

I found an old suggestion and bumped it.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/278069-Virtual-keyboard?highlight=virtual+keyboard

Your wrong sir. Voice attack works great for dictation and find speech recognition working great. You just need to invest some time configuring it all. It's not that difficult.
If there was a way thru this forum I would copy my voice attack file here for you all to enjoy and this virtual keyboard would not be such a big deal in the meantime while FD get thier together on that.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

This is the response I got from FDev regarding a VR Keyboard:

Hi Max,

A virtual keyboard is not something we at Frontier would be interested in making for a number of reasons.

1) It's a rather large undertaking. The simplicity of it looking just like that dumb bit of plastic you've been using for years masks an underlying complexity in implementation.

2) We (and I also believe users) would prefer to rely on OS support for providing a virtual keyboard (like XB1/PS4/OSX/Windows) - though in this case, the 'OS' is the HMD vendor.

You didn't say which HMD you're using to play Elite - but I believe Vive already has support for this via SteamVR. I've not tried it - but i hear you can also 'peek' at your keyboard using the front-facing camera (though I also hear the quality's not great).

If you're using Oculus - You might be out of luck for now. I can't find any mention of support for a virtual keyboard - but I'd be very surprised if it's not already in the works.

Jon

 

[znôrt]

after reading this:

A virtual keyboard is not something we at Frontier would be interested in making for a number of reasons.

1) It's a rather large undertaking. The simplicity of it looking just like that dumb bit of plastic you've been using for years masks an underlying complexity in implementation.

2) We (and I also believe users) would prefer to rely on OS support for providing a virtual keyboard (like XB1/PS4/OSX/Windows) - though in this case, the 'OS' is the HMD vendor.

i amend my previous statement:

it is actually surprising that an interface designed specifically with vr in mind doesn't have one.

it does make sense from a sw eng perspective. however this literally leaves the players (customers) in the hands of platform vendors. on paper frontier can say they do support these platforms, in practice this hurts the experience. when targeting multiple platforms you often have to fill the gaps in transition periods. and a vr keyboard is indeed a subtle and complex thing, but there's extensive prior art and example. dunno if this is a smart decision after all.

however one good thing to note is that their integration works. that ps4 cmdrs have a functional virtual keyboard is actually great news even for rifters!

 

[rp198419]

Frankly if that is the best response FD can come up with, it strikes me as being rather pathetic.

If I were as disinterested in the requirements of my clients as FD clearly are in theirs, I wouldn't have any.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

AFAIC, it's down to Oculus to sort out.

 

[-={sAiTcH}=-]

You didn't say which HMD you're using to play Elite - but I believe Vive already has support for this via SteamVR. I've not tried it - but i hear you can also 'peek' at your keyboard using the front-facing camera (though I also hear the quality's not great).

Didn't FDev market ED as "made for VR". I'm a Vive user and have not seen or heard of a virtual keyboard in Steam that can be used to input text directly into game dialogue boxes. Happy to be corrected on that though. As for using the Vive camera, that's just plain stupid. The camera is to help users get a sense of where they are in their room scale environment. It has nowhere near good enough resolution to see and type on a keyboard.
This is a really crappy response from FDev. Especially when there is already a virtual keyboard in the PS4 version.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

You didn't say which HMD you're using to play Elite - but I believe Vive already has support for this via SteamVR. I've not tried it - but i hear you can also 'peek' at your keyboard using the front-facing camera (though I also hear the quality's not great).

Didn't FDev market ED as "made for VR". I'm a Vive user and have not seen or heard of a virtual keyboard in Steam that can be used to input text directly into game dialogue boxes. Happy to be corrected on that though. As for using the Vive camera, that's just plain stupid. The camera is to help users get a sense of where they are in their room scale environment. It has nowhere near good enough resolution to see and type on a keyboard.
This is a really crappy response from FDev. Especially when there is already a virtual keyboard in the PS4 version.

That's only there because Sony have integrated it into their VR hardware. It really isn't down to ED to sort this out so people would do better to direct their anger in the correct direction.

 

[-={sAiTcH}=-]

That's only there because Sony have integrated it into their VR hardware. It really isn't down to ED to sort this out so people would do better to direct their anger in the correct direction.

Ah. I didn't realise that. Thanks for the clarification.
Any Vive users tried using the SteamVR keyboard in ED?

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

Possible but quite annoying. You wouldn't enjoy that. Speech recognition is bad at best, good luck getting cryptic system names right. And I'm to old for spelling bee either.

Speech recognition works very well, but it won't accurately respond to any word you throw at it. It's best to program voiceattack to recognise the phonetic alphabet and use that to sell out what you want. This is a method that works very well. Adapt and overcome. I'm getting a bit fed up with the attitudes on display here.

 

[-={sAiTcH}=-]

Speech recognition works very well, but it won't accurately respond to any word you throw at it. It's best to program voiceattack to recognise the phonetic alphabet and use that to sell out what you want. This is a method that works very well. Adapt and overcome. I'm getting a bit fed up with the attitudes on display here.

I disagree with you about attitudes. I think users have a right to express their feelings about ED. FDev gave us that mandate by telling us the game should still be viewed as early access and user feedback would shape the game going forward.
Like many folks here, I have invested a substantial amount of money (not credits!) in my setup to play ED in VR. Voice Attack is great and really brings another level of immersion to ED, but when it is required to plug gaps in a AAA game then I think FDev should be listening and responding with something better than 'it's a bit too much work'