Frontier, you need to hire this group and put them in charge of cockpit UI.

How many players would actually use it, to justify the development cost?
I'm going to guess approximately 75-99% of the people who play this in VR and know about it being a thing. FD have obviously decided that there's enough interest in VR to justify the development cost of doing VR, so I don't think it's a stretch to say this would be justified as well, unless I totally misread how much people who play E: D in VR are interested in immersion.

On the Valve Index sub-reddit where I found out about this thing in the first place, there are quite a few people who would literally buy a LeapMotion just so they could do this, if it was a thing. (Myself included.)
 
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In full agreement here, and this was why I went for the Vive first. But while the room tracking was awesome (I also had no problem mounting the stations), that was the only thing about the Vive that I thought was better. And I have little use for it. The price of the Rift is also much more reasonable. I don't mind paying for things if I think they are worth it, but the Vive didn't pass that test. Had it been priced at less than £500, it may have done.
True. I'll let you know in a couple months if I think the Index does pass the test, if you like. I mean, right now, I do think so, but that's based purely on what people who have had it in their hands have said about it, and not my own personal experience with it, so I might change my mind when I get it in June-ish.
 
Would not be very useful for me, I use my desk for other things when I'm not playing ED, and move my flight sticks and throttles out of the way.
Don't want to reconfigure my cockpit every time I load up the game.
 
Would not be very useful for me, I use my desk for other things when I'm not playing ED, and move my flight sticks and throttles out of the way.
Don't want to reconfigure my cockpit every time I load up the game.
When you put your controls back, um, in the way(?), do you always put them in approximately the same location relative to where you are sitting? And by approximately, I mean within a few cm/inches?

I'm willing to bet that, within the bounds of human ability and randomness, you always put your controls in the same place, everytime you play, and I'm willing to bet that adjusting for minor placement variation between play sessions wouldn't be super hard.
 
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I said Voice Attack was superior to this, and in line with the games 34th century.

Seriously, why would you push buttons in 34th century when you already have AI that will do it for you.
It's sci-fi so you can press all button you want in the future or control the ship in remote without even being on board.. Moreover ED ships do have buttons already.
 
but you need a VR headset and above all "leap motion" to do so.
How many ED users have these?
No idea, but I think a better question is:
  1. How many people who play E: D in VR right now but don't have a LeapMotion would go out and buy one just for this? (I mean, other than myself.)
  2. How many people on the VR fence would be convinced to make the jump into VR if they found out this was a thing?
I'd say it's not so much a question of how many people DO NOW, but a question of how people WOULD IF.
 
VR or not ED cockpits lack of customization... Not only colors but functions and information to display and hide or repositioning.
As an explorer I would remove all information concerning power play galnet and weapons synthesis and I would add information regarding planets and systems
 
I'm going to guess approximately 75-99% of the people who play this in VR and know about it being a thing. FD have obviously decided that there's enough interest in VR to justify the development cost of doing VR, so I don't think it's a stretch to say this would be justified as well, unless I totally misread how much people who play E: D in VR are interested in immersion.
But what Fdev decided when they were developing Elite Dangerous was to build in VR from the start. Adding VR later would have been a nightmare, and they wouldnt have done it, because the % using VR is small overall.

You need to do it from the ground up, even more so if you are going to have VR specific UI in the cockpit etc which would NOT be useable for the rest of the games users. What they are not going to do, rightly, is create a new version of Elite Dangerous with this large amount of development, including as you are suggesting hiring this team (which they wouldnt need to do something similar, if they wanted) and all for the small % of the user base who use VR already.

Where is the return on the large investment?

It works if you are building a new game and this is it's USP.
 
VR or not ED cockpits lack of customization... Not only colors but functions and information to display and hide or repositioning.
As an explorer I would remove all information concerning power play galnet and weapons synthesis and I would add information regarding planets and systems
And the colours etc likely won't be changed for the same reason we won't get customisation, or a massive overhaul of VR. It's presumably a lot of work for no real advantage, compared to all the other priorities.

I suspect that Fdev have a good idea of what % of the pc userbase actually change their UI colours. I mean most of us have done, at some point. But how many switch back to default realising it's the best option, and there for a reason? A majority probably.
 
No, it'd be a rewrite of THEIR software, which would be integrated into E: D. I'm not saying there wouldn't be some changes to the E: D code, but "a rewrite of Elite Dangerous entirely" is definitely more than would be required. The vast majority of the E: D code would be untouched. The cockpit rendering code would need to be modified to enable putting custom assets on the flight chair, and it's fairly likely that the code that handles player input would need to be overhauled, but that's about it as far as I can foresee. I wouldn't bother with the virtual buttons part shown in the teaser, except in as much as I would like that to work with the currently existing holopanels that we have right now.

Honestly, I'd be super-thrilled just to be able to actually poke the headlights button on the holopanel to toggle them on/off. That in itself would be SO SWEET, even if none of the other stuff happened.
FD can't even change the code to allow proper color customization of the GUI. ED's code is in total mess and it must be rewritten to allow any kind of customization.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
I'm going to guess approximately 75-99% of the people who play this in VR and know about it being a thing. FD have obviously decided that there's enough interest in VR to justify the development cost of doing VR, so I don't think it's a stretch to say this would be justified as well, unless I totally misread how much people who play E: D in VR are interested in immersion.

On the Valve Index sub-reddit where I found out about this thing in the first place, there are quite a few people who would literally buy a LeapMotion just so they could do this, if it was a thing. (Myself included.)
More recent comments by DBOBE suggest that, in his view, VR as a whole is niche: https://gamedaily.biz/article/194/david-braben-why-the-industry-needs-the-return-of-the-publisher

.... and any development time spent on VR is only applicable to one of the three supported platforms.
 
No idea, but I think a better question is:
  1. How many people who play E: D in VR right now but don't have a LeapMotion would go out and buy one just for this? (I mean, other than myself.)
  2. How many people on the VR fence would be convinced to make the jump into VR if they found out this was a thing?
I'd say it's not so much a question of how many people DO NOW, but a question of how people WOULD IF.

I have VR but I have no intention to buy a Leapmotion. To me HUD interaction in ED is good as it is.
 
Uh? Do you know how a real fighter cockpit looks like?
I do, i also know you just totally discredited your self, by bring up real fighter cockpit in a 34th century Space Sim game. Apples and 34th century Oranges.
Good day. And good luck with your Flight simulator games.
 
I do, i also know you just totally discredited your self, by bring up real fighter cockpit in a 34th century Space Sim game. Apples and 34th century Oranges.
Good day. And good luck with your Flight simulator games.
solo-film-falcon-clean-cockpit-696.jpg


Space buttons are cool.
 
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