Few VR considerations

Elite Dangerous is the greates game I've ever played in VR. It's not the most immersive but it's the best for me.
The greatest games in terms of immersion are Lone Echo and Air Car.
Lone Echo is just amazing. The oculus touch are a real extension of you arms and hands and it was really weird the first time I tried it. You constantly use your hands in the station to push you around in a zero G environment and to use tools and repair stuff. But in this game you don't fly/drive any vehicle that's why it's not my best one.
Air Car gave me dizziness the first time I used it. I was so impressed by the height that I flew the car very slowly. Unfortunately it's only a tech demo, so there's just a small map and nothing to do apart from cruising.
Elite Dangerous is a game that I can't play anymore on regular display. It makes the difference between playing a pc game or living an experience.
I'm really happy that at the beginning of the development Frontier believed in VR and put it in.

On the other hand I'm a bit sad that David Braben instead doesn't believe so much in the VR future (ref).
We can say that VR in Elite Dangerous is in Maintenance Mode 'cause nothing new has ever been released later (no compatibility with touch controllers for example) and also in Beyond we noticed that many features were released without even being tested in VR.

No Man's Sky will be updated to VR this summer and I've already read some very positive review from people that could've tried the demo (ref).
I hope NMS in VR will perform very well so that it could recall the attention of more developers, including Frontier, on this topic and to see more VR development for this game, for example Touch Controllers compatibility to be able to interact directly with the GUI and one day maybe also repair the ship and interact with the systems when we will be able to walk around (Lone Echo docet).
 
I don't want touch controller support in E: D, I have no use for it. That Braben isn't convinced by the future of VR is pretty irrelevant as E: D already supports it (due, I believe, to prodding from some of the original backers).

VR in E: D isn't in maintenance mode - it's complete. The full game is available in VR with nothing missing.

I'm looking forward to trying out NMS when they add VR, but they really need to fix the flight model. NMS is great for exploring planets and building bases, but as a spaceship game it is awful.
 
I don't want touch controller support in E: D, I have no use for it. That Braben isn't convinced by the future of VR is pretty irrelevant as E: D already supports it (due, I believe, to prodding from some of the original backers).

VR in E: D isn't in maintenance mode - it's complete. The full game is available in VR with nothing missing.

I'm looking forward to trying out NMS when they add VR, but they really need to fix the flight model. NMS is great for exploring planets and building bases, but as a spaceship game it is awful.
I agree ED in VR is mostly perfect. Today there's no need to use Touch Controllers because everything is mapped to the HOTAS.
 
I would love for them to add Touch controller support for flying our ships, but honestly I don't know if I'd get to use it much-- I like to play in Open, and I wouldn't want the disadvantage that I assume motion controllers would have on our efficiency and control.

On foot, I imagine motion controllers would be better (just guessing of course), but the lack of buttons on the controller (at least when we're talking Elite level of necessary bindings) and slowness of physically pushing buttons and likely less accuracy than a HOTAS or mouse/keyboard for flying and shooting... it'd be neat as hell if they added it, of course, and I'm curious as to how many would adopt it as their main way of flying.

Being able to control the ship that way and pressing all the buttons in our ship to control everything, that WOULD kinda be a dream game. I like the setups some players have done where they made their own motion controller support and put some buttons in the VR space around them in the cockpit. Always looked much slower to actually use, but still seemed awesome. If only everyone had to play that way, then I wouldn't worry about the competitive aspect.
 
I play ED in both pancake and Rift (S now - even with hiccups!) and enjoy both modes. I also have NMS and am looking forward to the VR patch appearing, I don't have an issue with the flight model in pancake as Kb/M is perfectly practical - but it won't be in VR, so I hope HOTAS support is added.

ED & VR - the newer ships in particular appear to have had some real VR love given them so I don't think it is in maintenence mode quite yet, The FSS is a total mess in VR terms, but works well enough even if it is 'flat' with unwanted frames appearing - being shown a little care would be vey nice!

Touch control in ED? You can do that now, although it just mimics an Xbox controller, but to bring touch support to ED on the level of Lone Echo would be messy if one normally flys with HOTAS...

I just hope that what we have today is continued into the future of the game and built upon, rather than just left as a mish-mash of brilliant 3D and poorly implemented 2D conversion.
 
Wouldn't still be playing ED if it wasn't for VR.

Two observations:

A number of our leading YouTube content creators declare themselves to be fans of VR but they don't use it in their videos because it makes for a shaky video experience. This perhaps leads to the impression that VR is less commonly used than it actually is.

Also, I'd always assumed that the game would report back to Frontier whether or not players were using VR, giving them exact knowledge of how popular it is. But now, with the current cheating furore, I'm left wondering how much effort Frontier is putting into tracking what players are actually doing. Do they really have any better idea than the rest of us how many players are fiddling their shield strengths - or using VR?
 
The FSS is a total mess in VR terms, but works well enough even if it is 'flat' with unwanted frames appearing - being shown a little care would be vey nice!
...
Touch control in ED? You can do that now, although it just mimics an Xbox controller, but to bring touch support to ED on the level of Lone Echo would be messy if one normally flys with HOTAS...

The FSS is still missing the moons orbit lines, I'm still fighting to get them in! My Issue Report has been recently acknowledged.
I would not use the touch controller to control the flight. Having stuff in the air withouth a proper feedback is terrible, I already tried it with the VR version of Flight Simulator X. I think Touch Controller will be perfect when we can walk around.
 
Wouldn't still be playing ED if it wasn't for VR.
Almost been there too.

Two observations:

A number of our leading YouTube content creators declare themselves to be fans of VR but they don't use it in their videos because it makes for a shaky video experience. This perhaps leads to the impression that VR is less commonly used than it actually is.

Also, I'd always assumed that the game would report back to Frontier whether or not players were using VR, giving them exact knowledge of how popular it is. But now, with the current cheating furore, I'm left wondering how much effort Frontier is putting into tracking what players are actually doing. Do they really have any better idea than the rest of us how many players are fiddling their shield strengths - or using VR?
Unfortunately I don't think we are so many. When I filled the Issue Report for the missing orbit lines in VR it took me more than a month to collect enough feedbacks (only 10 or 11 are required).
That's why I hope that NMS in VR will recall more attention on this topic.
 
Last edited:
The FSS is still missing the moons orbital lines...
I know it had been mentioned but hate to admit I've never noticed it in-game, maybe becaue I switch orbit lines off pretty often...

Sadly, I'm one of the bunch who hopes that 'Space Legs' / Base Building is not what the New Era brings us, but that is just me :)
 
Unfortunately I don't think we are so many. When I filled the Issue Report for the missing orbit lines in VR it took me more than a month to collect enough feedbacks (only 10 or 11 are required).
That's why I hope that NMS in VR will recall more attention on this topic.
It would be nice to know for sure. Or at least to know if Frontier knows for sure.

As far as the missing orbit lines are concerned, I didn't file a bug report because, playing exclusively in VR, I didn't know they were missing because I didn't know they were supposed to be there in the first place. Maybe that's why the level of bug reporting was so low.

Edit: having seen Ratkatcher's post I need to add, we're talking about orbit lines when you zoom in on the FSS, right? Supercruise orbit lines aren't bugged in VR.
 
Last edited:
I know it had been mentioned but hate to admit I've never noticed it in-game, maybe becaue I switch orbit lines off pretty often...

Sadly, I'm one of the bunch who hopes that 'Space Legs' / Base Building is not what the New Era brings us, but that is just me :)

It's not about the orbit lines in flight modes, it's in the FSS only. There you can't swtich orbit lines on or off. These are very important to understand the full context of the bodies position.
I hope for Atmospheric Planets first, but if we get both together it's even better!
 
Unfortunately I don't think we are so many. When I filled the Issue Report for the missing orbit lines in VR it took me more than a month to collect enough feedbacks (only 10 or 11 are required).
That's why I hope that NMS in VR will recall more attention on this topic.
I should have jumped in and boosted it, but rarely read the VR part of the forum as much appeared dated - sorry :)
 
It would be nice to know for sure. Or at least to know if Frontier knows for sure.

As far as the missing orbit lines are concerned, I didn't file a bug report because, playing exclusively in VR, I didn't know they were missing because I didn't know they were supposed to be there in the first place. Maybe that's why the level of bug reporting was so low.

I wrote several threads in this forum and on reddit to collect feedbacks. Even though it took more than a month to collect only 12 feedback :cautious:
 
I have read complaints where people complain that the cockpits/HUD in ED all look the same. Well they certainly don't in VR. OK, the holographic HUD projections are "standard" across ships but the physical environment certainly isn't. When I fly in my Eagle I feel like I am sitting in a small sports car whereas in the Cobra III the cockpit feels more like a proper bridge with room to get up and walk around (would that it were possible...).

I tried firing up ED once on my flat monitor. Boring. I was still sitting at my desk in the study looking at a tiny picture of space.
 
@SenseiMatty
Have you posted this on the VR forum or Oculus Forum or Steam forums? Soz if you have!

This thread on Oculus is pretty active. Don't know the other HMD

As far as the missing orbit lines are concerned, I didn't file a bug report because, playing exclusively in VR, I didn't know they were missing because I didn't know they were supposed to be there in the first place. Maybe that's why the level of bug reporting was so low.

THIS!!!

I think this is a fab example of Flat-world and 3D world. Like where people on Flat-world are totally unaware of 3D world because they have no way of perceiving the extra detail; or old computers being oblivious to the written notes surrounding the holes on the punchcards used to program them

so

if VR people weren't aware of the details, why mention it??
 
Last edited:
I have read complaints where people complain that the cockpits/HUD in ED all look the same. Well they certainly don't in VR. OK, the holographic HUD projections are "standard" across ships but the physical environment certainly isn't. When I fly in my Eagle I feel like I am sitting in a small sports car whereas in the Cobra III the cockpit feels more like a proper bridge with room to get up and walk around (would that it were possible...).

I tried firing up ED once on my flat monitor. Boring. I was still sitting at my desk in the study looking at a tiny picture of space.
This! ^^
The imperial fighter is the best one for immersion and the Sidewinder is one of my favourite cockpit!

And you can also notice that each HUD's is at a different distance from your head. Especially in the SRV. If I remember correctly the Mamba is one of the furtest.
Have you ever tried flying the Anaconda in a starport standing instead of sitting? You feel like the captain of a container ship.

 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom