Exploration in VR

Falkenherz

Falkenherz
This is a somewhat conflicting topic. On one hand, the great VR view actually demand that you go exploring all those wonderful sights in the galaxy. On the other hand, doing countless jumps in a row with all that flickering and tunneling during hyperjump might as well induce epileptic seasures.

My only idea to actually enjoy exploration is to not go for range, but for details, therefore spending a lot more time cruising around in supercruise. However, I tend to get bored very quickly, so I regrettably abstain from doing passenger missions or go out there. So, sadly VR and exploration in the end to not match for me.

How do you guys do/stand exploration in VR?
 

Karl Agathon

K
I'm not sure what you mean by flickering and tunneling in hyperjumps... Are there graphical glitches or do you mean the actual hyperspace jump animation? To me, the jump itself looks awesome, although I am not prone to epileptic seizures.

For me - the only thing stopping me from exploring full time in VR is route plotting. If I could use my mouse in galaxy map - i'd do it in a beat. As it stands, navigating the map with my joysticks is slow, especially when I am neutron hopping and have to plot (and find a suitable next target within 230ly) after each jump.

Oh, that and taking hires screenshots... I love having mementos from the journey but haven't figured out how to get nice screenshots.
 

Henri

Henri
I just did the Palin mission, on my way back actually and it gets mind numbingly boring.
There are what? four or five planet types???
You can mix those up quite a bit but without any danger except falling asleep and losing 1 % hull due to flying into a sun...
no challenge, can' t even get lost so honk scoop jump
and no variation or new things or that many sights....yea I can spend an hour lining up a beautiful screenshot but in essence not a lot is there.

I will visit the occasional planet but as again there is not a lot there....

so yea, when I get back I am done with exploring.
 

BlackSpaceCowboy

BlackSpaceCowboy
Long journeys in ED involve a lot of jumps and staring at loading screen. I hate it in VR or not. I guess without VR you can do other things while dealing with all those loading screens.

It's more an issue of bad game design.
 

-VR- Max Factor

-VR- Max Factor
BlackSpaceCowboy said:
Long journeys in ED involve a lot of jumps and staring at loading screen. I hate it in VR or not. I guess without VR you can do other things while dealing with all those loading screens.

It's more an issue of bad game design.
Click to expand...

I would say it is a matter of taste. I have no issues with the hyperjump and don't really get bored with it. Could do with a bit of variation though.
 

aRottenKomquat

A
I have spent most of my in-game time exploring, and this is one reason I haven't got a VR solution yet. I always multitask while exploring. Unless they add a way to have YouTube or a web browser show up as a panel within E:D...
 

Munial

Munial
I was watching youtube/netflix quite happily in VR using V as linked above - works great a few input issues aside - but then I started using the neutron highway in earnest and found my full attention was required not to end up smeared across a system.. so I travelled all the way from colonia to Sag A and back this way without need for any additional entertainment. Destination... excitement!
 

Orvidius

Orvidius
Falkenherz said:
How do you guys do/stand exploration in VR?
Click to expand...

I spend most of my time exploring in VR. I don't mind the hyperjumps so much, unless it gets stuck in hyperspace. I get a little more bored with long supercruises, so I have more fun checking out the inner solar system, and landing on planets, or low fly-overs of ring systems, etc. I spend a lot of my time traveling from nebula to nebula. I think it's really just a matter of taste, but for me, actually being inside my cockpit is what really makes the game for me. It gives me a sense of being there, and that's what drives me forward.

Karl Agathon said:
Oh, that and taking hires screenshots... I love having mementos from the journey but haven't figured out how to get nice screenshots.
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Agreed on the screenshots. I've managed to do OK, but they're much lower resolution than I'd like, and it's hard to line up the shots. I end up taking screenshots 3-4 times each, with my head at different angles, and only save the best one, after cropping it. It's tricky, but I get some decent resuts.

Loworbit said:
VR Dashboard didn't work at all on my PC. Don't know why, so I'm quite disappointed by that programm.
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Agreed, V is terrible. I used it briefly, and it kinda worked. The biggest problem is that any scene change (entering or exiting hyperjumps, for instance) with any of its windows open was game-breaking. It would seize control of the HOTAS, with the throttle forward and the stick hard over to the left. So if you were trying to watch a youtube video, or have EDDB info up while hyperjumping, you'd exit witch space and spiral right into the star, and would be unable to stop it until you closed the window. Infuriating.
 
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Gunner Deckard

G
Munial said:
I was watching youtube/netflix quite happily in VR using V as linked above - works great a few input issues aside - but then I started using the neutron highway in earnest and found my full attention was required not to end up smeared across a system.. so I travelled all the way from colonia to Sag A and back this way without need for any additional entertainment. Destination... excitement!
Click to expand...

+1 OpenVRDesktopDisplayPortal-v1.0.6 works fine for me I have watched many a YouTube Podcast while cruising around in VR. Having a floating holographic window in your cockpit is awesome.
 

TorTorden_VR

T
I don't do exploration really.
I'm to hyper to do any one activity for more than a few hours at a time.
Exploring the far run would keep me away from all other activities for weeks or months.

I have made it to colonia once though.
All in vr of course and I used as many neutrons along the way as I could find ;)
I only stayed long enough to sell the asp and blow up a sidey.
 

Despoiler

D
Karl Agathon said:
For me - the only thing stopping me from exploring full time in VR is route plotting. If I could use my mouse in galaxy map - i'd do it in a beat. As it stands, navigating the map with my joysticks is slow, especially when I am neutron hopping and have to plot (and find a suitable next target within 230ly) after each jump.

.
Click to expand...

Agreed, I enjoy using my VR for ED, all things in ED except the galaxy map, it seems to revert to console controls but much preferred the galaxy and system maps using keyboard and mouse.
 

NeryK

N
Let me preface this by saying I'm not that big on exploration, VR or not. I recently went on my longest trip yet, 6500LY away from the bubble and back in order to unlock Prof. Palin, entirely in VR. I used OVRDrop to fight against space madness by watching Giant Bomb videos during the trip (also Joyfocus is a big help with this). I simply removed the headset every 500LY to Ctrl-C the name of the next step in my journey, then back in VR Ctrl-V in the galaxy map.
The galaxy map takes some getting used to in VR, and the easiest way to go about it is to bind everything on a controller/hotas.
 

problemchild

P
I only started playing Elite Dangerous a couple of weeks back and quickly got bored of trading and combat, as both are quite basic. So I started exploring. This to me is more what the game is about, setting off somewhere unknown, scooping fuel and being self-sufficient. There's something quite calming about this and it looks amazing in VR. However, the interface does not seem particularly at home with VR, even though the game itself looks stunning in VR. So last night, I rather reluctantly went back to 4k monitor because when using the Galaxy Map it's so much easier. The thing with this is that travel (essentially just pressing J over and over to get somewhere) is bland looking once you're not in VR!

So I feel your pain, and am also somewhat conflicted here. I can see the potential for a great Elite VR journey, but the game seems to fight this. I think this is a general problem with the current crop of games where developers have adopted VR as something of an afterthought and not put much development time into it, basically because they do not know how VR will turn out, plus VR users are only a tiny portion of the customer base, so it's a risk to go all in. But if you play a ground-up VR game, such as Lone Echo, you get a superb experience with a UI built for VR. But Elite Dangerous is not such a game, it's a 3 year old game, from a time when the only VR out there was DK1 or 2, and I imagine that a small developer like Frontier did not want to spend too much time on coding for a technology that may never be released, so I am not really sure we'll ever see a coherent VR experience in Elite Dangerous or any other older games out there. I just can't imagine there's much incentive for a developer to spend money retrofitting a decent VR experience to a 3 year old game.
 
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Falkenherz

Falkenherz
Well thanks for the input so far. Adding a floating screen in the cockpit for watching youtube or netflix seems to be a good idea. My cockpit as a living room while I steer calmly through an endless shore of stars. I might like it.

Another helpful experience might be to remind yourself of this: Space is endless. Terms as "far away" loose meaning. 500ly, 50.000ly, it does not matter if space is beautiful and you are the only one out there. So, stay close if you don´t want to deprive yourself of the chance to come back within resonable time to do something else, especially when in VR.
 

TorTorden_VR

T
Falkenherz said:
Well thanks for the input so far. Adding a floating screen in the cockpit for watching youtube or netflix seems to be a good idea. My cockpit as a living room while I steer calmly through an endless shore of stars. I might like it.

Another helpful experience might be to remind yourself of this: Space is endless. Terms as "far away" loose meaning. 500ly, 50.000ly, it does not matter if space is beautiful and you are the only one out there. So, stay close if you don´t want to deprive yourself of the chance to come back within resonable time to do something else, especially when in VR.
Click to expand...
V worked ok for me to display netflix, Just I could not actually find a spot in my cockpit where I didn't find the window occluding anything.
And it introduced frame drops, even in supercruise, and whenever you where trying to adjust anything, like changing what was playing on netflix it would seize control of the joystick inputs and throw you into a death spin.

Basically if you wanted to switch shows, I would have to drop out of cruise some place empty.

Spent most of my trave time with music though, and I hear many are enjoying audio books while exploring.
 

Ultra

U
I'm out on my first big Expedition, just entering the inner core on my way to Sag A about 18,000ly away from the Bubble.
I've wanted to do some Exploring since getting Elite just over a year ago and really that's why I brought the game, after getting into the combat though I really enjoyed it so it's taken me this long to finally get out into the black.

I have Radio Lave, Sidewinder or some other Music playing through VLC Player into my Rift and it's just so chill flying my Asp X, mapping systems as I head out, visiting other known systems I've read about along the way.
Easily my favourite thing to do in VR is FA off flying close over Planet surfaces and that can get a little risky.
I've been close to losing it a couple of times and both times told myself not to push it with all the data I've collected but it's just to hard to resist.

If I don't crash and burn on a distant Planet somewhere I'm Hoping I can make enough from this trip to get myself an Anaconda, then off to see these Alien Bases I've been hearing so much about.
 

Mesolithic

M
I did the core and back in VR and a lot of audiobooks were listened to I can tell you. There were times when I had to fight the urge to self-destruct.

I know the hyperspace sequence is a loading screen, but you either have instantaneous travel which is impossible in the game, the clue being it's a loading screen, or we could have a blank screen with "Loading" on it which would be rubbish.

I agree that a bit more variation on the theme would be welcome though.

Regards

Meso
 

Mot

M
I just completed part of a leg to the Formadine Rift in VR. Maia to Farsight, 7500ly (I think?). I'm fine with that, a little boring (would have been tedious in 2D) but I did get my first undiscovered ELW. Getting close to Heart and Soul was great, pulling into Farsight was great as I'd only been in asteroid belts in the first training mission. The only real let down was the obvious frame drop as I approached Farsight. The galaxy map is a breeze with XB controller and chatpad.
 
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