Galaxy map and other disapointments

[WeirdWizard]

Not sure if it's just me but I have to say I'm kind of disappointed in ED VR. Recently picked up a Vive and ED was one of the games I was really looking forward to jumping into after all the raving about it. Sitting in the ship is nice enough and combat is great (CQC is amazing when you can get a game, sadly it seems to have been abandoned though). But actually playing the main game is just annoying, partly it's the abundance of keys which I can't map to my ageing joystick leaving me fumbling every time I want to lower my gear, the displays which can be hard to read at times and most weirdly of all the galaxy map, which seems to be utterly unusable. To the point where it's like they've not even tried to make it usable in VR and without the galaxy map you are limited to jumping around semi randomly to the systems in your contact panel.

Maybe I'm being harsh but I've got games and demos in my library made by one man teams that give a better VR experience than ED does. I was under the impression that ED was made with VR in mind but it just seems the VR support is kind of tacked on and unfinished. Where are the clever innovations to reduce the need for so many key mappings? Where is the dedicated VR galaxy map that works? Where is the ingame HUD configuration so I can choose a clearer set of colours without having to resort to editing files?

ED VR I give you a 6 out of 10 - must try harder.

 

[jojon]

You'll want to try a few things:

You can use combinations of buttons in your controls configuration, so you can have one or several buttons acting as "shift keys", each adding an additional set of functions to the rest of them. In configuration: Just hold down your designated modifier button, whilst actuating the the other one.

You can use voice command to offload the buttonpressing appendages on your hands. Commonly used is VoiceAttack, which piggybacks on Windows' voice recognition, and will send keypress events to applications, in accordance with user defined commands. ( www.voiceattack.com -- there is a time-limited demo. )

Do not try to use the mouse in the galaxy map, whilst in VR - that is futile; Instead, map navigation controls to your joystick.

 

[DaggerSnake]

I feel ya OP. I love playing in the Rift, but some things are a little rough.

Galaxy Map is not VR friendly. Sure, there are many get used to it and tips threads, but it's simply clunky as a 2D screen floating on a 3D environment. Needs a VR mode.

CQC is the best in VR. Also needs work to help get games. A game browser for sure would help.

For many functions that I don't map, you can use the right panel to manually toggle things. I actually like doing that as it feels really immersive to me.

 

[Major Klutz]

I could't agree more.
And I do have an X52 pro HOTAS with all of the controls mapped. I can make it work but it is far easier to navigate the Galmap when I'm playing in 2D mode.
I wish Frontier would give us the option of having the Galmap and System map revert back to 2D mode even when playing in VR.
The Galaxy map uses a lot of system resources anyway and tends to bog down in VR, much more than in 2D, so even if the controls were fine it still takes longer to do anything with the Galmap in VR mode.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I feel ya OP. I love playing in the Rift, but some things are a little rough.

Galaxy Map is not VR friendly. Sure, there are many get used to it and tips threads, but it's simply clunky as a 2D screen floating on a 3D environment. Needs a VR mode.

CQC is the best in VR. Also needs work to help get games. A game browser for sure would help.

For many functions that I don't map, you can use the right panel to manually toggle things. I actually like doing that as it feels really immersive to me.

Galaxy map is fine. Just don't use your mouse. Map the controls to your hotas and make sure you have the grid enabled.

It becomes very easy.

 

[DaggerSnake]

Galaxy map is fine. Just don't use your mouse. Map the controls to your hotas and make sure you have the grid enabled.

It becomes very easy.

Very easy, sure.
Good Design for VR? Not really.

It's fine for now though. There are way more important things being created and worked on. It's worth a design pass in the future.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Very easy, sure.
Good Design for VR? Not really.

It's fine for now though. There are way more important things being created and worked on. It's worth a design pass in the future.

Well I like it apart from the panel not rounded. Not sure what else you could do really.

 

[Thespen Tombs]

As someone else as already said, voice attack is the way to go with VR and it's cheap.

If you don't want to the work of setting it up, then these packs are meant to be good http://www.hcsvoicepacks.com/products/verity

 

[WeirdWizard]

Thanks for the tips folks, not sure outside programs are really a "solution" but I'll certainly be giving the remap options a good go to get a better setup and hopefully make the Galmap at least somewhat useable. Really hoping Frontier are not done with this though. Extending the look at to open displays a little (found the landing gear control in there, thanks!) and coming up with a proper VR galaxy map would really go a long way. My dream would be to be able to get out of my chair and use the touch controllers to navigate the galaxy map in room space at the back of the cockpit. Now that would be something special!

 

[DaggerSnake]

Thanks for the tips folks, not sure outside programs are really a "solution" but I'll certainly be giving the remap options a good go to get a better setup and hopefully make the Galmap at least somewhat useable. Really hoping Frontier are not done with this though. Extending the look at to open displays a little (found the landing gear control in there, thanks!) and coming up with a proper VR galaxy map would really go a long way. My dream would be to be able to get out of my chair and use the touch controllers to navigate the galaxy map in room space at the back of the cockpit. Now that would be something special!

Galaxy map touch sounds awesome. Would be a little clumsy switching from hotas to touch.

I keep my mouse right next to my stick on my desk and find it fine to just find and use it to navigate menus while in VR.

The mouse is still the fastest way to move through the Galaxy map. But once you have a system centered on the grid, you have to move back to the stick and give it a little twist to lock onto the system.

The Galaxy map is amazing when you look around. The issue is that there is a 2d menu floating on it the that the selected system is overplayed on. So even the line that connects the system info box to the star isn't connected, just floating in space weirdly.

 

[Verlaine]

The galaxy and system maps are relatively easy to navigate from my X-52 Pro, but typing into the search field — which I do often — is a pain. An on-screen virtual keyboard might help, but inputing one key at a time with the HOTAS would be relatively slow. Ultimately, we need a virtual representation of our real-world keyboard and hands via Leap Motion so that could see ourselves typing through the headset. But until then, a virtual keyboard would be nice. Maybe they could tap into Windows 10's virtual keyboard?

 

[DaggerSnake]

The galaxy and system maps are relatively easy to navigate from my X-52 Pro, but typing into the search field — which I do often — is a pain. An on-screen virtual keyboard might help, but inputing one key at a time with the HOTAS would be relatively slow. Ultimately, we need a virtual representation of our real-world keyboard and hands via Leap Motion so that could see ourselves typing through the headset. But until then, a virtual keyboard would be nice. Maybe they could tap into Windows 10's virtual keyboard?

That would be nice. Even some kind of voice to text system using the built in Rift mic. Loosing the ability to text chat other is a downside of VR.

The Steam virtual keypad they developed for game pads is pretty good. Having something modeled after that on the stick hats would be great.

 

[jojon]

Galaxy map touch sounds awesome. Would be a little clumsy switching from hotas to touch.
...

Going into unrestrained rambling mode here; A HMD-mounted Leap Motion could certainly do the job, and leave you without need to switch between devices, since you'd manipulate the galaxy map with your bare hands (simply 3D editions of touchscreen device interactions: Grab two random points in space and move your hands around to zoom and rotate, grab a single one to pan, with inertia, pinch a star to select it, etc).

But still, with physical tracked controllers; If you strapped your touch controllers to your palms, so that you don't have to hold on to them, or used one of the concept trial devices (which were designed around that paradigm) that Valve showed to developers recently, you could in theory make hotas whose grips have "notches" for the controllers to dock into, for an almost seamless transition.

Would be a nice immersive touch if we had the GPU juice to still render the cockpit, too, behind the holographic galaxy map. :9

I am holding on to a thin hope that FDev could conceivably be holding out on fiddling with the current map, in hopeful anticipation of a future priority slot, to redo things as a unified map module, which flows gently between galaxy, orrery, and schematic system views. :7

 

[imski]

Get a cheap game pad and bind that for the galaxy map (I use it for the SRV too).

Still a pain with text entry but navigating is super easy with it.

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

VR is still in its early days... and ED was designed primarily as a 2D title.

Sure, the VR implementation for the galaxy and system maps aren't ideal.
Bind your joystick to forwards/back, lateral and you'll find the galaxy map much easier to navigate.

Believe it or not, the mouse still actually works fine in VR... but you do need to zoom in far enough to the target star to see its little blue dot/shadow. I use a combination of the joystick and mouse. Yes, typing in a system name is a pain. We do need a virtual keyboard, for simple hunt-n-peck typing.

 

[jojon]

Speaking of typing in system names (...which can be done with Voice Attack, but that can be rather ardous, with all those unpronounceable letter combinations and numbers and dashes, not to mention frequent misinterpretations ); One thing that would be really helpful, especially in VR, where we are blind to scraps of paper, would be some more hypertext-y and clipboard-elicious capabilities globally.
Some Galnet articles already present a galaxy map shortcut, for a single relevant system - t'would be really helpful if one could (at least) select or bookmark any system mentioned in a text string.

 

[Lestenio]

The galaxy and system maps are relatively easy to navigate from my X-52 Pro, but typing into the search field — which I do often — is a pain. An on-screen virtual keyboard might help, but inputing one key at a time with the HOTAS would be relatively slow. Ultimately, we need a virtual representation of our real-world keyboard and hands via Leap Motion so that could see ourselves typing through the headset. But until then, a virtual keyboard would be nice. Maybe they could tap into Windows 10's virtual keyboard?

How do you select the option to plot a route in the Galaxy map? The default is select the star, I then have to use the mouse to select the next icon

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

How do you select the option to plot a route in the Galaxy map? The default is select the star, I then have to use the mouse to select the next icon

Use your hotas controls to move along the options. I never ever use the mouse when using my rift. Maybe worth looking at your key binds for the galaxy map.

The only difficulty is typing. I am still learning to touch type, but I am slowly getting the hang of it.

 

[Globusdiablo]

Not sure if it's just me but I have to say I'm kind of disappointed in ED VR. Recently picked up a Vive and ED was one of the games I was really looking forward to jumping into after all the raving about it. Sitting in the ship is nice enough and combat is great (CQC is amazing when you can get a game, sadly it seems to have been abandoned though). But actually playing the main game is just annoying, partly it's the abundance of keys which I can't map to my ageing joystick leaving me fumbling every time I want to lower my gear, the displays which can be hard to read at times and most weirdly of all the galaxy map, which seems to be utterly unusable. To the point where it's like they've not even tried to make it usable in VR and without the galaxy map you are limited to jumping around semi randomly to the systems in your contact panel.

Maybe I'm being harsh but I've got games and demos in my library made by one man teams that give a better VR experience than ED does. I was under the impression that ED was made with VR in mind but it just seems the VR support is kind of tacked on and unfinished. Where are the clever innovations to reduce the need for so many key mappings? Where is the dedicated VR galaxy map that works? Where is the ingame HUD configuration so I can choose a clearer set of colours without having to resort to editing files?

ED VR I give you a 6 out of 10 - must try harder.

I bought a cheap hotas (thrustmaster Hotas X) and assigned all the galaxy map features to that. Works a cinch. Added little rubber stickers to key keys on my keyboard. Lean forward for that hard to read text, or try this thread:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-green-(-it-s-The-GlobusDiablo-Colour-Scheme)

 

[Erroll]

Use your hotas controls to move along the options. I never ever use the mouse when using my rift. Maybe worth looking at your key binds for the galaxy map.

The only difficulty is typing. I am still learning to touch type, but I am slowly getting the hang of it.

I cannot for the life of me find what to bind to get it to move along the tabs to select route etc. to make it work with my HOTAS. Do you know what option in the config maps that?


Edit: Figured it out.. I had assigned the hat and the paddle which were also assigned to UI. Once I assigned those differently on the galaxy map it works fine. So, lesson learned, do not assign anything on the galaxy map screen that is assigned for UI elsewhere..