My concern about multicrew

[Junky Juke]

Will it be VR friendly?

I'm suprised to not read any threads from the VR community about this new feature. Will the turret station's UI be full positional tracked? The developers did not give any clue about that.
I'm concerned about SRV-like turrets. Very uncomfortable, just like a FPS that does not support native VR.

Any thoughts/speculations?

JJ

 

[shadragon]

I try not to speculate. I'll let you know when the beta comes out.

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

I guess we will find it easier to look around on the bridge and see the other CMDR's who are along for the ride!

I should think the turret will be a telepresence thing, like the fighter etc - you'll see your pilot avatar in the turret (as you see yourself in the fighter). This allows FD to leverage the same code as went into the SRV cocpit and fighter cockpit.
I don't think a turret position will be any more uncomfortable than the SRV - however if the pilot is throwing the ship all over the sky... hmm :x

Maybe it'll separate the turret-gunners out as a bankable commodity - "Can man a turret, VR, +20% damage, no chunks"

 

[t3l3c0n]

From what I've seen the turret gunner will not be in charge of individual turrets but rather all turrets and as such will not be 'seated' in an individual turret. Below is a quote form the latest dev update giving a rough idea

"The gunner role allows a crewmember to take control of all turreted weapons on the ship. They do not need to jump between turret views though. Using a third person interface, they control a reticule that all turrets within their arc will automatically follow; giving them improved spatial awareness and easy control of all turreted weapons. They also have access to two “quick slot” fire buttons, in addition to normal fire groups, that they can customize with modules, allowing them more options for activating weapons and scanners."

I'm not sure what the 'third person interface' will be exactly or how it will work in VR.

 

[Junky Juke]

I'm not sure what the 'third person interface' will be exactly or how it will work in VR.

Hey guys I was thinking about some concept art I have seen in the past. Look at here. I guess this is a nice hint of what to expect:

Spoiler

I guess that the guy sitting on the left of the helm is the turret operator with said third person interface.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

I asked that question in the dev update thread and someone replied suggesting it might look something like this video (go to 20:30)...

Think something like this external view:

https://youtu.be/-JdS8-9BH3w?t=1192

But with the ability to move the external camera around and aim your turret that way.

...but with some sort of UI over-layed. I hope it's not like this I really don't like the sound of it, would much prefer a first-person view. I just hope it's not an excuse to get away from building a decent UI.

 

[[VR] Frank_G]

I guess it will be a lot like controlling the SRV turret. Free head movement and regular inputs to controll the systems.

 

[[VR] Deggial]

... including a counter-movement in order to compensate for the ship's orientation.

VR or not - I guess, without such a compensation, a human gunner wouldn't be able to target anything at all.

 

[Junky Juke]

I keep my fingers crossed in the hope the devs will stay with the concept art i posted. A third person cam around the ship would be such a horrible idea.

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

True - some sort of stabilisation would be needed.

If you're the gunner though, and the ship rotates so that plasma/rail you were juuust waiting on is no longer able to point at the target... ("aah nuts!"). Maybe we'll see a Last Starfighter death-blossom-style of combat (remember that movie, all you other oldies?)

Be interesting to see how it turns out.

- - - Updated - - -

I keep my fingers crossed in the hope the devs will stay with the concept art i posted. A third person cam around the ship would be such a horrible idea.

It would look pretty much like Eve Online, where you can zoom in/out and spin around your ship with it in the centre. Torn on whether that'd be a good thing or not.

 

[paulkemp]

Im excited for this. Having two computers and two VR headsets, I can finally show my girlfriend why I am so amazed by ED in VR. She can be a passenger!

...I told her my plans last night, she was not thrilled.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

It would look pretty much like Eve Online, where you can zoom in/out and spin around your ship with it in the centre. Torn on whether that'd be a good thing or not.

Yes, it sounds pathetic. More pandering to the whiners.

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

Im excited for this. Having two computers and two VR headsets, I can finally show my girlfriend why I am so amazed by ED in VR. She can be a passenger!

...I told her my plans last night, she was not thrilled.

I have the same reaction when my other half is driving...

 

[ArachAu]

I'm more worried about the possible performance impact of having multiple crew members rendered with their face detail on deck. High detail lookin' video game people don't usually come cheap.

 

[Junky Juke]

I'm more worried about the possible performance impact of having multiple crew members rendered with their face detail on deck. High detail lookin' video game people don't usually come cheap.

I hope the avatars part will be scalable in graphics options, just as everything is actually scalable.

 

[CylonSurfer]

The gunner view is enough to turn me off multi crew - a slapped on third person view for anything in this game is the last thing I want to see. First the rubbish SRV turrent I deplore and avoid using where possible and now this... meh. All I wanted was to sit in a turrent, target ships and fire, not this half baked, immersion to hell approach to turrets we have now.

Gotta love those magical cameras, invisible to the eye but floating just behind the SRV turret non the less.... Or so I'm led to believe.

 

[Baggy MacDouche]

I'm betting that they will most likely just extrapolate from the current pilot model and place them in the cockpit positions available(or newly created?). The new avatar creation system will give these models heads. Not sure what that will mean for VR though, since your body is headless(presumably to not hinder/obstruct your view). Perhaps your "head" will only be visible to other players.

They possibly might animate as the current one does, but just the same or similar looping motions. I highly doubt that there will be any type of gesture controls that other players would see. They'll just be sort of placeholders to indicate that other players are on board.

I would hope though, that they could take this opportunity to address the scaling of the current model in VR, so I don't always feel like an anorexic space munchkin every time I look down.

- - - Updated - - -

Gotta love those magical cameras, invisible to the eye but floating just behind the SRV turret non the less.... Or so I'm led to believe.

Wait, you didn't know ships/SRVs were all fitted with limpet cameras, free of charge?

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

I'm more worried about the possible performance impact of having multiple crew members rendered with their face detail on deck. High detail lookin' video game people don't usually come cheap.

This is done quite well in the gunfighting Oculus Touch game Dead and Buried - the style is fairly cartoony in D&B, but you can see the other players (up to three others) all looking and hand positions too. I don't think there's too much network overhead - once a crew member's features are loaded its a vector for the head position and orientation, and two more for the hands. Obviously there'll only be the head position in ED.

Your ED install will have all the assets needed to render the crew faces etc, so there's little to download. Probably just a short one-time pause while ED 'loads'/ renders the crew face from the facial features/hair/colours lists.

- - - Updated - - -

The gunner view is enough to turn me off multi crew - a slapped on third person view for anything in this game is the last thing I want to see. First the rubbish SRV turrent I deplore and avoid using where possible and now this... meh. All I wanted was to sit in a turrent, target ships and fire, not this half baked, immersion to hell approach to turrets we have now.

Gotta love those magical cameras, invisible to the eye but floating just behind the SRV turret non the less.... Or so I'm led to believe.

Agree - I'd prefer an in-turret view for the SRV as well as ship-based turrets. But I feel you'll only be firing once in a blue moon if the pilot is all over the place and you're turret happens to be on the other side of the ship to the target. Or switching turret views every two seconds.

I dunno - is there anything to learn from SC in this? I've not played much in multi-crew ships in SC - does a turret gunner role work well there? (not a SC vs. ED spark)
Edit - have done a reasonable amount now... and its hard to gwet a shot in lol

 

[TorTorden_VR]

I'm more worried about the possible performance impact of having multiple crew members rendered with their face detail on deck. High detail lookin' video game people don't usually come cheap.

Couldn't start a ship wide rule.

"On this bridge everyone wears a helmet with full face mask!"

 

[VR andysonofbob]

The gunner view is enough to turn me off multi crew - a slapped on third person view for anything in this game is the last thing I want to see. First the rubbish SRV turrent I deplore and avoid using where possible and now this... meh. All I wanted was to sit in a turrent, target ships and fire, not this half baked, immersion to hell approach to turrets we have now.

Gotta love those magical cameras, invisible to the eye but floating just behind the SRV turret non the less.... Or so I'm led to believe.

Nah dude

I recon, if todays tech can replicate 7.1 surround with 2 speakers I am fairly sure tech in 1000 years can extrapolate visuals from a meter or so above the turret using a few camera sensors.