Rifter's; How do we chat?

StarFarter · Jan 30, 2016

Obviously, when we look in the "chat box" area, we can input text and scroll through all the tabs.

I know there are a lot of us playing ED with the rift, do any of you guys have any tips or tricks for chatting without taking off the goggles?

My problem is; I play with a HOTAS, and it is difficult to take my hands off them and find the home keys, usually by the time I do, the person has jumped out of system, or the moment has passed...

maxpare79 · Jan 30, 2016

Well I play with a HOTAS too and don't have any problem chatting...Spending the last 25 years behind a keyboard allows me to type without looking at it at all...sorry but it's a skill you will have to developp ;-)

StarFarter · Jan 30, 2016

Thanks for the response! Nice to to know the VR section is lively. Due to historical precedence, I am on the edge of my seat and just waiting for VR to die again, I would be more devastated this time than I was with my Nintendo Virtual Boy.

You have my beat, I have only been straddling my keyboard about 19 year's. I can type without looking, but my problem is getting my fingers to the right place. I was hoping someone had some ingenious physical solution, or modification.

Practice makes perfect, right?

Karnath · Jan 30, 2016

Also use a HOTAS and fortunate to know my way around the keyboard to get away with little errors, as an alternative method programs like Voice Attack may help your cause

maxpare79 · Jan 30, 2016

StarFarter said:
Thanks for the response! Nice to to know the VR section is lively. Due to historical precedence, I am on the edge of my seat and just waiting for VR to die again, I would be more devastated this time than I was with my Nintendo Virtual Boy.

You have my beat, I have only been straddling my keyboard about 19 year's. I can type without looking, but my problem is getting my fingers to the right place. I was hoping someone had some ingenious physical solution, or modification.

Practice makes perfect, right?

I don't think it will die this time, I am on the edge of my seat waiting for official CV1 support for ED lol

Lasse B. · Jan 30, 2016

Touch typing training device:

Or maybe you could use voice recognition to type into chat what you speak.

Captain Sharky · Jan 30, 2016

We can use binary / morse code with fire groups 1 and 2. Like beam laser for long and PA for short.

CATPAIN KIRK · Jan 31, 2016

StarFarter said:
I can type without looking, but my problem is getting my fingers to the right place. I was hoping someone had some ingenious physical solution, or modification.

Practice makes perfect, right?

Not sure how this is a problem if you can already touch-type. My keyboard always is in the roughly same relative position to my seat. I just know where it is and switching between the HOTAS, keyboard and mouse always was absolutely straightforward to me.

I usually just quickly look around to memorise where everything else like the lighter, cigars, snacks, glasses and bottles...are and find them intuitively without much groping around.

Anyway - a few tips:

- Always putting everything in the same place saves the need to refresh your memory every time.
- Remember one or more points of reference on your keyboards position like the space bar or bottom left corner. Once you found the spot you know where everything else is.
- You might try moving your hand back and forth between spots you want to reach to calibrate yourself and repeat using it with eyes closed for a couple of cycles. Luckily never had to try the latter myself but physiotherapists use the technique to some success in stroke patients to help them regain basic functionality through neural facilitation.

StarFarter · Jan 31, 2016

I love the blank keyboard! I should scrape all of the letter's off of my kids gaming keyboard

It appears it is as I had feared; no magic keyboard liner-upper, ah well...

I think my problem is that I use a drastically different keyboard in my office, than on the gaming PC.

Thorvald · Jan 31, 2016

This is one of the reasons I wish we had "in system radio channels" so we could simply tune to the common freq and chat (half duplex mind you lol). With a number of radio channels (1-999?) and dual watch ability so we can monitor the common channel (or not if you don't like hearing people).

Same way the keyboard chat works but with voice basically.

Lasse B. · Jan 31, 2016

Thorvald said:
(half duplex mind you lol)

That won't work. There's always someone who's got no volume activation threshold set so he happily transmits whatever is going on in his home

LordZoltan · Feb 2, 2016

Don't forget the grooves on practically every keyboard for the 'f' and 'J' on the home row

vic · Feb 2, 2016

I guess this is where the vive beats CV1 becuase of the forward camera. Anyways I don't like to type anyways during playing and always forget to look at the chat window, VR or not. I just ask for voice comm with whomever I want to talk to and communicate that way.

Frank · Feb 2, 2016

You can also use Voice Attack to macro out phrases you use a lot. I've got mine set to say:-

"Go Away!!",
"I'm sorry that was clumsy of me",

and of course the evergreen...
"So you managed ta beat a feeble old man! Does that make you feel big? Well? Does it!!??"

Mazhurg · Feb 2, 2016

Voice attack (latest version) also has a dictation command ([FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Start Dictation Mode, and Stop Dictation Mode[/FONT]). Easiest to do: tie in a command like reply or message to open the comms and start dictation. Tie in another command to empty the dictation buffer.

Not perfect some words are mangled - especially if you have an accent, but understandable. And it can only improve with more computer speech training (Windows).

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=145653

StarFarter · Feb 3, 2016

My only qualm with voice attack: My wife will certainly poke fun at me with my goggles on sitting in my modified "captains chair" with my HOTAS mounted to it talking to my fellow ED dorks!

Kidding, I am more concerned with bothering her during quiet time. Dictation would be seriously cool.... "Landing gear, deploy!"

Oogie Boogie · Feb 3, 2016

Using the chat with the keyboard will be sure of a challange, probably as well using the galaxy map with the Rift. Voice-Attack is wokring good, some makros (autohotkey) to use some text parts also and for the rest we will see. For me this is not a killer as I use for 99% of the communication TeamSpeak.

jabokai · Feb 3, 2016

Been typing for over 30 years... and still can't do it without looking at the keyboard!

Luckily, I'm totally anti-social so have never chatted to anyone in the game.

Sir.Tj · Feb 3, 2016

jabokai said:
Luckily, I'm totally anti-social so have never chatted to anyone in the game.

No comment....

But luckily I have a lovely small and cute nosey so I can peer down through he little gap and see the keyboard.

StarFarter · Feb 3, 2016

T.j said:
No comment....

But luckily I have a lovely small and cute nosey so I can peer down through he little gap and see the keyboard.

That is so funny, I have the opposite, my nose is giant, and if the Oculus isn't adjusted perfectly, my nose actually touches the entire "outer rim" of the nose cut out! Hah!

Rifter's; How do we chat?

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