The future of VR in Elite:Dangerous

Hi all – I’ve had a nagging concern for the future of VR support in ED for a while. It started with David’s rather discouraging but not entirely inaccurate comments regarding VR generally, and was only exacerbated by some of the recent updates in which VR felt like something of an afterthought.

I know that any supposed leaks should be taken with a pinch of salt, but spacelegs has always felt like an obvious development ambition and I wonder how it could be achieved with VR best practices in mind. Personally, I’ve never had an issue with traditional first-person movement in VR, but a lot of people do.

Also, I noticed that the current iteration of the website appears to make no mention of VR (as far as I can see), whereas previously it was highlighted prominently as one of the game’s core features (“built for VR from the ground up”).

Am I worrying unnecessarily?

I hope that FD don’t follow Unknown Worlds in throwing their VR users under the bus. It’s one of the best VR experiences out there (if not the best), and I’d have no interest in playing the game in pancake mode.

Reassure me, please. :)
 
Not sure what the big deal is. Everything is already in place for space legs.
Especially if viewed on a purely functional level, with mouse and controller only, not robo-recall motion controller style shooting etc.

E.g.
Multicrew: you can't see your own head inside someone else's ship but other people can.

What additional things will be needed?
 
Not sure what the big deal is. Everything is already in place for space legs.
Especially if viewed on a purely functional level, with mouse and controller only, not robo-recall motion controller style shooting etc.

E.g.
Multicrew: you can't see your own head inside someone else's ship but other people can.

What additional things will be needed?

Perhaps you're right (I hope so :)) - I'm just thinking about widely accepted best practices in VR development (see "First Person Games in VR" in the link below).

https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/topics/virtual-reality/movement-vr

As I said, I may be worrying unnecessarily - but it just struck me as odd that the website no longer highlights VR as a major feature.
 
Yeah, I am well aware of articles and tips like that. I personally wish they stopped worrying about motion sickness in VR and best practices.

If you have VR, you have VR
If you can bum about in an SRV in VR for as long as you like, you are probably immune from motion sickness.
 
Yeah, I am well aware of articles and tips like that. I personally wish they stopped worrying about motion sickness in VR and best practices.

If you have VR, you have VR
If you can bum about in an SRV in VR for as long as you like, you are probably immune from motion sickness.
In my case only if I turn on all the options to reduce motion sickness (keeping the horizon steady helped the most, I can close my eyes in an out-of-control tumble).

Still, I got used to it a bit. At first rotating on the landing pad for going into the hangar made me feel slightly queasy, but it's been a long time since I've had any hint of motion sickness in Elite. When it comes to walking some games are fine, others terrible. I don't have issues in the VR version of Skyrim, I think one of the important things is to not make the camera automatically move in the direction you're looking.

So from my point of view at least motion sickness is a solved problem, at least for what Elite's likely to need. Some options can be added to reduce the effect for us borderline cases, and the ones who suffer the worst probably won't play the game.

In short, I agree, I wish they'd stop worrying about it too.
 
Yeah, I am well aware of articles and tips like that. I personally wish they stopped worrying about motion sickness in VR and best practices.

If you have VR, you have VR
If you can bum about in an SRV in VR for as long as you like, you are probably immune from motion sickness.

Sitting in the SRV makes it easier to digest as you have reference points. Walking in Skyrim VR however made me fairly uncomfortable after short play sessions (for which the game isn't designed for).

I think we'll see soon enough in NMS VR, which is oddly the only reason why I'm not selling my Rift at the moment.
 
I do think they will phase out VR with the 2020 update. They are moving towards more consoles and away from niche. With their goal being to release a franchise every year I can see how keeping the engine up to date with VR could be an uneccessary overhead. The other thing to consider with spacelegs its not entirely straight forward including VR you essentailly need to decouple the head from the hands and provide seperate control mechanisms for each. Not impossible but I don't think fdev will bother I would imagine the hope is that VR dies down considerably by the time we get to 2020 so no one cares.
 

dayrth

Volunteer Moderator
Latest update improved VR graphics, frame rate and stability quite a lot. I can now read all the text in my cockpit clearly (which I could not before) and the skybox graphics have improved greatly and I am running a GTX 970. I also don't get the stuttering when on a planet surface or in the galaxy map that used to happen fairly regularly. The patch didn't seem to do the same for non VR. Infact some are complaining that 2D graphics performance has taken a hit.

I don't think FD have abandoned VR :)
 
Well, some weeks ago, I had similar concerns when noticing a few things and started a thread about it:


At some point, Paige basically said FDs commitment to the game is unchanged, whatever that may mean. They will neither confirm nor deny anything. Some hope I have stems from the fact they're actually still fixing VR bugs and the 2020 announcement where they said the DLC will be an update to the current franchise, not a new game. Looking at the recent nav panel redesign, though, VR support clearly is at the very bottom of design priorities and we'll have to live with that.

O7,
🙃
 
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The main issue on PCVR even in ED is the unstable FPS and the low refresh rate. I can play every PSVR game with free locomotion (stable 120hz/120fps) without any signs of nausea, while driving the SRV arround the guardian bases with unstable 90fps brings cold sweat. I did test 60hz but became sick immediately, so i would say the 90hz with perfectly stable fps is a minimum necessity, 120hz would be perfect. And that requires not just beefy GPU, but also at least 6c/12t cpu to handle all the Steam VR related process (VR server, VR compositor...) along the main game process in required refresh rate..
 
I do think they will phase out VR with the 2020 update. They are moving towards more consoles and away from niche. With their goal being to release a franchise every year I can see how keeping the engine up to date with VR could be an uneccessary overhead. The other thing to consider with spacelegs its not entirely straight forward including VR you essentailly need to decouple the head from the hands and provide seperate control mechanisms for each. Not impossible but I don't think fdev will bother I would imagine the hope is that VR dies down considerably by the time we get to 2020 so no one cares.
You speak like you know what it takes to get VR running in the Cobra engine. Do you?
Here is a quote from David Braben…
“We were already prepared for 3D, because one of the problems for example was the textures all have to be stereo, otherwise everyone can see it’s all a lie,” he explained. “But because we were already thinking of things like that, it was alright. So it didn’t take a lot of engineering time to support 3D, or Oculus.”
Do you know that lots of companies are working on the next generation of HMDs don't you?
You also speak about "space legs" as though they will suddenly appear in the game in 2020. Do you have inside information?
 
You speak like you know what it takes to get VR running in the Cobra engine. Do you?
Here is a quote from David Braben…

Do you know that lots of companies are working on the next generation of HMDs don't you?
You also speak about "space legs" as though they will suddenly appear in the game in 2020. Do you have inside information?

You are correct I don't know how the engine works I do know that a flat screen fps works differently to a vr fps and I also know that the engine would need to deal with the difference in camera behaviour and controller behaviour, but yes I do not have insider knowledge of the cobra engine my apologies.

As for spacelegs there has been a widely discussed leak about fdevs roadmap which so far has correctly covered the jwe dino pack, the announcement of planet zoo and the correct release date for planet zoo. Whilst not concrete it does gain more credibility as time progresses it could indeed be incorrect but there is no similar reports of something else being developed for 2020.

So again no nothing concrete but since fdev refuse to tell anyone anything we have to go on what we can get
 
You are correct I don't know how the engine works I do know that a flat screen fps works differently to a vr fps and I also know that the engine would need to deal with the difference in camera behaviour and controller behaviour, but yes I do not have insider knowledge of the cobra engine my apologies.

As for spacelegs there has been a widely discussed leak about fdevs roadmap which so far has correctly covered the jwe dino pack, the announcement of planet zoo and the correct release date for planet zoo. Whilst not concrete it does gain more credibility as time progresses it could indeed be incorrect but there is no similar reports of something else being developed for 2020.

So again no nothing concrete but since fdev refuse to tell anyone anything we have to go on what we can get
Frontier are a plc, they have shareholders to think about. Loose lips sink ships and all that.
 
Frontier are a plc, they have shareholders to think about. Loose lips sink ships and all that.
Hmmm being a plc doesn't explain not announcing anything....

I can see Tesco's long term plans online hello games give frequent dev updates being a plc has absolutely nothing to do with them not announcing things an archaic marketing strategy is what holds them back
 
Hmmm being a plc doesn't explain not announcing anything....

I can see Tesco's long term plans online hello games give frequent dev updates being a plc has absolutely nothing to do with them not announcing things an archaic marketing strategy is what holds them back
Would announcing what they are doing at the end of 2020 sell many copies now?
 
Would announcing what they are doing at the end of 2020 sell many copies now?

No more or less than it will sell announcing it in 2020. They would however, start to win back some of the community who feel disengaged by the lack of communication. when they announce it doesnt change what it is people will either buy it or they wont. the challenge they have is reaching a wider group of people to see if they will buy iit so they either cram in their marketing in the 6 months before launch (standard fdev approach) or they start talking to the active community about it and let the news grow slightly organically before doing additional marketing in the lead up.

Nearly every big developer / publisher releases information early to build hype they even managed to make anthem sell relatively well despite being less finished than star citizen!
 
No more or less than it will sell announcing it in 2020. They would however, start to win back some of the community who feel disengaged by the lack of communication. when they announce it doesnt change what it is people will either buy it or they wont. the challenge they have is reaching a wider group of people to see if they will buy iit so they either cram in their marketing in the 6 months before launch (standard fdev approach) or they start talking to the active community about it and let the news grow slightly organically before doing additional marketing in the lead up.

Nearly every big developer / publisher releases information early to build hype they even managed to make anthem sell relatively well despite being less finished than star citizen!
Anyway, about that leak.....

There is not much more that i can tell you. There are just some references to station interiors and "turbolifts" (with "buttons" and "terminals"). The source is in the files from the April update. I won't be any more specific than that since last time i violated a subreddit rule by revealing how to find such information.
 
Latest update improved VR graphics, frame rate and stability quite a lot. I can now read all the text in my cockpit clearly (which I could not before) and the skybox graphics have improved greatly and I am running a GTX 970. I also don't get the stuttering when on a planet surface or in the galaxy map that used to happen fairly regularly. The patch didn't seem to do the same for non VR. Infact some are complaining that 2D graphics performance has taken a hit.

I don't think FD have abandoned VR :)

Wait, what? Is this the 3.4 update of yesterday? I cant play at the moment but if so that is great!
 
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