The future of VR in Elite:Dangerous

From Wired:
'Sony president Shuhei Yoshida has said that making sure people actually enjoy their first VR experience is crucial, saying that "the danger is that the first time people try it is the most sensitive time."'

My first experience after buying a Rift was Oculus Dreamdeck. I found myself perched on a platform on the edge of a high-rise building in a cityscape - you know the one I mean..
I was nearly overcome with vertigo and dizzy terror on looking down. I was addicted from that point on. Nothing comes close. I would never consider playing ED on a flat monitor, even if I could be bothered to dig out my TrakHat kit again.
 
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 think this can be solved with a helmet HUD so your spacelegs become essentially a human sized vehicle.

But I'm a bit surprised that you can handle that SRV bouncing around but have issues with Skyrim VR. The SRV always felt like a more intense experience in terms of VR motion.
 
I think this can be solved with a helmet HUD so your spacelegs become essentially a human sized vehicle.

But I'm a bit surprised that you can handle that SRV bouncing around but have issues with Skyrim VR. The SRV always felt like a more intense experience in terms of VR motion.

Yeah, I find the SRV pretty intense and uncomfortable too. I haven't played Skyrim VR, but I have pretty solid VR legs and have no issue with 1st person movement generally (I comfortably played Alien Isolation and Subnautica). For me, it's the combination of the roughness of the terrain and the constant din of the engines.I try to spend as much time gliding as possible. Really wish they'd introduce some kind of hovercraft with more mellow sound design - I can't spend more than 30 minutes in the SRV without a break, and I always end up with a headache.
 
Yeah, I find the SRV pretty intense and uncomfortable too. I haven't played Skyrim VR, but I have pretty solid VR legs and have no issue with 1st person movement generally (I comfortably played Alien Isolation and Subnautica). For me, it's the combination of the roughness of the terrain and the constant din of the engines.I try to spend as much time gliding as possible. Really wish they'd introduce some kind of hovercraft with more mellow sound design - I can't spend more than 30 minutes in the SRV without a break, and I always end up with a headache.

At the risk of sounding obvious, you do fix horizon and switch the various options for bumps and roll blackouts, right? Makes the whole SRV experience far easier to deal with. (of course climbing steep terrain is slightly more challenging when you can't see the windows...)
 
I'm not saying that his comments aren't accurate, but this is hardly unbridled enthusiasm :):

“I have never believed [VR] would take off. Right from day one, I said it would be niche,” he noted. “[snip] And the other problem is, trying to use it in a family environment, it's really divisive. Because no one can see or hear what you're seeing.”

https://gamedaily.biz/article/194/david-braben-why-the-industry-needs-the-return-of-the-publisher

That last bit was a bit weird, using VR in a family environment? So what? I would argue gaming isn't really targeted towards families. In my experience, I think it's only the naughty Nintendo systems that are genuinely trying to be family orientated gaming systems, with the other systems having way more non-family friendly content than actual family orientated content.

My kids take it in turns to play VR games because they have to but they don't care. But I have to take turns with it when my GF plays. When I was a kid we'd take turns too. Didn't even consider it a problem.

I think now we have devices that no longer require external sensors which appear to do at least an alright job tracking, VR will become even more mainstream.
 
At the risk of sounding obvious, you do fix horizon and switch the various options for bumps and roll blackouts, right? Makes the whole SRV experience far easier to deal with. (of course climbing steep terrain is slightly more challenging when you can't see the windows...)

Thanks Kaltern - shamefully, I don't think that I have investigated the various options here... just using the defaults. I'll check them out.
 
That last bit was a bit weird, using VR in a family environment? So what? I would argue gaming isn't really targeted towards families. In my experience, I think it's only the naughty Nintendo systems that are genuinely trying to be family orientated gaming systems, with the other systems having way more non-family friendly content than actual family orientated content.

My kids take it in turns to play VR games because they have to but they don't care. But I have to take turns with it when my GF plays. When I was a kid we'd take turns too. Didn't even consider it a problem.

I think now we have devices that no longer require external sensors which appear to do at least an alright job tracking, VR will become even more mainstream.

I can see what he is saying, it can be a little anti-social, but as you say gaming is often fairly a solitary experience. I guess he means that there's even more of a gulf between what the user is experiencing and what any observer can see (watching someone play on a 2D system can still represent a shared experience I guess). Still, hardly a fatal flaw in VR.
 
Thanks Kaltern - shamefully, I don't think that I have investigated the various options here... just using the defaults. I'll check them out.
It made a huge difference for me, went from feeling queasy and headachey within a few minutes to being able to drive around for half an hour or so, and eventually to where I am now, where getting bored of it stops me first.
 
Apart from lifting your headset, breaking the immersion, to scribble the message down on a piece of paper, has anyone come up with a good way of recording the audible Eagle Eye messages?

The best suggestion i have is to use Oculus Dash and have a notepad window pinned into my cockpit, to allow me to type the code in, either by looking down the nosegap or using a virtual keyboard. It'd be a lot easier if FD had the beacons send a message too or provided some form of integrated VR knee-board.

Unless I'm missing something, the Eagle Eye beacons look to be a feature for which the game designers have forgotten about VR.
 
The engine has supported dual pass stereo rendering since the DK2 days, they were VR pioneers.

I very much doubt that support will regress in the future.

However, it is about time they took advantage of the Nvidia VR APIs (Specifically Single Pass Stereo/Simultaneous Multi Projection) which offer significant reductions to frametime.

It appears they stopped caring about being pioneers. Braben was the epitome of this back in the day. What the bloody hell happened.
 
Yea taking another stab at supporting more modern API's and rendering tech would really be a boost to the VR experience.
I have a tiny hope that they have room for this with the next update. Having deprecated a lot of older tech like 32bit etc will give them a lot more room to update their engine, and i hope that is part of what they have planed for next year.

I have a hope that one of the many reasons they moved the timeframe for the next update is that they realized that they needed to do a big rework of their engine to move forward with their more ambitious ideas, and that VR actually benefits from this.
 
What the bloody hell happened.

vr didn't turn out to be the insta mega blast everyone expected. braben himself said so. imo they did a superb job with ed, but i don't see vr being a priority for planet zoo or roller coaster games. so i do think (and hope!) they will continue to support it for ed, but it's just not as exciting and important for them as it was back then.
 
  • Like (+1)
Reactions: NW3
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.
I highly highly doubt it! Elite is hands down the best VR experience and they know it. Its so good I would sell my house for it if that's what it would take to keep playing.
VR is here to stay and just gonna grow.. the next consoles will all have VR as part of it... they are at the forefront of VR gaming they wont gonna drop it!

I woudltnt even ever switch to SC unless their VR implementation would A exist and B be on par with Elites!

Elite Dangerous in VR Is just the best thing ever!
 
vr didn't turn out to be the insta mega blast everyone expected. braben himself said so. imo they did a superb job with ed, but i don't see vr being a priority for planet zoo or roller coaster games. so i do think (and hope!) they will continue to support it for ed, but it's just not as exciting and important for them as it was back then.
VR doesn't make much sense for those games and I wouldn't play them with or without VR... but for Elite its a match made in heaven!
 
I think this can be solved with a helmet HUD so your spacelegs become essentially a human sized vehicle.

But I'm a bit surprised that you can handle that SRV bouncing around but have issues with Skyrim VR. The SRV always felt like a more intense experience in terms of VR motion.

Bouncing around in the SRV can cause VR nausea even for experienced players. Why some suffer and others don't is a mystery. I tend to get motion sickness in cars, boats, etc. so, perhaps not surprisingly, I have experienced VR nausea in games, including ED with the SRV.

A tip that may help - I've consistently found that, even in very hilly areas, I can avoid the nausea (or reduce its effect significantly) by driving the SRV full throttle. Counter-intuitive I know. I can only guess that my brain deals with slow undulating up and down movement (like a car or boat) and rapid movement in various directions (like a dune buggy) differently. I've also found that doing this regularly solves the problem entirely, but not permanently i.e. if you take a break from the game for a time and then come back you have the same problem.

All I can suggest to VR players who tend to experience nausea when driving the SRV is to test this. Try driving the SRV around absolutely flat out (and boost the SRV if you like as you would normally) in a hilly area for 10 or 15 minutes. Take a decent break. Then drive the SRV over the same hilly area slowly (again boosting if you like). Drop a post back in this thread when your done as it would be interesting to know how you got on.
 
Last edited:
I highly highly doubt it! Elite is hands down the best VR experience and they know it. Its so good I would sell my house for it if that's what it would take to keep playing.
VR is here to stay and just gonna grow.. the next consoles will all have VR as part of it... they are at the forefront of VR gaming they wont gonna drop it!

I woudltnt even ever switch to SC unless their VR implementation would A exist and B be on par with Elites!

Elite Dangerous in VR Is just the best thing ever!

Yes, it's very, very good. I think that Lone Echo edges it slightly in terms of conception and execution, but that was made specifically for VR and is so short and linear in comparison. I'll probably pick up No Man's Sky this week for the VR in the next update. I've never played it... I'm hoping it'll give Elite a run for its money.
 
Yes, it's very, very good. I think that Lone Echo edges it slightly in terms of conception and execution, but that was made specifically for VR and is so short and linear in comparison. I'll probably pick up No Man's Sky this week for the VR in the next update. I've never played it... I'm hoping it'll give Elite a run for its money.
A screenshot from NMS - including orbiting freighter, base and a ship... It is a 'little different' :)

136422
 
Bouncing around in the SRV can cause VR nausea even for experienced players. Why some suffer and others don't is a mystery. I tend to get motion sickness in cars, boats, etc. so, perhaps not surprisingly, I have experienced VR nausea in games, including ED with the SRV.

A tip that may help - I've consistently found that, even in very hilly areas, I can avoid the nausea (or reduce its effect significantly) by driving the SRV full throttle.
Snipped
The major thing about motion sickness is that the eyes are not experiencing the same thing as the inner ear. In a car if you look at the seat infront of you it appears stable but your ear says there is movement. The mis-match causes the sickness. That is one reason that people are told to look out the front window, to match the movement with the sensations.
In ED, we get just to opposite. the eyes see movement but the inner ear is saying it is sitting still.

For me, going faster just made it worse but i did turn on the lock horizon and the "vehicle motion blackout" though i have had issues with the last.
Then I just started crawling across the ground. The slow movement let my eyes and ears figure things out. I am up to about half throttle but most of the time i still just land as close and puttt-putt over to want i and visiting.

Space, for some reason, does not bother me at all.
 
Top Bottom