VR Concerns

[North_Wolf]

I have a Saitek x52 (will get the pedals once they arrive in the new year) and a VR setup (Vive) its been a few years since I made a short return to flight sims (Rise of Flight with a great squad) and almost 20 years since I was very active with a flight sim (Red Baron 3D).

 

Currently I am practicing without the pedals using the pinkie switch as brakes rather then a shift modifier.  I plan on changing this once I get the pedals and I can use toe brakes.  For those that use same stick, is it worth setting up different profiles for each aircraft, or should I use the pinkie switch and 3 modes to get the most out of it (since VR means no keyboard).  I have considered hooking up a gaming keypad (its like a mini keyboard with a gaming layout for one hand), to fill in some gaps.

 

A few concerns at the moment have to do with learning the game in VR.

 

1.  Aiming

 

I can aim in VR, but I find myself leaning forward and becoming fixed to keep the sight picture clean, this makes my situational awareness terrible.  With Track IR I think I was able to visually lead the target while aiming (this translates to viewing the sight at an angle with your head and does not work).  If I free my head to lead the target better, I find myself taking to long to get a good sight picture to shoot at the right time.  Is this something that comes with practice?  Should I be adopting a different body position?  Hunched forward and tense to stay on the sight literally translates to some real life fatigue in a long dogfight.  Any advice or discussion on this would be appreciated.

 

2.  Identifying aircraft

 

For my early practice sessions I have been using the in game icons to tell friend from foe.  This is a necessary evil to allow myself to enjoy the game while getting used engine management, airplane handling etc.  I plan on playing multiplayer a lot as soon as my setup is complete and I have more time in the new year , for this I know I will need to start ID airplanes.  Does the VR setup make this harder to learn?  Should I practice outside of VR for this, or will it all come together as I get used to spotting planes?  As far as spotting, is visual clarity an issue to find unidentified planes, or is it on par with other setups?  As far as being able to look around, I will be customizing my office chair to hold the joystick/throttle on the arms with wires out of the way.  This way I can swivel a little (not to much due to pedals), and also lean back pretty far.

 

3.  Online communications

 

Realistically, I wont be able to type with the VR on.  I plan on moving away from my desk to make RL movement easier, so keyboard will most likely not even be accessible.  I am planing to find a squad to fly with that uses voice coms.  Can I get away with not typing to the team while being a fighter?  With bombers (I think I will focus on them at first), I know I might be able to get my wife to be a gunner and thus have someone to report flight plan for possible escort on occasion (I am that lucky) but I doubt she would play often compared to me.  Would your average squad find it a nuisance to call out a flight plan for a bomber that cant type?

 

 

 

Immersion has come a very long way in the last 20 years and I am very excited to get back in the virtual cockpit.

[No601_Swallow]

I can't comment on the VR aspects, sadly (I really want one!), but most squadrons (certainly my own) use voice communications, and are in constant contact re. formation, coordination, calling out contacts, etc. The more communication, the better! And we all lean on the best in our group for advice and guidance, during missions and online sessions, whether its our bombing enthusiast, our fighter ace, our CEM guru, etc. I'd expect all online squadrons to be similar.

[Herne]

I use the oculus rift, been playing regularly since the VR patch in April. I love what the devs have done with VR in this game. Feels better to me than any other Flight Sim I have tried.

regarding 1: Body position will come naturally. Your head will be on a swivel for look out anyway, and you will bang your virtual head on your virtual canopy preventing you from going out of bounds.

2: Make sure you map VR Zoom. I have antialiasing on 4X because I think this helps me ID targets at range. 

 

3. People I fly with I use TS or discord, I don't type in game especially if I am flying.

Seriously, I love this game in VR. I don't think I could ever voluntarily go back to trying to play it without VR.

 

[HunDread]

1. You can adjust your default head position in VR by entering the game in 2d mode (uncheck VR HMD in graphich options). Then you change head position and save it. Next time you enter in VR mode you see the new head position. This is a bit tedious, but once you find the best head position for you, it will be easier to set up the rest of your planes.

 

2. Identifying will never be the same in current VR devices as on monitors. You have to look for other clues than only the visuals on other planes - like situational clues - direction of other planes, tracer colors, whether plane gets attacked by AAA etc...

 

3. It is not essential to use chat on Multiplayer servers. Actually you can gain quite a lot of FPS if you disable HUD (H key by default). I have this mapped to my hotas to be able to enable it if I need it.

[Lensman]

There's a VR head position reset (in the camera section I think but I'm not at my pc). Use this to set your preferred position on the fly by offsetting your position as you press the button. Lean to the right and your position is slightly riggt, lean down to lower it etc.

[=EXPEND=Tripwire]

Following the process Black_Sab has provided will help you get your head in the right spot much faster than having a few goes at the reset view button with its default non VR head position.

Do it for your favourite planes and just use the reset and a guessed head location for others.

[North_Wolf]

Thanks for the info so far, I will test resetting the VR view until I am in a comfy positions while lining up with the sight (that was the idea right?).

 

About plane identification, what kind of range difference are we talking about here?  Both from simply spotting an unknown object to actually being able to ID it (compared to regular monitor)?

[Guest deleted@134347]

where can I find this process?

 

Following the process Black_Sab has provided will help you get your head in the right spot much faster than having a few goes at the reset view button with its default non VR head position.
Do it for your favourite planes and just use the reset and a guessed head location for others.

[dburne]

There's a VR head position reset (in the camera section I think but I'm not at my pc). Use this to set your preferred position on the fly by offsetting your position as you press the button. Lean to the right and your position is slightly riggt, lean down to lower it etc.

 

This.

 

I have re-set VR view along with VR Zoom assigned to buttons on my Warthog throttle. I have no problem getting my view set good for me each time I climb into the cockpit. ( usually only have to do first time after launching game until a restart of the game).

[Guest deleted@134347]

is this something different than Num5 view re-center? That's what I use for getting the right position of the gun sight etc.. I bound it to a joystick button via joy2key client...

 

is there something else on top of it we can use? Problem with my head set up is that sometimes tracking gets lost and my cockpit either slides down or up.. which i think is an Oculus problem possibly.. But then I have to reset the view yet again and it can take 4-5 times to get it right, especially if it happens in a roll turn...

 

This.

 

I have re-set VR view along with VR Zoom assigned to buttons on my Warthog throttle. I have no problem getting my view set good for me each time I climb into the cockpit. ( usually only have to do first time after launching game until a restart of the game).

[dburne]

is this something different than Num5 view re-center? That's what I use for getting the right position of the gun sight etc.. I bound it to a joystick button via joy2key client...

 

is there something else on top of it we can use? Problem with my head set up is that sometimes tracking gets lost and my cockpit either slides down or up.. which i think is an Oculus problem possibly.. But then I have to reset the view yet again and it can take 4-5 times to get it right, especially if it happens in a roll turn...

 

I would suggest giving it a try and see, the re-set VR view was put in specifically for VR users. Works very well for me.

 

Your tracking problem though should not be happening, you should have good tracking all the way through without it getting lost.

Have you re-run Oculus Sensor setup lately?

Usually good to do that from time to time, especially after updated to Oculus.

[North_Wolf]

I had enough time to go test for a few sorties and I think this is starting to make sense to me.

 

I have not tried the 2d reset yet, but now that I get the idea I might do so.

 

Default VR view brings the gun sights in the middle of my screen (bad), so what worked for me was lining the sight up for my left eye (not my dominant one) and resetting the VR view.  

 

This means that once I move my head back to my normal position, my right eye is then situated with a direct view through the sights for a clear picture (since the center if off by the distance to one of my eyes and the game thinks my head is to to the left).

 

In a hurry and when the sights are not clear (like when facing the sun), I focus on the wooden base of the sight and make sure that it is directly in front of my dominant eye, that seems to do the trick and I can reacquire a sight picture faster then before .

 

The collimator sight likes to disappear when facing a cloud, to much light or bright backgrounds.  I assume this is the same in none VR mode?

 

Now that I am not adopting a hunchback posture and trying to lean forward, this is getting much more enjoyable.  

Edited December 5, 2017 by North_Wolf

[HunDread]

 

About plane identification, what kind of range difference are we talking about here?  Both from simply spotting an unknown object to actually being able to ID it (compared to regular monitor)?

spotting does not seem to be worse in VR than on monitors. For identification the range difference is quite huge. I cannot say a number in meters but my squad mates are calling out friendly vs foe when I still see a blurry mess. They can even tell exact plane type when I still dont see it as friendly or not.

[North_Wolf]

spotting does not seem to be worse in VR than on monitors. For identification the range difference is quite huge. I cannot say a number in meters but my squad mates are calling out friendly vs foe when I still see a blurry mess. They can even tell exact plane type when I still dont see it as friendly or not.

 

Thats good news and something I am willing to work with for the sake of immersion.

 

As long as I am able to tell that there is a "plane" out there it feels fair enough and I can resort to asking other pilots, the gunner or estimating based on behavior and direction.

 

The VR zoom is x2, is this more or less then regular zoom?  Maybe a 4x zoom would solve this problem.

[dburne]

Thats good news and something I am willing to work with for the sake of immersion.

 

As long as I am able to tell that there is a "plane" out there it feels fair enough and I can resort to asking other pilots, the gunner or estimating based on behavior and direction.

 

The VR zoom is x2, is this more or less then regular zoom?  Maybe a 4x zoom would solve this problem.

 

Probably not until the resolution gets better with future devices.

 

I find spotting to be easier as everything is basically full sized. Target ID is challenging though. I fly SP only so have no shame, I toggle labels when needed. The immersion however is incredible.

Edited December 6, 2017 by dburne

[Nibbio]

Thats good news and something I am willing to work with for the sake of immersion.

 

As long as I am able to tell that there is a "plane" out there it feels fair enough and I can resort to asking other pilots, the gunner or estimating based on behavior and direction.

 

The VR zoom is x2, is this more or less then regular zoom?  Maybe a 4x zoom would solve this problem.

 

In my experience, with the current resolution of HMDs, fps becomes the most important factor for aircraft identification.

Assuming equal pilot experience, the fluidity of the animation is what determines if you are able to correctly identify aircrafts. In fact whenever fps drops below 90, whether ASW kicks in or not, you get subtle artifacts and/or double images that distort the shape of the aircrafts and blend the colors of the livery, hindering identification.

 

If you use a graphics setting that allows 90 fps all the time, even in the most demanding situations, you'll be surprised how easy it becomes to discern the differences between a FW190 and an LA5, or a PE2 and a BF110, even at  distance.

Edited December 6, 2017 by Nibbio

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

In my experience, with the current resolution of HMDs, fps becomes the most important factor for aircraft identification.

Assuming equal pilot experience, the fluidity of the animation is what determines if you are able to correctly identify aircrafts. In fact whenever fps drops below 90, whether ASW kicks in or not, you get subtle artifacts and/or double images that distort the shape of the aircrafts and blend the colors of the livery, hindering identification.

 

If you use a graphics setting that allows 90 fps all the time, even in the most demanding situations, you'll be surprised how easy it becomes to discern the differences between a FW190 and an LA5, or a PE2 and a BF110, even at  distance.

This.

 

Also, ingame's AA/Sharpen make it much harder to ID bogeys, and spotting as well (targets blend into the background on the deck, and in the clouds).

 

We have real AA via SteamVR's SuperSampling slider. Why not use this?

[HunDread]

The VR zoom is x2, is this more or less then regular zoom?  Maybe a 4x zoom would solve this problem.

 

Exactly! feel free to back me up here  ; )

 

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/32163-suggestion-better-zoom-vr/

[North_Wolf]

Exactly! feel free to back me up here  ; )

 

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/32163-suggestion-better-zoom-vr/

 

Done!