I got myself a wireless trackball device (with the biggest trackball I could find). That sits on my desk right beside the throttle, so I can reach it with a small movement of my arm. No searching for the mouse, the trackball is always in the same place.
After a while, using the trackball for cockpit interaction became second nature for me, and does not disrupt the immersion in any way.
Else, I use a HOTAS system. The most often used commands are mapped to buttons and hat switches on my throttle and stick, because that is of course the fastest way to get things done during flight.
I would certainly welcome trackable, haptic gloves for cockpit interaction. Not the usual controllers, but gloves, so that once I‘m done with my cockpit interaction I can get my hands back on throttle and stick, without having to worry about VR controllers dangling from my wrists…
PD.
Just did some research on the net. The „Rokoko“ gloves are more or less what I had in mind…
I got a trackball as well, fixed to the right armrest right next to throttle quadrant. For me - it’s still a crutch. “Disrupting the immersion” it to put it very mildly. I want to reach and operate all buttons and dials directly, not with a trackball. That’s what VR is. As I described, controller is not “dangling” but strapped to my right hand, so I don’t need to hold it and can still help on the yoke, but only squeeze or press it when operating things. It feels very natural after a while. I agree that haptic gloves would be the best solution, finger tracking the second-best, but those are not available for a consumer VR. Hopefully some time in the future. Controllers are the next best thing, ahead of the mouse or a trackball by miles and miles. This is personal of course, this topic has shown that many people can use the mouse (or trackball) and feel that it “does not disrupt the immersion in any way”. For me this statement is incomprehensible. It’s like they have virtually amputated me and then told be “oh, it doesn’t break the immersion, just act naturally”. Hopefully Asobo will add controllers soon, they are working on it, and everyone could chose his preferred method.
I agree with the RomanDesign 110%. Operating the mouse in the new CRJ500 / 700 cockpit (which is a very good product) is a total failure when it comes to immersion. Using any other controller like mouse, trackball, etc is a ■■■■ feeling. I use the X-Plane and it is now perfectly natural for me to point my arms and hands to the specific switches and dials in the cockpit. This is a feature that still disqualifies me from using MSFS + VR.
Overall, using VR in XP is still a much more enjoyable experience than in MSFS. No vibrating cockpits with head movements, more natural lighting of airports, etc.
Don‘t get me wrong: I‘m not saying the trackball solution is perfect. Can it be done better? Hell, yes! I‘m quite sure Asobo is paying a lot of attention to this - they certainly understand the potential of VR!
As things stand now, I am able to immerse myself enough in this sim to actually believe I am flying a plane, while sitting in my office chair at home. If i can achieve this, than (speaking strictly for me) it is not a big step to also make myself believe the trackball is an extension of my hand and arm.
Again, the VR experience is different for each of us, but I think we all agree real VR controllers will be a very welcome enhancement to this beautiful sim!
Sorry off topic, but I recommend buying Buttkicker (I had a long laugh about it before I bought it).
It’s a great VR supplement that takes your flying experience and immersion to the next next level.
And if you’re cheap and adventurous like I am, you can go for a free DIY Butt Kicker alternative, like I did. It’s easy to mod old car speakers into vibration transducers, and I screwed them into my VR cockpit chair, which is also a DIY arrangement. Just throw an analog audio through any amp that can drive those, filter out the treble, and it’s so cool. In Zibo 737 you can actually feel the concrete seams on the tarmac when taxiing! Plus the engine vibrations etc.
This is so incredibly important to so many people.
I bought this assuming VR meant full VR support so counting the days until this support is added in.
It’s the only reason why I bought this after X-Plane’s VR
It’s really good news. I hope it’s smoother than Xp11 control. It’s a little more important. Learn from the design of finger adsorption button in VTOL VR, so that the control of switch knob in VR is more accurate
Ya pretty big oversight for FS2020 , I know steam is really good at explicitly stating if a game has vr controller support so it wasn’t a surprise for me but still lots to learn from XP11’s implementation
I have no VR headset yet, but I will once a real solid 2nd generation headset hits the market (like the index2 or somthing similiar). So yeah, awesome VR support ist a must for me. I would not mind if Asobo can improve on the performace side as well
What also is needed is a better SteamVR OpenXR implementation for WMR (Reverb G2 etc.) There was talk about implementing a more direct way than copying video buffer, but not sure if latest updates did anything with that. There is an amazing DIY finger tracking/haptic gloves project that may solve the whole controller trouble, leaving your hands free for the yoke when you need it. Beats strapping the controller to my hand for sure. $21 worth of parts, some 3D printing and there is full finger tracking. Full haptic version is coming. Of course the open source driver is for SteamVR… Just as VRK and tons of other software… We need a good SteamVR implementation that doesn’t costs frames.
Looks nice. I guess it could even provide some force feedback effect and you could still use a joystick with that glove. I would hope a more advanced consumer friendly version will be released someday though
You also mentioned that the SteamVR integration does cost some frames, I also have bought this game from steam. How many frames does it cost compared to the version from microsoft store?
He is working on the prototype 4 with haptic feedback, but the way it’s done is not for joysticks etc. The small servos (same kind I have on my RC airplane models) will stop the wire extension, limiting the finger bend and simulating you grabbing something. So you could grab an apple in VR, feeling you grabbed something round. But your hand will still pass through a wall as there’s nothing stopping it from doing so. So we’d still need joystick/yoke.
As for FPS, there is no difference between MS Store and Steam bought MSFS. Reverb G2 works in WMR with OpenXR, so what SteamVR is doing when WMR is selected for OpenXR is just plugging into it and letting it control things. But as it’s not native to SteamVR nothing else works together with it, so any software like desktop mode (bringing your screens into SteamVR), kneeboards like VRK, those VR gloves etc. won’t work. For them to work, we need to enable SteamVR OpenXR implementation instead, and THAT has a disadvantage: as far as I remember, it was just copying video buffer for every frame and passing it into SteamVR, instead of directly working with a driver. Because of that of additional overhead it affected FPS/stuttering and was unworkable for me personally, while the WMR way was “meh” and is still borderline. For me (as you see in my video in the top post) VR simming is only viable when I can:
Fully interact with the cockpit with your hand (hence this topic) - controller support is a must, gloves will be even better.
Having all charts in the cockpit, available at all times, and a notepad to write down live ATC instructions from Vatsim etc: X-Plane had Avitab, but MSFS has nothing. And SteamVR has VRK, which is an amazing highly configurable tabbed notepad/chart holder where you can actually annotate on your PDFs with a stylus (you need a cheap stylus to use that feature). But it’s for SteamVR, as are the glove drivers, so until MSFS can work natively in SteamVR OpenXR implementation intead of WMR OpenXR we can’t use all those goodies…
Yes Flight Simulator 2020 in VR is best, but …
Flight Simulator 2020 in VR without the Controller loses all interest in VR immersion
I didn’t think we could have VR without the controllers in 2021 ??
Please asobo add a VR Controller in contrôle interface.
