New to VR...VR DCS for dummies?

Hello folks, soon I'll receive my Pimax 5K+. This is my first foray into VR. I fly for a living.

I have watched and read many bits of info on VR generally. I have watched Jabbers vid as well.

What I haven't seen or don't quite understand, how does it all fit together. Please allow me to elaborate a little.

First, in a perfect world you would be able to operate switches and button etc with the VR setup. I know about the CTRL thing, is that all that is avail. right now?

That withstanding, how do you manage to operate stuff while wearing the HMD. Is it a simple look under the nose to see mouse etc. I have the A10 Warthog Thrustmaster set. Do I need to memorize the throttle panel switches from memory to click the right ones with in the VR world?

I also have the beautifully designed HB F-14 Tomcat. look forward to learning that aircraft, especially with VR. Again, using the TM Warthog, will I need to relearn switch position again for the F14 and it's control? Or, simply look under my nose for the mouse and throttle panel?

Ultimately, would love to activate switches and buttons with hands in the VR world. While also being able to fly with control stick and HOTAS. Any options available to accomplish this right now.

I was elated to hears Wags re the 50% increase. Hope my system can handle everything OK.

Right now, just interested in getting feet wet in the VR world. I see a lot of vids were you folks are flying with VR...looks like a blast!

Apologies ahead of time if there is a thread or something that answers these questions. Please point me in that direction, and I'll pursue that info. Thanks in advance for your time and patience.

Best,

David

Use Hotkeys that you find 'blindless'. In the rift i have a very tiny nosegap so i can see my keyboard when needed. When i want i can use voicebot to bind certain commands. And...some extra training too manage all this. :D

Ps: Welcome to our VR world

No point control isn't available yet. You can get on the list.

Clicking in the pit is generally no big deal with a mouse or trackball or hand controllers if thats your thing.

For the F14 they have a "default" layout for the TM warthog. You might want to rebind some things though. In generally the F14 is pretty mouse friendly though.

The other thing to get is voice attack. For VR its a must for dealing with the radio menus, and you can bind any inconvenient key press to it.

....

The other thing to get is voice attack. For VR its a must for dealing with the radio menus, and you can bind any inconvenient key press to it.

^THIS! and it's easy to setup and use. :thumbup:

The only other thing I'll add is be prepared to be dissapointed by resolution and frame rates.

I think I had similar problems that OP is expecting, and I like to share my experience.

 

First, in a perfect world you would be able to operate switches and button etc with the VR setup. I know about the CTRL thing, is that all that is avail. right now?

 

That withstanding, how do you manage to operate stuff while wearing the HMD. Is it a simple look under the nose to see mouse etc. I have the A10 Warthog Thrustmaster set. Do I need to memorize the throttle panel switches from memory to click the right ones with in the VR world?

 

I also have the beautifully designed HB F-14 Tomcat. look forward to learning that aircraft, especially with VR. Again, using the TM Warthog, will I need to relearn switch position again for the F14 and it's control? Or, simply look under my nose for the mouse and throttle panel?

 

Ultimately, would love to activate switches and buttons with hands in the VR world. While also being able to fly with control stick and HOTAS. Any options available to accomplish this right now.

 

 

My final solution is using Xpadder and using custom kneeboard.

The basic idea is based on assigning some switches on my T16000M and TWCS to "SHIFT" the function of the entire HOTAS. For example, if pull the joystick trigger without any shifting will fire weapon, however while i press and hold a button / slider on my throttle, the joystick trigger becomes some other function, e.g. drop bombs, trim reset.

This is possible by combining Xpadder's "Set Selector" function and with DCS in-game custom control mapping.

Above pictures shows my current xpadder setting. If push nothing, the TWCS is working as "Default" mapping (highlighted in left-bottom tab list)

The yellow box means that if i pull and hold the rudder slider of my TWCS to left, it "shifts" the entire mapping of TWCS to "Weapon" AND it also press and hold left control key.

This way I have enough key mappings in my T16000 and TWCS.

Having many functions within the limited number of buttons of HOTAS in VR is very important:

• I cannot easily access mouse and keyboard when I cannot actually see them.
  
• The VR mouse pointing is only a "mouse pointer".
  
  • 
    
  • i.e., in the end I need additional mouse movement mapping in HOTAS (to fine tune my head bobbing mouse cursor)
    
  • in addition left and right mouse button and even mouse wheel button mapping to my HOTAS (see first picture)
    

  [*]There were a lot of functions need to be mapped than I initially anticipated. Like reset VR position, moving 6DOF cockpit, whole radio shortcut, zoom button, fire while zooming and many more

  [*]There were a lot of functions need to be mapped because some cockpit buttons are hiding behind in-game virtual throttle and stick. For some modules I can hide in-game control stick by pushing backspace (which i had to again mapped to hotas) but it does not much help because i cannot hide throttle. In F-14 flap controls are hiding behind throttle.

Next step is setting the in-game DCS controls with above HOTAS + xpadder combinations to actually fly anything. I cannot possibly remember HOTAS * xpadder(sets) * DCS modules (aircrts) times of combination. So custom kneeboard comes in handy.

This means I had to actually draw the custom kneeboard so again it took a lot of efforts. I used google presentation btw.

So I can finally fly any damn thing less relying on the invisible keyboard and mouse. I dont know this is cognitive resonance but I am satisfied now.

A few comments regarding my setup:

• I paid about $10 for Xpadder because it is easy to use and more visualized. I also tried similar free software like joy2key or even thrustmaster key mappers. Theoretically those free software should also work but for me it took too much time without visualization so I dropped using them and bought Xpadder.
  
• There are a lot of bizarre and unsaid complex key mapping tricks in here for everything work as intended. I warn you my method will take you a lot of time setting things. If I have more time I plan to write a document about this but..
  

I was elated to hears Wags re the 50% increase. Hope my system can handle everything OK.

I tried many suggestions to boost performance, but for me there was little difference. Maybe they works for other people.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=201600

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=215373

and I dont think promised 50% increase will be available any time soon.

BTW my first choice was voice attack too, but since i'm not native english speaker and windows voice engine doesnt support my native language (yet) so I could not get it to work.

Anyway feel free to ask any questions about my suggestions!

Under the tab on the individual aircraft key bind page, at the very bottom is the UI keys. There's four dx bindable mouse keys you can set to a 4 way hat switch on a HOTAS, now leave your mouse where it belongs, on the desk. The game allows you to move the mouse courser in sync with your HMD, so you can simply look at the switch or control and click the hat to action it. Left and right click either rotates or switches, scroll in or out pushes or pulls a control, easy as that and its free.

There are some pits where it's tough to see or get the mouse view on certain controls, if you use the switch often, put it on a controller. If you hard mount your controllers, muscle memory works, you don't need to see them.

Yeah, what they said, voice attack is the mutts nuts for running all things comms in game.

Thank You everyone for your valuable input.

Best,

David

Under the tab on the individual aircraft key bind page, at the very bottom is the UI keys. There's four dx bindable mouse keys you can set to a 4 way hat switch on a HOTAS, now leave your mouse where it belongs, on the desk. The game allows you to move the mouse courser in sync with your HMD, so you can simply look at the switch or control and click the hat to action it. Left and right click either rotates or switches, scroll in or out pushes or pulls a control, easy as that and its free.

 

 

There are some pits where it's tough to see or get the mouse view on certain controls, if you use the switch often, put it on a controller. If you hard mount your controllers, muscle memory works, you don't need to see them.

 

 

Yeah, what they said, voice attack is the mutts nuts for running all things comms in game.

This is what I do, along with having Voice Attack for comms along with Vaicom Pro.

^THIS! and it's easy to setup and use. :thumbup:

oh my, I wish I had mine setup already but it is not after several months lol

and every time I read about its pros, makes me commit myself "I will fix it tonight", but then... I find flying more amusing ;)

But I will try this week, thanks for your input