How are you controlling things in VR?

I'm just getting back into flight-sims again with the HTC Vive. Things have changed just a bit between 1.5 and 2.5! :D

With VR, I'm noticing a bit of a "control struggle": Either systems are controlled by keyboard inputs ( Su-25 ) and I can't see the keyboard, or clickable cockpit - and to move the mouse around with my dominant hand, I need to take my hand off the flight stick ( it's embarrassing to nose the L-39C into the runway while you're trying to retract the landing gear :P ).

Neither seems really practical.

So how are people flying without being able to see any of your controllers? Becoming skilled touch typists? Learning to mouse with their "off" hand? Just mapping EVERYTHING to HOTAS control switches? Voice Attack ( although having a fully voice controllable place seems kinds "cheaty" to me, although simultaneously pretty cool )? Touch pads?

With a non-clickable cockpits I bind all to HOTAS. It is really easy when you do the correct croups like stick for "flying" and throttle for "systems" and "weapons" and then you have 1-2 shift multiplier buttons on stick/and throttle so you can multiply either one without problems.

With a clickable cockpits I bind again most in the HOTAS, at least the correct functions they have in them, and then I improvise rest. But that doesn't include things like MFCD buttons.

Those I used previously in 2.2 and 1.5 with VR mouse cursor so I had mouse cursor moving where I look and then with stick two buttons I had left/right click and two buttons for mouse wheel up/down. It was "best solution" back then.

But sine 2.5 the Oculus Touch Controllers are operational by 60-80% of the time. The problem is that you don't have (yet?) a right click, but only left click and mouse wheel.

So in many cases you just use your touch controller with left hand to point things and operate the cockpit switches, buttons and so on. But the problem comes when they requires a right click to flip them to other direction, as that is not in the binding so you can't do it!

The VR experience really goes up to immersion when you can use touch controller to operate the cockpit. It just is so so much nicer than any mouse or VR cursor. I would say that touch controller is the sole immersion creator for VR! Like you are flying and you hit the gear leveler with your hand, then you raise flaps and in combat you flip the master arm, select the pylons, you input the laser code etc.

But in some modules like in KA-50 you need to use ABRIS with your right hand, so better be in hover when doing it. But operating the ABRIS has never beens so great as with touch controller.

I would take even TrackIR back if I just could use the Oculus sensors with touch controllers to operate the cockpit!

I have my essential assigned to buttons on my HOTAS ( Virpil Stick, Warthog Thottle, and CH Throttle Quadrant). I was doing that long before I got VR, so already had my buttons functions pretty much committed to memory.

Voice Attack for wingmen commands. I also have some on my G Keys of my Logitech Keyboard, where they are positioned I can see them fairly easily through the nose gap of my Rift.

Voice Attack also allows activation by key or joystick press and is easy to program complex actions.

I use A/P engage button on my Warthog Throttle to activate all the switch actions for start and taxi using Voice attack. One press and Voice Attack executes everything necessary to get me ready for takeoff in each of the six aircraft I fly regularly.

After that there isnt much I need that isnt where it has always been but I fly the gunfighters mostly. Nothing super complex.

I have a trackball to my right for the times I need a mouse. The trackball stays in one location so it isnt hard to find blind. A mouse moves so it is much harder.

I mounted the Logitech G13 in front of my throttle but I find I dont use it much

i finally can play DCS level aircraft because of the touch controller updates. i hope they add right click soon.

With a non-clickable cockpits I bind all to HOTAS. It is really easy when you do the correct croups like stick for "flying" and throttle for "systems" and "weapons" and then you have 1-2 shift multiplier buttons on stick/and throttle so you can multiply either one without problems.

 

With a clickable cockpits I bind again most in the HOTAS, at least the correct functions they have in them, and then I improvise rest. But that doesn't include things like MFCD buttons.

Those I used previously in 2.2 and 1.5 with VR mouse cursor so I had mouse cursor moving where I look and then with stick two buttons I had left/right click and two buttons for mouse wheel up/down. It was "best solution" back then.

 

But sine 2.5 the Oculus Touch Controllers are operational by 60-80% of the time. The problem is that you don't have (yet?) a right click, but only left click and mouse wheel.

So in many cases you just use your touch controller with left hand to point things and operate the cockpit switches, buttons and so on. But the problem comes when they requires a right click to flip them to other direction, as that is not in the binding so you can't do it!

 

The VR experience really goes up to immersion when you can use touch controller to operate the cockpit. It just is so so much nicer than any mouse or VR cursor. I would say that touch controller is the sole immersion creator for VR! Like you are flying and you hit the gear leveler with your hand, then you raise flaps and in combat you flip the master arm, select the pylons, you input the laser code etc.

 

But in some modules like in KA-50 you need to use ABRIS with your right hand, so better be in hover when doing it. But operating the ABRIS has never beens so great as with touch controller.

 

I would take even TrackIR back if I just could use the Oculus sensors with touch controllers to operate the cockpit!

How do you work the throttle?

How do you work the throttle?

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I usually post from my phone so please excuse any typos, inappropriate punctuation and capitalization, missing words and general lack of cohesion and sense in my posts.....

I use the HOTAS listed in my sig. Does most things.

In addition, I have voiceattack, which I use for communications items. Also use a pair of mouse. A standard one for my right hand and a ball mouse for the left, such that I can use it when my right hand is holding the stick.

Voice attack!

Best 7 quid I ever spent, and had I known how easy it is to set up I would have bought it sooner. If you have VR it's almost essential (or at least once you've tried it)!

I use it in the Gazelle for example and at mission start will simply say 'prepare weapon systems' and it will go ahead and do everything for me. I can also use it to turn on my jet-seat in game when I forget, and it can do a lot more cool things than just flight sim input. It allows one to turn anything on -such as an FPS counter- in game with a simple command. Instead of trying to remember the correct key combo you just say what you want instead!

I used to just use the mouse (which is fine mostly) but with a co-pilot it actually feels as if I am giving him orders and he's setting things up for me! For myself I find it adds rather than detracts from the immersion though I can see why some would prefer to click everything themselves.

Some essential buttons are also mapped to my Hotas too though(switch weapons). What voice attack is great for is taking complex key combinations -that would be difficult enough to remember let alone find in VR- and binding them to a memorable command.

Voice attack!

 

Best 7 quid I ever spent, and had I known how easy it is to set up I would have bought it sooner. If you have VR it's almost essential (or at least once you've tried it)!

 

I have Voice Attack set up for another combat sim, need to get it set up for DCS now.

Curious, do you use Vaicom with it or just straight VA for DCS?

i just use the mouse cursor locked to my point of view and the left and right click assigned to my hotas. sometimes the cursor will vanish on me so i wonder if its possible to have a pinky switch to make it visible. not that it bothers me but people seem to be funny about that.

Don, you use Vaicom pro 2.5 as a plug-in for VA. It’s a powerful little tool. Well worth the money and easy to get to grips with. There’s around 400 commands built into it already

Don, you use Vaicom pro 2.5 as a plug-in for VA. It’s a powerful little tool. Well worth the money and easy to get to grips with. There’s around 400 commands built into it already

Ok sounds good, I will pick it up thanks.

Voice attack!

 

Best 7 quid I ever spent, and had I known how easy it is to set up I would have bought it sooner. If you have VR it's almost essential (or at least once you've tried it)!

 

I use it in the Gazelle for example and at mission start will simply say 'prepare weapon systems' and it will go ahead and do everything for me...

I have Voice Attack, and have experimented with this sort of thing. This is the aspect that feel "cheaty" ( for me only, what you do is your business, I'm not judging :) ) - the real aircraft doesn't have control interfaces nearly that sophisticated.

I have Voice Attack set up for another combat sim, need to get it set up for DCS now.

Curious, do you use Vaicom with it or just straight VA for DCS?

Don, you use Vaicom pro 2.5 as a plug-in for VA. It’s a powerful little tool. Well worth the money and easy to get to grips with. There’s around 400 commands built into it already

Ok sounds good, I will pick it up thanks.

I would also vouch heavily for VAICOMPRO 2.5 :thumbup:

Really solid add-on.

i just use the mouse cursor locked to my point of view and the left and right click assigned to my hotas. sometimes the cursor will vanish on me so i wonder if its possible to have a pinky switch to make it visible. not that it bothers me but people seem to be funny about that.

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I usually post from my phone so please excuse any typos, inappropriate punctuation and capitalization, missing words and general lack of cohesion and sense in my posts.....

I have Voice Attack set up for another combat sim, need to get it set up for DCS now.

Curious, do you use Vaicom with it or just straight VA for DCS?

I only just got VA myself I would like to hear what others say about Viacom and what it actually brings to the table myself. I think it's a ready made profile software (someone correct me if I am wrong) that provides immersive radio feedback whenever you say something. So it feels like you are really communicating with your flight controllers.

This sounds fantastic but I don't really fancy learning another persons profile, as one of the great thing's about VA is not needing to memorize a big list of input commands. I was ready to buy Viacom but when I realized how easy VA was to set up myself I didn't feel as much of a need to buy a professional profile no matter how good of a profile it might be.

Kinda think it might dissuade me from getting creative with VA myself at some point! All you really need to know is how to create sound files and have VA access them. I haven't gone that deep into VA yet to have radio chatter set to reply to my every command but it's something I would like to do some time down the road, however I am not sure if having lots of sound file's loading up in the background would be good for VR performance at present in DCS.

The only reason I say that is at present DCS seems to lag in any situation where the computer needs to load some kind of process in the background, such as my jetseat or a virus program (or a bombing for example which someone theorized may actually be a result of DCS accessing sound files).

I have Voice Attack, and have experimented with this sort of thing. This is the aspect that feel "cheaty" ( for me only, what you do is your business, I'm not judging :) ) - the real aircraft doesn't have control interfaces nearly that sophisticated.

Ah but you misunderstand! I fly with my trusty Gazelle copilot Brawn and he sets things up on my order while I am gazing out of the window!

Ah but you misunderstand! I fly with my trusty Gazelle copilot Brawn and he sets things up on my order while I am gazing out of the window!

Well played, sir ;)

That rationale doesn't work in my F-5E or SU-25 ... but I'll give you that one for the Gazelle :)

I use hotas and will be implementing voice attack with Viacom’s plugin as soon as I get everything working I’m having to test things out as must require admin access to work now that I’m getting them functional it’s time to train va.

i just use the mouse cursor locked to my point of view and the left and right click assigned to my hotas. sometimes the cursor will vanish on me so i wonder if its possible to have a pinky switch to make it visible. not that it bothers me but people seem to be funny about that.

I used to do that and thought it was was great until I tried to use buttons, knobs and dials that really require an axis such as the mouse wheel otherwise it becomes painfully slow. If you use voice attack you needn’t disable the ‘use mouse’ button and set left mouse to a command. It’s not something you would use to set up systems (do before takeoff) but perfect for emergencies when you need to change something but don’t wish to be grappling for the mouse. You also wont waste valuable HOTAS buttons!

Use oculus touch controllers it’s more natural and faster, well until you need right click then I either use hotas or mouse

Use oculus touch controllers it’s more natural and faster, well until you need right click then I either use hotas or mouse

I am so lost on how to best use Oculus controllers in conjunction with a HOTAS? How is it any different than the inconvenience of having to take your hand off either the stick or the throttle to find the mouse to use it?

It's natural movement. I keep the controllers in my lap. They are wonderful for startup and also combat. Specifically Av8 harrier, viggen and ka50. It's silly to have cockpit switches mapped to a hotas that are not in the real pit. Now with two virtual hands yo u can do exactly the muscle memory the real pilot does.

I think more people bash it before even trying it. You want immersion in vr well it's here all we need is right click and.it will be complete in my eyes.

Use the true 3d space your in just like in real life right.... MOUSE keyboard or a bunch of functions mapped to a hotas that aren't in real life is silly to me.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

It's natural movement. I keep the controllers in my lap. They are wonderful for startup and also combat. Specifically Av8 harrier, viggen and ka50. It's silly to have cockpit switches mapped to a hotas that are not in the real pit. Now with two virtual hands yo u can do exactly the muscle memory the real pilot does.

I think more people bash it before even trying it. You want immersion in vr well it's here all we need is right click and.it will be complete in my eyes.

Use the true 3d space your in just like in real life right.... MOUSE keyboard or a bunch of functions mapped to a hotas that aren't in real life is silly to me.

 

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

I'm with you, I only map/bind functions to my HOTAS that are bound to the real HOTAS from the NATOPS flight manuals...the exception being the F-15C, since it's a FC3 module. Otherwise the only additional things I bind are opening/closing the kneeboard (since for some unknown reason there isn't a pilot body in every module with the knee board shown on their legs) and paging up or down on the kneeboard. All else is limited to the real thing.

I guess I will need to try leaving the controllers in my lap and give using them more of a shot...