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Discussions Rules and Guidelines
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Fantastic! Once you fly VR it's really really hard to go back.
Very nice! Will the VR mode have virtual hands so we can interact with the cockpit using our VR controllers, too?
That's a very broad generalization which could be leveled at any subset of players you don't like (e.g. people who think the AI isn't smart enough, people interested in specific localizations, people who do or don't want PvP or PvE). The logical conclusion of this line of reasoning is that you should never implement any features because someone might be unhappy with it.
Nobody in this thread is saying VR is "just a checkbox", but also the dev has said it's on the way, so it's hard to see what your point is. You're mad that they've promised it? You're mad that they didn't implement it from the start? This is a pretty entitled attitude. If I were the dev, I'd be happy to disappoint you and see you disappear from my audience so I'd never have to deal with you again.
Also, it's a flight sim. It's very easy to retrofit VR functions into a flight sim, you don't have to completely overhaul the entire interaction system.
Having played VTOL VR, I can tell you that having a game built from the ground up for VR doesn't guarantee anything. I can't use my HOTAS system with VTOL VR because it expects me to physically reach for all the virtual controls, and I can't do that where my HOTAS is set up, because all the physical desk stuff gets in the way. It's literally unplayable for me because it was "made for VR" without regard for all the other ways it might be played.
One of the challenges is designing the cockpits to be functional, aesthetic, and ergonomic either on a flat screen or in VR mode. Currently there are in-game UIs that only work on a flat screen, which cannot be easily retrofitted into VR without a complete overhaul of the cockpit layout. You can see the nav map and radar warnings on the bottom left of the screen, the kill list on the top left, the weapons and countermeasures on the top right, and the damage on the bottom right, all of which are interfaces only available on a flat screen but not found on the physical instruments and dashboard displays in the cockpit.
If it simply projects these floating UI elements onto invisible planes in front of the player in VR, an unpleasant effect occurs when the non-diegetic UI elements (UI that is not built into the cockpit geometry) are rendered at a distance that places them behind cockpit geometry. Since these UI elements are rendered on top of any other graphics, regardless of occlusion, this has the disturbing effect of forcing players to focus their eyes on something that is physically behind another object which should be occluding it. This is not something that humans encounter in reality, so it can be mildly disturbing as well as introduce eye strain as the player’s eyes try to focus on two overlapping objects at different distances.
Star Wars: Squadrons is a positive example. It was designed with VR in mind from the ground up, and as such was committed to building as much of the critical game feedback (radar, target information, threat indicators, damage feedback, ammo count, speed gauges, etc.) directly into the physical components of the cockpit, rather than relying on immersion-breaking UIs. After much iteration, resizing, repositioning and reshaping the individual components, it managed to fit all of the critical information that a player would need in combat onto displays, gauges, and counters that were built into the cockpit models. It also had to fit them within the safe area where someone playing on a flat screen would have access to all of the required information. Fortunately, this did not compromise the VR experience as it is also beneficial to restrict the important feedback to areas where the player can see them either directly or peripherally, without turning their head.
Additionally, you can see that Star Wars: Squadrons and VTOL VR both use oversized cockpit layouts. The main reason is to allow the text in the cockpits to be large enough to be read in low-res VR headsets without having to move your head too much.
There's literally nobody on the other side of this - nobody here was complaining about the dev not doing it or claiming it was "just" rendering a motion tracked camera. There's nobody here that needs convincing that this is work. It's just easier for flight sims than for other games, as long as shortcuts aren't made in rendering the cockpit.
And as for "non-diegetic" UI, helmet-mounted displays are a real thing, and they appear in front of the pilot's eyes just like you're talking about. They're focussed out at infinity so they match the outside world, so within a cockpit they absolutely would be "physically behind an object that should be occluding it".
If the plan had VR in mind, it would have built all of the critical information that the player would need in combat (nav map and radar warnings, weapons and countermeasures, damage, etc.) directly into the physical components of the cockpit, rather than relying on immersion-breaking UIs.
And yet it doesn't do that, which means it didn't plan for VR from the ground up, which often leads to poor VR implementations, which I've seen a lot.
Do you really think it's a good idea to put the nav map on the helmet-mounted display?
Now that you've actually explained your point, the dev at least has a chance to respond to it. I'm not likely to keep replying after this.
And Its developers explained the design challenges that come with creating an immersive and comfortable VR experience and shared rendering optimization tricks and performance management.
As a developer, you always have to think how much code you will have to rewrite, what other systems may be affected and how much risk it can carry. Major changes are rarely just plug-and-play. You have to tear down nearby elements and be ready for surprises.