Planning on playing without hardware in VR, regarding controls

[Hammer]

I want to give this game a shot coming from VtolVR but i do not have any flight hardware, and i dont feel like using kbm in combination with an HMD.
Does DCS have a "virtual HOTAS" type of thing like in VtolVR where you can simply grab the controls with your virtual hands and fly the plane?

[Gunfreak]

Some planes yes. Not all and never as good as in vitolvr
Check out this guy.
He swears by using quest 2 controls (too the extreme)

https://m.youtube.com/@jakesvrfightclubnetwork3718/videos

[Troll Norris]

The free SU-25T is not compatibile with VR controllers. The free TF-51D should be.

[Hammer]

Originally posted by Troll Norris:

The free SU-25T is not compatibile with VR controllers. The free TF-51D should be.

the TF-51 is a prop, no? i am more into jets than props.

Originally posted by Gunfreak:

Some planes yes. Not all and never as good as in vitolvr
Check out this guy.
He swears by using quest 2 controls (too the extreme)

https://m.youtube.com/@jakesvrfightclubnetwork3718/videos

thats unfortunate, is there a list somewhere with each VR compatible plane?

[Gunfreak]

Originally posted by Cheese Wheel:

Originally posted by Troll Norris:

The free SU-25T is not compatibile with VR controllers. The free TF-51D should be.

the TF-51 is a prop, no? i am more into jets than props.

Originally posted by Gunfreak:

Some planes yes. Not all and never as good as in vitolvr
Check out this guy.
He swears by using quest 2 controls (too the extreme)

https://m.youtube.com/@jakesvrfightclubnetwork3718/videos

thats unfortunate, is there a list somewhere with each VR compatible plane?

You can watch his videos, he probably shows many of them.
General rule is that those that are made by ED (those that make DCS) has suport. While quite a few of the 3rd party aircraft don't. F18 is one of those that have support

[醉仙望月]

Some aircraft support virtual flight controls such as the joystick & throttle.
However, DCS does not support buttons or triggers on virtual flight controls. That is, when you grab the virtual joystick with a motion controller, you can control pitch and roll with your hands, but you can't press buttons or triggers on the joystick, nor can you use the thumbstick. If you manage to bind the gun trigger to the right motion controller trigger, it will allow you to shoot even if your hand is in the air and not holding the virtual joystick. "Grab the joystick" is not a bindable action in DCS, so you can't have certain buttons, triggers, and thumbsticks work only when you're grabbing the virtual joystick.
And in DCS, when the player grab the virtual joystick, it jumps to the hand position, causing unexpected (often dramatic) input to the aircraft if the hand was a few centimeters away from the control when pressing the grip. In VTOL VR, the hand jumps to the control, not the other way around.
Unlike VTOL VR where you hold the trigger and then flick controller up/down for a lever or rotate for a knob, the way it works in DCS is that levers and knobs require horizontal movement of a thumbstick instead of vertical or rotation movement of your hand to manipulate. And unlike VTOL VR where you use the trigger to click buttons and pinch switches, in DCS any switches and buttons your virtual hand happens to collide with will instantly be actuated. Obviously that's far from ideal because it leads to numbers of accidental presses on your way to activating the control you wanted and feels completely detached from the movement you would perform in real life to actuate each kind of control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7ZkEbOM4p8

[Hammer]

Originally posted by Gunfreak:

Originally posted by Cheese Wheel:

the TF-51 is a prop, no? i am more into jets than props.



thats unfortunate, is there a list somewhere with each VR compatible plane?

You can watch his videos, he probably shows many of them.
General rule is that those that are made by ED (those that make DCS) has suport. While quite a few of the 3rd party aircraft don't. F18 is one of those that have support

i'll watch some of their videos when i have time

Originally posted by 醉仙望月:

Some aircraft support virtual flight controls such as the joystick & throttle.
However, DCS does not support buttons or triggers on virtual flight controls. That is, when you grab the virtual joystick with a motion controller, you can control pitch and roll with your hands, but you can't press buttons or triggers on the joystick, nor can you use the thumbstick. If you manage to bind the gun trigger to the right motion controller trigger, it will allow you to shoot even if your hand is in the air and not holding the virtual joystick. "Grab the joystick" is not a bindable action in DCS, so you can't have certain buttons, triggers, and thumbsticks work only when you're grabbing the virtual joystick.
And in DCS, when the player grab the virtual joystick, it jumps to the hand position, causing unexpected (often dramatic) input to the aircraft if the hand was a few centimeters away from the control when pressing the grip. In VTOL VR, the hand jumps to the control, not the other way around.
Unlike VTOL VR where you hold the trigger and then flick controller up/down for a lever or rotate for a knob, the way it works in DCS is that levers and knobs require horizontal movement of a thumbstick instead of vertical or rotation movement of your hand to manipulate. And unlike VTOL VR where you use the trigger to click buttons and pinch switches, in DCS any switches and buttons your virtual hand happens to collide with will instantly be actuated. Obviously that's far from ideal because it leads to numbers of accidental presses on your way to activating the control you wanted and feels completely detached from the movement you would perform in real life to actuate each kind of control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7ZkEbOM4p8

most unfortunate that the controls are like this, however having a switch get flipped just by colliding it with your hand does sound attractive for a game like VtolVR where cockpits are hugely simplefied and dont have 30 different switches in one spot.

If i cannot find a solution to play in full VR im going to hang back from playing DCS,
until either i get some sort of HOTAS setup or i find that VR is doable.

Thanks for the help everyone.

[Troll Norris]

DCS sopoorts some haptic controllers. E.g. Capto Glove or Leap Motion.
https://youtu.be/VSJKMS6Nu78

[醉仙望月]

Originally posted by Cheese Wheel:

however having a switch get flipped just by colliding it with your hand does sound attractive for a game like VtolVR where cockpits are hugely simplefied and dont have 30 different switches in one spot.

Switches in DCS are flipped by clicking, so no matter which direction you touch the switch, it will flip.
Worse yet, if you reach under the switch and lift your hand, you'll accidentally flip it twice,
as running your finger through it and then retracting counts as two touches.

Originally posted by Troll Norris:

DCS supports some haptic controllers. E.g. Capto Glove or Leap Motion.

This video talks about how when you use a combination of Leap Motion + physical HOTAS you can use a shortcut to disable the virtual hands to avoid accidentally touching some virtual buttons and switches near the HOTAS. DCS still does not support using virtual hands to operate buttons or triggers on the virtual joystick & throttle.
Another thing shown in the video is what I said above, touching the switch with a virtual hand can make it flip like crazy. He had to use the virtual hands as laser pointers rather than reaching out to interact.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by Cheese Wheel:

most unfortunate that the controls are like this, however having a switch get flipped just by colliding it with your hand does sound attractive for a game like VtolVR where cockpits are hugely simplefied and dont have 30 different switches in one spot.

If i cannot find a solution to play in full VR im going to hang back from playing DCS,
until either i get some sort of HOTAS setup or i find that VR is doable.

Thanks for the help everyone.

DCS does not work for actual "haptic" interaction. As the Japanese(?) named guy above me describes. The best way to interact in VR with DCS is to use the laser pointer functionality, which is when you hold the grip button you can have a laser pointer coming out of your index finger, you then point the laser pointer at the thing you want to manipulate and either left or right click (or rotate your hand and use the trigger on a motion controller, but that isn't as nice an approach).

You can get it to the point where you have your finger hovering just off the button you want to toggle and then use the mouse. It's not as good as actually flipping the switch with your finger in terms of "realism" or "immersion" but it is ~90% of the way there and fully flipping the switch isn't something DCS does well or will likely ever do well as VR is ultimately a tiny niche.

But for the flight controls themselves it doesn't work well. Even older WW2 vintage planes have controls tied to the throttle and stick which you can't properly manipulate using a motion controller (the P-47 for example you control the range of your gunsight by twisting the throttle and control your water injection by pressing in and then pushing down a button, as well as having a push to talk button on the stick). And more modern aircraft put more and more things on the throttle and stick (the Apache has so much on the stick that they actually needed a second stick grip on the collective to house all of them :D).

You can kind of get around this somewhat by workarounds such as voice attack which lets you press buttons via voice recognition commands (might also be able to do axis values, though I have never seen any mention of this), and you can also get finger worn button boxes, mice, and gamepads with ministicks that can give you extra functions while you use motion controllers, but it's not as nice just using an actual HOTAS.

Also an extra thing is that it might not seem like much but you can't use your motion controller and HOTAS at the same time unless you have monstrously large hands, so you have to when you want to interact with the cockpit using motion controls pick them up beforehand. It seems almost insignificant but at least personally it was a bother for me, especially with the index knuckles controllers as the knuckle tracking bow always gets in the way.

There are ways around this, such as modifying trackers, using hand tracking devices and programs such as leap motion (some headsets have hand tracking innately I beleive), and there's even dedicated products like PointCRTL.


I forgot to mention until now but another option is to use your headset and either a finger mouse or voice attack to manipulate switches. The idea doesn't appeal to me but I have seen some people who have tried other systems like captoglove say that this method is the most immersive because it has the fewest "layers" between what you want to do and doing it, similar to how interacting in a cockpit in reality does. As in you look at the switch you want and then switch it, you do not need to consider how to utilise any equipment to make that happen.

[sergio.e.samayoa]

Handling a realistic plane with virtual hand?
IMHO bad idea - Im pretty sure you will suffer a bad experience.

Buy a cheap joystick like this (even 2nd hand):
https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-3D-Pro-Joystick-Windows/dp/B00009OY9U

Then try it.
DCS is more a simulator than game, that's why there are 10s of switches and buttons!