the control of the airboat is...cruel.

[zubomani]

Well, basically I think the VR port was successful, but the control of the airboat is...cruel. Besides being totally non-immersive, it's almost impossible with touchpad controllers, it's too nervous and imprecise for that purpose.

In view of the fact that you're on the airboat for a not exactly small part of the game, it would have been nice if real VR-style controls had been implemented here. So: Hands on the handlebars and then steer like in real life.

[CABAListic]

"Nice to have" doesn't always align with "easy to implement". In this case, the discrepancy is staggering, so I'm afraid that feature request has a low chance of coming any time soon, if at all.
It's not that I'm against it, it's just not something I believe we can do in a reasonable amount of time.

You could, however, try to tweak the touchpad sensitivities in the SteamVR controller bindings. You can adjust the response curve and also the deadzone; perhaps you'll find some settings that make the steering less annoying for you.

[zubomani]

I understand. Too bad it's so difficult to implement.

[Beyonder1979]

In order to change the control of the vehicles to a more VR friendly way, one would need to change the base source code of the original game and essentially reprogram a great deal of the game. And that would be difficult, as well as a legally gray area probably.

Who knows, maybe in the future we'll have all that and more. I mean, who could imagine that we would have such a beautiful VR version of the original game, almost 20 years after it was made? Anything is possible in the future. But for now, all we can do is feel gratitude. :-)

[AugustCoder]

Originally posted by Beyonder1979:

In order to change the control of the vehicles to a more VR friendly way, one would need to change the base source code of the original game and essentially reprogram a great deal of the game. And that would be difficult, as well as a legally gray area probably.

Who knows, maybe in the future we'll have all that and more. I mean, who could imagine that we would have such a beautiful VR version of the original game, almost 20 years after it was made? Anything is possible in the future. But for now, all we can do is feel gratitude. :-)

No, we have the source code legally. The difficulty is in the implementation itself. We don't have any other similar interaction already in the game, so we would essentially have to make it from scratch. There are other things which are more worthwhile for our effort in development.

[Soma]

I second this. The airboat and ATV sections would bring this VR experience to 100% perfection (it's at like 95% perfection already anyways tbh) if we had VR-style steering controls as an option, but I understand how difficult that would be to implement. I definitely hope that this can become a thing someday, but I totally understand if it doesn't ever happen. If anything, if you guys release the tools used, maybe fellow modders could make a Workshop addon that adds it in. Keep up the great work, can't wait for Episode 1! ♥

[Szoreny Klepko]

Been meaning to experiment to see if I could rebind analog accelerate to left trigger and reverse to left trigger click on the index.

Not having to hold the stick in forward deflection in order to accelerate would help with turning control, and I'd imagine doubly so on a track pad where I presume you have to keep your finger north which gives you like very little real-estate to slide your finger left and right.

[Pcdrom[FR/QC]]

Originally posted by AugustCoder:

No, we have the source code legally. The difficulty is in the implementation itself. We don't have any other similar interaction already in the game, so we would essentially have to make it from scratch. There are other things which are more worthwhile for our effort in development.

Hi.
Just dropping the idea just in case, but there is actually already the SMG that is using both hands for the player to manage X axis.
Wouldn't it be possible to use the same concept but lock on rotation, trigger to accelerate and that would be it? (Don't want to make it sound easy, just trying to help)

[AugustCoder]

Yeah, we've thought of this, but the SMG two-handed code is very much tied to weapons only, unfortunately. We would have to pull it out and likely rewrite a lot of it to get it to work on a non-weapon entity.
Secondly, there's the problem that the "hinge" for the SMG is the primary hand. You can see this by grabbing both grips and pulling your hands apart; the weapon will stay in the primary hand, just point in the direction of the secondary hand. This is also similar to why the second hand doesn't affect anything when using the gravity gun two-handed. The airboat/buggy will need a hinge in the middle, while taking into account both of the hand positions.
Thirdly, we need to make sure the player can aim the vehicle weapons (i.e. airboat gun and tao cannon) while driving.

Again, we may eventually get to it (no guarantee), but we're currently working on other important stuff (teleportation locomotion).

[zubomani]

Originally posted by AugustCoder:

but we're currently working on other important stuff (teleportation locomotion).

Seriously? Who needs that? ;-)

[Depon Darwin Wingnut]

People with horrible motion sickness usually or just players that fall off a edge trying to jump a gap

[Pcdrom[FR/QC]]

Originally posted by AugustCoder:

Yeah, we've thought of this, but the SMG two-handed code is very much tied to weapons only, unfortunately. We would have to pull it out and likely rewrite a lot of it to get it to work on a non-weapon entity.
Secondly, there's the problem that the "hinge" for the SMG is the primary hand. You can see this by grabbing both grips and pulling your hands apart; the weapon will stay in the primary hand, just point in the direction of the secondary hand. This is also similar to why the second hand doesn't affect anything when using the gravity gun two-handed. The airboat/buggy will need a hinge in the middle, while taking into account both of the hand positions.
Thirdly, we need to make sure the player can aim the vehicle weapons (i.e. airboat gun and tao cannon) while driving.

Again, we may eventually get to it (no guarantee), but we're currently working on other important stuff (teleportation locomotion).

Ah understood. Thanks for taking the time to answer

[Aye Aye]

Originally posted by CABAListic:

You could, however, try to tweak the touchpad sensitivities in the SteamVR controller bindings. You can adjust the response curve and also the deadzone; perhaps you'll find some settings that make the steering less annoying for you.

Thanks for this, this is very helpful.

I've been having a devil of a time turning the air boat left with the index controllers left thumb stick. Initially I thought my stick was the problem but it works fine in everything else. This will give me something to play around with.

Edit:

Lowering the thumb stick sensitivity 5% fixed everything for me, having lots of fun now with the airboat, much easier to control and be precise.

This game/mod is so great, I can't thank you developers enough, you really outdid yourselves!

[Moronica]

he really put the same thing pointless ellipsis and all there twice as if we needed to read it twice

[Albertopina2x]

I tried 4 times to get through the airboat sequence but I have terrible motion sickness.

I tried all the methods but it's useless.

They should give the option to pass that sequence to the next one.

It's an excellent job but I can't continue.

[zubomani]

Originally posted by Albertopina2x:

I tried 4 times to get through the airboat sequence but I have terrible motion sickness. I tried all the methods but it's useless. They should give the option to pass that sequence to the next one. It's an excellent job but I can't continue.

I don't think that's an option. Because what applies to the airboat also applies to the buggy. (which I didn't realize when I wrote the initial thread.) In total, you're about 1/3 of the game on vehicles. It is practically impossible to omit this in the course of the game.

It's a dilemma. While I understand the developers when they say that it's too time consuming to implement real VR controls for the vehicles, it's a shame because basically the VR port as it is now is incomplete.