kablamoman

Game has some real issues with spotting that I hope they're able to address. You can see contacts ridiculously easy over very large distances (pretty unrealistic), but as soon as they get into the radius where they actually render in they are very hard to pick out from the background. So you end up with this weird backwards situation where it's actually easier to spot targets at range than it is to see them when they're closer. It's also really hard to get a sense of just how far out a contact may be as there doesn't seem to be much difference in rendering 10 miles out compared to 40 (pretty silly you can even see the latter at all). Regarding the closer-in stuff, I feel that the way the engine renders objects and blends them into the world tends to soften them a bit too much and get rid much needed contrast. I am not sure there is an obvious solution to this, but visual acquisition is a very big part of WW2 stuff at least, and that's what I play so I hope they are able to improve the situation going forward.

I’ve been a pretty heavy VR enthusiast for a while, and have a wide range of experience in many different types of VR games and experiences — not just sims. I feel I have a pretty good handle on the issues, benefits, and pitfalls of artificial vection in VR. What have I said that makes you sceptical of my motivations here? Have you played games like Half-Life: Alyx? What about something like Boneworks or Blade & Sorcery? Do you have a negative view of how some of those titles handle movement? If so, do you acknowledge that there are many players that enjoy and prefer the experience that they offer? Is it so far fetched to think there may be many who would like to see robust options for handling translational movement collisions in DCS? Were you aware of the early dogma in the professional and military simulator world that claimed VR sims were not feasible whatsoever due to sim sickness experienced by subjects in early studies? We’ve come an awfully long way, especially in this latest generation of VR, and many consider the way DCS currently handles collisions to be primitive and outmoded way of doing things. Yes, I want more options for myself, and I believe more options would ultimately be to the benefit of everybody partaking in the sim. I don’t consider VR improvements such as the ones proposed in this thread to be a waste of dev time — in practical terms I don’t think their implementation would be particularly difficult or time consuming, and their benefit would more than justify the investment.

It's about a robust VR feature set and having the best, most option rich, comfortable VR implementation of any sim. DCS is well suited to blow the competition out of the water here, and I think it's important to have such well thought out and designed VR support going forward into the future. So I absolutely disagree with you that only a "vocal minority of PvP WW2 players" care about this or will benefit from it. As time goes on more and more sim enthusiasts will dip their toes into the VR pool, and hopefully stay here. What is tending to happen here in threads like this that propose such options is a bunch of fear, uncertainty, and doubt being thrown around to muddy the waters in an attempt to put a stop to any kind of improvements because people are afraid of any change or that someone wants to take away from their personal enjoyment of the game. The proposal was about adding options, not taking them away, and I must say I feel a bit weary having to keep on stating this. Nevertheless, I think some attention to the VR support in the game is definitely warranted and would be appreciated by all users of VR, in the present and in the future, so I will continue to respond in support.

Boom and Zoom is something a bit more generalized and abstract than attacking bombers... It's more about energy retention and can be pretty nebulous, with no set rules except for hit when it's safe, and extend away so that you're essentially unreachable by the target. Attacking a bomber formation, on the other hand, could be a bit more formulaic depending on what it was you were trying to do. Are you looking to just dive on the bombers from their high six, shoot and then climb up over them to rinse and repeat? Did you want to extend away, fly abeam till you're ahead of them then turn back for a head on? If you're looking to just buzz around them like a fly, maybe a more shallow climb above them is in order? If you pull up too steeply they'll just pull away from you, as you said. So shallow out your climb (be patient) and make sure to get above them and ahead of them sufficiently so you can see them by looking back and down (behind your wing) while you're climbing up. This should let you roll down back on top of them when it's appropriate. If you can't see them below you, roll your wings and look out the side to get an update on their positions. When diving in at a high angle, keep your speed, and if you find your nose blocking them you could try keeping them at your front quarter off to the left or right somewhat so you can keep them in view out to the side a bit. You can even lead your shots with them in view out to the left or right of your nose (but this may not be ideal to achieve a longer tracking shot if your lift vector is not aligned with their direction of travel). Keep in mind, learning to judge the lead required and guess when to shoot after they pass under your nose, without seeing them directly, is a skill you can and should probably learn too.

Nobody is proposing forcing hard limits on anybody. The whole point of the original post was about giving the user the option for it, while also giving server admins options for enforcing canopy limits, whether soft or hard. The key point was that nobody is going to be forced to use a mode they don't enjoy. I think the hard limit is definitely an important option to have for those that want it, and I do believe that would ultimately be the majority of VR users. I submit to you that those who fled to DCS because they did not like or were unable to stomach the hard limit in the other sim and then posting about it in this particular forum may be self-selecting themselves a bit. If changes to VR are to be about improving the overall product and attracting more users with a better implementation, I would say you aren't going to hear from as many who would appreciate a hard limit feature, as they may not be playing a sim where they can freely stick their head through the canopy. I can speak for myself and others from the IL2 community who find it very off-putting, but put up with it because the rest of the sim is so wonderful.

I have no problem paying and have done so, it's not a matter of "getting things for free" -- it's a matter of how to best encourage growth in the WW2 segment of the game. Right now the state of the WW2 stuff is undeniably fractured and incoherent in a way that I'd argue actually hurts sales in the long run. So in my opinion, it's a double whammy: The community stays fractured, and the WW2 portion of the product makes less money. I think there is room for improvement in this regard, and plenty of potential for ED to get more return on their investment if the WW2 stuff was in a healthier place. Of course, I'm speaking as an outsider primarily concerned with the online stuff. I'm not privy to the financials, and for all I know they could be raking in the cash from users buying the assets hand-over-fist to enjoy offline in single player in their own way. So my argument about the business side is admittedly based on a lot of conjecture. As a player and customer who bought it all for the online experience, I can dream, though!

@BIGNEWY I don't think it's trolling to discuss the very real problem with the experience of WW2 multiplayer and the fragmented map and asset pack SKUs. I am a newcomer to DCS, and my primary interest is WW2. I gladly bought all the WW2 stuff, and despite that I still honestly think it's unhealthy for the game to not have the asset pack included with the purchase of either WW2 map. Hell, I think a WW2 map (Normandy as it seems to be the accepted standard) and the asset pack should be included with the purchase of any warbird. I think not having done this has caused more damage to the community and ultimately hurt sales more in the long run than any benefit that could have been extracted from pricing them out piecemeal. I hope for the health of the WW2 product going forward that you guys maybe consider at least bundling those two things (map/assets) together.

Honestly if you play your cards right, I don't think anything really gives it too much trouble. Mustang can catch it on Storm of War as they've got the MW50 disabled for the doras on the server, so that's probably the closest to presenting danger. But at the same time I feel like if it gets caught out like that the Dora can out turn it at slower speeds it if it devolves into a dogfight, so it still holds its own. To be honest I just bounced people mainly and didn't dog fight too much with it.

It's a really effective fighter online, even without MW50 if it's restricted by the server for historical balance. From my couple months of flying it I would say the standout issues are: The engine damage bug at 2700 RPM (cruise at 3000 RPM to be safe) The pitot/gun heater bug (I think this one may affect all the fighters, but without gun heaters the dora's guns seem especially prone to jamming -- this only seems to be a problem in certain weather conditions, but not consistently, so it's been relatively rare in my experience) Assorted External munitions bugs (delay fuses not working, not being able to jettison rocket tubes) I think all of the problems are pretty easy to manage, and it ends up being great to fly online for the most part.

@Maduce Right there with you, friend.

@Baldrick33 Well said.

I hear what you're saying. But I don't find that is the case, coming from IL2 at least. Everybody there generally accepts people do it for the immersive experience and that it's ultimately harder to do things like check six and ID bogeys. I think any player -- using VR, head tracking, POV Hat, mouse look, whatever -- has the right to complain about heads being stuck through cockpit geometry in a multiplayer, player versus player setting. I used to use Track IR back in the day before VR, and so I feel I understand the challenges of both. There's a lot of silly nonsense being thrown around by both sides -- people unironically asking for "1:1 movement" for head tracking solutions on flat monitors don't seem to have an understanding of how the tech actually works, for instance. That is an idiotic suggestion because the tech only works if you can still see the monitor in front of you. In any event, I wouldn't even be playing sims if it weren't for the VR aspect, so that's what my primary interest is and where my point of view is coming from, and a 20 year old technology for playing these games on 2D monitors should not factor into how we ultimately go forward with improvements and options for the VR support of the sim. I hate it when people bring it up as if it's somehow relevant to VR.

I don't think he's trolling. I play in VR exclusively and I consider it a valid concern. I guarantee you the entire IL2 online community would be up in arms if sticking your head through the canopy was suddenly a thing players could do. I also think it is pretty easy to do in the warbirds, at least for me. Even just sticking your head through the canopy to prevent some of the baked in reflections from obscuring your vision is a huge advantage. (Don't get me started on the baked in reflections and how they also need to be rethought for VR, maybe I'll let someone else tackle that topic). But when it comes to the simulation there really is no good excuse for allowing a player to stick their head through the canopy and still be able to see and fight effectively, aside from preventing motion sickness (which is what I was trying make a point of with this proposal). Aside from that It does not belong in a multiplayer setting. But offline, or a server with relaxed rules, have at it! Stick your head into the fresh air and enjoy the VR scenery!

Yes, and hence why there should be a robust set of options.

Yes, absolutely. IL2 has a pretty strong online community and the limits are enforced on the big servers. I and many others have spent a lot of time in VR subject to those limits, and use them even in offline modes. My thoughts are that they work wonderfully for the most part. One thing I think they could improve upon would be refining the boundary limits for certain cockpits with relation to the interior geo. Most aircraft are great, but there are a couple where you can't quite lean forward or closer to things jutting out from the front panel and the boundary seems set arbitrarily too close to the normal seated position, if that makes sense. Two key things I think a DCS implementation could and should do better: Add a well implemented comfort option for those concerned with motion sickness, or those who might simply prefer the "fade-out" method Ensure the interior boundaries have fine/precise tolerances for moving your head inside, perhaps even an option to let you clip though interior items like struts or gunsights if a player chooses such a setting (after all, this would have no effect on anybody else but the player's immersion). Thank you for an actual question about the topic.

Yeah, ok. I tried to explain how you misconstrued my words, and so you post the same quote out of context again to try to paint a picture of me contradicting myself. Talk about bad faith. I will explain once again, and if this continues I will simply chalk it up to you not having anything further of value to say on the topic: When I used "most immersion breaking" in my statement it was as a qualifier to say it was the "more" immersion breaking option between the effects of hard limitations vs. passing through solids unimpeded. It was part of a reply to someone else, that had nothing to do with any of your statements, but you seem to have seized upon it. The fact that you are hung up on the word "most" and it seems incongruous to you compared to my later description of "slight break" when speaking about the effect generally (which you admitted you agreed with), is only really understandable if someone is trying to play gotcha games. So please, stop this silliness.

I care about VR improvements, too. I believe a higher priority should be put on the core VR experience as it relates to how it handles clipping because of two key reasons: General VR Immersion Lack of limits has a detrimental effect on the quality of the simulation (especially as it pertains to warbirds) To improve this situation, we have to also address the issue of comfort and motion sickness, as that was the reason the issue exists in the first place. Hence the proposal. I care about the other things you mentioned, too, but this post was not about them.

This is simply not true -- if you look back at the actual post it was a response to baldrick directly. You can even see I had quoted him before my words. The full quote with context was as follows with an insert for clarity: I don't appreciate the accusations of arguments in bad faith. Please stick to the merits or disadvantages of the proposal.

It's not a big issue for you. That's fine. One is left wondering why you bothered to comment on a topic dedicated to it. The mysteries in life! Well how about you let those who care about VR improvements and think they're pretty important to the game have their little discussion without interruption, then?

second quote taken out of context. When I said "most immersion breaking" it was in the context of what's more or less immersive: Sticking your head through a solid object, or the game ceasing translational movement in the direction that would cause it to happen. Baldrick was saying he finds the latter more "immersion breaking" (fair enough), and I was stating my belief that the majority of players would find the opposite to be true and that phasing through solid material would be the "most immersion breaking" (of the two options).

I agree with what you wrote except for this. There is no fundamental difference between the artificial vection involved in a virtual vehicle moving either translationally or rotationally, except for maybe apparent magnitude because of angular distance. This is indeed enough to make this motion more palatable for many -- and it can further help if you have a stationary canopy frame surrounding you and filling your peripheral vision -- but essentially, the car or plane moving about in space is no different than the effect you might experience from a "hard limit" option. Things that also help in flight sims are that we're suspended up in the air without much for reference close outside the confines of the canopy space. Someone may experience no apparent motion flying at high altitude, while someone prone to sim sickness may have real trouble flying close to the ground. So ultimately it really comes down to a personal matter of tolerance vs. apparent magnitude of the motion, which is why comfort options are such good idea to ensure everybody has the best experience possible.

Nobody is saying those things shouldn't be fixed. I can tell you that flying the warbirds in VR, the thing that probably ends up annoying me the most consistently -- more than some of the long standing bugs (many have simple workarounds), more than the spotty performance (game sure does look and sound pretty, though) -- is that I can't get away from that slipstream blasting my ears or the graphical glitches when I move my head around trying to fight in the things. Coming from "the other sim", it is especially painful, because I know what my preferred solution looks like in practice. I would like to see that solution added, along with suitable options for others to make everybody happy.

Common sense would dictate most people would feel passing through solid objects as if they were an ethereal being would cause a slight break in one's sense of immersion. "Bumping into something" is what I believe most would expect. Keep in mind I'm talking specifically about that, and I'm not talking about majority/minority with regards to whom prefers which method to control for motion sickness. Indeed the original proposal was mean to give the player the choice of the latter.

Given the fact that it's nearly universally acknowledged that the current set up doesn't collide and stop translational movement at the cockpit boundary due to the risk of motion sickness. Everybody gets this and seems to agree with it. So It seems to me pretty self-evident that everyone -- universally -- would prefer a hard limit if it weren't for the fact that some would be susceptible to that negative consequence. It was never a question of what most people would prefer. It was a matter of not making people sick. This debate is a path well tread in the last half-decade of VR development, with some pretty clear outcomes: First, people by-and-large would prefer the more immersive and accurate simulation of reality if motion sickness is not a consideration. Successful titles have demonstrated that you can satisfy all parties, while implementing comfort options for the minority of players who are negatively impacted. The feature set of the game or sim is not unduly held back by fear of sim sickness, and everybody is happy. People can choose what they want. Second, we have found that players by-and-large are NOT as negatively impacted by purely translational artificial movement as they are rotational. This explains the success of titles like Onward and Pavlov, and countless others, which then informed the development and design of later titles like Alyx. This has become the new standard -- replacing the old orthodoxy of shying away from artificial movement -- so much so that the average VR enthusiast no longer accepts lackluster VR implementations that do not allow for such movement mechanics and associated comfort options. Third, DCS and in fact all seated VR sim experiences, already artificially move the player translationally and rotationally, so it is extra rich that people get so bloody bent out of shape here about this. There is the argument that the cockpit geometry remaining stationary with regards to the player helps trick the brain into being ok with this artificial vection, and I'm sure there is a lot of truth to it, but DCS already breaks these rules in certain circumstances (bailing out, the "g-effects" option). All this proposal does it add MORE control to the player with regards to what can happen in the simulation when exceeding cockpit bounds, and server admins who wish to curtail cheating. I think all of that about sums up why I think the majority of VR players -- both current and potential -- would prefer such an implementation over what we have now. Of course there may be someone who just wants to stick their head through the glass! Great! But don't tell me for a second the majority actually thinks this is a good idea, especially if the motion sickness problem is taken off the table. Taken out of context. I offered that as a solution for someone who doesn't want to see the "black out" effect on a multiplayer server that may enforce limits. But thanks for playing. For any other use case (offline or online), especially in the warbirds, it is often impossible to prevent inadvertently sticking your head through the glass. It is impossible to server admins to prevent players from sticking their heads through canopies to attain unobstructed or unobscured ridiculous views in and around their blind spots that are inherent to some of these aircraft designs. I don't disagree with anything here. I think the fade-to-black option is a very specific implementation that would really only be restrictive to you or others if you happened to be playing on a server that chose to enforce cockpit bounds. A quality implementation would go a long way to assuaging your fears, I think. As you mentioned, a small bump sound against the bounds, and then a slight but progressively more aggressive fading of the view seems like a reasonable enough way to give you the same kind of feedback you already get in order to know you're exceeding bounds, while respecting the server rules to not see anything useful beyond those limits.

Baldrick, I acknowledge the fact that you think an artificial limit to the canopy boundary is more immersion breaking than simply sticking your head through it. But I think you must also acknowledge that you are in the minority. Most players would agree that being able to phase through what's supposed to be solid material in a simulation is the thing that is most immersion breaking. I respect your position, but given what you've said, I don't think any limits would affect your playstyle or enjoyment of the game. For one -- they would be completely optional, except in the circumstance that an online server operator would choose to enforce a limit. Do you play online? If you do, and the admin and 90% of the players believe people shouldn't be able to stick their heads through the glass -- maybe just don't stick your head through the glass? Most of these threads light up with players up in arms about "motion sickness", yet when the proposed solution takes this into account, people grasp at all sorts of straws to keep their status quo and try to impede improvement in the game's VR support. It is very frustrating. If you don't play online, this proposal does nothing but give you more options. In the very specific case that you do play online, as part of a community that decides to disallow people phasing heads through the canopy, then I would say don't stick your head out of the plane!!