VR - Let's take it to next level

[karamazovnew]

KSP has been with us for many years now, and judging on how well the game is doing, it will be around for many years more. We've had VR for well over a year now, and although the game market is still small, there are quite a few sims which already fit into the "I can't play this without VR anymore" category. And with future performance boosts from hardware, and better resolution and field of view to come, the VR future is bright enough. Heck, the present isn't bad either with such gems like IL-2, Elite Dangerous, many car sims which are a lot better than what could've been expected from this first generation. So why not KSP as well?

Before you ask, yes, I've played the KPS 1.1.3 VR mod. Yes it's slow, buggy and clunky. But I've put RasterPropMonitor and I've made Mun and Minmus landings with it. And boy, what a ride it was. Vomit inducing yes (because of the bugs and low fps), but still a heck of a ride. I did have a lot of experience with "interior only" flights and I am a good KOS user. I didn't manage to put a first person camera mod, so I was robbed of a bit of EVA fun, but overall, it sold me completely to the idea of Kerbal VR. If the devs would manage to make a proper VR implementation, it wouldn't just be a gimmick, it would be awesome. So let's talk implementation...

- Difficulty of implementing: it would require a lot of effort, but it would open up the sales to the hungry VR market, so, if it's done properly, it would pay for itself easily. Kerbal is already a fantastic educational game and sim in itself. I mean, how many people ended up buying the pretty basic (so far) Elite Dangerous, just to be able to play one more title in VR? How much did the IL-2 sales jump when it became apparent it was the best VR game? And there have already been VR fans keen on making it KSP VR happen (see the VR mod which is 1 year old). Hire one of those. And don't think twice about making it cost a few extra bucks. I'd buy it in a second. With thousands of hours played

- Performance: Kerbal isn't exactly a light game on the processors. With VR requiring 90fps, yeah... Realism Overhaul wouldn't be an option... but most of us have been here in the beta days, struggling with limited RAM and constant crashes. Things improve. Computers improve. By the time Kerbal ends its shelf life, we might be in the 2nd generation of VR, sitting on 200 of extra fps, even with a ton of mods loaded. So as long as the devs manage to crack the Unity VR cookie and provide decent performance for the vanilla game with the current hardware, it should all be fine in the end and RO compatible in a few years. 

- World scale: Make it customizable from the start. Is that underlined enough for you? For example, in the VR mod for KPS 1.1.3, the world is very "realistically" scaled. So that means that everything is scaled to a kerbal. So it's tiny  , with the interiors being very claustrophobic. Just add a slider from the start, to allow people to make the Kerbal 1m high, or human scaled. Also make sure to put the skybox as far away as possible, lest you end up with a bad 3D like Elite Dangerous has (and has yet to fix grrrr). 

- Gameplay:  while I am happy with RPM and KOS, most users might not be. An interior-only game would be sad to see. We need everything to work, VAB, map, the lot. Probes should really get an optional "probe control room" interior variant, but 3rd person camera would still have to work. And first person kerbals are a must (with better control btw). Mouse cursor should work flawlessly (think DCS in VR). There are enough implementation options for game interfaces to get inspiration from. All in all, the game should needs to work normally, as it does now, with head orientation and 3D being there just to improve the overall experience. All normal mods shouldn't be rewritten from scratch. And non-VR modders shouldn't worry about their addon not working in VR. However....

- Gameplay 2: Consider just how far people have gone with the whole addon stuff... moddable interface?... BAM! 1000 mods. One of them is RasterPropMonitor, which is a gem in itself and lovingly maintained. But it needs to be vanilla. Sure, VR would bring more modders to RPM and expand it somewhat, but if the vanilla game itself brings a clever way to display monitors and create an interface  layer for it (plus the controls), imagine what mods would come out. Now imagine the other "exterior" mods, such as KIS. How would VR work with that? My point is that any help from the devs, any amount of work they put in the vanilla game, would be improved by modders. Just give them a solid VR base to build on. 

- Interiors: well... this has to be done anyway, doesn't it? There is no lack of talented modders to create amazing interiors for the crafts. The issue is different: movement. If the devs manage to make a proper movement in the interior of bases and crafts (vanilla parts), with docking ports, doors, artificial gravity, zero gravity, sitting down in a seat, using a particular prop to do something (science experiment, eat, repair,  etc) the modders would be able to go crazy with the interiors and that would be benefit everybody (not just VR users). 

- Hand controllers: meh... I have a Vive but I keep my controllers pretty far from my HOTAS, if you get my drift. But controller support would be able to make an interesting EVA control and be really fun to grab objects and build in KIS. But I'll pass, I think that a more important aspect would be the movement and camera controls, so...

- Movement and camera controls: I guess most of us use (or have used) a first person EVA mod or another. What I would like to see is a "helmet" effect, with a visible visor, maybe some form of light filter to dim out the extra bright Mun surface. Rotating your head "inside" the helmet is the way to go. I've played enough VR first person games to know that you should keep it as simple and basic as possible for keyboard and mouse controls. I suggest moving independent from the head position. Rotating the kerbal should be done with keys or mouse, not with the head. Headbobbing and ragdolling your kerbals from the top of a Minmus cliff should be minimized as much as possible. One other problem is the speed at which craft rotate. That can be fixed with various mods (limiting Gforces, or reaction wheel forces). But other effects, such as cockpit shaking can be kept. They'd provide a nice feedback and make life difficult for the pilot, trying to press the small buttons while the craft is shaking like hell. 

 

 

 

[DAL59]

Virtual reality would also be perfect for use in the VAB.  

[karamazovnew]

10 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Virtual reality would also be perfect for use in the VAB.  

It wouldn't make it "easier", but I've recently built my Lego Saturn 5, so yeah... totally agree. It would be really fun to see a toy scaled rocket in a room sized VAB, with tiny tiny kerbals moving on the floor. That's why a customizable world scale (with extra setting for VAB/SPH) is a must. 

[Spricigo]

 

A idea that requires a huge amount of work and will catter to a very small niche (inside the niche)...

I wouldn't hold my breath. 

 

[Rocket In My Pocket]

1 hour ago, Spricigo said:

 

A idea that requires a huge amount of work and will catter to a very small niche (inside the niche)...

I wouldn't hold my breath. 

 

Wut he said^

Good VR experiences are built from the ground up, not tacked on as an after thought.

VR is such a small market too, just not worth the development time.

Edited October 14, 2017 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Helmetman]

Personally I'm not to fond of people wanting VR for 'everything'
I think it will seclude people to much from their private environment and actual real life objects.
Commercializing this for full home use and make it work for each and every game and a decade from now everyone will wear a helmet in the living room.
Hey I love helmets lol. But this is a culture phenomenon I don't want to be normalized in each and every home.
I hope there is some moral incentive for health.
Wearing such a thing each and everyday seems unhealthy.
This is probably not the criteria the TS cares for and I'm sure to sound like a grandfather at this. A childish and cliché designation for people speaking in above manner.
But I just did.

[JK_Kerbineer]

I don't think this can ever be implemented due to reasons listed above. However, it could be feasible to do small VR demo. Such as seeing a Mun landing from inside the cockpit, since it would only last a few minutes.

[karamazovnew]

48 minutes ago, JK_Kerbineer said:

I don't think this can ever be implemented due to reasons listed above. However, it could be feasible to do small VR demo. Such as seeing a Mun landing from inside the cockpit, since it would only last a few minutes.

You mean like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJHZyN2Xy-8&t=1113s

Or this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjQauN66rQA&t=13s

I've played the latter myself, as I've mentioned. It was it that convinced me that KSP might actually make for an interesting VR game.

The only reason we don't have VR already as a mod is that something changed in the Unity version during the 1.2 update, which broke the VR mod, and thus any work on improving it. The devs might be better able to fix that, a simple modder can't. In other words, to make a "5 minute demo", you need the entire VR module to work. There's a possibility that the devs can't fix the Unity VR problem, which would be the only possible reason to say, as you've said, "I don't think this can ever be implemented". 

Otherwise, "the reasons listed above" have more to do with "will", and not "can", and they're the same ones which I've seen one year ago in the IL-2 forums, which has since received the best VR support of any game, improved sales for the game itself and the VR headsets and has been described as the "second coming of VR Jesus himself" by those who have been fortunate to play it (me included). 

 

4 hours ago, Helmetman said:

snip

I hate everything that's trendy and viral. I'm glad that, when I say I like Bach, people always assume I'm talking about that stupid D minor Tocatta. As long as it keeps them from my beloved 849 fugue, or the Busoni version of his first harpsichord concerto, that's fine. I'm glad to say that my favorite actors are Mark Rylance and Ben Whishaw or that I have an absolute crush on Claire Foy. If you're a grandpa, I'm worse, much worse. 

But I've jumped on the VR wagon last year because I've desired it for 20 years, ever since playing my first flight sim. I too cringe when realizing how it will end up being used, and by whom. Now I can't wait for house-maid robots, but I do realize how those will be used as well. There's no stopping it. I already have a porn VR game. I can already shoot people in the face in VR. In December, I will get Fallout 4 VR which, if modded in a particular way, will allow me not only to shoot people in the face, but "porn" their headless bodies as well. I will have that. Kids everywhere will have that. What we won't have, is KSP VR. Now how sad is that?

[Gaarst]

On 14/10/2017 at 2:52 AM, karamazovnew said:

- Difficulty of implementing: it would require a lot of effort, but it would open up the sales to the hungry VR market, so, if it's done properly, it would pay for itself easily. Kerbal is already a fantastic educational game and sim in itself. I mean, how many people ended up buying the pretty basic (so far) Elite Dangerous, just to be able to play one more title in VR? How much did the IL-2 sales jump when it became apparent it was the best VR game? And there have already been VR fans keen on making it KSP VR happen (see the VR mod which is 1 year old). Hire one of those. And don't think twice about making it cost a few extra bucks. I'd buy it in a second. With thousands of hours played

Less than 0.4% of Steam users have VR headsets. As said above, VR is a niche inside a niche.

 

On 14/10/2017 at 2:52 AM, karamazovnew said:

By the time Kerbal ends its shelf life, we might be in the 2nd generation of VR, sitting on 200 of extra fps, even with a ton of mods loaded.

Haha, no.

[Combatsmithen]

I'm all for a VR Designer and interiors, I think launching would have to be left to 2d though. Unless you use something like mechjeb to automate your launches

[karamazovnew]

1 hour ago, Combatsmithen said:

I'm all for a VR Designer and interiors, I think launching would have to be left to 2d though. Unless you use something like mechjeb to automate your launches

Why? The interface could be made to float in front of your eyes, just as in other VR games. You'd have all of the info and mods that you currently have. You might have to make the text a bit bigger, but that's already supported by the game. And the camera could be made to pivot/zoom  by mouse just as it currently does. Head movement would just allow you to look somewhere else. Indeed, all you'd get out of it would be just a bit of 3D, so that would be a slight waste of the technology. 

From what I've seen so far, a game needs the following interface options (check BigScreen Beta which has all of these):

- fake screen size

- fake screen depth

- fake screen spherical distortion (make it flat or rounded)

As for the interiors, as long as the exterior works normally, you can depend on the normal mods, or go full RPM (as we currently do for interior only flights). But, as I've said, and this is not a VR-only request,  the devs might help a bit here by allowing stock "probe control room", maybe some stock "display monitor" with better customizable interface than RPM currently has.

Edited October 15, 2017 by karamazovnew

[Combatsmithen]

57 minutes ago, karamazovnew said:

Why? The interface could be made to float in front of your eyes, just as in other VR games. You'd have all of the info and mods that you currently have. You might have to make the text a bit bigger, but that's already supported by the game. And the camera could be made to pivot/zoom  by mouse just as it currently does. Head movement would just allow you to look somewhere else. Indeed, all you'd get out of it would be just a bit of 3D, so that would be a slight waste of the technology. 

From what I've seen so far, a game needs the following interface options (check BigScreen Beta which has all of these):

- fake screen size

- fake screen depth

- fake screen spherical distortion (make it flat or rounded)

As for the interiors, as long as the exterior works normally, you can depend on the normal mods, or go full RPM (as we currently do for interior only flights). But, as I've said, and this is not a VR-only request,  the devs might help a bit here by allowing stock "probe control room", maybe some stock "display monitor" with better customizable interface than RPM currently has.

Ah, i thought you meant flying the rocket with the hand controllers. and not using the mouse and keyboard

[Spricigo]

6 hours ago, karamazovnew said:

Otherwise, "the reasons listed above" have more to do with "will", and not "can", and...

As far as my commentary go:  No, its not impossible. But, at least in my mind, its highly improbable.

When i ask myself:

-How many actual KSP players would at least try VR KSP?

-How many new player will try KSP because of VR?

-How much it will cost for SQUAD to develop it?

That all sum up to a pepective of VR KSP not making much of an effect on player retention or increment of player base, while my ears are already in hurt with all the ragequiting crying of "I waited for ages for [feature] and SQUAD wated time in this VR [expletive]"

 

And I really think a similar reasoning will put the idea very low in the dev's "ideas to improve KSP(and make some bucks)" list.

 

[NateisKerbal]

Personally, I think that KSP in VR would be a game where you sit down and use a keyboard. While you could use a Vive controller or Oculus to manipulate objects, piloting with those controllers would be nearly impossible. I feel Elite: Dangerous would be a good example of what KSP in VR would be like.

[karamazovnew]

22 minutes ago, NateisKerbal said:

Personally, I think that KSP in VR would be a game where you sit down and use a keyboard. While you could use a Vive controller or Oculus to manipulate objects, piloting with those controllers would be nearly impossible. I feel Elite: Dangerous would be a good example of what KSP in VR would be like.

That goes without saying... There's only one place where hand controls would sort of work, and that's EVA in space. I remember playing a space game where you would use the hand controls to control the RCS and click on stuff. But mouse and keyboard are better at that as well.

 

1 hour ago, Spricigo said:

As far as my commentary go:  No, its not impossible. But, at least in my mind, its highly improbable.

When i ask myself:

-How many actual KSP players would at least try VR KSP?

-How many new player will try KSP because of VR?

-How much it will cost for SQUAD to develop it?

That all sum up to a pepective of VR KSP not making much of an effect on player retention or increment of player base, while my ears are already in hurt with all the ragequiting crying of "I waited for ages for [feature] and SQUAD wated time in this VR [expletive]"

 

And I really think a similar reasoning will put the idea very low in the dev's "ideas to improve KSP(and make some bucks)" list.

 

- How many actual KSP players would at least try VR KSP? As prices go down and the technology improves, all current KSP players would at least try it in VR at one point, because they'll all own a headset. Those that don't get sick will probably continue to play it like that. That includes you. Maybe in 10 years, but who cares?

- How many new player will try KSP because of VR? No idea. But there aren't that many quality VR games on the market. Somebody that might be thrown off by the complexity of KSP, might still be drawn in just to have another VR title in his collection. Point is, right now, a new player might only hear about Kerbal from Indie Top10s or space-sim Top10s. Being in the VR Top10 list give better publicity and will continue to do so for quite some time. 

- How much it will cost for SQUAD to develop it? Consider that one guy was able to do it in his spare time. So, unless licencing is involved, probably not that much. And they might be able to strike a deal with VR manufacturers. How long would it take to make such a thing? Again, maybe not that long. I have no idea. But Unity 5.4 (which Kerbal runs on) supports VR natively. So Squad wouldn't have to design the game back from scratch for DirectX10 like the IL-2 devs had to do. And I don't see how it would affect new features, because this is an engine/graphics/VR thing which requires a VR specialist programmer, not a "whatever-feature-you-personally-miss" programmer. 

Now again, I'm not the one to choose to add support to the game. I'm not asking you guys if you agree or not. This isn't a poll. A dev might come and say "nope, never", but they said the same about IL-2 and look how that turned out. The point of this topic is not to debate to death the "so difficult.. much expensive" route. That's for the devs to decide at any point. I'd rather share information and suggestions tailored to the game, based on what I like or what I don't like in other VR games, what would work and what wouldn't work in KSP.

 I'm also not expecting some of you guys that never tried VR, or have tried it for 5 minutes to understand what 3D would bring to this game. If they add it, after you buy a headset in 5 years, you'll get what the buzz is all about. Till then, At least try to imagine it. 

[Spricigo]

2 hours ago, karamazovnew said:

- How much it will cost for SQUAD to develop it?.... probably not that much.

Maybe not much for you, but certainly not small task for the people doing it. Ask the devs of IL-2 if was 'easy' tfor then.

[karamazovnew]

8 minutes ago, Spricigo said:

Maybe not much for you, but certainly not small task for the people doing it. Ask the devs of IL-2 if was 'easy' tfor then.

My answer to this was the rest of the paragraph you quoted. And you know what? Do you think that when flying a low level Pe2 in formation with my squad mates, skimming the treelines and seeing AAA fire coming at us, or flying through a 3D bomb blasts I give a thought to how much it cost the devs? I honest to God don't give a damn. Even if it bankrupted them in the long run and they'd never be able to release another expansion for IL-2, 1000 expansions on 1000 flat monitors wouldn't hold a candle to just one of the amazing VR planes they've made, even with the current technology. An guess what, even at 10% of the KSP playerbase,  those guys are still surviving and investing in improving the game like crazy.  You're giving me them as an example of why KSP shouldn't have VR? HA!

 

[Spricigo]

2 hours ago, karamazovnew said:

My answer to this was the rest of the paragraph you quoted.

As said a fellow players:

2 hours ago, karamazovnew said:

 I honest to God don't give a damn.

Good luck, waiting for KSP VR.

[MiffedStarfish]

 

10 hours ago, karamazovnew said:

- How many actual KSP players would at least try VR KSP? As prices go down and the technology improves, all current KSP players would at least try it in VR at one point, because they'll all own a headset. Those that don't get sick will probably continue to play it like that. That includes you. Maybe in 10 years, but who cares?

Why would I own a VR headset when I have a perfectly functioning screen, that doesn’t rotate my viewpoint depending on how I look at it? When you’re sitting at a screen, you don’t focus on the wall behind you, you focus on the screen. I see VR as little more than a gimmick.

Doing some math, Ksp has about 1 million sales. 0.4% of steam owners have VR headsets. Let’s say another 0.1% buy VR headsets to try out ksp. Squad would only be catering to 5000 people with this feature. And they’re not even making any money off those 5000. 

Even so, I don’t think ksp would work very well at all with VR. Minute head shakes would make precise part placements in editor nearly impossible, and how are you going to right click things?

TL;DR: I don’t think VR is worth development time or money for ksp.

[karamazovnew]

1 minute ago, MiffedStarfish said:

 

Why would I own a VR headset when I have a perfectly functioning screen, that doesn’t rotate my viewpoint depending on how I look at it? When you’re sitting at a screen, you don’t focus on the wall behind you, you focus on the screen. I see VR as little more than a gimmick.

It's difficult to explain to someone who has never tried VR what VR is. Although the trending image of VR is some guy with a wide laugh doing the Samba with controllers, the best experiences are actually games in "Seated" mode, with mouse and keyboard, Joystick, HOTAS or gamepad, where the headset acts as a humongous 3d screen. That means simulators. And the 3D works particularly well with games that float an object in front of your eyes. 

Even so, I don’t think ksp would work very well at all with VR. Minute head shakes would make precise part placements in editor nearly impossible, and how are you going to right click things?

I play DCS and I can hit a small button 1 meter away in a shaky cockpit. Precise mouse cursor movements are not an issue in VR. And the interface is usually larger than what you get on a monitor. Imagine having a screen that's 4m x 4m in front of you. As for right clicking things, I guess you'd have to hit a specific button on your mouse. Maybe... I don't know... the Right one?

TL;DR: I don’t think VR is worth development time or money for ksp.

If you restrict yourself with playing while standing up, looking at the wall behind you, shake your head on purpose and hit the wall with your controller to right click through objects, then yes, you are absolutely correct. That settles the issue. I'll call Oculus and Vive and tell them it was all a bad idea.

 

[White Owl]

Piloting any kind of simulated vehicle — in KSP or otherwise — is almost always better/more fun from the cockpit view... if the game is set up properly. Right now KSP only works this way when modded fairly heavily, and ideally the player needs some controls better than a keyboard or gamepad. Personally, I use a joystick, rudder pedals, and TrackIR. (Although KSP's TrackIR implementation has been broken for a long time, and I haven't yet tried 1.3.1 to see if it's any better.)

Piloting any kind of simulated vehicle from the cockpit view — in KSP or otherwise — is almost always better/more fun in VR than on a monitor. This kind of gaming/simming is what VR excels at, far more than other genre.

So I would absolutely love having the ability to pilot my KSP creations in VR! I'd even be okay with a partial implementation, where the IVA flight scene is the only thing rendered in VR, and the rest of the game still takes place on the monitor. Go IVA, put the headset on. Go to the map view or KSC or VAB, take the headset off. Same way I've been using TrackIR in KSP, just a different peripheral.

People tend to forget or ignore KSP's flight simming roots... the whole reason IVA was added to the game in the first place is because HarvesteR and other devs weren't only Orbinauts, but also flight sim fans. So all the benefits that make VR good for flight sims, also make VR good for KSP.

The acknowledged majority of the player base who don't pilot IVA now won't be affected at all if the current headtracking system can be made to work with VR.

[karamazovnew]

2 hours ago, White Owl said:

snip

Personally, I use a joystick, rudder pedal

Same here. I didn't use joystick for a long time in KSP, but now that I have a decent Hotas, I am really glad it has support for them. Thankfully, the devs didn't say "too difficult, too expensive, too niche" on that one. Make sure to get the 1.1.3 Kerbal version, and get this mod:

https://github.com/Vivero/Kerbal-VR

It's exactly as you described it, IVA only. Make sure you use -force-opengl and that your steamVR version is not a beta. 

Unfortunately, because it's a hacky VR, it doesn't have good fps, but you'll be able to see how it would look. The worst problem is the lack of mouse cursor, so you can't use RPM buttons with that. The funky graphics of KSP really work well in VR. The tiny cockpits are a far cry from IL-2, but they're really fun. I suggest you use infinite fuel and hop around the Mun. In the Lander pod you can actually bend forward and see the ground really well through the lower window. You can also put our head out of the window and look at the craft from outside a bit. 

But seriously, as long as the VR implementation can use the current interface without any issues, flying in 3rd person would be cool as well, with mouse and keyboard If they allow world-scale to be set by the player based on scene, then you'd be able to see the rocket as a small Lego rocket a meter in front of you, or go real scale. 

[Slam_Jones]

Would adding VR support slow down the game at all?  What I mean is, a lot of folks play KSP on self-described "potatoes" with <30FPS on average... would adding VR support lower that FPS even further?

 

[karamazovnew]

1 hour ago, Slam_Jones said:

Would adding VR support slow down the game at all?  What I mean is, a lot of folks play KSP on self-described "potatoes" with <30FPS on average... would adding VR support lower that FPS even further?

 

Definitely, but Potatos can't run any VR games anyway. I'm not sure how many are actually potato computers, or if the owners simply modded the game to death (which would be bad news for all of us). And even stock performance in KSP drops a lot when you have massive crafts. So performance is honestly my main fear as well. I used to play the Beta Kerbal at 15 fps and I could live with that and all the crashes. But VR requires 90 fps at all times, lest you vomit. You can go down to 45fps and let reprojection do its work, since Kerbal doesn't care much about doubling/blurring, as you don't have too many fast moving objects around you. But not lower than that. 

- Micro-freezes: We still get those pesky buggers from garbage collection or whatever., and the more mods we use, the more we get. It wouldn't be a big issue, unless it affects the camera rendering as well. 

- Framerate: VR will always affect the framerate, especially with the badly needed supersampling turned up. You're looking at usually 50% framerate reduction, if not more. However, the stock Kerbal, with a few interface addons on top is not worse than the requirements of other VR games. 

- Some mods really hurt the framerate. For example, if I leave Vessel Viewer on "no latency" mode, it will cut my framerate from 120 to 80. I don't even want to think about Scatterer... But Vessel Viewer is mostly used to activate all part actions from the IVA. A simple list would do better in VR, instead of the current 3D version of that mod. 

 I have a decent VR computer, with a GTX 1070 and a Q6700 processor at 4.4 GHZ. With my modded Kerbal (no graphics mods, but all settings turned to max), I get around 150-180 fps in external cameras, and between 80-120 in interior camera with some really cool RPM cockpits. So VR with a supersampling of around 2.0 should work just fine for me, as it already is. I'd probably turn down a few graphics options here and there and I'd probably have issues around big bases/stations. But the VR mod for 1.1.3 was way lower than normal, with framerates in the 20-40 region. Camera movement was fine, but doubling was a huge issue. I have no idea if that's a Unity problem or not. If it is, than it might be a nail in the coffin, no matter how much the devs would want to make VR. 

 

On the bright side:

- most VR games today have framerate issues. The general idea is that "performance will improve as the hardware improves". 

- any dev trick to increase framerate and reduce sturrering would benefit non-VR players as well. 

- even a NASA computer would struggle to launch a 1000 part ship. 

 

[NateisKerbal]

On 10/16/2017 at 3:38 AM, MiffedStarfish said:

 

Why would I own a VR headset when I have a perfectly functioning screen, that doesn’t rotate my viewpoint depending on how I look at it? When you’re sitting at a screen, you don’t focus on the wall behind you, you focus on the screen. I see VR as little more than a gimmick.

Doing some math, Ksp has about 1 million sales. 0.4% of steam owners have VR headsets. Let’s say another 0.1% buy VR headsets to try out ksp. Squad would only be catering to 5000 people with this feature. And they’re not even making any money off those 5000. 

Even so, I don’t think ksp would work very well at all with VR. Minute head shakes would make precise part placements in editor nearly impossible, and how are you going to right click things?

TL;DR: I don’t think VR is worth development time or money for ksp.

The experience alone. KSP could be a great entry level VR game if you could stabilize the camera or lower sensitivity and make it run on phones. Then sell KSP VR as a DLC or an option, like Elite: Dangerous. As for making money, sell it as a PSVR game with a higher price than the base game. You could also sell it on phones in a few years. If this game can run on my laptop at 1.9 GHz at 60 fps, so can VR on a phone at 90 fps. In terms of money, Squad could start a Patreon. I for sure would happily give money for KSP VR, and I don't even own a Vive or a Rift!

Also, don't start a flame war. _^Please. I just wanted to counter some of your points, nothing more.