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Comment by jlgreco | Hacker News Reader

I've had my doubts about the Rift, but most of those were centered around problems I see with using the Rift in games like FPSes. The author of the article has totally sold me on the Rift for simulator games though. I want one.

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I can't understand how are you going to reach for the controls though. In all simulators you need use the keyboard extensively - power up the engines, flaps, landing gear. Then you need to remember weird hotkeys for radios, autopilot or rarely used functions. You need to type in a lot of numbers when doing routes or changing frequencies. I don't know how can you type with this thing on your head. And then you will need to find you mouse/stick to resume flying normally. Something is still missing here.

Realistically serious full-sims are going to be facing a lot of problems. Light-sims that can play on an XBox gamepad and thus won't require the full keyboard should fare much better, and likewise sims that fit nicely onto a standard flightstick+throttle controller.

Some of the current generation of sims (FSX, DCS) focus on "clickable cockpits" where you can operate basically the entire thing via a HOTAS and your mouse, flipping switches and turning knobs. While playing DCS I actually rarely touch the keyboard and move it completely out of the way.

The current head tracking solutions like TrackIR actually make it pretty hard to flip switches on the sides of the cockpit because they drastically exaggerate your head movements.

So I could see Oculus Rift working pretty okay for these. For the ones where I'd still need a keyboard, I could probably hit the right key most of the time without looking, or so I'd like to think.

Something like Orbiter with NASSP, Virtual AGC, 3d modeled cockpit, and a Rift would be fantastic.

LeapMotion might be the missing piece. Doesn't have haptic feedback, obviously, but it would be better than trying to type.

I think it could be usable for an FPS but it needs something ... more.

This article hit the nail on the head when he stated that the Rift is already a perfect fit for simulator games.

Check out the Rift game/demo called Crashland. It uses the Sixense Hydra controllers for 1-to-1 aiming and works surprisingly well. You turn the reference orientation of your body/view but otherwise you are looking around and aiming with your arms. I really hope all FPS games for the Rift make this an available control scheme. Also helps that the game mechanics are fun and giant spiders are nasty.

I've seen demos with the controller that straps across your chest so you can move with your torso, and those look pretty cool, but you're still left with the problem of wanting to walk around but not being able to (because you'd step on your cat 'in meatspace'). There are solutions to that too, but they aren't great, take up space, are expensive, etc.

In a game where you are strapped into a seat, you don't have that problem. You remain seated in your chair at home and remain seated in game, so everything works great. The Sixense Hydra controllers, or similar, could probably be great for manipulating switches and leavers in your cockpit.

Here's a link to the mentioned controller, the Virtuix Omni: http://www.virtuix.com/

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