Titans of Space PLUS News

• Greatly reduced loading time. (From launching to giving user control of the experience: from 46 seconds down to 18 seconds on my PC)
  

Apologies for the frequent updates lately! Hoping to make additional Tour Guide content the focus of the next one.

Minor changes only in this patch (unless you are a VR arcade, in which case this is an important one!).

• When returning to the Tour Map, there is now a Settings button to make it clear that you can go back to change certain settings.
  
• The Tour Map area now has buttons for quitting the experience.
  
• When using floor-level tracking and "not sensitive to motion", the tour cockpit's frame is now set to default to appearing "While Moving" (instead of Always On).
  

Additional command-line arguments have been added:

1. --go-directly-to-tourmap (This skips past the initial options and title menu areas to the Tour Map. Note that the --skip-menus argument will override this.)
   
2. --default-to-short-tour
3. --default-to-full-tour
4. --comfort-mode-on-by-default
5. --comfort-mode-off-by-default
6. --skip-calibration-step (Works great when paired with '--default-to-floor-level-tracking' to speed up the flow of getting into the experience, but assumes that the system-level play space is properly configured.)
   

Apologies for the frequent updates lately! Hoping to make additional Tour Guide content the focus of the next one.

• Tour Guide customization is now enabled. Anyone can now record themselves in VR (both motion capture, and microphone capture for voice) to create new Tour Guide presentations (that can be shared with others if you wish). To get started, check the Modding Info area inside the app (green options menu from tour -> Modding Info). It's easy once you know what to do, but perhaps daunting to get started, so I will publish videos in the near future to walk through the process.
  -- Note: If using a Rift/Rift S to record Tour Guide presentations, please run the app using Oculus SDK for now.
  
  
• The Sun's corona is now animated. Same goes for the large stars.
  

• Monitor: No longer defaults to "sensitive to motion".
  
• Slight visual tweaks for dashboard.
  

New command-line arguments supported, mainly to support arcade/installation type settings:

1. --maximize-spectator-window (Force fullscreen spectator window)
   
2. --unlock-full-tour-map (Players can go to any tour stop they want without having been there before)
   
3. --start-at-beginning
4. --reset-all-preferences (Ensure that the experience starts fresh every time in case users fiddled with settings)
   
5. --skip-menus (Skip all the menu screens and start tour immediately)
   
6. --disable-guide-options
7. --disable-guide-editor-mode
8. --tour-guide-on-by-default (Ensures that the Tour Guide will start talking automatically when starting the tour, can still be turned off by user if they wish)
   
9. --tour-guide-off-by-default (Ensures that the Tour Guide does not start talking automatically when starting the tour, can still be turned on by the user if they wish)
   
10. --buttons-are-click-activated (Ensures that buttons require a point-and-click in order to activate)
    
11. --buttons-are-timer-activated (Ensures that buttons require only gazing/pointing for 1 second in order to activate)
    
12. --default-to-floor-level-tracking (Forces floor-level tracking for standing/roomscale instead of automatically detecting seated vs standing)
    

Until next time!

Grateful for the feedback I've received so far! I wasn't able to address all of it in this update, but I'm just getting started here.


For now, here's what's new:

* Tour Guide now has English subtitles (for all 62 minutes of tour content content currently available).

* Modding/customization has been enabled. (If you're interested in customizing text, translations, subtitles, alternate planet maps, or planet labels, you may now do so. Look in the app's "modding info" area to get started. Coming soon: Ability to customize music / record custom Tour Guide presentations)

* While at the Tour Map, user may press the R key to (re)start the tour, or the C key to continue it. (This was requested to make demoing for others easier)

* Monitor mode: Fixed being able to use Alt key to cycle info pages, and Shift key to zoom.


Enjoy the weekend!

The PC version of this title has been renamed to "Titans of Space PLUS". (The mobile version is simply "Titans of Space".)

New Features:

• Tour Map: Easily jump to any part of the tour you've already visited!
  
• Tour Guide: A friendly character appears to talk your ear off! Work in progress and only available through Mars for now. Subtitles coming in the next update.
  
• Zero-Gravity EVA: Get out of your cockpit, and then use your thrusters and hands to move around the area for an up-close view of planets and moons, complete with surface labels and points of interest. Original music composed by Karim Elmahmoudi.
  
• Alternate Planet Maps: See planets and moons in a new way! In the below video, Mars is shown with an elevation map. For other bodies it may be something different (radar map, geologic map, etc). You can even add your own!
  

Brief YouTube clip of some of the above features:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmcBr3H2k48

New Hardware Support:

• Valve Index: new Knuckles controllers supported, small tweaks for LCD displays.
  
• Rift S: new controllers supported, small tweaks to account for inside-out tracking and LCD display.
  
• Windows Mixed Reality: official support (though you still need to run through SteamVR of course).
  
• Launching in SteamVR mode with a Rift is no longer terrible.
  
• For any of these controllers, if you wish to change the control scheme, you're free to do so through the new SteamVR Input bindings editor.
  

Additions:

• Additional Mars tour stop, with more info, photos, and a second Tour Guide presentation.
  
• Updated Jupiter RDV, and included full "Jupiter" song.
  
• Updated or added real photos at Pan, Enceladus, Mars, Earth, and Uranus moons.
  

Improvements:

• Added Simplified Chinese & Japanese.
  
• Automatically defaults the Sitting vs Standing setting based on your height in the "Get Ready" screen, but you can still change this if desired.
  
• Improved Earth & Moon appearance.
  
• Dashboard in standing mode no longer transitions between low and high based on a specific threshold but will now detect arbitrary player heights on the fly.
  
• New loading screen, and running with SteamVR now smoothly loads with a progress bar.
  Expect load times to decrease with future updates.
  
• Improved controller appearance.
  
• After holding planets in your hands, the planet now smoothly goes back to where it was
  Implemented recentering for Standing mode. You can now center and orient the cockpit anywhere in your playspace.
  

Future:

• Still need to make a new video trailer and new screenshots
  
• This update brings preliminary modding support, but will polish up and go into more detail in the next update.
  
• Plan is to release additional Tour Guide content in small updates, and to take on board any feedback you have on the new stuff!
  

Looking for an older version?
If you happen to rely on using the older version for whatever reason, Update4a is still available in the Beta channels tab.