1. Reentry - A Space Flight Simulator
  2. News

Reentry - A Space Flight Simulator News

Dev Update: Project Apollo VR [WIP]

Hi!
As you probably know, the old Virtual Reality implementation was depreciated and moved to a dedicated stale branch accessible from the Steam Betas tab ("Virtual Reality"). The first VR implementation was a learning project where I would take the learnings and create an improved implementation.

The new implementation is a post 1.0 feature, but development was started during various code freezes. The fundament of the Mercury and Gemini bits are available in the public release as an alpha-feature that can be toggled from the Main Menu.

I wanted to take this moment to share a low key direct recording as I interact with some of the new mechanics that will become available in a later patch.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I hope you will like some of these new features, and I look forward to sharing the bits with you.

- Petri

Update 0.99.5 is out! - VR implementation entering PT-3 (Gemini)


This update rolls out the Pre-testing 3 (PT-3) version of the new VR implementation.
This fixes multiple issues with Mercury, and rolls out the first iteration of Gemini VR.

Note: If you are experiencing issues with this build you can roll back to the previous using the Steam Betas Tab accessible from the Steam client (games properties). The previous version can be found under the Reentry Version 0.99.RC10 branch.


When enabling VR from the main menu, please read the Important Notes section that pops up, this will explain the current state of VR and its roadmap.

Keep in mind that VR support is still a post-1.0 feature where the pre-1.0 bits is the preliminary support and testing phase of the upcoming VR release.
The implementation will be rough around the edges as the current development stage is mainly functionality and feasibility.


Gemini VR support
This is the first implementation of Gemini VR, where all reported learnings and feedback/issues will be used to further improve the VR support of Gemini. It contains most of the basic bits needed to complete the Gemini Academy and Campaing.

VR Attitude Hand Controller
The VR Attitude Hand Controllers makes the actual attitude control joystick visible in the cockpit functional. Move the VR hand on the Mercury or Gemini attitude hand controller, press and hold the Grab button on the controller and pitch/yaw/roll the hand controller. You will need to spend some time training the motion to get a good feel of the craft.
The stick will follow the actual movement of your hand.


VR Translation Hand Controller
Gemini is the first of the in-game crafts that was able to translate in orbit. To enable the translation control, press the Toggle TTCA bubble button on the commanders translation stick to deploy it.

When it is deployed, grab and hold the stick as with the attitude stick to move it. Drag it in the direction you wish to translate.

The stick will snap into the position (Up, Down, Left, Right, Forward, Aft) once you have moved your hand firmly in the direction you wish to translate. When the stick is out of detent and snapped, the in-game joystick will reflect the direction you are translating.


Gemini translation force adjusted
The Gemini has been very sensitive in translation. The forces has been reduced to give you better control of translation, making Gemini less overpowered. This means that you will need to translate longer than before to achieve desired delta-V. Keep this in mind for burns and maneuvers.

Training VR attitude and translation
I recommend spending some time in the Mercury In-Orbit and the Gemini docking training scenario to practice how to maneuver and control the crafts in VR.

VR Mission Pad
I have changed how to set camera perspectives and how to set time scale. This is now done through a new VR section of the VR Mission Pad. Click the VR tab to see the current mission time and date, time scale, and multiple buttons to set time scale and change the view. This tab also contains a section where you can rebind the controllers.


A word about recentering the VR view
OpenXR, the standard used to render VR, is used to render the VR implementation in Reentry. They have decided to offload the camera centering routine to the manufacturers. This means that the recentering has to be done through the built-in methods. For Quest 2 for example, you need to hold the Oculus button on the right controller to recenter the view.
The downside to this is that I can no longer recenter the view programmatically when I detect this is needed. So if you notice things are out of sync and requires a recenter, you will need to follow the built-in procedures to do this.

Reentry has been patched to 0.99.4

This patch is a better and more correct implementation of yesterdays hotfix (0.99.3). The Gemini bubble buttons and interacting with the panels should work again after breaking during 0.99.2.

Let me know if you still are having issues interacting with the Gemini switches or bubble buttons.


Thanks!

Reentry has been patched to 0.99.3

This patch is a hotfix for an issue preventing players from pressing the Gemini cockpit function bubbles.

Let me know if this fix helps (as I have been unable to reproduce the issue on my machine). I will dive deeper into this after work during next week.


Thanks for reporting and letting me know if this issue!

Update 0.99.2 is out! - Typos, mission patches and Mercury VR joystick


Reentry has been patched to 0.99.2, with the main focus on fixing the issues and content pull requests contributed by the community at the games GitHub.

Almost 100 issues and Pull Requests have been addressed and merged into the game and the flight manuals. This means that multiple missions has been patched to correct bugs, typos, structure and logic.

I have exported the latest versions of the manuals, all available in-game (Academy, or SHIFT+M in cockpit) or on the games web page.

I have corrected issues related to the Mercury save state logic, and applied a patch that saves the notes you have made in the Mission Pad in all programs (Mercury, Gemini, Apollo).

This patch rolls out the new VR enabled attitude control stick in Mercury. To use it, move the controller on it, press the Grab button and hold it in, while you tilt the controller forward/back for pitch, left/right for yaw and twist it for roll. A later iteration will also take into account the hand movement to ease the work on the wrist, but this is a start.
In addition, I have started to implement grabbable objects. You can test this by moving your hand into the Audio Recorder (toggle using bubble buttons) and pressing+holding the grab button. Releasing the grab button will release the player as well.

  • Fixed community reported typos in all flight manuals
  • Fixed community reported typos in academy
  • Fixed community reported typos in campaigns
  • Fixed typos in Apollo CSM panels
  • Fixed reported typos in player.log
  • Updated all flight manuals in-game and on web page
  • Mercury Load State logic fixes
  • Mission Pad Notes stored in save states
  • Mercury VR: Attitude Control Stick VR enabled
  • Mercury VR: First grabbable object implemented (Audio Player)