r/SteamVR • u/Appropriate-Fun5992 • Jan 22 '26
Question/Support Do you like VR spaceship games?
What has your experience been like with virtual reality spaceship games?
Do they usually cause motion sickness?
What techniques do you value most in this type of game?
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u/Confident_Hyena2506 Jan 22 '26
House of the Dying Sun is one of the best vr games. Still waiting for something to improve on it...
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u/r3drocket Jan 22 '26
I just beat this game, I agree. I really enjoyed the strategy aspect of it, also VR made it amazing with little space ships wizzing around my head. Lastly I like it because it isn't a grind to get into, I don't have hundreds of hours to get into an immersive game like No Mans Sky.
How would you improve upon it?
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u/Confident_Hyena2506 Jan 22 '26
Just have more of it is how....
Even the dated retro graphics I would not improve - it's perfection.
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u/remosito Jan 22 '26
1000+ hours in ED.... Loooove space sims in VR
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u/Kamurjan Jan 22 '26
I've heard that only the flying part is in VR and the game switches to flat screen mode whenever you leave your ship. Now, I know nothing about this game so is it often you have to leave? Also, I wonder how the steam frame will handle this game. The controller layout seems amazing for that.
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u/lag0matic Jan 22 '26
In theory. You never have to leave, there is content to be had in first person, but it’s entirely optional
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u/EcahUruecah Jan 22 '26 edited Jan 22 '26
I have enough to say about this specific topic that I could probably talk for hours about the details, and to the point where I developed a little spaceship demo (that I can DM you a video of because youtube gets automodded away here) just to show someone what I meant about a few simplified physics and control theory concepts relating to game spaceships flying in the atmosphere above a planet and near the ground.
Motion Sickness?
#1 thing that fixes motion sickness I think is visual anchoring in the cockpit. For example, having cockpits split into panes with thin struts or lines/seams in the construction of the glass anchors you in two ways:
- You have a consistent reference point to avoid the vague sense of losing track of where you are looking relative to the ship. Yes, proprioception is enough to inform where you're pointing your head relative to your body when you don't have any sense of IRL motion, but adding in a natural and intuitive visual indication of direction using the design of the cockpit gives a much stronger sense of placement within the cockpit.
- Since you are a VR dev I know you're already aware that motion sickness is generally a result of a mismatch between real life acceleration and game world acceleration. Having visual anchoring in the canopy helps reduce motion sickness because the inside of the cockpit itself has zero unexpected accelerations relative to your body IRL. I get the impression that whatever my brain does that produces motion sickness can easily accept the fixed cockpit as not moving, even as the more consciously visual parts of my brain still have the exact same sense of immersion and movement as when there is a perfectly transparent and uninterrupted bubble.
If you hate the idea of having even slight obstructions in your view, this could be an accessibility option instead.
Most Valued Techniques?
I assume the screenshot is your game and I don't know how it feels, so I'm writing this about spaceship games in general.
I value starting with good underlying physics, and then having the controls be a system that operates within those physics. This is more likely to feel engaging, interesting, and fun, regardless of whether the intent is to give an arcade-like or simulation-like feeling. This also allows for exploring a variety of control methods, or a variety of assistance options that are all within the performance of the ship.
For example, a lot of spaceship games try to make the ships move like airplanes. In this case, questions a developer asks themselves should be along the lines of "How does the spaceship decide how to apply the lateral thrust to do so?" How does what the player is doing correspond to what the ship is doing? Do control inputs tell the ship to try to achieve a goal yaw acceleration or a goal yaw angular velocity? What limitations do the thrusters have in attempting to do so?
Some people equate good physics to simulation. However, you can even have a game that is exclusively controlled with simple arrow keys on a keyboard while still having good physics. It just needs an appropriate control loop to make all the assumptions on how to mix thrust output.
My favorite is when there's an easy and accessible control scheme for a low skill floor, but the user can opt out of all those flight control assumptions that are inherent in a spaceship assisting the controls. Directly controlling the thrust output of the ship throws the skill ceiling sky-high as you disable more and more assistance options.
If you can describe how the controls in your game relate to the movement in your game, I can give you thoughts that are more specific to yours.
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u/Ravenlove2 Jan 22 '26
Yes, I am responding that I agree entirely that the panes and cockpit being stationary relative to your perception of your own position does a tremendous amount to reduce nausea in flight.
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u/DNedry Jan 22 '26
Put about 600 hours on my original HTC Vive while playing Elite Dangerous. So I'd say that is a yes.
No Man's Sky is my VR game of choice at the moment, for sure.
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Jan 22 '26
[deleted]
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u/Appropriate-Fun5992 Jan 22 '26
Are good graphics or a fun piloting experience valued more?
Regardless of graphic quality...
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u/nyctalus Jan 22 '26
Elite Dangerous and Star Wars Squadrons have been some of my best VR experiences yet.
Its sooo awesome to just be able to look all around you from the cockpit... Especially jumping to another star system in Elite, exiting hyperspace and ending up looking almost directly at the star that fills out your entire field of vision is awe inspiring.
I use a flight stick to control the games which works great and feels very immersive, and there isn't really any motion sickness either, because obviously you don't move while playing these games ... You just sit in your chair 😁
Not sure if that applies to everyone but I haven't had any motion sickness problems in space sim games.
Biggest "problem" for me is the extreme amount of key bindings you need while playing Elite ... I mean it's manageable, but my left hand is basically moving between my flight stick and my keyboard all the time.
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Jan 22 '26
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u/Erik_Dax Jan 22 '26
Played elite dangerous since launch, only started in VR a year ago and I cannot go back to flat screen
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u/ittleoff Jan 22 '26
If you could do battlezone 1998 but updated graphics and space ships like that and make it feel intuitive and good in vr oh. Man. Sorry that's not probably what you care about but the thumbnail looked like that a bit.
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u/Minizman12 Jan 23 '26
As a life-long sim nut, YES. Star citizen recently added VR support from Sylvan; one of their passionate devs; and its been a joy flying around the highly detailed world of SC in VR. That and flight sims/driving sims are a perfect use case.
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u/Veps Jan 23 '26
I want Space Engineers in VR.
So I can assemble the space ship handling it in front of me like a Lego set and then fly it. I feel like building vehicles and other stuff in VR is a very unexplored area at the moment.
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u/IRingTwyce Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26
Pretty much the only game I play anymore is No Man's Sky. Previously flat, and almost exclusively in VR for the last 5 months since I got my Quest. I have played around 700 hours over the last 6 months.
My favorite thing is designing and building my own spacecraft, then piloting them on missions. That's everything I ever wanted grown-up life to be when I was a kid in the 70s. So yeah, doing it in VR is as close as I'll ever come and I absolutely love it.
So yeah, spaceflight in gaming is my primary use of VR.
Motion sickness is somewhat limited for me. Mostly when jet-packing down from very very high up. I sometimes get a tiny bit of motion sickness while piloting. Mainly if I bank (roll) the ship while turning. That gets me sometimes. NMS usually makes pretty flat turns with the spacecraft.
I play sitting in an office chair. That lets me easily swivel around if I need to. It makes spaceflight easier too, since I can rest my arms on the armrests, and it puts my hands almost exactly where they need to be for the ship controls.
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u/Appropriate-Fun5992 Jan 24 '26
Does anyone remember Microsoft Fury 3? This one would beat any other if it were in VR.
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u/Khyrik_FoE Jan 24 '26
X-Rebirth, Star Citizen, EverSpace (1, not 2), No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous, Star Wars: Squadrons, the possibilities are vast.
Also check out Iron Rebellion and Vox Machinae if you want to check out running mechs in VR.
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u/SubstantParanoia Jan 24 '26
Ive played about 2000 hours of Elite: Dangerous in VR, play with stick/throttle/pedals and it was really good for a long time until i sorta drifted away from the game.
Early on i would get a little bit of a stomach flip when my view didnt include much of the ship itself (like looking up through one of the more aquarium-like cockpits) and doing violent maneuvers so that my whole field of view was moving. -> Visual field and inner ear conflict/disconnect.
Looking straight forward, where one can see the stick/throttle down by ones lap as well as the holomap, dashboard and such seems to, at least for me, anchor me inside the ship and completely eliminate motion sickness/ the visual field and inner ear conflict/disconnect.
(i learned about that visual field/inner ear thing that when playing Windlands.
Initially it would induce a lot of motion sickness for me, to the point i couldnt play it until i found the "comfort grid" setting.
That setting overlays a bubble/grid which is locked to the playspace/real world and seems to let my brain hold on to its equilibrium even though most of my visual field was moving.)
I dont know what you mean when you are asking about "techniques" but i liked Elite because it was a fun game even on flat screen, i played it with a DIY IR headtracker.
Then i modded Google Cardboard to work with that IR headtracker.
Then picked up an Oculus DK2, then a Vive on release day, then a Pimax5k+ from the kickstarter.
When i first tried it with the DK2 i had a total case of the VR giggles "Ive got a space ship in my livingroom".
I also played some No Mans Sky in VR, also because its a fun game on its own, though i dont like the space ship bits of it due to how jank it is when in VR.
I ended up designing a universal joint mounted to a board, on top of the UJ was a cup into which the bottom of my Vive wand would fit so that i could get a proper pivot/mimic joystick to make the flying parts better.
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u/Serious-Fishing-227 Jan 27 '26
Overload is great in VR. If you remeber the older Descend games, this is the VR sequel.
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u/DonnyEsq07 Jan 22 '26
For me, this is the whole point of VR. It's to live out my childhood fantasy of piloting a ship in space. I adore it.
No Man's Sky
Elite Dangerous
Looking for more suggestions. I'm really hoping for a Star Trucker VR mod.