Standalone Map and Mission Editor

[fleet girder]

I'm sure this has been requested before, but it would be awesome to have a standalone map and mission editor that wouldn't require you to power on your headset and startup base-stations and software etc. to edit a map/mission.

[cinder scroll]

You don't need to do any of that, you can launch the game and use the buttons on the desktop to access the editors

You can launch the game in Oculus mode if you don't even want SteamVR attempting to start

[fleet girder]

Yes but since the programs are already designed to be navigated w/out VR it would be nice to have a non-VR way to open them. I also don't want to change my settings on launch b/c if I then want to play the game or test, I would be unable. This would be compaired to standalone where if I wanted to play it would launch VR and allow me to test.

There are just some times where I have an idea for a map or mission that I want to test for viability, and launching VR and the necessities that come along with it for a 2 min answer when the editor doesn't allow the idea is really anoying.

it could also potentially allow for simultaneously testing in VR and editing on the PC which could allow for more rapid iterations on missions

[lucid storm]

you can literally launch the game and hit "mission editor" in the bottom right

without ever touching your headset

[fleet girder]

again, I know. but it still must power on the HMD and the base stations. It would be nice to not have to power everything on.

[cinder scroll]

How come? The game should launch fine even if SteamVR complains

[fleet girder]

I'm not sure what you mean by this, if the HMD isn't pluged in VTOL shouldn't start up. Even if it does, again it is a lot of extra work to avoid the issue when it could be baked into the files and which alot of work is already done on it. All that Baha may need to do is add an extra function (or two) to launch the editors, and another to launch the full VR game if the editors (but not the game) is launched.

many other games work this way and allow editor access without launching the full game. and as I have said before it would be awesome to have this feature, though I will admit there are other features I would want sooner over this. It just seems like a more simple change that would avoid some headaches when wanting to edit VTOL maps/missions

[cinder scroll]

I'm not sure what exactly your setup is, but with my Rift S, I can launch VTOL VR from the desktop Steam client, with VTOL VR set to use Steam VR, and it runs fine. Steam VR complains I don't have a headset, but it doesn't stop the game from launching.

I do think that an extra launch option for the editors would be nice, but the workaround is so low effort imo

[fleet girder]

In the same respect, why need a workaround when the fix may only be a handful of function calls, that are mostly already written, and as to my setup with a wired HMD, whenever I start any VR game it must launch steam VR and without my HMD pluged in, I can't launch VR gmaes.

[cinder scroll]

@frigid marsh do you know what would cause that to happen?

[frigid marsh]

I imagine such a feature would be a command line argument to skip the carrier deck scene and go straight into a little editor selection dialog. The editors depend on most of the game assets so they'll still need be loaded, so I think the time and VRAM saved would be pretty minimal.

The rest of us editors have no issue launching it without VR. The Oculus VR mode works best for that:

If the game/editor won't launch correctly, please post your player.log in #tech-support