About the future of the project!

[Cless-Aurion]

I was wondering, since there hasn't been a new version since January 2021, but the project clearly doesn't seem abandoned, I wanted to ask what are the plans short/mid term for this amazing piece of software?
Maybe @dantman can answer that? I've tried looking around for someone else asking... but haven't seen it, so I'm doing it myself!

[dantman]

It's a free project, so ultimately the plans just depend on when I have the time and my availability, ability, and interest all happen to line up.

These projects are the closest thing to a roadmap:
https://github.com/dantman/elite-vr-cockpit/projects

Back in September I moved homes. It took several several months before I cleared living room space to setup my VR base stations. I finally have those up. However I don't even have minimal roomscale space yet; semi-regularly that space is taken up by other projects and unavailable (currently my 3d Printer is sitting there in need of repair); and the space is still not yet setup for doing VR software development since it's a separate space from my computer desk and my desk no longer has semi-adequate base station visibility.

I have very little spare time after work. So I always have to choose between my own recreation and getting to actually play games, getting personal stuff done, and working on this project. I usually only work on side projects when I don't have a game to play. Right now I'm re-hooked on Oxygen Not Included.

I don't really play Elite Dangerous anymore. This project took over nearly any time I would consider playing Elite Dangerous. So ED basically became after hours work instead of recreation.

The lack of support is also demotivating. This project exists only in spite of every organization it needs to function. Every thing I build in it takes several times the work you'd expect because there is no support and everything requires workarounds. Valve does not support using their Unity plugin to build standalone overlays. Oculus doesn't even say whether an overlay can be built for either of their APIs. Frontier provides no input API aside from Window's hardware input API, which means the project is entirely dependent on vJoy an unmaintained piece of software requiring a administrator privileges to install a Windows driver that can only be maintained by someone paying large amounts of money to Microsoft. Frontier also makes it impossible to build some kinds of controls (no way to control side panels directly, hand movements, etc). Frontier also releases updates like Odyssey that break previously working parts of the overlay. And finally Frontier don't even seem to care about VR in their game since the primary stuff they've been working on are Odyssey features that haven't given any though to how they work in VR.

[Cless-Aurion]

Man, sorry it took me so long to answer! Its a shame, though what you currently did is quite amazing to be honest. I wish they had given more care to the VR version of this game, since its so cool.
In any case, keep up the good work! Here and elsewere, and thanks for doing such awesome stuff!