Hey Guys,
Those of us who bought the Pimax 4K for the prime use of using it with Elite Dangerous and other VR games but could not find any way of interacting with the Elite stellar map now can with only 3 pieces of equipment and two matched pieces of very nice software. The three pieces of equipment are the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick, the Logitech G13 gameboard and a headset with microphone. The two software requirements are Voice Attack voice recognition software and the HCS ASTRA voice pack (in addition to the PiPlay, Steam VR and Frontier Developments Elite Dangerous).
Once you have installed all software and have trained the Voice Attack and adjusted the microphone volume and have a suitable computer ( i7 or i5 based with 8Gb of RAM) with a usable GPU (an nVidia GTX 970, GTX 980 or GTX 1060 or better or equivalent). The joystick should have key bindings set so that the top hat on top of the joystick changes the pips to power system engine and reset plus have Key 1 set to Fire and Key 2 to Secondary Fire. The G13 should be set up with the ASDW keys plus your up and down forward back thrust keys available and the ENTER, LSHFT, ESC and SPACE keys and configure the G13 joystick as a mouse.
Start Elite (this should also start Steam VR) and Start Voice Attack/HCS. ASTRA should welcome you back to the game on entry.
Once you are in the game (and to practice using the voice and physical controllers) give the command to ASTRA “Stellar Cartography” and you will see the Galaxy map appear (this is really amazing in the Pimax and is so real you might get a strange feeling in your head and stomach). Ok now you have a star map but you might want to go somewhere so you use your mouse (well that is one way - but it is hard to control and you might have to remove your HMD destroying the VR immersion). Instead you can use your two controls and the voice software to get to wherever you want - even if you cannot see it.
To initiate this method of control while wearing the HMD press the Secondary Fire button on the X3d (or other equivalent joystick) which will bring the focus to the menu top line press it again to move to the right onto the second tab. Now press the Fire Button which will bring the Text Field into focus.
Give ASTRA the Command “Dictation Mode On” she will acknowledge after which you can input your destination phonetically one character at a time (alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, hyphen, space 1,2,3 etc).
When you have finished entering your destination (if you make a mistake issue the command “Back Space”) issue the command “Enter Now”. This will move the on map cursor to your selected star system.
This is where you use the top hat to move the focus to the star selection and use the Fire Button to select the desired option. When you enter the system map to select the station or planet use you ASDW keys (on you G13) to move sideways and upways to your desired target and your top hat to move to the desired option then select with the Fire button. To deselect press the Fire button again (it toggles). To get back to the menu press the Secondary Fire button.
When finished give the command “Exit System Map” to ASTRA and you will be returned to the game where the joystick and the G13 return to their normal game modes.
I hope that this helps somebody as it has taken me some time and a few emails to HCS and Frontier Developments to figure this out.
Post Script - there might be another option for the non joystick controller but the kit has not yet arrived in the mail. Will let you know if it is better than the G13.
