From the creators of KSP: Balsa a VR sim...

Flight Sims
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Balsa is a unique Model Flight Simulator where you can design, build, and fly model aircraft.

Designed from the ground up for VR, Balsa lets you fully experience the thrill of model aviation in a way no other simulator does. Use your Touch controllers to grab your vehicles, hand launch them, and fly in completely immersive, fully 3D, explorable sceneries.

Balsa is the second game from the creator of Kerbal Space Program, the multiple-award-winning space flight simulator.

Features

  • The in-game Vehicle Editor allows you to build anything you can imagine using a collection of parts, that snap together in a hands-on, intuitive way.

  • A Physics-based flight model ensures your designs behave realistically as they fly (and crash).

  • Multiplayer is fully supported. Join other virtual pilots and fly together in flight sessions supporting up to 16 players.

  • Moddable to Extremes. Balsa was designed from the start to support mods.

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Wow! :crazy_face:

Good find, @BeachAV8R!

That looks like fun


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It will be great when we can put weapons on them and bomb each other’s bases with flour bombs and dogfight with ribbons on our tails
! :wink:

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Hmm KSP is awesome so this may well be also!

Another reason to jump on the VR band wagon
my resolve is wearing thin haha

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Some of the radio controlled model flight sims I use have recently gone to VR. RealFlight 8 and AccuRc come to mind.

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Yes, it seems very cool.
but does it simulate the hallucinatory effects of inhaling Banana Oil fumes while covering the frame with tissue? :dizzy_face:

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So picked this up for $10 this morning. It is very, very, very Early Access as many of the features don’t work or aren’t included. Many of the menu items are just placeholders.

BALSA-01
BALSA-011007×496 83.2 KB

BALSA-02
BALSA-021019×490 104 KB

BALSA-03
BALSA-031007×496 77.7 KB

Short verdict. Fun for $10 and as it develops it might be even more fun. Would be a hoot in multiplayer while we all drink some beers. Not sure if MP is working yet or not.

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Another user posted this tour of the island. I never did figure out how to enter the cockpit
but I only messed around with it for 30 minutes without reading the manual


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And some Twitch video


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Also picked this up. On the whole its good fun, and as with most early access stuff, in need of some serious optimisation (ASW working overtime when you try to go first person). Much more of a simulator than its cute looks would suggest.

Makes me wish they had integrated VR into KSP, rather than just the community mod


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This is all very well and good. But does it allow your aircraft to get caught in a tree or a rain gutter, hit a telephone pole or be chomped on by the neighbor’s dog? These are the things that make real balsa wood airplane flying a soul crushing experience for one to “enjoy”
just say’n :open_mouth:

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So, I feel the first post should be updated to simply read: “the creators of KSP have a new game out in early access.”

What more information does one need to make a purchase?

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Addendum: is it only on Occulus? How does one get around that non-sense and use on a headset not backed by a maniacal data stealing corporate empire?

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We hope to make Balsa available on Steam in the very near future. For our first release, however, we are only targeting the Oculus Store.

To be on Steam it will have to be OpenVR as an option, so this looks like a ‘timed-exclusive’. Oculus pays developers for it to just be on the Oculus store for a while, so the options would be to either (a) buy it on the Oculus store and use Revive (although unlikely if you’re not a fan of Zuck McDuck) or (b) wait it out.