Virtual Reality Controls

The subject of this article is from the Echoes update.
The information from this article is up-to-date as of 13 February, 2024.

This article is about the VR controls. For the non-VR controls, see Controls.

Virtual Reality Controls lists controls and best practices for VR players.

Summary[ | ]

Note: This section is under development.If you find controls that made your VR experience more pleasant, please add them.

The game seems designed primarily for seated play. Turning in room-scale is not fully tracked yet and the HUD remains stuck to a fixed forward direction.

Press both analogue sticks at the same time to recentre if needed. (Index)

Menu[ | ]

Press the right thumb button to open and close the menus, including the Log, Discoveries, Options, and Quit menu.

Walk, Swim, or Jetpack[ | ]

On Index, the left analogue stick is for walking and the right one for turning. In general, you control your walking and sprinting direction with your left arm -- hold out your arms to strafe when you're looking and running around.

To sprint, raise your left controller nearly horizontal before clicking the sprint button (right stick click on Touch and Index).

To walk or jetpack backwards in VR, use the analogue sticks, or move the controller behind yourself.

The right B button activates the jetpack and swimming.

The jetpack direction is controlled by your right arm. To fly in a certain direction, extend your arm like superman in the direction you want to go.
Your Rocket Boots, if installed, can be activated by double-tapping the jetback button while the jetpack is fully charged. This will launch you in the direction of the HUD and cannot be manually aimed like normal jetpack flight.

To swim up or down, it's the same as jetpacking. Press and hold the jetpack button (right B) and stretch out your arm in the direction you want to swim. Turning underwater is done the same as when walking (rightstick).
NOTE: If you can't swim as expected you may need to enable this setting: OPTIONS > CONTROL OPTIONS > MOVEMENT DIRECTION > WORLD RELATIVE.

Tip: How to stop melee punching while walking

Aiming and Interacting[ | ]

Things are not highlighted by pointing at stuff with your hands. Instead, imagine you have invisible cross-hairs between your eyes that highlight markers, boxes, etc.

To interact with objects (or to highlight waypoint icons, or to aim your pulse drive etc.), focus at it with your headset. The item has to be 'in the centre of the screen' (which, depending on your headset, might not be in the centre of your view). Turn your view until you see a fist icon, then grab and pull to activate it.

Punch/pistol whip objects by gripping with either controller, then moving it sharply forwards. You can mine carbon by punching trees if your mining laser runs out of fuel. Be aware of your real world environment when doing this!

Flight[ | ]

To enter a ship, point at it with your right hand held out, make a grab gesture, then pull towards you. To leave a ship, grab then push up the green lever at either side of the cockpit.

To land, press down on the left touchpad (Rift), or right controller A (Index)

Grab and slide the throttle forward with your left hand to take off.

Steering and speed[ | ]

Speed: Grab and slide the throttle forward and backwards with your left hand to adjust speed. Release the control once you have set the desired velocity.
- Left back trigger button fires your afterburners. You do not need to be holding the throttle to do this.
- Holding the left A button engages your Pulse Drive.
Up/Down: Grab the right hand stick to control your aircraft's attitude: Tilt the stick forward/back to pitch the nose up/down.
Left/Right: Grab the right hand stick to turn your aircraft: Tilt left/right to yaw, and tilt the analogue stick (Index) left/right to roll.

Weapons can be cycled using Left Analogue Stick Up (Index). Radar targets can be cycled using Left analogue stick left/right (Index)

Flight Tips[ | ]

Flight controls can be a little tricky, Various tips include:

Adjust (lower) the flight sensitivity in the game options!
There are normal and inverted flying controls, and tethered and locked. If steering feels unintuitive, try the other variants in the settings.
It's only your hand's roll and pitch that matter for steering left/right and up/down. Hold your hand still and do roll/pitch movements only.
- (Index) Press the bottom of your right controller against your knee, desk, or arm rest, and rotate around that point to accurately emulate how the stick actually moves.
- (Vive? Rift?) You can "lock" your right hand onto the flightstick by tapping the grip button on it instead of holding the grip button. Long hold it again (2-3 sec) to let go of the flightstick.

Lock your right elbow to your side to stabilize the flightstick.

Alternatives[ | ]

In flight you can also use a wireless mouse, it switches automatically if you use another device. If you have WMR you can also rebind your flight controls to the motion controller joysticks (Using Steam VR settings) though you have to enable them by clicking your mouse.

Switch Weapons and Recharge Shields[ | ]

On the ground, with multitool in your right hand, point your left hand at the back of the multitool, and press the middle of the three options to switch weapons modes.

In the starship or exocraft, cycle weapons using Left Analogue Stick Up (Index). Cycle radar targets using Left analogue stick left/right (Index).

In the starship or exocraft, lift your left hand in front of you, and point at it with your right hand to access the quick menu. Here you can recharge Deflector Shield, weapons, Pulse Engine, warp drive, Fusion Engine, Exocraft Mining Laser, etc.

Galactic map[ | ]

Enter a starship and fly above the atmosphere. Lift your left hand in front of you, point at the left hand with your right hand to access the quick menu, and select Galactic Map.

In the galactic map, press B to deselect the current system that you're viewing. Press A to select another system.

Point your right hand to turn the camera, or turn the right control sticks. (?)

Use the grip button (thumb button on Index) on the right controller: With grip held down, push and pull the controller around to move the map. You are grabbing, and pushing and pulling the fabric of space here. :-)

It appears to be a known bug that selecting a galactic core, and therefore jumping galaxies, is not possible using VR controllers.

Inventory and Crafting[ | ]

Lift your left hand in front of you and point at it with your right hand to select Inventory from the quick menu.

Pick up or move items by pointing with the right hand and clicking the trigger. You can also pick up and drop items by physically pressing your glove finger against the holographic display so that a red circle appears around it.
Delete items by hovering over them and holding down the right analogue stick (Index). For Vive, hold down on the bottom of the right touch pad.
Press and hold A to craft a duplicate of the currently selected item (Index).
While holding a stack of items, use left analogue stick up/down to split off a fraction of the stack with each click (Index), or right X/O buttons (PSVR).

When in doubt, most inventory specific commands can be seen by hovering over the item in your inventory (left back of your hand) with your right hand.

Quick menu[ | ]

Lift your left hand in front of you and point at it with your right hand to access the quick menu.

The quick menu controls many important interactions that you don't want to desperately google for while in VR, for example:

recharge and repair (hazard protection, life support, multi-tool)
summon exocraft, starship, Freighter
switch on a torchlight in your left hand

In starships and in exocraft, the quick menu has additional options.

Using the multitool[ | ]

Lift right hand over right shoulder, grab, and move your hand in front of you again to (de)activate your multitool. When using an Index controller, use your lower three fingers for the grabbing gesture, don't pull the trigger and don't push the thumb button (otherwise you will shoot behind you while opening a menu!).

Point left finger at the back of your right hand to change weapons/mining beam/terrain manipulator, and to switch weapon and scanner modes.

To change the Terrain Manipulator area-of-effect size in additive mode: open the Mode Menu on the back of the tool and use the L/R Grip buttons to adjust the size.

To adjust the size for subtractive mode:

Equip your multitool and enable terrain-manipulator mode.
Aim the tool at the back of your Traveler's left hand.
Select "Quick Menu."
Do not select anything on the menu; just leave it open.
Pull your hands apart and aim them away from each other.
Keep your hands apart and aimed away from each other with the menu still open.
You can now tap your controller's left grip to decrease the size of the beam and the right grip to increase it.

Scan and Analyse[ | ]

To scan for resources, point at the back of your multi-tool with your left hand and click 'Scan' to activate your Scanner. Alternatively you can click the left analogue stick (Index).

To analyse fauna/flora/POIs, raise your left hand to the side of your helmet, and grab to (de)activate your Analysis Visor.

While in Analysis Mode, points of interest (such as buildings or buried salvage) can be tagged by pointing with your right hand, or by centering them in your HMD and then pressing right trigger.

While in Analysis Mode, optionally press A to toggle between Analysis and Survey mode (if the Survey Device is fitted).

Driving an Exocraft[ | ]

To enter an exocraft, point at it with your right hand held out, make a grab-and-pull gesture towards yourself.

To leave an exocraft, hold your arms to the side, and make a grab-and-pull-up gesture. To exit the Nautilon, you have to grab and pull the handles at a backwards-curved angle.

Steering[ | ]

Grab the steering wheel with both hands and tilt your wrists to steer left and right.
Left back trigger button accelerates backwards, right back trigger buttons accelerates forwards.
The right-hand A button boosts your exocraft out of ditches.

Weapons[ | ]

To aim, look at your target. Press R-Ⓐ to shoot (Valve Index).

Cycling weapons - right-joystick up and click right-joystick?

Taming and riding animals[ | ]

Lift your left hand in front of you and point at it with your right hand to access the quick menu. Scroll to the cube symbol for animal feeding. If you have animal food in your inventory, you can select it here to drop it on the ground.

Or you can approach a wild animal, look at it until the interaction symbol appears (fist), and make the grab-and-pull gesture to feed it pellets from your inventory. Use the same gesture to harvest milk etc from fed creatures, or to ride a tamed animal.

Chat[ | ]

Use the keyboard and press Return to open and close the chat window. I hope you can touch type...

Take screenshots / Photomode[ | ]

Photo mode is not presently available for VR. However, you can still take screenshots using your VR kit's normal screenshot function:

Index: Hold Left System Button + Left Trigger
Vive: System Button + Right Trigger
Oculus: Hold left menu button + Left Trigger

Remap controls in Steam/PC[ | ]

Start up No Man's Sky in VR.
Open up the Steam dashboard.
Go to "Settings" towards the lower right hand side.
Hit "controller settings" on the left.
Pick No Man's Sky from the list.
Here you go into the top left option to change it yourself, if you scroll down to the bottom you will see bindings uploaded by others.

Bindings for etee Controller[ | ]

The index controller mapping is not ideal, so there is a new community binding as an alternative for the etee controller. The overview of the control mechanisms is given below

The version "NMS etee 1.38" is currently set up for the use of the multitool in the right hand.

To keep the control intuitive, similar controls are matched for control on foot, for flight controls, etc., and are therefore compared in the table.

[R] stands for the right hand / controller
[L] stands for the left hand / controller
Note: Before a grip gesture, the hand should be fully opened. The reason is that the grip gesture is still being fine-tuned, as the etee controller can recognize different inputs (click, touch, hold etc.) and also the intensity of the input.

Menus[ | ]

Action	etee Controller bindings
Discoveries / Options	[R] Tap zone double tap
Confirm (Menus)	[R] Tap zone hold + Index click
Switch Tabs (Menus)	[R] Trackpad left or right click
Back	[L] Grip gesture
Inventories	Press the displayed symbol on the left arm wrist
Quick Menu	Press the displayed symbol on the left arm wrist
Quick Menu Select Left Item	[L] Slider Up Button
Quick Menu Select Right Item	[R] Slider Up Button

On Foot and Flight Controls[ | ]

Icon	Action (On Foot)	Icon	Action (Flight)	etee Controller bindings
	Fire Weapon		Fire Weapons	[R] Tap zone hold + Index click
	Switch Weapon Mode		Switch Weapon Mode	[R] Trackpad middle click
-	-		Next Target	[L] Trackpad right click
-	-		Previous Target	[L] Trackpad left click
	Activate Secondary Weapon		Initiate Landing	[R] Trackpad middle touch long
	Perform Scan		Perform Scan	[R] Trackpad north click
	Turn Left		Roll Left	[R] Trackpad left click
	Turn Right		Roll Right	[R] Trackpad right click
	Perform Interaction		Flight Control Devices	Grip gesture
	Move (in all directions)	-	-	[L] Swipe the trackpad in the direction you want to go
	Run		Pulse Engine	[L] Trackpad north hold
	Jump (Jetpack)		Thrust	[L] Tap zone hold
	Analysis Visor	-	-	[L] Hold hand to head + Grip gesture
	Switch Visor Information	-	-	Slider Up Button
	Reload Weapon		Reload Weapon	Continue firing weapon
	Melee Attack	-	-	Grip gesture
	Zoom
	Show HUD
	Tag Marker
	Place Custom Marker

Exocraft[ | ]

Icon	Action	etee Controller bindings
	Accelerate	[L] Trackpad north hold
	Reverse	[L] Trackpad south hold
	Brake	[L] Trackpad middle touch long
	Jump	[L] Tap zone hold
	Boost	[R] Trackpad middle touch long
	Fire	[R] Tap zone hold + Index click
	Switch Weapon Mode	[R] Trackpad middle click
	Scan	[R] Trackpad north click
	Place Checkpoint
	Delete Checkpoint

Galactic Map[ | ]

Action	etee Controller bindings
Free camera	[R] Trackpad middle touch long
Move (in all directions)	[R] Tap zone hold + [R] move your arm in any direction
Next Filter	[R] Trackpad south click
Select Destination	[L] Trackpad south click
Scan Discoveries	[R] Trackpad north click
Close map	[R] Tap zone double tap
Free camera
Select my location	[L] Trackpad middle touch long
Select targeted system
Set waypoint	[L] Trackpad south click
Warp	[L] Tap zone hold
Extended information	[L] Tap zone touch