simulator sickness with aerobatic flight sim

i'm developing a flight sim game where you have to fly close to the ground (20meters AGL or so and 100mph) and get trough gates (red bull air race kind of thing). i'm getting as motion sick as if i was in the real airplane (full marks for realism but not nice as i can only fly about 1 minute before i want to throw up)

is this going to get better over time? am i doing something wrong? is a high speed, low level close to the ground flying game just a really bad idea?

 

In general, virtual movement while you sit calmly on your chair leads to a mismatch between vestibular and visual input = motion sickness. So a lot of the established genres are problematic like FPS shooters. There are people who don't get sick (or don't get sick anymore after getting their 'VR legs') but as a rule of thumb you will have to take into account that the majority of first time players will feel uncomfortable with such an app.
Now there's some good news aswell:
You said you're doing a flight sim. Being enclosed by a static cockpit (it moves with you) helps a lot against motion sickness. I am pretty affected by motion sickness in general, but can play elite:dangerous for 5 hours in a row in VR without problems. So I'd recommend to give your game a nice cockpit (no 3rd person).
If you already have a cockpit, theres another thing to consider: in elite:d you don't have up and down, no horizon. You have a horizon, low level and speedy turns. Might be that this kind of rides is only for people with a strong stomach.

 

thanks for the feedback. yes, i think my game, like the real thing, is only for people with strong stomachs, but i am slowly getting used to as as i develop the game, so i guess my players will too.

one big thing i notice, having real depth perception and instant ability to look around makes a flight sim 1000% better in VR than on a 2D monitor (or even a wall of monitors), even though its a bit motion sickness inducing.

by the way, does Elite Dangerous work on rift SDK 0.7? i read that it isn't working.

 

It doesn't work with 0.7 ... sadly.
Yeah, I can't imagin playing E or anything similar on a regular monitor any longer. That (and others feel the same) shows me, that VR will have a market, no matter what analysts and naysayers (haha guys who think its like 3DTV) might think. If nothing else, VR will start with gamers that use it for driving and flying. It won't vanish from this genre, cause you never can go back once you drove or flew in VR. From there it might move into other genres.
As I said, that's my worst case scenario, could also be, that it hits a lot of other gamers and people who just like experiences as well.

 

thanks again for the input. i'd like to send you a copy of my game when i have something to show. see what you think. i havs the flight model working well now but i'm way deep in terrain land, i want it to look perfect, even at 20ft AGL

 

Would be happy to give you feedback, I'll send you my email adress via PM.