SteamVR Tracking upgrade to include support for more than two base stations

A Valve engineer published a blog post yesterday outlining some changes that are coming to its SteamVR Tracking system, including a prediction that the system will soon be able to support more than two base stations.

This could potentially open up new avenues of SteamVR game design to explore, since the system will presumably be capable of tracking larger and more complicated spaces as more base stations are used.

According to Valve, this is potentially possible because later this month it will begin rolling out a new sensor component for SteamVR Tracking (which it licenses out for other companies to use) that's capable of providing data when it's hit with a tracking laser. That new data can help the system identify where the lasers come from, evidently opening up room for the system to work with more than a pair of base stations.

If testing and manufacturing goes well, Valve says it plans to have "production quantities" of the new SteamVR Tracking system available in November, though it hopes to have engineering samples available for partners available later this month.

For more technical details on how the new system works, what it does, and how compatibility works between SteamVR Tracking 1.0 and 2.0, check out Valve's full post.