Robot Arena 3

[RedSawn]

Do these wheels work when upside-down? Can you disable suspension? Can you just create one wheel, not pairs? I vaguely remember these being a problem that the developers outlined with the default wheel physics model.

http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-WheelCollider.html

No, technically, and yes. The whole pairs thing I figure is to do with what the Unity StandardAssets car example did - defining the wheels in two 2 object arrays according to their axles and using that to define which axle/pair can steer and/or is powered. If their source files have a lot of tutorial code, then it's likely it checks out.

(Though I just realized I was referring more to the RA3 devs more then t35t3d's example)

[t35t3d]

Do these wheels work when upside-down? Can you disable suspension? Can you just create one wheel, not pairs? I vaguely remember these being a problem that the developers outlined with the default wheel physics model.

Yes. Yes. Yes. They are just simple rigid-bodies with hinge-joint attached to spring(rigid-body) which is connected with configurable-joint to whole machine (Rigid-Body). RigidBody->HingeJoint->RigidBody->ConfigurableJoint->RigidBody. I'm not using default unity wheel collider – it is for racing games.

[TDS]

If they had as much trouble as me trying to get their robot gameobject hierarchy to cooperate with PhysX and get any sort of bot working, let alone with accurate physics, I can't really blame them for a low LPH...

(Been trying myself with a box chassis, motors with hingemotor axles and wheels, joints are never stiff enough even with the solver at 100, using rotational locking, anything)

I remember having the same issues playing around with 3d studio max back when ra2 was in beta.

Thats kind of the crux of the whole issue, my experience is with stress analysis, not game physics, but its roughly similar.
Instead of just transferring the forces that don't effect the spinning mass (in this case) to the parent body, the parts seem to be, at a engine-coded-level, retained by springs, which stress in whatever way, and then drag the next rigid body in the chain along with them.

While its a good system for modeling the kind of things people typically make in unity, it doesn't seem ideal for what we're doing.  I can only imagine that the locks involved, dont actually zero out and transfer the forces, but are still "springs" when you get down to it.

[RedSawn]

Has anyone noticed the image they use for the Workshop banner?



That's clearly a RA3 robot with DSL style chipped paint edge lines (going back to how there's a placeholder folder for edge lines in the custom folders) and a perfectly mapped chassis texture.
Of course I also thought that white/red chainsaw bot and the crocodile bear claw bot were really in the game too... but this is different. It fits the current sort of skin quality someone using the default decals and colour settings could achieve.

I guess the only thing is how long has it actually been up there.

[RedSawn]

Necessary evil double:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/363530/discussions/0/350532795338281729/?tscn=1465502656

Sloped bots are now working properly thanks to the new update that just launched a minute ago.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/249202181062123172

• You can now build Wedge Bots and other classic bot shapes! Arbitrary collision volumes have been implemented.
• Weight classes in the multiplayer lobby have been implemented.
• Starting a multiplayer match with no arena selected will no longer crash the game.
• Multiplayer matches now end correctly based on the combination of Destroyed and Immobilized bots.
• End of Round Multiplayer scenarios have been improved.
• Multiple component tweaks have been implemented.
• You can now view all pages of Steam Workshop bots.
• User interface messaging has been improved.
• Losing batteries now disables a bot.
• Arena hazards damages have been tweaked.
• The water in the Flex Top arena now damages bots.
• The Subway arena train hazard now triggers based on a timer and will destroy bots.
• Parking Lot arena physics have been adjusted.
• The manhole cover obstacle can now be triggered multiple times.

Expect a patch soon, fellas.

Loaded it up for 5 minutes - there's now weight class icons on player bots but no indication of what the weight brackets are or if there are any limits to HW (My 2050 EMERGENCY is still legal), and you can't see the weight class of the AI bots... didn't get enough time to wedge test.

[znedd1]

Has anyone tried the new collision detection yet?

EDIT: Seems to be working pretty well. I made a collision test bot, which seems to be interacting Ok.

[RedSawn]

It certainly works to a degree. Thyrus showed me his test bot which has a fairly oddly shaped chassis wedge that clips through the floor slightly. So the detection isn't quite perfect, but it's something.

[Naryar]

Hmm. The devs seem to be doing a good job at fixing their game.

Didn't buy it back, though.

[Tygron]

I did. Was doing a bit of testing earlier to see if it would be possible to chain motors and have a faster drive. The short answer yes, the should be long but not as long as it should be answer is eh while it works it doesn't really do much. Also was going to test using Zteks and carsteering to see if there's a happy balance between the two to make a fast but still skid steering bot. The answer to that is more complex and my simple testing wasn't really enough. Both axles aren't the same height and without a TON of fine tuning it never will be. But they're close. I managed to have a car steering in the middle and 4 zteks in the corners (still positioned normally though) and it managed to do both just fine. I used the medium tech wheels (or whatever they're called) for all tests. There was a test where, so I could get them out of the way quickly, I put the zteks on pairs of baseplate anker, tbar, and extender mounts. I'm not entirely sure what was causing it but that caused my bot to just start bouncing all over the place.

I'll do more testing later but my game crashed and had to restart my PC due to the annoying continuous stuttering that i've never been able to find a fix for other than restarting my PC. Thank God I have a case with a reset switch too because last time that happened it didn't go away until I hit that switch. Restarting, killing the power, unplugging, nothing worked.

[09090901]

Ra3 wiki out now

Hey all. We are still hoping to get another update out for Robot Arena III this week, but until then we thought you'd like to know about the Robot Arena III wiki page. Hosted by Gamepedia, the wiki will be another resource to turn to once users start populating it. Check it out here:

http://robotarena3.gamepedia.com/Robot_Arena_3_Wiki

http://steamcommunity.com/app/363530/discussions/0/351659704040054163/

[RedSawn]

Didn't take long for someone to deface it. Did my part adding stuff on the components page though. Not sure what the 'Ram' component section is supposed to be. Didn't have enough time to do weapons either. That and weapons don't seem to trigger a weight recalculation, which makes it a little more tedious to work out weapon weights.

[RFS]

I signed up and tried to use the "Claim this Wiki" option, but the Wiki software basically told me "no freeloaders, piss off". 

[Joelu Of Eagleland]

Didn't take long for someone to deface it.

As soon as I saw the wiki was a thing, I saw the text added in the about section someone else. For the record, I didn't do it.

[RedSawn]

Oh I'm sure you haven't. Only identifier is an IP address and anyone who took the link on the Steam discussion could have done it.

[RedSawn]

Another double-worthy post. I'm sorry. Third update out now.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/363530/announcements/detail/848181659410713986

Hello, Robot Arena players. We have another big update for Robot Arena III today, largely focused on faster motors, micro bot parts and changes to the physics system. There are still some networking issues present in this build, but we’re continuing to focus on this area and make improvements. In the meantime, this update includes a lot of tweaks and new content to address a lot of feedback we’ve received from the community.

Important note regarding wedge bots: Due to physics changes, bots that drag part of the chassis, such as wedge bots, now need to have a surface to slide on. You can use the ball casters, casters, small wedges, or fork lift arms mounted to your bot to create a sliding edge for these bots. Casters and ball casters can be flipped over with the Change Orientation button in the bot lab. Bots that are too low to the ground may need to be raised up a bit to prevent dragging.

Here’s a list of everything included in this new update:

- Massive improvement to motor physics. Much more speed, action, etc. Please note that the tweaks to motor performance may require you to tweak some of your existing robot designs. Fortunately, we’ve made it easier to do so!
- Motors have Torque and RPM controls to tune them.
- Reduce Torque on a motor to prevent bots from flipping.
-Reduce RPMs on a motor to limit its top speed.
- Heavy objects attached to motors will cause them to spin up more slowly than motors with light objects attached. Note, however, that some motors are very powerful and can spin quickly even with heavy weights attached.
- Improved friction model for faster handling, spins, drifts, etc.
- Bot components that drag on the ground will now cause proper friction, slowing the bot. Get your components up off the ground to avoid this.
- Previous "chassis dragging" bot designs (like wedges) will now encounter proper friction on the ground and may be hard to drive. To compensate, add ball casters, casters, small wedges or forklift arms, which have much lower friction and will allow you to slide the chassis close to the ground.
- Vastly reduced the chance of bots popping into the air upon minor collisions or compression of a chain of components.
- Tournaments now have weight limits. However the game currently does not check to see if the selected bot meets the limit until it is locked. To prevent this, do not use an unrestricted weight class bot in a tournament.
- Added mini control board for micro bots.
- Added mini battery for micro bots.
- Added mini CO2 tank for micro bots.
- Added super-heavy battery for big bots.
- Ramps have been removed from the testing facility for now.
- New networking interpolation has been added to smooth out the motion in multiplayer.
- Various bug fixes.

That’s it for this update. We have another update planned for early next week that should close off most of the remaining final issues.

- The Robot Arena III team

[Badger]

Can you still attach components in space and inside each other?

[kill343gs]

More stuff that sounds like improvements. I haven't delved back in yet as I've been busy, but I'm very interested as to where this is going.

[RedSawn]

Can you still attach components in space and inside each other?

Yes.

More stuff that sounds like improvements. I haven't delved back in yet as I've been busy, but I'm very interested as to where this is going.

From where I stand, yeah, it is. The driving physics are somewhat better with high power motors. They've opted for a system where you can change the max RPM % to spin at and max motor torque %, which I suppose adds some more fine-tuning, though why you'd purposefully put either below 100% without a serious control issue I don't know. I think the Reversible Angle motors are still getting shafted on performance (supposedly they're the 3rd heaviest spin motor behind the two Z-Teks, they should sit between the Mini and Redbird and go faster.. and have a motor sound) but otherwise you can make much faster bots. RA2-esque zero ground clearance seems to be a thing of the past if you want to drive at all as the chassis friction is overwhelming, I haven't tried a floor sitting chassis wedge though. Flying Squirrel digs into the floor hard if it tilts forward though, so probably bad news for those.

They've taken my advice and got rid of the motor start/stop sounds which takes care of a lot of the noise pollution, though they don't use a dynamic pitch and instead have it static based on what RPM % the motor is set to. Or maybe it just accelerates fast enough I can't tell with normal applications.

(I just checked Red Giant and it goes pretty rapidly on RAMs, so I think it's just the other robot with Reversibles I'm trying to use dragging across the floor. Would make sense)

[09090901]

Does online actually work now with all the fixes?

[Badnik96]

Online's always worked. Me and someone from the Garry's Wars group tested it a few weeks ago and it was definitely better than typical RA2 online. There's still some small lag, but from what I could tell everything worked.