This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - Clickbeetle
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 [9] 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 ... 174
161
« on: August 08, 2015, 09:45:32 PM »
click how long would it take to make FireArrow?
Not long, as replicas go. I haven't made any AW or BW replicas yet however, and I'm not going to until I can make a bunch and release them as an AI pack. (Not sure if that will ever happen.)
162
« on: August 08, 2015, 08:38:28 PM »
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42g9JHNZkJk&feature=youtu.be#
Unaired grudge match between Complete Control and Razorback, for anyone unwilling to click on random mysterious youtube links. I didn't even know Razorback was a VS. I guess that's another bot to skirt the active weapon rule, only it didn't work as well as it did for Bite Force. Looks like Complete Control got one lift and flip in because Razorback got upside-down somehow. Too bad they didn't catch that.
163
« on: August 04, 2015, 01:27:27 AM »
Moros looks fantastic! Good job click.. and mike 
Talking bout battlebots will there be some of the 2015 BBs be in this or is it only rework of the older ones?
Just reworking existing ones for now. I don't have time to make all-new replicas. Except possibly Phoenix. I mean, it's basically just a box with a T-Minus flipper arm. How hard can it be?
164
« on: August 04, 2015, 12:44:54 AM »
Making progress.  Man, that was a tough replica to make. So many curves and concavities. But I really like how it turned out. I was never quite satisfied with the old Ruiner replica; it looked a bit too cartoony and wasn't too good in combat. Moros has a blade that is all one piece, so it looks more realistic AND doesn't break so fast in battle. In fact, I think it's a bit too powerful at the moment. Now, at this point, I could AI what new replicas I have so far, and call DSL 2.2 finished. Buuuuut... I really want to tweak a few more replicas, particularly the American bots. HereticBlue's team is doing a fantastic job with the Robot Wars bots, to the point where anything I attempt with the DSL RW bots will be redundant at best. The American (Battlebots) bots, on the other hand, haven't been touched, and some of them need a boost. I want to make DSL focus on those bots. I count about 12 American replicas that would need updating. Many of those just need component balancing and weight reclassifying, so the work will go considerably faster than making new replicas. If I'm not finished by the end of the year, though, I'll take what I have and release it. That's a promise. Yep, I just set a deadline. DSL 2.2 will be out by the end of the year, one way or another.
165
« on: July 12, 2015, 01:26:08 AM »
But does the piston rod fire with the flipper like in real life flippers or would that make it complicated?
The piston is just cosmetic, unfortunately. You'll have to use your imagination to make the rod fire. Or put an extender on the back of the flipper or something.
166
« on: July 12, 2015, 01:18:01 AM »
Anyone else consider this? If Ghost Raptor got a replacement blade for its fight tomorrow night... That adjustable-height weapon gives it a unique advantage. With long enough reach, it could hit Icewave's engine and cause a hilarious upset.
There could still be an upset because Icewave might flip itself against that wedge, but it will be more of a disappointing upset.
People seem to be predicting victory for Icewave, but I think it's too close to call.
Also Stinger vs. Bronco is going to be awesome and may just decide the outcome of the whole event, given that Stinger is possibly the only bot with a good chance of beating Tombstone. (Other bots have a chance, but I wouldn't say a GOOD chance.) If Bronco wins, it's removing a major obstacle from Tombstone's path.
167
« on: July 11, 2015, 11:48:22 PM »
Okay, Knight was asking me about how to make wheels for the Robot Wars mod, so I'm going to bump this thread and provide a little more information. Gazea got the most important bit, which is use Serge's compiler and decompiler. Dummy's doesn't know how to handle node parents and will break any wheels you try to edit. After you do that, editing wheels is pretty much the same as any other component. The format is a bit different, however, so I'm just going to go over how wheels are set up so you know what you're doing. If you press F12 in the bot lab, you'll notice that all the wheels have a wonky collision box around them. This is something unique to wheels and is called the traction zone. It's invisible and doesn't collide with anything, but the game uses it to determine if a wheel is getting traction or not.  This zone needs to be slightly bigger than the wheel's actual collision mesh. If it's too small, the wheel won't get traction when it's supposed to and the bot won't move. If it's too big, funny things will happen when the bot gets close to walls. In the bot lab, you'll also notice that all the wheels are aligned to rotate on the Z axis. This is not a coincidence. Because RA2 is finicky, wheels will ONLY work if they spin on the Z axis. Keep that in mind if you're making a custom wheel model. Now let's look inside the gmf file, using the rubber wheel as an example. Wheels are funny because they have two separate objects in one file, the wheel itself and the traction zone. The thing about having two objects is, you can only use one attach point to put it on a bot, meaning that the other object is going to be hanging loose. Normally, the loose object will fall into the eternal gray abyss at the bottom of the bot lab, never to be seen again. To solve this problem, you need to link the two objects together. Motors do this with an axle constraint. Wheels do it with something called a node parent. Here's the relevant part in the gmf file.  The node parent is a blank "dummy" object that the other objects are linked to. It's usually called wheel_rbodies. To link the objects, you need to put a NODE_PARENT line right under the NODE_NAME, and specify the name of the node parent. This line does not appear in any other components, and is the reason why you can't use Dummy's compiler to work with wheels. The rest of the wheel gmf is like any other component until you get to the RB Collection at the bottom.  Here there are two rigidbody lists, where normally there is just one. The first one contains wheel_rbodies, the node parent. See that NUMBER_OF_CHILDREN line? That tells the game how many objects are linked to the node parent. In this case, it's 2. The second rigidbody list is like what you would find in any other component. There's one very important line here that you don't ever need to worry about with other components, however, and that is the DISABLE_COLLISIONS line for the traction zone. THIS NEEDS TO BE SET TO 1 or the wheel will turn red when you try to attach it in-game and tell you that components must not overlap other components. I think. It's been a while since I forgot to set that to 1. The .txt fileThe .txt file is pretty simple. There are just a couple of new lines that you won't see in other components. Here is what they do. contact = tells the game which object to use as the traction zone. grip = Think of grip as a speed multiplier. Bot speed is determined by motor power x wheel grip. "Normal" grip is around 1. Fast is 1.2, and "whooooa I can move my SHW with 2WD angle motors" is 2. resistance = Resistance is kind of hard to explain. It has to do with turning. The best way to figure it out is to mess with it and see how it affects your driving. Low resistance seems to result in more skidding and sliding, while high resistance seems to make sharper, tighter turns. All the stock wheels use resistance = 0.2, except the shiny hub wheel which has 0.12 because somebody at Gabriel made a typo, I guess. The maximum seems to be 1.
168
« on: July 11, 2015, 12:53:00 AM »
The unmodded game, not so much.
But if you know, or can teach how to make custom components, I've thought that RA2 would be a pretty good platform for designing and testing bots before building them in real life. Kind of like a CAD program with physics.
You might also be able to teach something with AI programming, though there are probably better programs out there for that.
169
« on: July 11, 2015, 12:41:48 AM »
This is amazing. I now have a hard deadline to get DSL 2.2 out. TBH, I'm thinking it is legit. That said, I could be wrong...
If you take a look at the source for the page, there is a hidden message that says "We hear you GameTechMods."
WD Encore Software, LLC, might be the company that purchased the rights to the game after ATARI went under. It looks likeir offices are in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
Isn't Clickbeetle from Minnesota?
Yeah, Eden Prairie is like half an hour from my house. I could go down there and spy in windows.  Not that it would do any good, since they're just the publisher and I doubt there's any development going on there. I don't think a year (or less?) is enough time to build the game we all want, but I'm cautiously optimistic that it will be at least comparable to RA2 with better physics, and since some of the same people are working on it, MAYBE it will still use Python so some of my modding knowledge will transfer? As long as my computer can run it (Intel integrated graphics  ), I plan to buy it when it comes out. Edit: I just thought, if they still have the source code for RA2 lying around somewhere at Gabriel, and use that as a base instead of building a new game from scratch, maybe a year is enough time? Too much to hope for?
170
« on: July 10, 2015, 11:29:51 PM »
Okay guys, I know I said it would be about another month before I was finished. I lied. I'm sorry. I also said I wouldn't be adding anything new at this point. I lied about that too. But I'm not sorry about it. This is something I think DSL has needed for a long time, especially since the popularity of IRL building.  Yep, it's a stock, balanced, front-hinge burst motor. No longer will IRL front-hinge flippers need to resort to the Judge burst! It comes in two flavors, VDMA (smaller, less powerful, moderate power consumption) and Storm (wider, more powerful, high power consumption), so you can make front-hinge flippers in any weight class you choose. Here's an example of what it looks like in use:  The front end can pass through the chassis so you can cram it into even the shallowest wedge. SO WHAT'S THE STATUS OF DSL 2.2 NOW? Components are 95% done. Just need to balance a few more replica parts at the end of the Extras menu that were not included in the DSL3 beta. Then I need to AI the replicas I've remade so far. My dad (a retired software engineer) is making a program that will automatically swap all the driving controls of all .bot files in a given directory (except ones without wheels) so you can easily update your bots and AI to the new wheels. It works so far in testing; he just needs to make it search in subfolders so it gets all the AI bots. And... wow, then I think it will be ready. Hard to imagine. I must be forgetting something. I'm looking forward to that as much as you are. Can't wait to stop working on this thing and build some bots. Will DSL 3 Beta robots be playable on DSL 2.2 or just break like they do on DSL 2.1?
They will be playable, although all the square extenders will get turned into round ones. A simple Find and Replace action in Notepad++ should fix that though. Good news. Can't wait to see the new balance, hopefully it has less normals everywhere than DSL3.
Much less normals. Weapon balance is different (heavy weapons got a boost) but all your old bots will still deal damage like they used to. Only problem I have is increasing the weight of stuff that doesn't get used much, unless the effectiveness of said items is improved, will mean they get used even less. But we shall see, I'm sure there's tricks up the sleeves.
Yep, effectiveness is improved. Basically, efficiency increases with weight now.
171
« on: March 31, 2015, 08:50:31 PM »
*poof*
Hey guys, sorry for disappearing again. Adult responsibilities and all that. Just dropping in to let you know what my current plans are for DSL3.
You may have already guessed this, but I'm never going to finish and release it.
Yep, DSL3 is technically cancelled. In the time since I started it, other people such as 123 and HereticBlue have made other complete mods and, arguably, done a better job than I could have managed. DSL isn't the only total conversion on the mod playground anymore, which is good for the community, but bad for DSL, as there is more competition for players. Where would DSL3 fit into the community? Would it get as big as DSL2 did? And if so, would DSL2 die out or would we have two versions of DSL in common use? Those kinds of questions prompted my decision to stop development on it.
BUT. Before you start an uproar, remember that is still April Fool's Day. Things are not all as they seem...
I am really cancelling DSL3. That much is true.
But I am also announcing DSL 2.2.
So... what's the difference between DSL3 and DSL 2.2, you ask? Well, a long time ago, I made a thread asking the community if they thought DSL3 should be backwards-compatible with DSL2 or not. The majority thought it should not be, so I started DSL3 essentially over from the ground up.
However, that was a long time ago, and the community is different now, and I have re-thought that decision. DSL2 is so well-established that it would be a shame to take away player support now. There are more mods available now and it would be harder for DSL3 to distinguish itself. So why not retool DSL3 to be backwards-compatible? Not as its own standalone mod, but as a much-needed patch for DSL 2.1.
Over the last month (when I picked up RA2 again) I have been busily translating component files for all my DSL3 stuff so it will work in DSL2 without breaking any existing bots. Yep, all your old DSL 2.1 bots will still work in DSL 2.2! They might not be as good as they used to be, since I've rebalanced some stuff, and they might be slightly overweight, since I've edited the mass on a few things, but THEY WILL WORK. And I've tried to minimize the amount of conversion you'll need to do between 2.1 and 2.2. Specifically, I have avoided adding normals to commonly-used weapons that didn't already have them, and avoided making any commonly-used components much heavier. Stuff like battle axes that nobody ever uses, for example, I felt I could safely make a lot heavier, but razors are still 7 kg and have no normals. In addition, I made a lot of common components such as extenders and wheels lighter, so your bots will probably, on average, actually lose more weight than they gain.
There are a couple advantages to this approach.
+ I don't have to remake all the replicas. (The ones I have already remade will still be included, though.)
+ You will be able to use DSL 2.1 AI packs right away in DSL 2.2.
+ All the old DSL 2.1 components are still available in 2.2, including replica parts (which were missing in the DSL3 beta).
+ All the DSL3 beta parts will be available too (yes, there are both round and square extenders now).
+ Less work for me to do!
I was hoping to have a working version ready for release today, but that didn't work out. So far I have extenders and weapons fully implemented and am working on the motors. I am not working on any new stuff at this point, just on combining DSL 2.1 with DSL3. When I'm done with that I will release it as DSL 2.2.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to continue working on that. I probably won't hang around here much until it's done. I really want to get this out before I get involved in building and tournaments and stuff again. I will play RA2 again, but the DSL 2.2 project takes priority. So I'll see you in another month or so!
*poof*
172
« on: July 12, 2014, 03:42:54 PM »
I assume they're a lot more stringent with weapon rules, since these vehicles have obvious weak points.
I looked at the rules; the only weapons allowed are BB guns, up to 150 psi, and not elevated above the horizontal. There are also rules about how strong the boat's hull can be, so you can't make it unsinkable. It looks fun though, if you don't try to compare it to Battlebots or Robot Wars. They're really not the same at all.
173
« on: July 12, 2014, 03:01:31 PM »
Whoa that's pretty cool. Nice use of bear claws for a mouth and ripping teeth for horns.
It looks like that RW house bot that was introduced later in the show's life. Mr. Psycho, I think it's called.
Can't say I like the name though. I mean, "Terrorcide", if we assume the grammar is correct (which it isn't), means "killing of fear". So you're implying that this bot takes away terror, not causes it.
174
« on: July 12, 2014, 12:12:37 PM »
Ironforge sounds fun. Nothing like a good tournament to build hype for a new mod.
Would the weight penalties and bonuses still exist if this was in Ironforge? Or just standard HW with nothing else fancy?
175
« on: July 11, 2014, 10:20:03 PM »
Here's a cool bot that makes no attempt at being IRL. Pokers are boss in this mod.  5mm steel armor. The sickle on top stops bots from jumping over the wedge and also helps it self-right.
176
« on: July 10, 2014, 10:55:07 PM »
Man, Cold Snap's last fight was close. I thought I would lose the second round, and then thought I would win the third. Would've preferred to win, but it was a good loss.
So now my last two bots are fighting each other. Yay. [/sarcasm] Red Sky should win, which is good, as it has a much better chance of winning than Chain Reaction does. If I could have one of my bots forfeit to ensure the other goes on, I would pick Red Sky to go on.
177
« on: July 10, 2014, 09:55:18 PM »
You likely have me to thank for that I just recently PM'd Vertigo about putting Explosion and Eruption in DSL, and he sent me those pictures. I meant to send them on to you to see if you could work on them while I did some US replicas. Looks like Vertigo went ahead and took the initiative! Good thing I hadn't started working on them myself yet. I have no idea how you work so fast. That was just this Sunday that Vertigo sent the pictures. I would never guess it was made so quickly by looking at it, though. It looks fantastic. If you don't mind, can you send me Eruption? I don't know exactly which UK replicas will be included in DSL, but I know that will be one of them, as it was built by a GTM member.
178
« on: July 09, 2014, 11:58:24 PM »
So normally I would never need to ask this, but for this tournament I'm wondering... can I do unnatural things with the AI, like make it shoot lightning or throw bots with Force powers, as long as it stays roughly balanced?
179
« on: July 09, 2014, 11:26:43 PM »
Thunderclap looks sweet with the Mjolnir war hammer thing.
What armor does it have? The secret to that design is to make the chassis as heavy as possible so it doesn't tip over.
180
« on: July 08, 2014, 02:11:40 AM »
With a blackbird, does your lightweight spaz out like my lightweights do? The motors just seem to be too fast for them. I have to settle with the lowest speed to get it controlled.
define 'spaz out'. it isnt as fast as ihbey 1, around as fast as ihbey 2 / background music, can do a decent amout of damage but flips itself over when the right way up. xP
Most of my LWs spaz out too (meaning, trigger a Havok explosion when they move). However, some work just fine for whatever reason. Ihbey must be one of those special few.
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 [9] 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 ... 174
|
Show Posts