Poll

What do you like doing most in RA2/RA3/robot combat games?

Building robots
Local single player battles with manually-controlled robots
Local multiplayer battles  with manually-controlled robots (PvP with controllers or a shared keyboard)
AI-only tournament battles
Other?  Please comment below.

Author Topic: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development  (Read 187616 times)

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #560 on: May 17, 2019, 05:39:39 PM »
I also switched to PhysX 3.4 from PhysX 3.3.  This significantly reduced CPU load, but might have messed with other things as well.

Offline TheRoboteer

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #561 on: May 17, 2019, 06:01:49 PM »
2 wheel drive bots just seem to straight up not work this update. The chassis seems to have a ton of friction with the floor which makes bots unable to turn, and motors seem to have less torque too which doubles this issue.

Will report further after I play the update more

For new robots, or existing ones?  I set motors to their IRL torque-speed curves for this build.  They should be a little different than before.  Balance is really important in general.  Does shifting the weight distribution help?
This was on existing bots
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Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #562 on: May 17, 2019, 06:25:07 PM »
2 wheel drive bots just seem to straight up not work this update. The chassis seems to have a ton of friction with the floor which makes bots unable to turn, and motors seem to have less torque too which doubles this issue.

Will report further after I play the update more

For new robots, or existing ones?  I set motors to their IRL torque-speed curves for this build.  They should be a little different than before.  Balance is really important in general.  Does shifting the weight distribution help?
This was on existing bots

Shoot.  I will take a look at it next week to see what I can do.

Offline TheRoboteer

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #563 on: May 17, 2019, 06:37:00 PM »
2 wheel drive bots just seem to straight up not work this update. The chassis seems to have a ton of friction with the floor which makes bots unable to turn, and motors seem to have less torque too which doubles this issue.

Will report further after I play the update more

For new robots, or existing ones?  I set motors to their IRL torque-speed curves for this build.  They should be a little different than before.  Balance is really important in general.  Does shifting the weight distribution help?
This was on existing bots

Shoot.  I will take a look at it next week to see what I can do.
Just to clarify, by existing bots, I mean bots that I built in a previous update, rather than the AI bots in game
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Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #564 on: May 17, 2019, 06:53:53 PM »
Just to clarify, by existing bots, I mean bots that I built in a previous update, rather than the AI bots in game

Would you mind sending me the bots you are using for testing?  It should make it a little easier to compare things vs the ones I already have.

Offline CodeSilver23

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #565 on: May 19, 2019, 08:46:49 AM »
Here is my feedback for the new update:
- I love how you can now make beetleweight robots. The main issue is that there is so much friction on the tires, and it won't let me turn. Also, when I was building one, it wouldn't let me re-select a motor.
- Parts actually fall off! Yay! The only issue is that small parts fall off way too easy. I would recommend having a set minimum for damage, and have it not be based completely off of weight.
- The AI builder is good to have, but it would be helpful to have it already working. I made a spinner, and the AI wouldn't do anything with the weapon for the entire match. It would also be nice to have a pre-made list for you to choose from, like one setup for spinners, flippers, and whatnot.
- The motors can't do sh**e! I made an attempt at a very light-weight hammer, and it couldn't even lift it.  :vista:
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Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #566 on: May 21, 2019, 03:24:25 PM »
Here is my feedback for the new update:
- I love how you can now make beetleweight robots. The main issue is that there is so much friction on the tires, and it won't let me turn. Also, when I was building one, it wouldn't let me re-select a motor.
- Parts actually fall off! Yay! The only issue is that small parts fall off way too easy. I would recommend having a set minimum for damage, and have it not be based completely off of weight.
- The AI builder is good to have, but it would be helpful to have it already working. I made a spinner, and the AI wouldn't do anything with the weapon for the entire match. It would also be nice to have a pre-made list for you to choose from, like one setup for spinners, flippers, and whatnot.
- The motors can't do sh**e! I made an attempt at a very light-weight hammer, and it couldn't even lift it.  :vista:

Lots of fixes coming here shortly:
1. Parts don't come off until they receive about 20 times as much damage.  Before they fall off, they propagate damage up to their parent component.  This means that if you keep hitting the same spot you will eventually damage the chassis.
2. The AI builder should fire button 1 when close.  There was apparently a bug which prevented anyone from pressing button 1, which has been fixed.
3. I just added a super low gear ratio 37 mm motor.  It can flip beetleweights now.  I feel like the existing gear motor should have been able to lift other robots, but for some reason 1 Newton-meter of torque didn't translate into 10 Newtons of force at 10 cm.  The new motor has a LOT more torque, so it should do the trick.
4. I tweaked Manta, TR3, and Earthquake.  They all flip in different ways.
5. You can now use a laptop trackpad in the botlab.  Woohoo!  Building robots on the work computer! :)

I still have more tweaking and balancing to do, but hopefully should be able to push something out in the next 24 hours...

Offline CodeSilver23

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #567 on: May 22, 2019, 11:34:01 AM »
Here is my feedback for the new update:
- I love how you can now make beetleweight robots. The main issue is that there is so much friction on the tires, and it won't let me turn. Also, when I was building one, it wouldn't let me re-select a motor.
- Parts actually fall off! Yay! The only issue is that small parts fall off way too easy. I would recommend having a set minimum for damage, and have it not be based completely off of weight.
- The AI builder is good to have, but it would be helpful to have it already working. I made a spinner, and the AI wouldn't do anything with the weapon for the entire match. It would also be nice to have a pre-made list for you to choose from, like one setup for spinners, flippers, and whatnot.
- The motors can't do sh**e! I made an attempt at a very light-weight hammer, and it couldn't even lift it.  :vista:

Lots of fixes coming here shortly:
1. Parts don't come off until they receive about 20 times as much damage.  Before they fall off, they propagate damage up to their parent component.  This means that if you keep hitting the same spot you will eventually damage the chassis.
2. The AI builder should fire button 1 when close.  There was apparently a bug which prevented anyone from pressing button 1, which has been fixed.
3. I just added a super low gear ratio 37 mm motor.  It can flip beetleweights now.  I feel like the existing gear motor should have been able to lift other robots, but for some reason 1 Newton-meter of torque didn't translate into 10 Newtons of force at 10 cm.  The new motor has a LOT more torque, so it should do the trick.
4. I tweaked Manta, TR3, and Earthquake.  They all flip in different ways.
5. You can now use a laptop trackpad in the botlab.  Woohoo!  Building robots on the work computer! :)

I still have more tweaking and balancing to do, but hopefully should be able to push something out in the next 24 hours...


Sounds good!
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Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #568 on: May 22, 2019, 12:11:03 PM »
Lots of fixes coming here shortly:
1. Parts don't come off until they receive about 20 times as much damage.  Before they fall off, they propagate damage up to their parent component.  This means that if you keep hitting the same spot you will eventually damage the chassis.
Honestly, you couldve buffed up the hp multiplier for stuff by 400%

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #569 on: May 22, 2019, 06:23:14 PM »
So up until now, material selection hasn’t affected damage resistance.  I’m starting to address that in the next build.  The 1 mm thick UHMW on Holy Wings flipper is not going to last long though.  😊

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #570 on: May 22, 2019, 07:07:15 PM »
I’m going to attempt to make a distinction between hardness and toughness:

UHMW is a very tough material.  It will take a lot of hits, but is susceptible to puncture because it is not hard.

Polycarbonate is a harder material, but brittle.  It will resist puncture, but is susceptible to shock.

Offline Billy5545

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #571 on: May 22, 2019, 11:16:02 PM »
Nice armor mechanism. That will make concussion or piercing, or RA2's equivalent of shock or puncture, far meaningful and important

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #572 on: May 23, 2019, 02:08:42 AM »
So up until now, material selection hasn’t affected damage resistance.  I’m starting to address that in the next build.  The 1 mm thick UHMW on Holy Wings flipper is not going to last long though.  😊
Most of people use 1mm armour on flippers, niw that there is actual damage and durability mechanism, people will be smarter

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #573 on: May 24, 2019, 05:57:22 AM »
Bugglebots built #2 is up!

https://robot-rumble.itch.io/builds


Also, our Bugglebots teaser trailer.  Thanks Callum!





[Added in Bugglebots Build #1]
  • Robot Workshop - Beetleweight parts!  There are now a selection of geared and ungeared beetleweight-sized motors, just in time to make your very own virtual BuggleBot.
  • Robot Workshop - Share your .RR2Bot files!  Robots can be saved, loaded, and even manually shared via the custom *.RR2Bot file.  We are slowly converging on a format.  The most recent version of the *.RR2Bot format includes custom textures and miniscript AI code encoded as Base64.  If you are familiar with .json files, be sure to check it out!
  • You can now use a laptop trackpad in the botlab.  Woohoo!  Building robots on the work computer! :)
  • Robot Workshop - AI coding works!  It is still pretty rudimentary, but if you feel up to it, you can write new AI for each robot.   Can you beat the existing AI in the game?
  • Beetle Crab, the very first beetleweight robot in the game!  It is a teensy tiny version of the featherweight Crabsolutely Clawfull.

[New in Bugglebots Build #2]
  • Armor is now much more effective.  Armor material is now taken into account.  Plastic will still get completely trashed in a heavyweight!
  • Renamed "UV Check Material" to Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF).  We use MDF for prototyping our robots, so I figured this was a good real-world proxy.  Wouldn't want to put it into a heavyweight...
  • TR3, Manta, and Earthquake's flippers work now.
  • I added a super-low gear ratio 37 mm motor for beetleweight flippers.  Its a little extreme, but it will lift a robot.
  • Added a new damage system which distinguishes between hardness and toughness (UHMW is tougher, Polycarbonate is harder).
  • Buffed beetleweight spinners.  They aren't very powerful compared to their heavyweight counterparts, but a small spinner can now pull the foam wheels off of a small robot.

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #574 on: May 24, 2019, 08:24:16 AM »
Played it: here is the feedback
1. Flipper motors are still broken, they flip and break off
2. Music is added back, and i cant mute it
3. Worst one, you either get one hit KO'ed or do a one Hit KO

Offline F1Krazy

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #575 on: May 24, 2019, 08:40:53 AM »
Okay so I just tried this out and just from the first few minutes I have this feedback:

  • Manta's flipper is really havok-y. It manages one or two flips that yeet me right into the ceiling, and then it spends the rest of the fight propelling itself around the arena at warp-speed while its flipper panel glitches into another dimension. I've had the same issue with Goodbye Kiss's axe in the past, dunno if that helps at all. Earthquake's flipper doesn't close properly, preventing it from firing more than once or twice. TR3's flipper seems to work fine.
  • None of my robots' weapons work anymore. I get that you can now choose which button fires them, but the dropdown just says "Button1", "Button2" etc, with no clue as to what those buttons actually are. Is it possible that you added controller compatibility for Bugglebots, but broke keyboard compatibility in the process?
  • Bots still seem too fragile. I thought this might have been just Fait Accompli and its 3mm steel, which is the bare minimum for a real-life HW, but then I noticed that sometimes, I'll start taking massive damage while just driving normally, without my opponent anywhere near me. I can only imagine that my robot is somehow rubbing against the floor, and the game is interpreting that as damage. Ignoring the fact that a 6WD robot like Fait Accompli shouldn't be touching the floor with anything but its wheels in the first place, this should not be enough to kill you in two seconds.
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Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #576 on: May 24, 2019, 08:54:57 AM »
Played it: here is the feedback
1. Flipper motors are still broken, they flip and break off
2. Music is added back, and i cant mute it
3. Worst one, you either get one hit KO'ed or do a one Hit KO

1. and 3. - I've been testing with Holy Wings versus a horizontal spinner.  I have found that if you leave everything on Holy Wings at 1 mm UHMW, the heavy spinning bar will indeed one-hit destroy any UHMW that it touches.  This is fairly realistic.  1 mm UHMW is like protecting your robot with cardboard against a big spinner.  If you armor everything with about 5 mm of steel, however, Holy Wings survives a lot longer. 

The biggest problem I am finding now is that the motors don't have enough torque to lift the flipper arms fast enough to work as flippers against another heavyweight.  Now that all of the UHMW has been replaced by thicker steel armor, Holy Wings is just a wedge that can wave "hi!" with its flipper arms.  I'm not sure how the bigger AmpFlow PMDC motors would work as flippers in real life either.  To my knowledge people tend to use pneumatics for heavyweight flippers.

2. So sorry about the music!  I'm not sure what happened here, but we definitely need to fix this. 

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #577 on: May 24, 2019, 09:04:25 AM »
Okay so I just tried this out and just from the first few minutes I have this feedback:

  • Manta's flipper is really havok-y. It manages one or two flips that yeet me right into the ceiling, and then it spends the rest of the fight propelling itself around the arena at warp-speed while its flipper panel glitches into another dimension. I've had the same issue with Goodbye Kiss's axe in the past, dunno if that helps at all. Earthquake's flipper doesn't close properly, preventing it from firing more than once or twice. TR3's flipper seems to work fine.
  • None of my robots' weapons work anymore. I get that you can now choose which button fires them, but the dropdown just says "Button1", "Button2" etc, with no clue as to what those buttons actually are. Is it possible that you added controller compatibility for Bugglebots, but broke keyboard compatibility in the process?
  • Bots still seem too fragile. I thought this might have been just Fait Accompli and its 3mm steel, which is the bare minimum for a real-life HW, but then I noticed that sometimes, I'll start taking massive damage while just driving normally, without my opponent anywhere near me. I can only imagine that my robot is somehow rubbing against the floor, and the game is interpreting that as damage. Ignoring the fact that a 6WD robot like Fait Accompli shouldn't be touching the floor with anything but its wheels in the first place, this should not be enough to kill you in two seconds.

1. Re: Manta - Oof.  I struggled with Manta for about three hours on Tuesday night.  In the game, pneumatics use a plunger system that pushes on the lifting arm to cause it to raise.  In Manta's case, the plunger is really far back, which means that the physics engine can do wonky things as the plunger penetrates the flipper arm and the physics engine computes the impulse required to resolve the collision.  I thought I had it working well, but you aren't the first one to report that it is broken.

Back to the drawing (tweaking) board...

2. Re: Unworking weapons - There is still a bug that I haven't found that sometimes prevents button inputs from being read.  This is an intermittent problem.  My workaround has been to go back to the Robot Selection screen and start over.  For me starting over fixes it about 70% of the time.  I definitely need to track this down, but each time I think I have solved it, it pops up again.

3. Re: Driving damage - You are absolutely right.  Driving normally shouldn't damage a robot.  Somehow or another something is registering a collision with a ton of impulse.  Would you mind sending me Fait Accompli?  I would like to do some testing.  I have a few things I have in mind to improve driving dynamics that might solve this problem as well.

Offline F1Krazy

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #578 on: May 24, 2019, 09:37:55 AM »
1. Re: Manta - Oof.  I struggled with Manta for about three hours on Tuesday night.  In the game, pneumatics use a plunger system that pushes on the lifting arm to cause it to raise.  In Manta's case, the plunger is really far back, which means that the physics engine can do wonky things as the plunger penetrates the flipper arm and the physics engine computes the impulse required to resolve the collision.  I thought I had it working well, but you aren't the first one to report that it is broken.

Back to the drawing (tweaking) board...
I think Manta's flipper has been broken for a while tbh, I managed to make it glitch out at least once in the previous build.

2. Re: Unworking weapons - There is still a bug that I haven't found that sometimes prevents button inputs from being read.  This is an intermittent problem.  My workaround has been to go back to the Robot Selection screen and start over.  For me starting over fixes it about 70% of the time.  I definitely need to track this down, but each time I think I have solved it, it pops up again.
I'll try that. I assume Button1 is Space, then?

3. Re: Driving damage - You are absolutely right.  Driving normally shouldn't damage a robot.  Somehow or another something is registering a collision with a ton of impulse.  Would you mind sending me Fait Accompli?  I would like to do some testing.  I have a few things I have in mind to improve driving dynamics that might solve this problem as well.
Yep, I'll send it over right away.
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Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #579 on: May 24, 2019, 10:05:19 AM »
1. and 3. - I've been testing with Holy Wings versus a horizontal spinner.  I have found that if you leave everything on Holy Wings at 1 mm UHMW, the heavy spinning bar will indeed one-hit destroy any UHMW that it touches.  This is fairly realistic.  1 mm UHMW is like protecting your robot with cardboard against a big spinner.  If you armor everything with about 5 mm of steel, however, Holy Wings survives a lot longer. 
Problem is that the bots i was fighting had Steel armour. This OHKO also tends to happen to prebuilt bots

The biggest problem I am finding now is that the motors don't have enough torque to lift the flipper arms fast enough to work as flippers against another heavyweight.  Now that all of the UHMW has been replaced by thicker steel armor,
Make Servo motors that have high torque?
As for the flipper arms, i have been using Hinged actuators which are op

Holy Wings is just a wedge that can wave "hi!" with its flipper arms.  I'm not sure how the bigger AmpFlow PMDC motors would work as flippers in real life either.  To my knowledge people tend to use pneumatics for heavyweight flippers.
Well tbh that is old wings, it does not use a hinged actuator for flipping

Another oddity that i find is that when keys are binded, it keeps the control (lets say space), but if i rebind it again, the old imput key (space) will stay written while the new key will be functional

Also Metals have this odd Blue-ish tint where tint RGB is set on all to 1

AAAAAAlso like it how lightweight bots have great driving, but HW bots tend to bounce, 4wd ones atleast