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 187508 times)

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #580 on: May 24, 2019, 10:56:21 AM »

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.

True.  Its flipper geometry makes it tough for the physics engine.  I might have to do some cheating with the visuals to get rid of the problem entirely.

I'll try that. I assume Button1 is Space, then?

Correct.  This is reconfigurable, but space is the default.

Yep, I'll send it over right away.

Excellent!  I'll see what I can do.  I had a brainstorm last night which will take some work but might make driving a lot smoother for all robots.

Offline F1Krazy

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #581 on: May 24, 2019, 11:02:41 AM »
Did my PM get through to you? The first time I tried, I got a "there's already a file with this name" error, and the second time I tried, I got a "you've already sent this PM" error. And GTM annoyingly doesn't save messages to your outbox by default, so I don't know whether either of them actually got sent.
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Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #582 on: May 24, 2019, 11:07:09 AM »
Problem is that the bots i was fighting had Steel armour. This OHKO also tends to happen to prebuilt bots

Was this happening even when the chassis had steel armor?  Steel armor on a large body should give a ton of HP that should take a while to chip through. 

The new puncturing system might be the culprit.  If a robot hits a UHMW piece that is easy to puncture, it will generate a ton of puncture damage that will carry over into the chassis.  I've seen cases where a spinner punctures a UHMW or MDF piece for a 45x damage multiplier.  Instead of just saying that the component is dead and stopping there, that damage is then transferred to the chassis.  This could easily disable a bot.  Need to nerf this.

The prebuilt bots don't use the same system, so we can give them infinite HP without affecting the Botlab robots.

Make Servo motors that have high torque?
As for the flipper arms, i have been using Hinged actuators which are op
Well tbh that is old wings, it does not use a hinged actuator for flipping


Ah!  I was wondering how your flippers were so powerful!  @tashic put them in, but I haven't experimented with them yet.



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

So weird...


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


Lighting probably?  Either that or post-processing.  They both could be contributing to an excess of blue.  I'm pretty sure the texture is grayscale.


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

Driving again!  Need to fix this! :)  I have something in mind.  I don't know if it will work, but it has the potential to make driving a lot smoother.

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #583 on: May 24, 2019, 11:15:37 AM »
Did my PM get through to you? The first time I tried, I got a "there's already a file with this name" error, and the second time I tried, I got a "you've already sent this PM" error. And GTM annoyingly doesn't save messages to your outbox by default, so I don't know whether either of them actually got sent.

I have not received a PM from you.  I just sent you a PM with my email address.

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #584 on: May 24, 2019, 11:23:44 AM »
Lighting probably?  Either that or post-processing.  They both could be contributing to an excess of blue.  I'm pretty sure the texture is grayscale.
Its throughout the whole game, so it might be post processing, UHMW is white tho
Also any chances to use an option to disable post processing? I have a feeling that that might be the culprit to the lag on lower end machines

As for driving, Just remove friction for now

Offline Gulden

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #585 on: May 24, 2019, 12:30:28 PM »
My current hypothesis on the whole Instant KO thing is that everything is treated like a part of the chassis.  Most of the time when I lose a bot, it's because it got hit in the wheel, weapon, or a thin weapon support.

I guess at the moment, everyone has RA2 logic in their head where if it isn't a part of the main chassis, it won't damage the bot when hit.
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Offline Hoppin

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #586 on: May 24, 2019, 12:32:34 PM »
My current hypothesis on the whole Instant KO thing is that everything is treated like a part of the chassis.  Most of the time when I lose a bot, it's because it got hit in the wheel or a thin weapon support.

I guess at the moment, everyone has RA2 logic in their head where if it isn't a part of the main chassis, it won't damage the bot when hit.

My assumption is that it being all chained to the chassis ripples in. Killing the chassis
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Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #587 on: May 24, 2019, 12:45:29 PM »
My current hypothesis on the whole Instant KO thing is that everything is treated like a part of the chassis.  Most of the time when I lose a bot, it's because it got hit in the wheel or a thin weapon support.

I guess at the moment, everyone has RA2 logic in their head where if it isn't a part of the main chassis, it won't damage the bot when hit.

My assumption is that it being all chained to the chassis ripples in. Killing the chassis

Agreed.  The easy fix is to stop all damage propagation, but getting parts to break off nicely becomes an issue in this case.

Another alternative is to just roll all components that are contained within the same rigid body into a single, combined HP number.  Don’t do breakage at all for components within a rigid body.  Everything that isn’t connected via a hinge joint would then be part of the chassis.

I’ll give this a go today to see how it feels.

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #588 on: May 24, 2019, 12:55:28 PM »
Lighting probably?  Either that or post-processing.  They both could be contributing to an excess of blue.  I'm pretty sure the texture is grayscale.
Its throughout the whole game, so it might be post processing, UHMW is white tho
Also any chances to use an option to disable post processing? I have a feeling that that might be the culprit to the lag on lower end machines

As for driving, Just remove friction for now

Interesting.  We’ll see if we can add disabling post processing to the “Low Quality” setting.

Friction coefficient is currently set to zero for all chassis materials.  I believe the reason things drive a little weirdly is that when the chassis skids along the floor the collision resolution impulse direction isn’t always purely vertical.  I have had luck in the past adding sphere colliders to the bottom of a robot to fix this.  I might try to do this automatically for all botlab robots.  I can see where this might make wedges a little less effective, as the tip of the wedge would be just slightly off the ground.  Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad if all robots were subject to the same limitation.

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #589 on: May 24, 2019, 01:45:09 PM »
Did my PM get through to you?

I just tried out Fait Accompli and fixed the concussion damage issue when the robot is driving around.  It turns out that I had set the minimum impulse limit ridiculously low such that pretty much every heavyweight would damage itself just by driving.

I also noticed that the axe didn't move when triggered.  I tried dropping the thickness of the steel used.  That did the trick.  Here are my settings:

Axe head (pyramid) - 6 mm steel - 0.481 kg
Axe shaft (cube) - 3 mm steel - 0.637 kg

Now to see what it does to other robots...

Offline F1Krazy

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #590 on: May 24, 2019, 01:55:36 PM »
Did my PM get through to you?

I just tried out Fait Accompli and fixed the concussion damage issue when the robot is driving around.  It turns out that I had set the minimum impulse limit ridiculously low such that pretty much every heavyweight would damage itself just by driving.

I also noticed that the axe didn't move when triggered.  I tried dropping the thickness of the steel used.  That did the trick.  Here are my settings:

Axe head (pyramid) - 6 mm steel - 0.481 kg
Axe shaft (cube) - 3 mm steel - 0.637 kg

Now to see what it does to other robots...
Oh, so the weapon actually did work, it was just too heavy for the motor? Well gee, now I feel stupid  :facepalm: I did actually run another test with Defcon and its weapon worked just fine (it even gyros now!), so I guess that was all that was wrong. I'll try your suggested weights, and also see what happens if I put a counterweight on the other end.

Glad you've got the driving issue sorted out, though!
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Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #591 on: May 24, 2019, 01:59:57 PM »
I'll try your suggested weights, and also see what happens if I put a counterweight on the other end.

Glad you've got the driving issue sorted out, though!

Thanks!

I also have a sneaking suspicion that when I tell the physics system to give me a certain number of Newton-meters of torque, the system isn't giving me that much torque.  I'll have to set up a test rig in Unity to see for sure.  I feel like the motor you are using should be able to swing that axe head around in real life.

FWIW I have a 6" diameter motor in the works for weapons, similar to the old E-teks.  I'm not sure how it would work for an axebot, but it should be killer for spinners.

Offline F1Krazy

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #592 on: May 24, 2019, 02:17:58 PM »
I'll try your suggested weights, and also see what happens if I put a counterweight on the other end.

Glad you've got the driving issue sorted out, though!

Thanks!

I also have a sneaking suspicion that when I tell the physics system to give me a certain number of Newton-meters of torque, the system isn't giving me that much torque.  I'll have to set up a test rig in Unity to see for sure.  I feel like the motor you are using should be able to swing that axe head around in real life.

FWIW I have a 6" diameter motor in the works for weapons, similar to the old E-teks.  I'm not sure how it would work for an axebot, but it should be killer for spinners.
I lowered the weight of the axe and it still didn't swing in the test area... then I switched the motor's activation button to Button 2 and then back to Button 1, and it worked perfectly. I think what might actually be happening is, where I've ported my bots over from the previous version, there's some sort of compatibility issue and it doesn't know what key should activate the robot's weapon until I go into the bot lab and tell it.

It now also doesn't self-right anymore, which might be because of the lowered weight, or it might be a torque issue. It was just about able to self-right in the previous build.
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Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #593 on: May 24, 2019, 02:34:50 PM »
I feel like the motor isn't quite torquey enough, and doesn't generate the tip speed it should.

For the moment I have set the minimum tip speed for rotating puncturing objects to be 10 m/s.  The axe isn't quite there, and doesn't seem to be able to get above 10 m/s there no matter how much I drop the mass.  The axe itself is breaking off from being hit before the tip does any damage to its opponent.

My brain is full and I need to head home.  I'll think about it on the drive home tonight.

Some options:
1. Reduce the tip speed requirement.  This is bad, because all of a sudden just bumping into stuff will cause damage.

2. Increase the motor torque.

Thinking about #2, I just checked the torque and saw that the stall torque on an AmpFlow A40-300 is only 27 Newton-meters.  This is pretty low, considering how we are asking it to swing a big heavy axe.

I'm going to pop in the geared version of the motor.  I have an Ampflow A28-400G already modeled.  Hopefully the 220 Newton-meters of the geared version will be enough to swing the axe in a satisfying way.

EDIT - Now that I'm thinking about it, even a 220 Nm (approximately 22 kg-meter) gear motor might have trouble turning over a 100 kg robot with an arm like that.  Need to do some calculations to be sure, but...

EDIT OF MY EDIT - Considering that the existing motor can just barely swing the arm now, it is no wonder that tip speed is not reaching 10 m/s.  The tip is basically just falling 1 meter from its peak, with barely any help from the motor.  A 1 meter fall only gives a speed of 4.4 m/s.  Must have bigger motor with more torque.

Offline Gulden

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #594 on: May 24, 2019, 05:24:32 PM »
Another fun discovery: attacking pieces that have fallen off a robot still deal damage.
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Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #595 on: May 24, 2019, 05:30:14 PM »
Another fun discovery: attacking pieces that have fallen off a robot still deal damage.

To the robot the piece fell off from?!  That is completely unintended and hilarious. :)

Offline Hoppin

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #596 on: May 24, 2019, 05:31:35 PM »
Another fun discovery: attacking pieces that have fallen off a robot still deal damage.

To the robot the piece fell off from?!  That is completely unintended and hilarious. :)

Unless this is the next meta game  :really_makes_you_think: heck
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Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #597 on: May 25, 2019, 07:48:22 AM »
Another fun discovery: attacking pieces that have fallen off a robot still deal damage.

To the robot the piece fell off from?!  That is completely unintended and hilarious. :)

Unless this is the next meta game  :really_makes_you_think: heck

As much as protecting your fallen bits seems like a cool mechanic, its fixed.

Wah wuh. :ermm:

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #598 on: May 28, 2019, 10:58:34 AM »
Small tip for laptop users
Ctrl+Mouse/trackpad movement = Camera roataes
Shift+Mouse/trackpad movement = Camera zooms in/out

Offline Thyrus

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #599 on: May 28, 2019, 12:59:10 PM »
An actioncam by default wouldn't hurt the game