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 187655 times)

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #660 on: July 10, 2019, 09:07:53 AM »
Hey guys.  Another free public alpha is coming out by the beginning of next week.  For this build:

1. Massive spinner update.
2. Pulleys.
3. Flippers.

We have reworked physics so that everything is energy-based.  As shown in the GIF above, you can get a handy realtime readout of your spinner’s energy in the test cage.  This should be handy if you are using the game to prototype designs for your real-life robots.  My plan is to use energy for damage too, but I’m not sure if that will be ready for this build.

Not shown in the GIF: The theoretical maximum kinetic energy for a spinner will be displayed too, if you want to design a tournament with energy limits.  It is also handy to see how much your design is losing to friction.
Hopefully the drive and damage isnt broken so i can continue with hosting stuff


Offline Wambo

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #662 on: July 10, 2019, 09:11:41 AM »
Ok, I'm not very good at posting images

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #663 on: July 10, 2019, 09:22:35 AM »
Hopefully the drive and damage isnt broken so i can continue with hosting stuff

I'll do my best. 

Drive: Reworking spinners required reworking drive as well.  Unity physics doesn't like it when you throw big heavy masses around at anything more than a few hundred RPM.  Spinners can now go 8,000+ RPM, so I had to adjust the dynamics so that Unity stays happy.  I didn't have to go completely back to the drawing board with drive, but drive required a TON of tweaks.  Hopefully it is pretty close to where it needs to be.

Damage: I haven't addressed damage yet.  I'm hoping to do that over the next few days.  My goal this fall is to completely rethink how damage is done, moving away from hit points to a more realistic system of ripping, puncturing, and breaking.  If you tap a motor with a high energy spinner, that motor should break.  The idea is that you protect your motors with armor that someone needs to break off / puncture to get to the sensitive bits inside.

Update: I'm working on spinner "bite" right now.  The idea is that if you make something that spins too fast and/or come at an opponent too slowly, the spinner won't get any bite, and it will just bounce of the opponent instead without releasing much kinetic energy.

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #664 on: July 10, 2019, 09:27:21 AM »
Ok, I'm not very good at posting images

No worries!  I just figured it out recently too.  You just need to hit "(Insert Attachment 0)" to add the attachment inside of the post.  I think you can only do it on the original post though.  I haven't figured out how to move the image to the body of the post after the fact.

Nice mockup!  We don't have a gearing system built yet, but you might want to use chain drive once the update comes out!

Offline Wambo

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #665 on: July 10, 2019, 09:30:01 AM »
Hopefully the drive and damage isnt broken so i can continue with hosting stuff

I'll do my best. 

Drive: Reworking spinners required reworking drive as well.  Unity physics doesn't like it when you throw big heavy masses around at anything more than a few hundred RPM.  Spinners can now go 8,000+ RPM, so I had to adjust the dynamics so that Unity stays happy.  I didn't have to go completely back to the drawing board with drive, but drive required a TON of tweaks.  Hopefully it is pretty close to where it needs to be.

Damage: I haven't addressed damage yet.  I'm hoping to do that over the next few days.  My goal this fall is to completely rethink how damage is done, moving away from hit points to a more realistic system of ripping, puncturing, and breaking.  If you tap a motor with a high energy spinner, that motor should break.  The idea is that you protect your motors with armor that someone needs to break off / puncture to get to the sensitive bits inside.

Update: I'm working on spinner "bite" right now.  The idea is that if you make something that spins too fast and/or come at an opponent too slowly, the spinner won't get any bite, and it will just bounce of the opponent instead without releasing much kinetic energy.
Well... now I know, what I will do the next few weeks :mrgreen:

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #666 on: July 10, 2019, 09:31:06 AM »
This game is so cool! It is like RA3, but every mistake has been fixed. (those were a lot of mistakes)

Not every mistake!

We still need to get rid of component clipping (i.e. make sure you can't place motors inside of other motors).  Anything else?

Plus, I would like to say that our physics is a touch more involved. :)

Offline Badger

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #667 on: July 10, 2019, 02:48:08 PM »
I stopped following this for a short while, but this new update sounds super interesting. I'm looking forward to playtesting it!
also lol at most toxic guy around calling others out on this sh**
Google Drive with my newer bots

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #668 on: July 11, 2019, 07:53:24 PM »
Glancing blows are now a thing for spinners.  To deliver blows with maximum force you need to position yourself to give your bar maximum bite.  Upward vertical spinners should behave very differently from downward spinners.  If your spinner is out of balance, it will wobble, and you will see that it won't be able to get up to as high RPM in the test cage telemetry screen.

If I get around to it, I'm thinking of building a spinner "bite" analyzer that will reward good spinner design.  Not there yet.  At the moment, an 8-sided drum, a 1-toothed drum, and a symmetrical bar all have the same bite.  Maybe that's good enough.  Dunno.

Here's a screenshot showing the difference between a glancing blow and a direct hit.  All of these blows were delivered with a weapon spinning at around 990 RPM.

 
GlancingBlowData.png

Offline Wambo

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #669 on: July 12, 2019, 07:04:26 AM »
This game keeps getting better with every day

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #670 on: July 12, 2019, 04:05:36 PM »
Spinner air drag is now a thing.  Air drag is computed based on the speed and geometry of the spinner.  It is really hard to make a big spinner go super fast now.

Offline Wambo

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #671 on: July 13, 2019, 03:14:39 AM »
It would be cool to have an option, where you can turn a spinner down. This will be very useful, if you want to build replicas.

Offline [cringey name goes here]

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #672 on: July 13, 2019, 05:54:52 AM »
It would be cool to have an option, where you can turn a spinner down. This will be very useful, if you want to build replicas.
what do you mean by that
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Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #673 on: July 13, 2019, 07:39:18 AM »
Spinner air drag is now a thing.  Air drag is computed based on the speed and geometry of the spinner.  It is really hard to make a big spinner go super fast now.
Ah so deep six clones are gonna be a hassle to make

Offline WhamettNuht

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #674 on: July 13, 2019, 08:01:45 AM »
I noticed you’ve included flippers in the next build. Out of interest -  is the same damage physics rules that’s been built for the spinners going to apply to flippers? (E.g, the kinetic force from both being launched and hitting the ground at greater speeds = more damage?). I feel like that’s something which RA2 was definitely missing, hence why the only real competitive ‘flippers’ where the pop-ups.

Cannot wait for the new build!!!
Damn I should probably put something fancy in this bit huh?

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #675 on: July 13, 2019, 08:56:16 AM »
Spinner air drag is now a thing.  Air drag is computed based on the speed and geometry of the spinner.  It is really hard to make a big spinner go super fast now.
Ah so deep six clones are gonna be a hassle to make

Should be totally doable!  I haven't tried yet though.

I was just referring to the fact that it will be hard/impossible to make a 1 meter diameter spinner go 8000 RPM.  All of this depends on tweaking of the air drag coefficients on my end. I'm struggling to find real-world data to calibrate my numbers.

Here's a 0.45 meter radius spinner that gets close to 1600 RPM with a 2.4:1 pulley gear ratio:

 
Screen Shot 2019-07-13 at 8.54.11 AM.png


Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #676 on: July 13, 2019, 09:02:04 AM »
I noticed you’ve included flippers in the next build. Out of interest -  is the same damage physics rules that’s been built for the spinners going to apply to flippers? (E.g, the kinetic force from both being launched and hitting the ground at greater speeds = more damage?). I feel like that’s something which RA2 was definitely missing, hence why the only real competitive ‘flippers’ where the pop-ups.

Cannot wait for the new build!!!

I haven't made any changes to damage in this build.  Everything is computed just as before, but driving and spinning things have different masses and speeds, so old robots won't behave the same.

To be honest, I haven't begun to do any flipper torque, speed, or energy calculations, so what you see for flippers is going to be pretty rough.  Flippers flip, and that is about all you can say about them at this point.

Damage is a whole 'nuther ballgame.  I want to get movement, speeds, energies, and forces working correctly before trying to tackle the visuals and mechanics of damage.  I would LOVE to get rid of hit points entirely.  It is going to take some serious work though.

Offline Wambo

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #677 on: July 13, 2019, 09:14:47 AM »
It would be cool to have an option, where you can turn a spinner down. This will be very useful, if you want to build replicas.
what do you mean by that
What I mean is, that it would be cool to say: This spinner is not allowed to spin faster than 2000 rpm. I just noticed, that this will be possible to do by changing the pulley gear ratio.

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #678 on: July 13, 2019, 09:17:33 AM »
CALLING ALL ENGINEERS!

I'm looking for data on the following:

1. Energy required to puncture different thicknesses of common armor materials: UHMW, Polycarbonate, 6061-T6 aluminum, mild steel, hardened steel, titanium.  Am I missing any?  We are looking to cover beetleweights, featherweights, lightweights, and heavyweights.

2. Rated speed (based on motor kV) vs measured speed of bar spinners, drum spinners.

If you have access to equipment to do some testing, or know of good resources for the above, please post them here!

PS - Do we have any Robot Wars/Robogames/Battlebots competitors in the crowd?  It would be nice to get some real-world quantitative and qualitative data from the heavier weight classes.

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #679 on: July 13, 2019, 09:21:25 AM »
It would be cool to have an option, where you can turn a spinner down. This will be very useful, if you want to build replicas.
what do you mean by that
What I mean is, that it would be cool to say: This spinner is not allowed to spin faster than 2000 rpm. I just noticed, that this will be possible to do by changing the pulley gear ratio.

Absolutely!  Gearing down weapons is almost mandatory for a few reasons.  First, physics tends to get a little unstable at ultra-high RPM.  Second, a super-fast spinner gets very little bite.

I'm trying to get things to real-world speeds.  We will need something like an 8" diameter Motenergy 0708 motor.  Not sure about the specs on the custom motor that Carbide used...