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 187728 times)

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1080 on: December 17, 2019, 12:24:33 PM »
Hey guys,

Its finals week here at school, so I've "final"ly had a chance to sit down and take a crack at a few things:

1. @tashic has been working on the mirroring function in the botlab.
2. We have (finally) nailed down the structure of robots and how they are reconstructed from the BotLab -> .RR2Bot file -> combat.  For this go-around the chain of component addition is preserved in combat.  This means when you hit something hard enough to destroy it, it and everything attached to it will break off together.  You can even proceed to bash composite robot assemblies apart into their individual components.

I've tested #1 and #2 above for heavyweights, and still need to make sure the above works with beetleweights.  I should be able to put something up in the next day or two.

@kix, sorry about the friction/driving.  I'm not sure if I have touched it in the last few months.  The Mental Breakdown you sent me doesn't drive so great anymore.  I think it also has weight issues too.  i.e. its plates are made from a material that will bust apart with very little effort.  i.e. I need to switch everything to 3 mm steel plate to see how that changes the driving.
Hopefully, all submissions for the SvL tournament will still be functional... If not, I'll allow all entrants to send in new bots/ fix issues and resend them. Glad to have you back, cjbruce.

Should I hold off until after the tournament?

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1081 on: December 17, 2019, 12:49:31 PM »
Hey guys,

Its finals week here at school, so I've "final"ly had a chance to sit down and take a crack at a few things:

1. @tashic has been working on the mirroring function in the botlab.
2. We have (finally) nailed down the structure of robots and how they are reconstructed from the BotLab -> .RR2Bot file -> combat.  For this go-around the chain of component addition is preserved in combat.  This means when you hit something hard enough to destroy it, it and everything attached to it will break off together.  You can even proceed to bash composite robot assemblies apart into their individual components.

I've tested #1 and #2 above for heavyweights, and still need to make sure the above works with beetleweights.  I should be able to put something up in the next day or two.

@kix, sorry about the friction/driving.  I'm not sure if I have touched it in the last few months.  The Mental Breakdown you sent me doesn't drive so great anymore.  I think it also has weight issues too.  i.e. its plates are made from a material that will bust apart with very little effort.  i.e. I need to switch everything to 3 mm steel plate to see how that changes the driving.
Hopefully, all submissions for the SvL tournament will still be functional... If not, I'll allow all entrants to send in new bots/ fix issues and resend them. Glad to have you back, cjbruce.

Should I hold off until after the tournament?
I dont see holding off being an issue, its p easy for host to use an older version, of fix bots.
If youre planning to release the game p quick, i may hold off PR2 signups till new version is up

As for the wheels/traction/grip
The arena lid properties are great. Here is the footage of what i mean:

« Last Edit: December 17, 2019, 01:11:46 PM by kix »

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1082 on: December 17, 2019, 01:21:48 PM »
4 x Mental Breakdown, broken:


Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1083 on: December 17, 2019, 01:32:08 PM »
this is a great idea but i have a feeling that this could be an issue:


Lets say you break#1, the whole thing falls off. Now in reality, the other wedge sides will be screwed on to the chassis so if #1 breaks and falls off, 2/3/4 would still stay.

Offline KupaTec

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1084 on: December 17, 2019, 01:46:26 PM »
Glad to see you are back bruce! The new damage handling is looking very nice, cannot wait to play around with it. Would it be possible to add a toggle in the settings to disable parts breaking off in future versions?

As Kix mentioned we have been poking around in the assembled code and I have made a modification to disable the parts falling off for the current version (as it is a bit dodgy as you know). I just wanted to ask what your opinion is on people potentially modifying the game?

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1085 on: December 17, 2019, 02:45:42 PM »
Glad to see you are back bruce! The new damage handling is looking very nice, cannot wait to play around with it. Would it be possible to add a toggle in the settings to disable parts breaking off in future versions?

As Kix mentioned we have been poking around in the assembled code and I have made a modification to disable the parts falling off for the current version (as it is a bit dodgy as you know). I just wanted to ask what your opinion is on people potentially modifying the game?

There isn't a toggle switch in the settings right now.  My thought is that the entire damage system will be based on parts falling off.  Without it, you could easily build an indestructible robot. This means that the damage system needs to be really carefully tuned or else the game is not fun. 

On second thought, maybe indestructible robots are okay as long as there is a point scoring system for "good hits"?

That being said, I consider people modifying the game to be the greatest possible form of flattery.  I just want to feel like people are getting their money's worth when it finally does go on sale.

Ideally when can pull all the ideas together into an official release. 

PS - How are your Unity/art skills? :)


Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1086 on: December 17, 2019, 02:49:43 PM »
this is a great idea but i have a feeling that this could be an issue:

Lets say you break#1, the whole thing falls off. Now in reality, the other wedge sides will be screwed on to the chassis so if #1 breaks and falls off, 2/3/4 would still stay.

This is absolutely on my brain right now.  The breakage scripts are working for entire components, but not (yet) for chassis armor plates.

At one point I had a picture of one of our robots that took a hit in the competition.  The Ampflow A28-150G gearbox was bolted to the inside of a polycarbonate chassis armor plate.  A horizontal spinner hit busted the whole thing off: plate, gearbox, motor, and wheel.  The motor was still connected via two wires to the ESC, so it still worked, even though it was trailing guts everywhere.  It was awesome, and our kids went nuts when it happened in the competition.

That's what I really want to build. :)

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1087 on: December 17, 2019, 03:03:48 PM »
this is a great idea but i have a feeling that this could be an issue:

Lets say you break#1, the whole thing falls off. Now in reality, the other wedge sides will be screwed on to the chassis so if #1 breaks and falls off, 2/3/4 would still stay.

This is absolutely on my brain right now.  The breakage scripts are working for entire components, but not (yet) for chassis armor plates.

At one point I had a picture of one of our robots that took a hit in the competition.  The Ampflow A28-150G gearbox was bolted to the inside of a polycarbonate chassis armor plate.  A horizontal spinner hit busted the whole thing off: plate, gearbox, motor, and wheel.  The motor was still connected via two wires to the ESC, so it still worked, even though it was trailing guts everywhere.  It was awesome, and our kids went nuts when it happened in the competition.

That's what I really want to build. :)
Yea that seems possible

Offline KupaTec

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1088 on: December 17, 2019, 04:10:05 PM »
There isn't a toggle switch in the settings right now.  My thought is that the entire damage system will be based on parts falling off.
Yeah, I was thinking as a sort of debug option while the damage system is being worked on, so we don't need to utilise things such as the "wheelfix" if things aren't working as planned.

That being said, I consider people modifying the game to be the greatest possible form of flattery.  I just want to feel like people are getting their money's worth when it finally does go on sale.
That's good to hear, I was a little worried about toeing the line when it came to making modifications. Glad to see a Dev that embraces the possibilities of mods!

PS - How are your Unity/art skills? :)
Well I studied Digital Graphic/Motion Design along with Software Development in college and have used Unity a bit over the years for little hobby projects. So not a pro, but not a complete noob either really.

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1089 on: December 17, 2019, 05:12:02 PM »
I found a problem with spinners last night that I believe exists in previous builds.  Spinners were colliding with their own robot, causing all sorts of reaction forces and making big spinners wildly uncontrollable.  Mental Breakdown had the problem too.  The fix was pretty simple, and should be up in the next day or so.

After the fix, Mental Breakdown had a second issue that was masked by the self-collision issue.  Mental Breakdown’s spinner was just barely clipping the arena floor.  This was causing it to bounce up off the floor, losing traction and causing it to drive really slowly.  I fixed it by lifting up the spinner by about 1 cm.  The robot drives fine now.  Its big issue now is the drive is a little too powerful.  Also that the 1 mm steel front wedges break off too easily in combat.

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1090 on: December 18, 2019, 05:24:33 AM »
an issue:

(ok i cant insert attachments)


Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1091 on: December 18, 2019, 05:37:07 AM »
an issue:

(ok i cant insert attachments)

It looks like the Weapon_Blur_Cylinder that is automatically generated rotates around an incorrect axis.  Drat.  I need to fix this.  Would you mind sending me the .RR2Bot file?

Am I correct in assuming that there are supposed to be 6 horizontal spinners?

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1092 on: December 18, 2019, 05:40:43 AM »
an issue:

(ok i cant insert attachments)

It looks like the Weapon_Blur_Cylinder that is automatically generated rotates around an incorrect axis.  Drat.  I need to fix this.  Would you mind sending me the .RR2Bot file?

Am I correct in assuming that there are supposed to be 6 horizontal spinners?

Ya ill send you the bot.
That is actually a rammer, no hori spinners at all

Offline RoboticCombatUk

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1093 on: December 18, 2019, 10:32:23 AM »
I've always dreamed of seeing the Battlebots reboot arena in this game.

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1094 on: December 18, 2019, 10:40:54 AM »
an issue:

(ok i cant insert attachments)

It looks like the Weapon_Blur_Cylinder that is automatically generated rotates around an incorrect axis.  Drat.  I need to fix this.  Would you mind sending me the .RR2Bot file?

Am I correct in assuming that there are supposed to be 6 horizontal spinners?

Ya ill send you the bot.
That is actually a rammer, no hori spinners at all

I'm looking at it now.  Two issues need to be addressed:

1. I need a way to NOT create a Weapon_Blur_Cylinder when you intend for this to be a wheel.  The Weapon_Blur_Cylinder is specifically designed to compute the collision of a high speed (faster than the physics tick rate) weapon.  If it is used for wheels then it will cause motion but the driving feel will be terrible.  It will be kind of like driving with a tire that goes "whap whap whap" against the floor.

My thought for this is to have a wide range of wheels available so that people won't make their own.  Either that or there needs to be a way for a player to specifically designate a thing as a "wheel" (or more precisely "not a weapon").

2. In some cases the blur cylinder is created about the wrong axis.  I'm trying to fix this now.

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1095 on: December 18, 2019, 10:43:36 AM »
I've always dreamed of seeing the Battlebots reboot arena in this game.

I've reached out to Battlebots but haven't heard anything back.  It would be awesome, but we would need their permission to put it in the game.

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1096 on: December 18, 2019, 11:43:24 AM »

Ya ill send you the bot.
That is actually a rammer, no hori spinners at all

Fixed, at least partly.  When you select "Rubber" as the material, a Weapon_Blur_Cylinder is no longer created.  EDIT - This means that you can now create your own custom rubber wheels.

I haven't fixed the problem with the weapon blur cylinder being created about an incorrect axis.



PS - Thin 2 drives REALLY well.  Having 10 small wheels is awesome.  It reminds me of Robert Cowan's "Low Low Man" beetleweight:


Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1097 on: December 18, 2019, 12:18:53 PM »
I've always dreamed of seeing the Battlebots reboot arena in this game.

I've reached out to Battlebots but haven't heard anything back.  It would be awesome, but we would need their permission to put it in the game.

Tbh if an arena designer becomes a thing, i can see somebody artistic enough making one there

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1098 on: December 18, 2019, 12:57:20 PM »
I'm putting in a damage multiplier slider.  We haven't done any damage tuning yet.

You should be able to slide it all the way to "0" in settings to disable damage entirely for tournaments.

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #1099 on: December 18, 2019, 01:14:57 PM »
I'm putting in a damage multiplier slider.  We haven't done any damage tuning yet.

You should be able to slide it all the way to "0" in settings to disable damage entirely for tournaments.
Thats actually great

Will that mean that the options will now save?