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 187775 times)

Offline BATTLEMASTER

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2000 on: March 01, 2020, 08:09:23 PM »
It seems like there's definitely something up with my vertical dual-bar spinner.  A combined 400 kJ of energy doesn't seem to do any damage to the opposing bot, yet any collisions made against the opposing bot cause my robot to flip over.  It's almost like no energy is being transferred to the target with the vertical spinners.

It makes me wonder now what would happen if I made it a diagonal spinner...

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2001 on: March 02, 2020, 06:13:42 AM »
It seems like there's definitely something up with my vertical dual-bar spinner.  A combined 400 kJ of energy doesn't seem to do any damage to the opposing bot, yet any collisions made against the opposing bot cause my robot to flip over.  It's almost like no energy is being transferred to the target with the vertical spinners.

It makes me wonder now what would happen if I made it a diagonal spinner...

That might be due to bite.  How many RPM are your bars spinning, and what is their radius?

Offline CodeSilver23

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2002 on: March 02, 2020, 09:27:00 AM »
What changes were made to physics? And what was the reason behind it? Feb 16 had it pretty spot on, so I guess I'm just confused as to why that needed adjustments...
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Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2003 on: March 02, 2020, 09:51:30 AM »
What changes were made to physics? And what was the reason behind it? Feb 16 had it pretty spot on, so I guess I'm just confused as to why that needed adjustments...

Prior to the most 28 February build, there were two scaling factors in robot reconstruction:

1. massScaleFactor - Introduced in the very beginnings of the robot workshop.  This was originally set to 0.1.  We had some difficulties very early on trying to get driving to feel good for heavyweights, so this scale factor was introduced to bring the mass of the chassis down to approximately 10 kg.  This just happened to work well with wheel masses of 1 kg.
2. sizeScaleFactor - Introduced about a year ago when we started focusing on beetleweight driving for Bugglebots.  At the time, I couldn't understand why heavyweights drove fine, but beetleweights would randomly float and flip on their sides with no user input.  The only thing I could do that seemed to have any effect was to increase the scale (but not the mass) of the beetleweights so that they were similar in size to heavyweights.  This created all sorts of problems, so I settled on a scale factor that depended on the weight of the robot, but made typical beetleweights be approximately 1.5 times their original size.

In the 29 February build, I set both mass and size scale factors to 1.  We had found and eliminated the root cause of the problems that the scale factors were designed to address. 

The massScaleFactor created a part management problem where we had to manually adjust component torque and force values.  This was prone to error, and causing all sorts of random problems and inconsistencies now that Wham is creating a bunch of components.

The sizeScaleFactor created a problem where what you saw in the robot workshop didn't match what you saw in the arena.  In general, robots were way too big for the arena.  Moreover, scaling was inconsistent between robots.  One robot's A40-300 motor would be a different size than another robot's A40-300 motor.  This made it very difficult to create arenas at the correct scale when every single robot was scaled differently.

I am confident that eliminating the sizeScaleFactor was the right thing to do.  I am less confident that eliminating the massScaleFactor was the right thing to do, as it has exposed a few more things that I didn't anticipate.  One of them is an interaction with another bit of code that causes vertical spinners to more easily flip backward (Circumvolution and S3).  One of them is the fact that the increased weight is pushing down harder on the wheel joints, causing robots with low clearance to scrape against the floor (Nuclear Crisis).  I think these things are fixable, but it is a work in progress.

Offline CodeSilver23

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2004 on: March 02, 2020, 10:31:44 AM »
What changes were made to physics? And what was the reason behind it? Feb 16 had it pretty spot on, so I guess I'm just confused as to why that needed adjustments...

Prior to the most 28 February build, there were two scaling factors in robot reconstruction:

1. massScaleFactor - Introduced in the very beginnings of the robot workshop.  This was originally set to 0.1.  We had some difficulties very early on trying to get driving to feel good for heavyweights, so this scale factor was introduced to bring the mass of the chassis down to approximately 10 kg.  This just happened to work well with wheel masses of 1 kg.
2. sizeScaleFactor - Introduced about a year ago when we started focusing on beetleweight driving for Bugglebots.  At the time, I couldn't understand why heavyweights drove fine, but beetleweights would randomly float and flip on their sides with no user input.  The only thing I could do that seemed to have any effect was to increase the scale (but not the mass) of the beetleweights so that they were similar in size to heavyweights.  This created all sorts of problems, so I settled on a scale factor that depended on the weight of the robot, but made typical beetleweights be approximately 1.5 times their original size.

In the 29 February build, I set both mass and size scale factors to 1.  We had found and eliminated the root cause of the problems that the scale factors were designed to address. 

The massScaleFactor created a part management problem where we had to manually adjust component torque and force values.  This was prone to error, and causing all sorts of random problems and inconsistencies now that Wham is creating a bunch of components.

The sizeScaleFactor created a problem where what you saw in the robot workshop didn't match what you saw in the arena.  In general, robots were way too big for the arena.  Moreover, scaling was inconsistent between robots.  One robot's A40-300 motor would be a different size than another robot's A40-300 motor.  This made it very difficult to create arenas at the correct scale when every single robot was scaled differently.

I am confident that eliminating the sizeScaleFactor was the right thing to do.  I am less confident that eliminating the massScaleFactor was the right thing to do, as it has exposed a few more things that I didn't anticipate.  One of them is an interaction with another bit of code that causes vertical spinners to more easily flip backward (Circumvolution and S3).  One of them is the fact that the increased weight is pushing down harder on the wheel joints, causing robots with low clearance to scrape against the floor (Nuclear Crisis).  I think these things are fixable, but it is a work in progress.
Reason I'm asking is because SvL's arena free-cam might not be compatible with the most stable version of the game, Feb 16. Still crossing my fingers on it, but if not, I'm a little worried about how all the entries will react to the removal of the MassScaleFactor. Hopefully, this all works out in the end and I can get started on filming.
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Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2005 on: March 02, 2020, 01:26:32 PM »
I'm hammering out bugs now.  I want things to be at least as stable as they were for the 16 January build.

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2006 on: March 02, 2020, 01:47:25 PM »
I think that your number 1 priority would be to fix the A40 motor, it has been an issue for a couple of builds now

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2007 on: March 02, 2020, 02:45:11 PM »
I think that your number 1 priority would be to fix the A40 motor, it has been an issue for a couple of builds now

Could you send a screenshot?  I'm not seeing the issue in the inspector.

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2008 on: March 02, 2020, 03:24:18 PM »
I think that your number 1 priority would be to fix the A40 motor, it has been an issue for a couple of builds now

Could you send a screenshot?  I'm not seeing the issue in the inspector.
The one where the axle goes to 0/0/0 location when in test area and the battles

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2009 on: March 02, 2020, 03:29:22 PM »
I haven’t seen it.  Is it for the old motor or the (new) one?

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2010 on: March 02, 2020, 03:41:15 PM »
I haven’t seen it.  Is it for the old motor or the (new) one?
New one, try attaching a wheel to the motor that isnt in 0/0/0 position and then go to the test bot section

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2011 on: March 02, 2020, 05:43:00 PM »
I haven’t seen it.  Is it for the old motor or the (new) one?
New one, try attaching a wheel to the motor that isnt in 0/0/0 position and then go to the test bot section

I see it now.  I have no idea what is causing it.  Definitely will look into it!

Offline min440303

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2012 on: March 02, 2020, 08:57:52 PM »
I found something weird
weird.png

Where's my disc
« Last Edit: March 02, 2020, 10:00:48 PM by min440303 »
Mad but not mad.

Stuff I kinda done at

Offline WhamettNuht

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2013 on: March 03, 2020, 05:07:24 AM »
Apologies about that - there's still some aspects of the Parking Lot arena I need to fix haha! :)
Damn I should probably put something fancy in this bit huh?

Offline Team Lightning

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2014 on: March 03, 2020, 06:34:48 AM »
Something I noticed with the new build is Last Rite’s teeth break on contact with anything. Also, are the physics add riders supposed to be visible? And tick rate is hidden. I think what I’ll try to do is copy the arenas onto 16 February and play that. I love the new arenas though, nice job! :) Keep on developing!
EDIT: I don’t mean to start a flame war. I’m just noting these things.

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2015 on: March 03, 2020, 07:09:30 AM »
I haven’t seen it.  Is it for the old motor or the (new) one?
New one, try attaching a wheel to the motor that isnt in 0/0/0 position and then go to the test bot section

I see it now.  I have no idea what is causing it.  Definitely will look into it!

When you first added the new motors back in uhh Feb 15 build iirc, they worked with no issues. Also idk size wise, but is NPC really that large compared to Amp A40?

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2016 on: March 03, 2020, 10:57:59 AM »
We're working on the A40-300 (New) problem.  Still haven't found anything yet.  We don't see anything wrong with the motor prefab.

Here is the drawing for the NPC T64:

http://robotcombat.com/products/images/npc-64038.pdf

Here is the drawing for the A40-300:

http://www.ampflow.com/a40-300.GIF

They both use the same motor diameter (4 inches), but the T-64 has an integral gearbox that makes it 10 inches long.  The A40-300 does not have a gearbox, so it is only 7 inches long.

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2017 on: March 03, 2020, 11:36:12 AM »
For this next build I have combined spinners into a single damageable object.  This means that the whole spinner will break off together.

My Tombclone will break off Circumvolution's spinner in a single hit every single time.  It makes for really short fights.

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2018 on: March 03, 2020, 12:13:34 PM »
For this next build I have combined spinners into a single damageable object.  This means that the whole spinner will break off together.

My Tombclone will break off Circumvolution's spinner in a single hit every single time.  It makes for really short fights.

Ah i really love this thing you said, maybe you should enable an option to disable breaking stuff off if on an axle

Just out of curiosity. Does the multi part spinner get combined HP as a single component, or does it have the HP of the base part?

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2019 on: March 03, 2020, 01:35:14 PM »
For this next build I have combined spinners into a single damageable object.  This means that the whole spinner will break off together.

My Tombclone will break off Circumvolution's spinner in a single hit every single time.  It makes for really short fights.

Ah i really love this thing you said, maybe you should enable an option to disable breaking stuff off if on an axle

Just out of curiosity. Does the multi part spinner get combined HP as a single component, or does it have the HP of the base part?

It adds up the total health of the spinner components and consolidates them into a single number.  Right now health = mass * (health per mass of the material).  More mass = more health.

Circumvolution Spinner = 250 health
Tombclone Spinner = 500 health

Tombclone can do thousands of Joules of damage on a single hit, so Circumvolution's spinner is destroyed every single time.