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 187470 times)

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2200 on: May 02, 2020, 03:58:06 PM »
To the developer: I've got a quick question. Is it possible to import 3D models into Robot Rumble 2.0?

Not yet, but the Component Modding Tool is planned once we are comfortable with the Arena Modding Tool.

Offline SkullKid2000

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2201 on: May 02, 2020, 03:59:05 PM »
Thanks for letting me know! Cheers cjbruce :)
Best Regards,

Skull Kid

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2202 on: May 02, 2020, 04:32:57 PM »
Thanks for letting me know! Cheers cjbruce :)

I know youre plan, and im looking forward to that

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2203 on: May 22, 2020, 07:29:43 AM »
Hey guys,

We're putting up a new Bleeding Edge Build today.  This build has so many changes that I can't detail them all here, but here are the big ones:

1. Electronics and electrical components are now a thing.  In order to make a robot drive, you must include the following:

- A receiver.  Each channel of the receiver must be set to the appropriate type of control from your radio transmitter.  Left Drive, Right Drive, Single Throw Toggle, etc.
- At least one battery.  The battery voltage you pick is important.  If you choose too low of a voltage, your robot will be sluggish.  If you choose too high of a voltage, your motors will overheat and burn out.
- If you have a weapon, you will need either a second battery (usually at a higher voltage) or a battery hub (to save weight).  This hub will send power to your drive ESC (usually a 2x60 Amp ESC) and to your weapon ESC (either another brushed ESC or a brushless ESC, depending on the motor you choose).
- You will need enough ESCs to handle all of your motors.  ESCs are either single-channel or 2-channel.
- Motors.  Most robots nowadays use brushed ESCs for drive, but it is up to you.  Lighter motors heat up (and cool down) more quickly.

2. Motor overheating is now a thing.  You can see the status of your motors in the robot workshop test cage.  If your motor temp goes above 115 Celsius for more than 5 seconds, the motor windings will burn out.  To prevent this from happening motors must be geared down.  Let me repeat this so it is clear:

ALL MOTORS MUST BE GEARED DOWN.

period.  full stop.  This is true for building in real-life too.  These motors are powerful and they will rapidly destroy themselves if you run them at nominal voltage while clamping the rotor.

Unless you plan to run all of your motors at 3.7 volts, pretty much every motor in the game will overheat when you stall it out.  To prevent this, add a gearbox to reduce the current through the motor.

This is going to break lots of existing designs.  Sorry. :(

If you would like a more detailed explanation, I recommend checking out Mark Joerger's wonderful robot combat website at the following URL.  He's the builder of Run Amok, Robotica champion from long ago, and has been answering robot combat questions for decades:

http://runamok.tech/AskAaron.html

To get an idea of how much you will need to gear down your drive motors, please try the following online calculator:

http://runamok.tech/squid/newtorquecalc.htm

3. We have removed pneumatics and linear actuators from the robot workshop for now to give us time to focus on the electro-mechanical systems.  We will be building out pneumatics and linear actuators over the next few months behind the scenes.  Any existing pneumatics or linear actuators will work differently when we release them.

EDIT: Mark Joerger won Robotica, not Robot Wars.
« Last Edit: May 22, 2020, 09:40:24 AM by cjbruce »

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2204 on: May 22, 2020, 07:33:56 AM »
The 22May2020 bleeding edge builds are up!  Here's the link:

http://www.robot-rumble.com/bleedingedgebuilds/

***Please note that this build is going to break a lot of your existing designs.  Please see my previous post for details.

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2205 on: May 22, 2020, 08:05:05 AM »
22-May is missing for windows btw.

EDIT: it is mislabeled as 02-May

Offline Badnik96

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2206 on: May 22, 2020, 08:28:53 AM »
you guys kick ass. if the pneumatics revamp is anything like this i'm sure you'll knock it out of the park. keep up the good work!

also mark joerger won robotica with a stripped out lawnmower and then proceeded to suck sh** at robot wars with said lawnmower. he also spends his free time complaining about modern combat robotics on facebook. not saying his info isn't valid, just that there's likely better sources than him for modern robot info

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2207 on: May 22, 2020, 08:57:11 AM »
you guys kick ass. if the pneumatics revamp is anything like this i'm sure you'll knock it out of the park. keep up the good work!

also mark joerger won robotica with a stripped out lawnmower and then proceeded to suck sh** at robot wars with said lawnmower. he also spends his free time complaining about modern combat robotics on facebook. not saying his info isn't valid, just that there's likely better sources than him for modern robot info

Mea culpa - you are correct.  My intent was to imply that he has a lot of technical knowledge in his website that he has graciously shared with the world.  I don't disagree with you about Mark's grumpiness.  Back in my college days "The Facebook" was a paper pamphlet that came out every year and all of us upperclassmen would read it and rate all of the incoming freshmen.  It was a truly horrible thing.  Facebook has only gone downhill since.  I have no idea what Mark posts there, but I try to avoid Facebook at all costs.  GTM is much better. :)

As far as I can tell Mark's advice is pretty solid for the insect classes.  Over the past few months I have been trying to push the game and myself into those weight classes.  I'm hoping to get a tiny robot into a local competition at some point in the next year.

EDIT: Thank you!  We are hoping to get it to the point where it just completely kick-ass as both a simulator and a game.

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2208 on: May 22, 2020, 09:00:53 AM »
22-May is missing for windows btw.

EDIT: it is mislabeled as 02-May

Fixed!  It is now labeled as RR2-Windows-22May2020-BleedingEdgeTestBuild.zip

Offline Arcane

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2209 on: May 22, 2020, 09:03:37 AM »
Really intriguing stuff here from what I’ve messed around with so far, can’t wait to sink my teeth into this build a little more later. Great work team!

Offline cephalopod

Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2210 on: May 22, 2020, 09:49:45 AM »
ALL MOTORS MUST BE GEARED DOWN.

period.  full stop.  This is true for building in real-life too. 

a certain gareth barnaby would argue otherwise
bristol bot builders / two headed death flamingo / snappy robots
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Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2211 on: May 22, 2020, 09:56:02 AM »
ALL MOTORS MUST BE GEARED DOWN.

period.  full stop.  This is true for building in real-life too. 

a certain gareth barnaby would argue otherwise

You have to be really really careful about temperature if you do direct drive from a motor. 

I'm struggling with how to convey this to players.  I'm afraid that new players won't understand the relationship between gearing and heat buildup and they will get frustrated because their motors keep destroying themselves and the player won't know why.

There is nothing in the game to prevent people from running a drill motor at 44.1 volts.

Offline cephalopod

Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2212 on: May 22, 2020, 09:58:07 AM »
yeah i know i'm just messing around with you. all his beetles/feathers including our new joint feather are all direct drive brushless, but for game purposes i think this is the right way to go about things :)
bristol bot builders / two headed death flamingo / snappy robots
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Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2213 on: May 22, 2020, 10:39:10 AM »
yeah i know i'm just messing around with you. all his beetles/feathers including our new joint feather are all direct drive brushless, but for game purposes i think this is the right way to go about things :)

Phew! :)

I really want to support the insect classes.  There are so many builders out there who might be able to use the game to prototype their designs.

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2214 on: May 22, 2020, 12:08:45 PM »
Tried the build and, its great.
Its a shame that the flippers are gone, but its not an issue

Overheating is great, but imo they overheat too much
A40 motors are overheating when idle if: it is set as servo, and has limited angles

If a battery is not wired to the esc, and if you go to test area, the bot explodes, and when i go back to the lab, parts fall off

The fighting is top notch, the hits are well done, and bots dont self destruct

One thing that is broken is the selfrighting. It is kinda non functional as seen in this vid below:


Also custom arenas are gone, all the AMT made and the game made (Test arena is still selectable)


Offline min440303

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2215 on: May 22, 2020, 12:36:03 PM »
The new build is really great and the electronic system is awesome, the hits inside the fights are back to the right position as well. But there're some issues for driving in this build.
For 4WD vertical spinners, when the weapon motor is off, the bot works fine and turns fine, but when the weapom motor's on, the bot could only run in circles instead of turning.
 

* Default Windows desktop 64-bit 2020-05-23 01-16-45-069.mp4

And for 4WD horizontal spinners, it goes to the opposite, run in circles when the weapon motor's off, and turns fine when the weapon motor's on.

Here are the bots.
 
 
« Last Edit: May 22, 2020, 01:25:54 PM by min440303 »
Mad but not mad.

Stuff I kinda done at

Offline min440303

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2216 on: May 22, 2020, 12:41:50 PM »
Another issue is, 2WD vertical spinners could barely turn, it's like something's stuck with the floor and make it hard to drive.
 

* Default Windows desktop 64-bit 2020-05-23 01-19-19-359.mp4

bots here.
 
 



Edit: Like what kix said, the spinner bite is supposed to be an issue. Especially disc spinners act like there was no teeth on it.
« Last Edit: May 22, 2020, 11:18:14 PM by min440303 »
Mad but not mad.

Stuff I kinda done at

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2217 on: May 22, 2020, 03:36:16 PM »
You guys are amazing!  Thank you!

I’ll try to get to the bugs as soon as I can.

Also, please attach the .RR2Bot file if you haven’t already.  I can’t really troubleshoot without it.

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2218 on: May 22, 2020, 05:18:16 PM »
yeah i know i'm just messing around with you. all his beetles/feathers including our new joint feather are all direct drive brushless, but for game purposes i think this is the right way to go about things :)

Speaking of real life, do you have any idea what is happening with Bugglebots this year?

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2219 on: May 23, 2020, 06:13:28 AM »
Another issue is, 2WD vertical spinners could barely turn, it's like something's stuck with the floor and make it hard to drive.
  [ Quoting of attachment images from other messages is not allowed ]  
bots here.
  [ Quoting of attachment images from other messages is not allowed ]  
  [ Quoting of attachment images from other messages is not allowed ]  



Edit: Like what kix said, the spinner bite is supposed to be an issue. Especially disc spinners act like there was no teeth on it.

Thanks for checking the bite issue.  That is something that will definitely need tweaking.

Afterbite is a little slow to turn, but I think that is because of the gyroscopic effect occurring with the spinner at 3500+ RPM. I geared it down a little bit and it was a little easier.  It might be worth sending the robot to Will Thomas to see what he thinks.  It is tunable, but I want to be really careful about tuning at this point.

I agree that DIRE is sluggish.  I suspect it is because of all of the weight so far forward from the wheelbase.  I tried sticking two ball casters under the front of the chassis.  I'm not sure it helped.  I also noticed that you are running DIRE's weapon with a 0.5:1 gear ratio.  This is low and is leading to long spinup times and a weapon that spins way too fast.  It has a tremendous amount of angular momentum making it difficult to turn because of gyroscopic effect.