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 187462 times)

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2220 on: May 23, 2020, 06:42:43 AM »
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.

Oo!  That's neat!  I just checked it out in the Unity editor to see what is happening.  Once the spinner gets up to speed it has so much angular momentum that it is lifting E-Max's inside wheels off the ground during a turn.  This means that only the outside wheels are in contact with the ground.  The outside wheels push the robot forward, but the inside wheels can't push the robot backward.  This means that the robot can no longer turn in place.

2 robot design solutions exist to this:
1. Reduce the angular momentum of the spinner.
2. Increase the wheelbase.

I verified the numbers for E-Max's gyroscopic effect using this online robot combat gyroscopic effect calculator:

http://runamok.tech/insanity/gyroscopiceffect.html.

These are E-Max's measured values from the game:

Drive Train Width: 700 mm
Drive Motor Speed: 370 RPM
Wheel Diameter: 150 mm
Robot Mass: 131 kg
Weapon Mass Moment of Inertia: 1.06 kg-m^2

Using the numbers above, I get a maximum weapon speed around 1000 RPM before the inside wheels lift off the ground.  1000 RPM is pretty slow for a drum like this.  Maybe try increasing the width of the wheelbase?


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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.
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I see this happening in Cyber Storm 2.  It appears that the weapon is digging into the ground a little bit and acting as a pivot point for the two wheels.  When you send a signal to turn right or left that creates a rotation about an axis that it shifted toward the axis.  At least that is my guess.

I also suspect that when the spinner gets up to speed it the angular momentum of the spinner tends to keep the whole robot flatter so the "digging in" effect above is reduced.

Maybe either a smaller spinner, or a two-wheeled Tombclone design?

Offline min440303

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2221 on: May 23, 2020, 08:12:33 AM »
Million thx for all the explanations! I'll try to work them out.

It was a bit weird cuz those bots worked fine before, and in this build issues suddenly break out.
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 #2222 on: May 23, 2020, 08:40:15 AM »
You are welcome!  Thank you for making these great robots.  It makes development so much faster when we have great designs to work with.

One of the big differences with this build is that all of the spinner “scaling factors” have been eliminated.  This means that the moment of inertia is now what it should be for something rotating at the indicated speed.  The result of this is that gyroscopic effects are now much more significant than they were before.

Offline min440303

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2223 on: May 23, 2020, 08:48:37 AM »
After a few tests, I suspect Aftershock's turning issue was not cause by gyroing. I've test some more vertical spinners inside the test cage, and found issues like:
Aftershock's turning issue happened not only when the weapon was on, but also when it was off.
Magnetar's was quite fast at first, but you could actually see it moving more and more slowly.
When Poison Arrow was going to turn, something in the air blocked it from turning.
(All issues above happened when weapon motor's off)


And as you said: There's much more gyro in this build, but I think it's a bit too significant. you can see it on Poison Arrow. It just start gyroing madly even when the drum is 1000rpm, which is definitely unreal.
 
 
 
« Last Edit: May 23, 2020, 09:16:04 AM 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 #2224 on: May 23, 2020, 09:22:20 AM »
After a few tests, I suspect Aftershock's turning issue was not cause by gyroing. I've test some more vertical spinners inside the test cage, and found issues like:
Aftershock's turning issue happened not only when the weapon was on, but also when it was off.
Magnetar's was quite fast at first, but you could actually see it moving more and more slowly.
When Poison Arrow was going to turn, something in the air blocked it from turning.
(All issues above happened when weapon motor's off)


And as you said: There's much more gyro in this build, but I think it's a bit too significant. you can see it on Poison Arrow. It just start gyroing madly even when the drum is 1000rpm, which is definitely unreal.
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Ah!  There is another effect happening that is new in this build: Motor winding resistance increase as temperature increases.

I haven't looked at the robots yet, but I suspect that as the drive motors are heating up their resistance is increasing.  As this happens, the motor current drops.  This reduces the torque.  I suspect that I might have a typo and/or miscalculation that is causing this heat increase -> torque reduction effect to be much too strong.  I'll try to take a look today.

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2225 on: May 23, 2020, 09:37:18 AM »
Several pages down is a table that shows the pretty significant drop in torque at 125 degrees:

https://www.haydonkerkpittman.com/-/media/ametekhaydonkerk/downloads/white-papers/temperature_effects_on_dc_motor_performance_1.pdf?la=en

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2226 on: May 23, 2020, 09:42:33 AM »
I wonder if irl, there are motor cooling solutions like fans or heatsinks.

Was asking because imo the motors are overheating too fast
« Last Edit: May 23, 2020, 10:58:01 AM by kix »

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2227 on: May 23, 2020, 09:51:22 AM »
http://www.ampflow.com/three_inch_high_performance_motors.htm

I'm not sure what the fan-cooled motors' track performance in robot combat is like though.

The usual solution is to gear the motors down to keep the temperature low.

Offline Somebody

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2228 on: May 23, 2020, 12:38:56 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)

Fun story about the ampflows. When running-in our A28 motors, brand new, just running for 10 minutes on the bench with no load, they ended up hot enough to burn me.
I built that big robot on that TV show that time


Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2229 on: May 23, 2020, 12:49:54 PM »


Fun story about the ampflows. When running-in our A28 motors, brand new, just running for 10 minutes on the bench with no load, they ended up hot enough to burn me.

Oof!  Are you still using them?

We haven't had any problems, but we are only running the A28-150Gs at 24 volts to push a 60 pound robot.

BTW - The girls team's version of "HUGE" (they called it "Colossus") worked really really well!  They did a thwackbot with a crowbar on the end and 22" diameter UHMW wheels.  Thank you for your help!

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2230 on: May 23, 2020, 05:15:48 PM »
Hey guys,

With schools shut down due to COVID here in the US, we were just asked if the game could be used in "virtual summer camps" to teach about robotics and to hold virtual robot combat tournaments.  How do you guys feel about using the game with a bunch of kids and hosting a tournament via Parsec?  I know that we do it here with a bunch of die-hard folks, but is it ready for a bunch of students?

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2231 on: May 23, 2020, 05:51:42 PM »
Hey guys,

With schools shut down due to COVID here in the US, we were just asked if the game could be used in "virtual summer camps" to teach about robotics and to hold virtual robot combat tournaments.  How do you guys feel about using the game with a bunch of kids and hosting a tournament via Parsec?  I know that we do it here with a bunch of die-hard folks, but is it ready for a bunch of students?

What would be the date and time?

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2232 on: May 23, 2020, 06:51:04 PM »
Not sure.  It might be for an engineering camp this summer.

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2233 on: May 24, 2020, 12:36:12 PM »
Not sure.  It might be for an engineering camp this summer.

Oh, i thought it would be sooner, but gladly its not as im busy, and will be for a couple of weeks.
Hosting a tournamet via parsec may or may not be a problem, depending on the ping/input delay, as if i were to host, i would be hosting from EU. I had success hosting to US people so im not that worried.

Offline cjbruce

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2234 on: May 24, 2020, 02:22:56 PM »
Not sure.  It might be for an engineering camp this summer.

Oh, i thought it would be sooner, but gladly its not as im busy, and will be for a couple of weeks.
Hosting a tournamet via parsec may or may not be a problem, depending on the ping/input delay, as if i were to host, i would be hosting from EU. I had success hosting to US people so im not that worried.

The plan is to run the host on the computer at the college.  They have a VR gaming PC and a high-bandwidth connection.  Everyone, including the host, would be within the same city.  I just wanted to know what sort of issues we are going to have if we start advertising this as a thing that people can do with the game.  I would love to open it up to students, but I'm a little scared of the logistics -- parents would be paying money for the experience, and it needs to go well.

Offline CodeSilver23

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2235 on: May 24, 2020, 04:11:56 PM »
Not sure.  It might be for an engineering camp this summer.

Oh, i thought it would be sooner, but gladly its not as im busy, and will be for a couple of weeks.
Hosting a tournamet via parsec may or may not be a problem, depending on the ping/input delay, as if i were to host, i would be hosting from EU. I had success hosting to US people so im not that worried.

The plan is to run the host on the computer at the college.  They have a VR gaming PC and a high-bandwidth connection.  Everyone, including the host, would be within the same city.  I just wanted to know what sort of issues we are going to have if we start advertising this as a thing that people can do with the game.  I would love to open it up to students, but I'm a little scared of the logistics -- parents would be paying money for the experience, and it needs to go well.
Might want to use Discord or something alongside Parsec to better communicate with those attending. It also might help to plan everything out like build rules. Make sure bots sent in are actually functional.
Accomplishments:

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2236 on: May 24, 2020, 05:27:52 PM »
Not sure.  It might be for an engineering camp this summer.

Oh, i thought it would be sooner, but gladly its not as im busy, and will be for a couple of weeks.
Hosting a tournamet via parsec may or may not be a problem, depending on the ping/input delay, as if i were to host, i would be hosting from EU. I had success hosting to US people so im not that worried.

The plan is to run the host on the computer at the college.  They have a VR gaming PC and a high-bandwidth connection.  Everyone, including the host, would be within the same city.  I just wanted to know what sort of issues we are going to have if we start advertising this as a thing that people can do with the game.  I would love to open it up to students, but I'm a little scared of the logistics -- parents would be paying money for the experience, and it needs to go well.

Honestly there are 2 worst case scenarios
1. The client has a weaker internet speed than it is required and the input lag/visual lag will be very large
2. The client wont be able to connect to the host, which itself can be resolved by resetting the router of the client (idk if that works all of the times)

Maybe a test hosting session?

Offline Somebody

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2237 on: May 24, 2020, 07:01:51 PM »


Fun story about the ampflows. When running-in our A28 motors, brand new, just running for 10 minutes on the bench with no load, they ended up hot enough to burn me.

Oof!  Are you still using them?

We haven't had any problems, but we are only running the A28-150Gs at 24 volts to push a 60 pound robot.

BTW - The girls team's version of "HUGE" (they called it "Colossus") worked really really well!  They did a thwackbot with a crowbar on the end and 22" diameter UHMW wheels.  Thank you for your help!

That's awesome! And I think the A28-150G's should work perfect in that size. A few heavyweights even boldly use them. Valkyrie has always just been 2 A28-150 motors, although it's never been tasked with pushing much. Since we used the A28-400G's, we were using the same gearboxes as well, which held up fine for 6 fights at BattleBots and 3 at Robot Ruckus (in thwackbot mode). We won't be using them for 2020 (or 2021... or 2022.......), as we designed in Maytech 8085 Brushless motors. We were swapping the weapon to those motors and decided to change the drive over as well, so that all of the spares can be double-useful.
I built that big robot on that TV show that time


Offline 3g

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2238 on: May 25, 2020, 03:41:43 PM »
One thing you could think about adding to the game is being able to place one wheel in both ends of a belt or chain system. If I have a motor in the back of the robot for an example, and I'm trying to make a 4 WD, I can't place a wheel in the back because the game won't let me. And another thing, is is possible to use only one battery for all motors in a bot? IRL most robots from lower weight classes are powered by only one battery.

Offline kix

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Re: Robot Rumble 2.0 - Robot Combat Simulator - Under Development
« Reply #2239 on: May 25, 2020, 03:59:24 PM »
One thing you could think about adding to the game is being able to place one wheel in both ends of a belt or chain system. If I have a motor in the back of the robot for an example, and I'm trying to make a 4 WD, I can't place a wheel in the back because the game won't let me. And another thing, is is possible to use only one battery for all motors in a bot? IRL most robots from lower weight classes are powered by only one battery.

1. They are planning to add the feature to attach more than one chain/wheel to the motor

2. I think you can use a splitter to do that