Dev Log #9 The Hover Pad - New Part!
Hey Inventors!
Welcome to our 9th weekly Dev Log!
It's time to get creative with a new edition to the parts at your disposal in Main Assembly!
The Hover Pad is a new part in Main Assembly that works like a replacement for Drive Motors and lets you quickly create futuristic hovercraft.
The main purpose of this part is to make high-speed controllable vehicles, something that is hard to do with physical wheels. The part itself will handle hovering, steering and braking for you but it will not generate any forward thrust, so you'll have to combine it with another part that does just that.
How it works
This part works by applying three forces to the bot:
1. An upward force to create the hover effect. The strength of this force is proportional to the distance to the ground and it works similar to a normal spring. The more you compress a spring the stronger the resistance is.
2. A side force to keep the bot going straight and not slide uncontrollably. This force is also responsible for steering.
3. A brake force when brakes are engaged.
Programming
It offers four inputs that can be programmed:
The Steer node offers a parameter called Lean that controls the position of the side force. At 0.0 the position of the force is exactly where the part is, and a positive value will offset the force upwards in centimetres. The effect this has on driving is that it changes the rotational effect when you take turns. Generally, a positive value will make the bot lean more into turns. However, this value depends on the center-of-mass of the bot, so it's not universal.
Under the hood this part is updated at 100 Hz, which is the same as the physics tick rate, to make it accurate and reliable regardless of your current FPS.
See it in action!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
This week in the community spotlight is the Su-57 by Akaize, take flight with this impressive fifth generation stealth fighter jet!
See it in action here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H07_SvH8tUs
Be sure to comment below or get in touch with any builds you feel we should feature next week! :)
Thanks for reading inventors, we'll see you next week for dev log #10! :D
Plus, if you want to be notified on Steam you can wishlist the game for it's Early Access launch on June 11th here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1078920/Main_Assembly/
You can also keep up with Main Assembly's development on all these channels:
Main Assembly Twitter Main Assembly Reddit Main Assembly Facebook Main Assembly Discord Team17 Twitter Team17 Facebook Team17 Discord
Welcome to our 9th weekly Dev Log!
It's time to get creative with a new edition to the parts at your disposal in Main Assembly!
New part – Hover Pad
The Hover Pad is a new part in Main Assembly that works like a replacement for Drive Motors and lets you quickly create futuristic hovercraft.
The main purpose of this part is to make high-speed controllable vehicles, something that is hard to do with physical wheels. The part itself will handle hovering, steering and braking for you but it will not generate any forward thrust, so you'll have to combine it with another part that does just that.
How it works
This part works by applying three forces to the bot:
1. An upward force to create the hover effect. The strength of this force is proportional to the distance to the ground and it works similar to a normal spring. The more you compress a spring the stronger the resistance is.
2. A side force to keep the bot going straight and not slide uncontrollably. This force is also responsible for steering.
3. A brake force when brakes are engaged.
Programming
It offers four inputs that can be programmed:
- Hover controls the strength of the upward force and defaults to 1.0 if not programmed. Set to 0.0 to turn off this part.
- Drift controls the strength of the side and brake forces. Higher values will result in a “floaty” feeling with less grip. Setting this to 1.0 allows the bot to move freely with no resistance. This affects both steering and braking ability.
- Brake and Steer are self-explanatory and works like Drive Motors.
The Steer node offers a parameter called Lean that controls the position of the side force. At 0.0 the position of the force is exactly where the part is, and a positive value will offset the force upwards in centimetres. The effect this has on driving is that it changes the rotational effect when you take turns. Generally, a positive value will make the bot lean more into turns. However, this value depends on the center-of-mass of the bot, so it's not universal.
Under the hood this part is updated at 100 Hz, which is the same as the physics tick rate, to make it accurate and reliable regardless of your current FPS.
See it in action!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Learn how to make aircraft:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Community Bot Spotlight
This week in the community spotlight is the Su-57 by Akaize, take flight with this impressive fifth generation stealth fighter jet!
See it in action here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H07_SvH8tUs
Be sure to comment below or get in touch with any builds you feel we should feature next week! :)
Thanks for reading inventors, we'll see you next week for dev log #10! :D
Plus, if you want to be notified on Steam you can wishlist the game for it's Early Access launch on June 11th here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1078920/Main_Assembly/
You can also keep up with Main Assembly's development on all these channels:
Main Assembly Twitter Main Assembly Reddit Main Assembly Facebook Main Assembly Discord Team17 Twitter Team17 Facebook Team17 Discord