Introducing the GRAPPLING HOOK!
Let's jump right in with a couple GIFs of the Grappling Hook:
That's using the hook to do more damage than pulling.
And that's using it to do more pulling than damage.
Same vehicle, same part, just with different settings. It's a very bland vehicle, but incredibly fun to play with the hook. I think this might be the single best part in the game, but it's too early to say for sure.
HOOKED ON YOU
I originally created the grappling hook part back in mid-2021. It has many hacks in how it works, and it looked pretty wonky a lot of times, so I disabled it ahead of the launch earlier this year. It was the most-asked-about "coming soon" part, and I've put off working on it because I was worried it could explode into a much bigger task. Ropes are pretty difficult to work with, and I didn't really want to deal with the grappling hook's rope that much, as I couldn't really remember how I made it change in length, but I knew it wasn't a great method.
Turns out, it barely mattered. The rope is not really that important to the grappling hook, and I'd already figured that out (apparently) last year. The scaling of the rope works well enough, and I just had to tweak the visuals a bit and make it shorten its length more aggressively. The two most important parts of the hook are the (invisible) spring between the cannon and the hook itself, and the destruction damage caused by pulling on a building.
The spring just needed a few tweaks to make it stronger and more adjustable (by the player). The damage code had a simple math bug in it, and once that was fixed, I only had to tweak a few settings to get it working well.
So what should happen when a heavy vehicle pulls hard on a structure? Should the vehicle get pulled towards the building at high speed, or should the structure rip apart and come flying towards you? The answer is both, but it's really up to you which happens more. There are multiple sliders in the advanced mode setting that let you customize how the hook functions. It's also powerful enough that you really only need one grappling hook for most cases, but you can certainly use more than one if you want.
The biggest problem with using more than one is the controls aren't ideal for that case. By default, E fires the hook, and E also recalls it (without pulling on anything). If you want to pull towards the attached object, you press Q. It's still a little bit wonky at times, but generally just try both E and Q after you fire it out and you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly. Once the hook gets close enough to the cannon, it auto-snaps back in place.
[With two or more, the ropes can get out of sync because they can get caught on things when returning. Not always a problem, and it can be messed with to fix it, but it's definitely an issue.]
v0.205 CHANGELIST
The grappling hook is the shiny new thing for v0.205, but there are a lot more nice changes below. Here's the full changelist, then I'll highlight a couple important new things:
The new optional outputs for the Bombs/Pistons/Pivots let you trigger other parts for specific events/etc. It's pretty easy to add new outputs for most parts (except certain joints), so let me know if you want them for other parts. The Grappling Hook will probably get them at some point.
The locking mechanism for certain joints was a recent request, and it actually lets you do some interesting new mechanical contraptions. Note that it doesn't fully lock the vehicle/joint, but this is the closest I could get after hours of trying different approaches.
WALKER FEATURED VEHICLES
The video for Walkers is still being worked on, but winners will be announced soon. The theme for the next contest is also chosen (Ballistas), and I'll go over some tips/hints about the best rope settings/designs in the next Steam post as well. If you want to see the overall conclusion, check out my Workshop page (the 2nd most recent upload).
That's using the hook to do more damage than pulling.
And that's using it to do more pulling than damage.
Same vehicle, same part, just with different settings. It's a very bland vehicle, but incredibly fun to play with the hook. I think this might be the single best part in the game, but it's too early to say for sure.
HOOKED ON YOU
I originally created the grappling hook part back in mid-2021. It has many hacks in how it works, and it looked pretty wonky a lot of times, so I disabled it ahead of the launch earlier this year. It was the most-asked-about "coming soon" part, and I've put off working on it because I was worried it could explode into a much bigger task. Ropes are pretty difficult to work with, and I didn't really want to deal with the grappling hook's rope that much, as I couldn't really remember how I made it change in length, but I knew it wasn't a great method.
Turns out, it barely mattered. The rope is not really that important to the grappling hook, and I'd already figured that out (apparently) last year. The scaling of the rope works well enough, and I just had to tweak the visuals a bit and make it shorten its length more aggressively. The two most important parts of the hook are the (invisible) spring between the cannon and the hook itself, and the destruction damage caused by pulling on a building.
The spring just needed a few tweaks to make it stronger and more adjustable (by the player). The damage code had a simple math bug in it, and once that was fixed, I only had to tweak a few settings to get it working well.
So what should happen when a heavy vehicle pulls hard on a structure? Should the vehicle get pulled towards the building at high speed, or should the structure rip apart and come flying towards you? The answer is both, but it's really up to you which happens more. There are multiple sliders in the advanced mode setting that let you customize how the hook functions. It's also powerful enough that you really only need one grappling hook for most cases, but you can certainly use more than one if you want.
The biggest problem with using more than one is the controls aren't ideal for that case. By default, E fires the hook, and E also recalls it (without pulling on anything). If you want to pull towards the attached object, you press Q. It's still a little bit wonky at times, but generally just try both E and Q after you fire it out and you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly. Once the hook gets close enough to the cannon, it auto-snaps back in place.
[With two or more, the ropes can get out of sync because they can get caught on things when returning. Not always a problem, and it can be messed with to fix it, but it's definitely an issue.]
v0.205 CHANGELIST
The grappling hook is the shiny new thing for v0.205, but there are a lot more nice changes below. Here's the full changelist, then I'll highlight a couple important new things:
- Added new part: Grappling Hook
- Added optional outputs for bombs, pistons and limited rotation pivots
- NOTE: Bombs activate (for 1 frame) when they explode, pistons and pivots activate the +/- outputs based on reaching the ends of their limits
- Added locking mechanism for the following parts (assign a key to use it, can also be a toggle):
- Sliding pipe, Axle/Axle S, Flex Swivel, Flex Pivot, Free Swivel, Free Pivot, Socket
- NOTE: Locking doesn't completely stop any movement/rotation, just slows it WAY down
- Changed advanced mode slider behavior with SHIFT (increments slowly towards cursor)
- Changed it so you get the active cab type when you reset a vehicle or delete everything (instead of always the 1st one)
- Reduced the delay between multiple bombs exploding (player bombs are almost instant)
- Fixed ultra-slow connector generation in certain cases (would cause reloading the level to take 20+ seconds)
- Fixed center of mass not being correctly calculated when entering play mode
- WARNING: This will mess with some vehicles, particularly flyers
- Fixed flex arc not lining up when previewing the placement, and being the wrong default size
- Fixed flex beams having the wrong alignment for one of the connectors after rotating + playing the game
- Level Editor: Fixed focus on selection not working for meshes, loop centers, and joints
- Fixed pistons ignoring input strength for multiple modes (Auto-Extend/Retract and half of Oscillate)
- Fixed phantom parts getting saved to the vehicle file in edge cases (ignore them on load)
- Fixed copy-paste settings not updating the part shapes for ones that change dynamically (such as suspension)
- Fixed a few localization issues
- Disabled motor torque spin debug message
- Reduced chance of broken metal forming a jointed structure (by 40%)
The new optional outputs for the Bombs/Pistons/Pivots let you trigger other parts for specific events/etc. It's pretty easy to add new outputs for most parts (except certain joints), so let me know if you want them for other parts. The Grappling Hook will probably get them at some point.
The locking mechanism for certain joints was a recent request, and it actually lets you do some interesting new mechanical contraptions. Note that it doesn't fully lock the vehicle/joint, but this is the closest I could get after hours of trying different approaches.
WALKER FEATURED VEHICLES
The video for Walkers is still being worked on, but winners will be announced soon. The theme for the next contest is also chosen (Ballistas), and I'll go over some tips/hints about the best rope settings/designs in the next Steam post as well. If you want to see the overall conclusion, check out my Workshop page (the 2nd most recent upload).