Walker Featured Vehicles (Next Theme: Ballistas)
December's Featured Vehicles Theme was Walkers, and there were a lot of very cool entries as usual. Let's take a look at the Winners and Honorable Mentions:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Here's the list in text form:
FEATURED VEHICLES
HONORABLE MENTIONS
There were a number of very-cool-looking walkers that didn't make the list, mostly because they didn't walk particularly well. That ended up being the number 1 criteria by a significant amount, along with having an interesting walking mechanism. I also stopped looking back in time around the end of June, so there were some older walkers that may have made the list if they had been updated recently.
That leads into a problem with how the Featured Vehicles system works in-game: It shows the featured vehicles in chronological order (by creation date). I'm probably not going to be able to reasonably fix the issue, but it just means I would encourage everyone who wants to enter future contests to re-submit their older vehicles as NEW workshop entries. It's not a big problem, just makes the list a little more random than desired.
JANUARY'S THEME: BALLISTAS
Next month's Featured Vehicle theme will be Ballistas. A Ballista is essentially just a very large crossbow meant to be used as a siege weapon. They are traditionally powered by ropes or cables of some type, and that's the desired design for this contest as well. There are a number of settings for ropes and rope types in Instruments of Destruction, and I've gone through and tested a large number of them to find some generally good settings.
Basically, Bungees make for the best elastic-firing ropes. Wires can also work, and Heavy Ropes can kinda work in specific cases. In the advanced settings, you'll want to start with something like this if you're using a stretched-out Bungee to fire a projectile:
ATTACH STRENGTH: 3.0
STABILITY: 0.5
TENSION: 3.0
SMOOTHNESS: 0.1
NODE SPACING: 7
Similar settings can be used for Wires, though it'd be advisable in any case to make multiple copies of whatever you're using to fire a projectile and do multiple test shots with slightly different settings to figure out what works best for you. Using multiple parallel ropes can increase the firing power, as you can see in this test vehicle I made while trying out various settings.
The projectiles don't have to be elastic-rope-powered, or spring-and-rope-powered, but I'm going to favor designs that utilize ropes similar to a real ballista. Other quick notes: The projectiles only need to be fired once (more is fine, not required), and they should preferably do physical damage instead of explosive.
WINCH SETTINGS
While I was messing with ropes, I went ahead and tried out various settings to see what works best for winches. Heavy Ropes and Cables work the best, but the exact settings depend a little more on the exact design of your winch and use case. Bungee is also surprisingly decent, while Wire is only ok and generally requires a pretty thick object to wrap around. Here are some good settings to start with for Heavy Rope:
ATTACH STRENGTH: 3.0
STABILITY: 2.1
TENSION: 3.0
SMOOTHNESS: 2.0
NODE SPACING: 4
Note that the Stability, Smoothness, and Node Spacing are very different from the elastic-rope settings, and the settings vary more between rope type. You can also get away with more varied settings if the central part of your winch is thicker. I added the test winch vehicle to the workshop as well.
[Only Heavy Rope and Cable work well with thinner beams, so also keep that in mind.]
VERSION 0.206 CHANGELIST
Made the following changes/fixes for version 0.206. It's mostly just tweaks/fixes to the Hook Launcher:
There will be another update later this week to add control remapping and maybe a bit more. I'll post patch notes when that build arrives, but there probably won't be another news post. Will be on winter break for a while after that, with updates resuming sometime in January.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Here's the list in text form:
FEATURED VEHICLES
- Crawling Kaiju 2.0 - Smilloww
- HCLW Castello Errante - Arad
- Centipede - Shawnnui
- E.A.P. Heavy Mobile Walker - WSung
- Billy Bluber Bones - PaperMachine
- CrawlSpace - IceCreamMan4254
- Cyberpod Walker - Zombie Ninja
- Monoped X - Jonny_Arson
- Steering Flip Beam Walker - Pyalot
- Centipede - Pyalot
- Hunter - Stranger
- UHM Hexapod Walker - PengWolf
- Black Force Legacy - Detaal
- Cepa - Detaal
- Wacky Bipedal Walker - Kitten
- G.O.D. Mega Dragon 2.0 - _Unripe
HONORABLE MENTIONS
- Nemesis mk 3 - Stranger
- Tower Legs - Otokamo510
- Siege Engine mk1b - Stranger
- Walkism 3000 - Jonny_Arson
- Stomp! - Looshkin42
- Creep Crawler - IceCreamMan4254
- Rommel - Neo_Runner
- Nix - Detaal
There were a number of very-cool-looking walkers that didn't make the list, mostly because they didn't walk particularly well. That ended up being the number 1 criteria by a significant amount, along with having an interesting walking mechanism. I also stopped looking back in time around the end of June, so there were some older walkers that may have made the list if they had been updated recently.
That leads into a problem with how the Featured Vehicles system works in-game: It shows the featured vehicles in chronological order (by creation date). I'm probably not going to be able to reasonably fix the issue, but it just means I would encourage everyone who wants to enter future contests to re-submit their older vehicles as NEW workshop entries. It's not a big problem, just makes the list a little more random than desired.
JANUARY'S THEME: BALLISTAS
Next month's Featured Vehicle theme will be Ballistas. A Ballista is essentially just a very large crossbow meant to be used as a siege weapon. They are traditionally powered by ropes or cables of some type, and that's the desired design for this contest as well. There are a number of settings for ropes and rope types in Instruments of Destruction, and I've gone through and tested a large number of them to find some generally good settings.
Basically, Bungees make for the best elastic-firing ropes. Wires can also work, and Heavy Ropes can kinda work in specific cases. In the advanced settings, you'll want to start with something like this if you're using a stretched-out Bungee to fire a projectile:
ATTACH STRENGTH: 3.0
STABILITY: 0.5
TENSION: 3.0
SMOOTHNESS: 0.1
NODE SPACING: 7
Similar settings can be used for Wires, though it'd be advisable in any case to make multiple copies of whatever you're using to fire a projectile and do multiple test shots with slightly different settings to figure out what works best for you. Using multiple parallel ropes can increase the firing power, as you can see in this test vehicle I made while trying out various settings.
The projectiles don't have to be elastic-rope-powered, or spring-and-rope-powered, but I'm going to favor designs that utilize ropes similar to a real ballista. Other quick notes: The projectiles only need to be fired once (more is fine, not required), and they should preferably do physical damage instead of explosive.
WINCH SETTINGS
While I was messing with ropes, I went ahead and tried out various settings to see what works best for winches. Heavy Ropes and Cables work the best, but the exact settings depend a little more on the exact design of your winch and use case. Bungee is also surprisingly decent, while Wire is only ok and generally requires a pretty thick object to wrap around. Here are some good settings to start with for Heavy Rope:
ATTACH STRENGTH: 3.0
STABILITY: 2.1
TENSION: 3.0
SMOOTHNESS: 2.0
NODE SPACING: 4
Note that the Stability, Smoothness, and Node Spacing are very different from the elastic-rope settings, and the settings vary more between rope type. You can also get away with more varied settings if the central part of your winch is thicker. I added the test winch vehicle to the workshop as well.
[Only Heavy Rope and Cable work well with thinner beams, so also keep that in mind.]
VERSION 0.206 CHANGELIST
Made the following changes/fixes for version 0.206. It's mostly just tweaks/fixes to the Hook Launcher:
- Added a limit to how much tension ropes on grappling hook will apply (prevents ropes going absolutely insane)
- Added an option to re-use the previous thumbnail when updating a Steam Workshop vehicle
- Adjusted how some parts are displayed in the UI (added additional rotation modifier)
- Added option to use the previous thumbnail in an Updated vehicle
- Fixed sure grappling hook not having the right color when fired
- Made a ground-attached hook pull on the player a more reasonable amount
- Changed how pull strength to player works a bit on structures, so there's a reasonable cap for unbroken structures, and broken ones don't pull you as much
- Changed minimum pull damage radius to be smaller towards the bottom of structures
- Made the grappling hook retract if it hits water
- Fixed ropes making weird long-box-shaped splashes
- Made the flex arc able to cycle base connector (so it can be resized from either side, essentially)
There will be another update later this week to add control remapping and maybe a bit more. I'll post patch notes when that build arrives, but there probably won't be another news post. Will be on winter break for a while after that, with updates resuming sometime in January.