Instruments of Destruction News

It's been a while since the last update. I've been away for over a month (see below), but I'm back now and looking forward to adding some new combat elements and 2nd campaign to the game. That work starts tomorrow. Today we're taking a look at the amazing creations from the 10th Featured Vehicle contest. This month's theme was Ballistas.





I'll have a video below with the highlights of the testing, but the two Ballistas above were the head of the pack this time. There were 12 Featured Vehicles total, with these 2 being amazingly accurate and powerful while being reloadable at the same time. I don't have a "special prize" from them, but both the GyroFlyWheel Ballista by PyroTeknikid and Gyro Torsion Ballista V2 by (Arch)B_Glo were both worthy of some special recognition. Well done to both of you!

Here's the full rundown of the 12 Featured Vehicles and 13 Honorable Mentions:

FEATURED VEHICLES
GyroFlyWheel Ballista - PyroTeknikid
Gyro Torsion Ballista V2 - (Arch)B_Glo
The Ballista - Dominus Nicta
Air Ballista - St. Nicolas
Big Bad Ballista - HowToWin2222
Baliste Mk 1a - Stranger
Auto Ballista - FerroCentric
Artillery Scorpion Mk I - (Arch)B_Glo
Acla Javelin - Arad
Prototype Rail Ballista - WSung
Prototype Grapplista - (Arch)B_Glo
Basic Ballista - Richard333

HONORABLE MENTIONS
Realistic Ballista - (Arch)B_Glo
Mobile Ballista - St. Nicalis
Ballista V2 - Komarsh
Ballox - Philosaur
Wartime Ballista - IntenseAngel84
Polaris Cannon - Turbo Jack Flash
Iron Ballista - Enteroctopus Darksilis
Rail Ballista - St. Nicalis
Concept Ballista - (Arch)B_Glo
Ballistauto - (Arch)B_Glo
Realistic Ballista - WSung
Ballista - MrNobody Gaming
Baliste Mk 2 - Stranger

And here's the highlight video:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

NEXT THEME: EXCAVATORS Due Date: March 15th

We've only had one traditional construction vehicle theme so far, and it felt like a good time for another. So this time we're want an Excavator. Excavators have many uses, and one of those is often tearing down a medium-sized building with precision. I'll use the excavators on a building proportional to the size. The Excavators don't have to be entirely traditional, but it's fine if they are, as long as they do the job and look good doing it.

WHERE HAVE I BEEN?

Many of you may have noticed I haven't updated the game in over a month (that's a long time for me). Part of the break was due to the holidays, but not all of it. I've mentioned a side-project before, and I have spent a lot of time recently trying to get a demo of that done. The demo is essentially finished now, about a week later than I hoped it would be. Due to the longer-than-expected completion time, I'm going to wait even longer to release the demo. Steam's February Next Fest is just around the corner, and people have already started unleashing a *lot* of demos from that into the wild. With the demo out of the way, I don't plan on working on the side-project much at all for quite a while (many months, possibly longer). So I'm back to Instruments full-time.

I have to admit I'm also trying to kill a little bit of time by having worked on the side project. Someone I *really* want to work with is planning to start helping out on Instruments in May, and he's one of the best programmers I've ever worked with. Instruments of Destruction has an enormous amount of potential, and it's sometimes overwhelming to think about all the things that *could* be done with the physics/destruction engine and vehicle builder. The Roadmap is still a good guide to the overall path to version 1.0, but it's possible ambitions for the game will grow larger if all goes well.

For now, I'll be focusing on adding more combat elements to the game. Until next time...

New Part: Flex Triangle!
- It even *mostly* works with Mirror Mode (crosses fingers)

• Add control remapping for most Keyboard shortcuts in gameplay and build mode (in Options near the lower left)
  
• Add control remapping for most gamepad shortcuts
  
• [NOTE: Most help displays haven't been updated yet, so they will mostly display the default, not what a control currently is.]
  
• Added 2 new parts: Y-Split 120 (perfect 3-way split, good for making hexagons/etc), and 5-Way 120 (2 more connectors on top/bottom)
  
• Added ability for hook launcher to attach to entities and to player vehicles
  
• Added "Lock Cabs In Place" option for Sandbox mode (not saved with vehicle, intended for building advanced vehicles)
  
• Added MAX IMPACT SPEED display, shows up if you get an impact of 200 km/hr or more (helps with Ballista testing)
  
• Adjusted level load damage falloff time to 3 seconds (instead of 5)
  
• Adjusted a number of part masses/costs (mostly in the FrameSimple category)
  
• Fixed Min Rotation slider not snapping to smaller increments when holding shift
  
• Added a small message to the Load Vehicle menu about restoring the previous vehicle if you meant to save instead
  
• Added a possible fix to the game soft-crashing if the downloaded featured vehicle file can't be read by the game
  

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

• 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.

Fixed propellers being broken.
Fixed flex swivels and free swivels not locking.
Fixed not being able to use Toggle mode for locking on most parts that should have had it.

Added F11 (in-game): Toggle debug display for center of mass info.