Instruments of Destruction News

Added part relative movement option (Shift+W by default), along with a move axis
Changed part rotation so it makes more sense, and displays the rotation axis arcs
Added rotation increment settings to buildmode (Shift+Brackets to change)
Added part rotation/position display
Expanded part move increment range down to 0.125
(NOTE: Red = X = Left/Right, Green = Y = Up/Down, Blue = Z = PgUp/PgDn)
(When rotating, keys are switched for X/Y because it feels better)

Made a bunch of build mode settings save/load (snap settings, move/rotation mode, and large/small thing)
Fixed dual-direction rotation sensor
Improved overdrive display in new UI
Fixed saw blade not working with logic inputs
Tread_collider now defaults everything to Slippery except tires
Fixed rotation snap so it actually does something reasonable instead of randomly rotating things

Version 0.250 is another update where parts and advanced part options are focused on polishing vehicles even more. We'll break down the full changelist and go over some of the elements/changes in more detail.

PHYSICS TWEAKING AND CONTROL Added new part: Rotation Sensor (logic)
- Senses rotation around an axis (or overall speed)
Added new part: Physics Modifier (flight)
- Adjust some physics properties of the attached rigidbody (velocity damping, gravity, center of mass, inertia tensor)

There are two all-new parts in this update focused on giving more precise control over physics/controls. The Rotation sensor measures the rotation speed (in radians/sec) of the rigidbody it's attached to, and outputs 1 or 2 values based on the rotation. In ANY mode, it measures the total rotation speed regardless of axis/direction. In the other 3 single-axis modes (X/Y/Z), it measures how fast the rigidbody is rotating *relative to the Rotation Sensor's orientation*. In single-axis mode, it can use dual outputs, so rotation in one direction or another can be measured separately.

The second part is the Physics Modifier. This one lets you adjust the physics of the attached rigidbody more directly. The 1st two settings (Move/Spin Dampen) are the same as those in the Gyroscope but with a higher max value. They essentially act as additional drag for rotation/movement. Bonus Solver makes the physics run more sub-steps, and is only recommended for stabilizing joints (reinforcing a joint is recommended before using this, and combining them does result in stiffer/more stable joints). This setting "spreads" to other rigidbodies more than the other settings due to how physics work under the hood.

The next settings are Bonus Gravity and CoM Y-Offset. Bonus Gravity is a bonus multiplier on top of the normal gravity settings (if the Sandbox gravity is 0, this does nothing). CoM means Center of Mass, and it moves the center of mass down, relative to how the rigidbody starts in the world. Both of these values are often used to make cars drive better in games. The final settings are Tensor X/Y/Z. These adjust how much the rigidbody resists rotation in those directions. The higher the values, the more rotational inertia the body will appear to have in those specific axes.

COLOR SLOTS Increased vehicle color slots to 8

Just a quick mention here: If anything is going to have a bad bug in this update, it's probably this. It appears to be fully working though, and combines nicely with other recent updates that added more colors and made it possible to select all parts of the same color (Shift+click on a color). I expect some people will use the additional colors as essentially "selection groups" rather than colors, as you can set all the slots to the same color. This is probably the last significant vehicle color-related update until a custom color editor is added (not sure if that'll be before or after 1.0).

GENERAL/PHYSICS TWEAKING Added damper mod setting to suspension parts
Added TREAD COLLIDER as a material override (collides with treads and other tread colliders, but not other player parts)
Added advanced option to reduce structure damage from attacher
Changed Slippery material override to do significantly reduced damage to structures
Changed ropes to do a lot less damage to structures
Changed one end of resizing rope to have a better joint anchor position (less awkward skewing)
Increased max starting position to 50 (from 12) for Winch

The first two changes were requests that made sense, and let you do more customization with suspensions and treads. The rest are about improving the Winch/Hook Launcher/Attacher, though they also affect ropes. Structures were taking too much damage from ropes of all sorts, and the Attacher damage to structures is now adjustable. So doing structure-climbing vehicles/machines is a lot easier now, and the Hook Launcher fails to stay attached a lot less often.

CAR-FIGHTING VEHICLES Tweaked explosion damage/force vs. entities
Tweaked damage/explosions vs. plants
Tweaked blaster force to be more upward
Increased damage/force to automobiles from collisions at high speeds

These changes make vehicles that battles against the car objects/AI more fun. Also trying to make explosions/etc more consistent.

TWEAKING STUFF Added depth offset to flex panel/triangle/light
Added Shift+click (left of slider) - Select all flex connections on current linkage
- Also works for Motor Linkage on powered pivots and Channel on Prox Sensor
Added an inner glow for thrusters
Added some inherited velocity to some particles (blaster, weapon fire, and thrusters)

Flex Panels/Lights/Triangles become a bit easier to use in awkward locations with a depth offset. Flex Connections (and a couple other things) with the same linkage can be selected with Shift+click. The other two are just minor visual tweaks.

OTHER FIXES Fixed reinforced joints getting double (or more) mass on 1st spawn (fixes most 1st-spawn issues I think)
Fixed reflection probes going black far too soon (reflection probe bounds 6x bigger, this is the weird graphical issue if you drove far on Desert Test)
Fixed flex arc having terrible collision for build mode
Fixed copy-paste (and other functions) on combo wheels
Made loading a vehicle remove inputs/outputs for parts that shouldn't have them
Fixed letting you assign to an invalid input (for 2-input parts)
Fixed mirror-duplicate not aligning flex triangles (and connectors not updating immediately)
Fixed direction sensor Motion Direction making no sound
Fixed Flex connection drawing still linking to deleted parts

Just some more bug fixes, with the more important/critical ones towards the top.



Version 0.250 isn't really anything special, but the amount of polish and control that is now possible with vehicles (and controls) means the quality of the built-in vehicles for the campaign will that much higher. I've been polishing vehicles and figuring out exactly what kinds of missions/maps will work best for the campaign. I'll be starting on some of those soon, though I always seem to find more things to fix/tweak as I'm making the vehicles.

As with 0.245, I don't *expect* to make any further updates for a while, but I've wrong about that so many times that I should stop predicting things like that.

VERSION 0.245 CHANGELIST
Added new part: Winch
Added rope extend/contract controls
Added new part: Flex Light
Added repeat count parameter for Flex Panel (repeats along Width axis)
Added 5 new styles for Flex Panel
Added new small part: Ultra Heavy S
Slightly tweaked Center of Mass (again, sorry) to fix issues with variable mass and multi-collider parts (mass remains unchanged)
Added wrecking ball mass adjustments
Increased Fixed Bombs max strength to 6 (reminder: Strength on Fixed Bombs only affects the damage it takes to explode, not damage/range/etc)
Increased max mass setting for Ultra Heavy/Steel Orb/etc
Improved grass/rock generation for large maps
Fixed dead/inactive flex connections drawing
Fixed pistons not using their sound overrides
Adjusted rope compute shader so it has less obvious twisting (when ropes are vertical)
Fixed rocket gravity settings with game speed set to anything besides 1.0x
Fixed Bomb launcher aerial timer (both versions) and delay time (S version)
Fixed Overdrive S not working for some parts (depending on the order of parts in the vehicle)
Made Overdrive S draw lines on the side
Changed ground plane levels (Desert Test) to use a dynamic mesh collider that follows the player (in addition to the giant plane)
- This makes walkers like Hex Storm more consistent in top speed
Fixed spread of bomb launcher being affected by aerial timer
Fixed (I think) tread belts no appearing if you start too far forward/back from the origin
Fixed some parts getting 2000kg added to them from enabling a checkbox (Wave Generator + Sequencer in particular)
Changed default flex tread values to be better

The big new part for today, and possibly the last major new part for a while, is the Winch. It uses a combination of an invisible joint and a resizable rope to create the winch. Like other ropes, it does have some limits on how much weight it can hold without getting a bit wonky, but you can always use more than one for bigger loads.

To make the Winch work, I had to tweak the rope resizing code a bit. It's a bit better overall I think, but adjusting how ropes work is always a bit iffy. Rather than worry too much, I decided to also add optional controls to regular ropes so they can be expanded/contracted. This kind of makes the Winch not as necessary for many builds, but I'd rather have more functionality/flexibility than less. Speaking of ropes, the Hook Launcher also got a bit of tweaking so that it works with the new rope resizing code.

The other part I think people will be excited about is the Flex Light. It's based on the Flex Panel (which also got a couple separate improvements), and it should be a nice improvement for making glowy lines/etc without having to use weird tricks/etc.

There were a number of other tweaks, particularly regarding part masses. There are a few more parts I'd like to add, but they aren't too important, and at this point I need to move on, so they'll be shuffled off 'til an update beyond the big campaign changes.

There's a lot to do for the campaign, and I'm not sure what I'll work on next. I need to do some AI enemies, but there are so many maps/missions to create that I may do a few of those first. Either way, I would expect this to the be last significant update for a bit.

Version 0.240 wasn't the smoothest update ever due to some physics issues messing with vehicles, but I believe the problems are (mostly) fixed in 0.241. 0.241 isn't a big update, but the one new part needs a bit of a guide, so here we go:



The new part is Flex Treads. There are a number of parameters to change the treads and make them how you want. Note that not all combinations of parameters will result in well-behaved treads (particularly with extreme settings), and you can easily create wheels that aren't really attached to anything, but they'll still function fine.



LENGTH
Extends the length of the treads. This is one of the two primary size controls.

WHEEL SIZE
Expands the size of the wheels. This is the other primary size control.

FOUR WHEELS
When checked, the Extra Wheel X/Y values control the offset of two additional wheels. When not checked, there are two smaller mini-wheels (these collide but do not provide power to the treads, and use somewhat different offset amounts).

EXTRA WHEEL X/Y
Controls the offsets of the third/fourth wheels, whether they are full wheels or mini-wheels.

ROLLERS TOP/BOTTOM
These are visual-only rollers, and completely optional. I'd recommend messing with these last, after the other parameters are set.

TREAD COUNT MOD
This changes the number of tread boxes used when the game is running. You won't see any change during build mode, but this is important to physics/etc. Try to have treads that align on the edges with neither a gap nor overlapping for the best results. A value of 0-5 is usually good.

TREAD TENSION
I've tried to set the tread generation to automatically create treads (during gameplay) that fit your frame/wheels but with extreme values it doesn't alway work out. Use this value to fine-tune the size of the overall tread shape. A higher value reduces the size of the tread shape and increase the tension/tightness. Too much tension will break things. You can make the treads floppier by setting a lower value. Generally you want tighter treads to work better with physics, but floppier treads sometimes look cool.

TREAD MESHES
There are 3 mesh types for each of these. Choose from any combo you want. Here's what each one controls
A - The main body of the frame (the solid front/back)
B - The large wheels
C - The mini-wheels (only enabled when Four Wheels is disabled)
D - The rollers (these are visual only, have no actual collision)
E - The tread mesh (the thing that spawns in-game) - You can't see this in build mode

I think that should get you started. Let me know if you have questions/suggestions/etc.

[FULL CHANGELIST BELOW]

• Added new part: Flex Treads
  
• Fixed solid pipes having no player collision (the center part)
  
• Added adjustable ground dust amount for cabs/vehicle
  
• Fixed damage mod UI on logic gate
  
• Changed wave generators to use a limited range of timer values (internal code change to prevent long-term waves from degenerating)
  
• Reverted mass changing from Center of Mass fix (CoM still fixed, mass is left alone)
  

The changelist for version 0.240 is not especially long for an update of this size, but that's because one of the items on it is a big new feature: Vehicle Destruction.

Vehicle Destruction is something I didn't really want in the game when it launched in Early Access, and until recently, I was fine not having it. The Floppy+Breakable option in Sandbox mode was a kind of goofy thing that kinda mimicked destruction, but it wasn't really suitable for using in the campaign. With the focus shifting towards some missions being combat-oriented, and the recent features for making objects destructible, I started to think about adding a real vehicle destruction system.

There were a few things that went better than I expected, so it didn't take as long as I thought it would. The most unexpected aspect was that destroying the joints in a vehicle worked right away for the majority of part types. I also was not looking forward to making the destruction directional like it is with objects. I already had the shader done from objects, but doing all the 3D math and damage tracking was probably going to be difficult. It turned out to be an unnecessary worry, as doing the part-based damage/tracking/etc was more than enough detail. I was able to spend more time focusing on customizing how different parts take (and spread) damage.

In terms of changes needed for vehicles themselves, they have been generally pretty minimal for the vehicles I've worked on. Currently, only parts with some sort of joint in them can be "broken", while others just take visible damage (and transfer damage to adjacent parts). I also have to say that currently there aren't a lot of things outside of explosive barrels that do a lot of damage to player vehicles. You can certainly build a separate turret (with a gauss cannon, laser, or explosive weapon) and shoot your own vehicles to see how they destroy. My experience so far is that partially destroyed vehicles are still quite satisfying/fun to drive, and there will likely be some "malfunction" missions where there's a soft time limit in the form of the vehicle falls apart within a few minutes.



Because none of the vehicles/missions in the current campaign were designed with vehicle destruction in mind, I've disabled the system outside of Sandbox mode. I also removed Floppy+Breakable for now, and changed it so all the remaining cab-related settings can be used in any mode. This reflects the recent shift towards making the vehicle editing even more powerful (even though the number of settings/options for parts is too high for most players), so that really fun/interesting vehicles can be created more easily by vehicle builders.

After one more week or so of me working on additional campaign vehicles (and hopefully the addition of the long-awaited custom treads part), I'll be working on adding enemies and other vehicle-hostile obstacles of various sorts to the game. After there are a good number of enemies/obstacles, expanding the types of missions/objects that are possible will be next, and finally work on new campaign maps/missions can begin.

Here's the full changelist for version 0.240:

• Added vehicle part destruction system (sandbox only mode, for now)
  
• Added new part: Sequencer - Like a wave generator, but produces a series of pulses instead (up to 32)
  
• Add 8 new small parts (weapons now have S versions)
  
• Added Create Mirrored Selection shortcut (Control-M) - Creates a copy of selected parts and mirrors them
  
• Added Expand Part Selection shortcut (Control-E) - selects adjacent parts to current selected parts
  
• Added width/length offsets to flex panels/triangles
  
• Added some subtle mesh variations for Flex Panel + Triangle (Style slider)
  
• Made all cab/vehicle settings available in all modes
  
• Added Vehicle Damage multiplier (applies to all damage to player vehicles)
  
• Added damage mod advanced option to all parts (multiplier on that specific part)
  
• Removed part cost from Sandbox mode, show part hitpoints instead (vehicle cost still shows, but will be going away)
  
• Removed floppy and breakable settings for vehicles
  
• Made more advanced option variables apply to all parts, not just ones of similar type (Sound Volume, Sound Override, Damage Mod, and Material Override)
  
• All non-logic parts can now use material overrides
  
• Material Override can be set to "No Collide Parts" (uses default material, but won't collide with any other vehicle parts)
  
• Added an option to the Claw to set the starting angle (shows a preview of angle, but not fully visible 'til gameplay starts)
  
• Added a dark outline behind logic helper circle drawing
  
• You can now place explosive barrels in sandbox mode
  
• Enabled part rotation for more weapons
  
• Aiming Laser now has a strength value, only affects laser thickness
  
• Red Laser strength can now go up to 5 (instead of 3)
  
• Fixed missile/rocket trails disappearing if they were fired far enough
  
• Added No effects flag for power wheels and treads
  
• Updated collision for a number of parts
  
• Fixed solid pipe connectors being hard to select when the pipe was less extended
  
• Made smaller/larger parts draw if you have them selected (both in the library and the upper right)