Instruments of Destruction News

Version 0.255 features a significant part of a different sort: The Particle Effects part. I'll go over in more detail below, as I'm going to continue doing the expanded changelist-style of updates for these vehicle-focused changes.

PARTICLE EFFECTS PART Added new part: Particle Effects
- Strength affects particle count, push/pull strength, and explosion damage/force
- Trails use strength to affect their lifetime, and amount is divided by 5
- Push/Pull are not particles, but a force applied to some particles
- Distort particle FX is different: strength affects size (diameter/spd no affect, amount = opacity modifier)
- Optional explosions that apply force/damage can also be used (these are always omnidirectional currently)
- Repeat timer set to 0 means no repeating, low values (0.01/0.02/etc) should be used with caution
Expanded sfx library for speaker to 22 sounds (previously 8)
Added camera shake and vibration strength adjustments to speaker
Added new part: Overlapper - stack up to 5 parts on a single connection

Each Particle Effects Part (PEP, in the Activated category) can generate two different particle effects at once, though some of the settings between the different particle types overlap in odd ways, so often you'll want more than one PEP.

The actual amount of particles generated depends on the particle type (smaller ones generate up to 8x more actual particles than it says), but in general it's not too hard to figure out and adjust accordingly. There's even a "Test It" button so you can try out the settings in Build Mode (explosions can destroy the buildings before gameplay starts), though it ignores the Repeat Timer in build mode. Here are a couple of the more unique particles that use the parameters in a different way:

Distort1a/1b - The distortion effect is always a single particle, but it uses the Amount value for the opacity. The strength affects the size.

Trails1/2 - These generate particles over multiple frames, and the amount is actually divided by 5 (and rounded up).

Push/Pull - These apply forces to most particle types. NOTE: Applying a force to a particle on the same frame it's generated doesn't always work.

To supplement the particles, I expanded the "Basic" Speaker so it has a lot more cool stuff to play with. In addition to 14 new sounds of various kinds, it can also create a screen shake, and for the first time in Instruments: You can also vibrate the controller. It also gains the Repeat Timer and Test It options [Using Repeat Timer with low values + loud sounds is not recommended.]

Finally, the last supplemental change for the PEP is the new part: Overlapper (Decorative category). It's a stupid part really, but it has 5 connectors overlapping on one side, so you can stack parts more easily without having to copy/paste a bunch of Flex Connectors.



ROUNDED FLEX PARTS Added new parts: Flex Light R and Flex Panel R
- Like flex panel/light but with circular shapes and scale setting
-- Flex Panel with style of 5-9 uses different scaling (keeps dome shape)
Reduced minimum length/width to 0.3 (from 0.5)

These parts are essentially the flex panel/light, but with a new circular base shape and new scaling parameter added. The scaling is applied before the mesh is stretched out. The Flex Panel actually isn't a panel for the last 5 styles. In that case it's a partial dome.

WHEELS AND TREADS IMPROVEMENTS Added reinforce option to all wheel types and treads
Added tread/powered wheel paremeter: Auto-Braking - Changes how they behave in turns and when not pressing anything
- Also tweaked response when reversing directions
- Changed default tread track material to slippery (doesn't really affect handling), and made it actually use the material override
Added 4th mesh options for flex treads (A3 is intentionally minimal)
Fixed wheel size collision issues (tiny, giant, flex)

All treads and wheels (except the Flex Wheel) now have a Reinforce option, and it helps with joint stability. Even Steering wheels, which already had a Reinforce option, benefit from the new type of reinforcement.

The second significant change is the addition of the Auto-Braking option to Powered Wheels and treads. This lets you change how the wheels behave when turning and when no throttle/reverse is applied. The default is None, but the new options are Partial and Full. I may change the default to new parts to be Partial in the future because it feels like a better balance to me.

Treads also received a 4th mesh option for all slots (A through E). I had a couple requests for the last base mesh (A3) to be essentially empty, so that's pretty much what it is.

OTHER TWEAKS/FIXES
Changed how direction sensor limit works to be consistent with other logic parts with ranges
- Should hopefully adapt previous settings to new limit style
Added proximity sensor-relative motion for Repulsor (Emitter Channel)
- If not 0, it finds the first Proximity Sensor with that channel, and applies forces/torque relative to that parts' orientation
- Useful for complex builds where you want to move something relative to another
Removed No Effects from treads (conflicted with reverse tank steering, not useful enough to keep for now)
Fixed an issue with material overrides not being used
Tweaked Breakable Connector break point strength downward to more reasonable values

The notable changes here are changing how the Direction sensor displays/uses limits, and the Repulsor Drive getting another mode. If Camera Relative is disabled, and the Emitter Channel is set to a non-zero value, the forces from the Repulsor Drive will now be relative to the first Proximity Sensor with that channel. This will make it a lot easier to move objects relative to each other without excessive amounts of logic and sensors.

That's all for this time. No predictions/etc this time about what will be next.

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)