Robocraft 2 News

Hello Robocrafters!

On the 7th of December, we’re releasing Robocraft 2’s first content update, Hovercraft Rebirth! In today’s blog we wanted to share more info on partial controller support for Robocraft 2

With the next update, many robocraft on the CRF will work with a controller. We’re supporting both Xbox and Playstation controllers initially and may support more in the future. Here’s a short clip of Benny playing an online match with partial controller support.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

With this update you'll be able to use a gamepad in simulation and multiplayer to move your Robocraft and pilot. Menu controller support will be coming later so you'll still need your mouse to navigate the UI for now.

There are a few control schemes that you can experiment with and we will be refining the experience based on feedback.



[h2]Important info about the right mouse button zoom[/h2]
The next update will include a change which will affect a number of players and we wanted to go into a little bit of detail for our reasoning to introduce this change.

We've seen complaints regarding weapon and scroll wheel zooming suffering from input lag when playing with high ping as this was being handled server side. We're addressing this issue to improve some of the experience when playing on higher ping.

Part of the reason why this was done server side is due to how the wiring system works. A player would press right-click on their mouse, the client sends information that the right mouse has been clicked, and then the server responds and confirms and shows the result to players. This feels weird and quite unnatural and we wanted to improve core gameplay experience by having the zoom action client side instead of server side.

For us to be able to do this client side, we need to remove the zoom input for all weapons and will be assigning right-click to always be Zoom (although this can be remapped in the controls screen). This will affect robots that have already mapped the right mouse button to another action. The functionality of these robots will not be affected, but it will mean that while using the right mouse button, it will also Zoom the camera.

We’ll also be renaming some of the outputs on the seat and in the controls screen to decouple them from keyboard-specific controls, so “LMB” will now be “Fire”, “RMB” will be “Zoom” etc.

It’s important to note that if you rebind the zoom action in the key config menu, you’ll also be rebinding the zoom port.

The update launches on the 7th of December, so make sure to keep your schedule clear so you can try out the new update!

Hello Robocrafters!

Remember, Robocraft 2’s first content update, Hovercraft Return is launching on the 7th of December!

We’ve had quite a lot of support and praise on the building system in Robocraft by those who have spent some time with it. We plan to further refine this system and make it more intuitive. The first step in this is to provide mass stats to players whilst building so that you can understand how much weight

• Base CPU
  
• Weapon CPU
  
• Clusters
  
• Cosmetic CPU
  
• Mass
  
• Reassembly Time
  

Here’s a look at it within build mode:



You’ll be able to see these stats in three areas:

• While building
  
• While browsing through your own Robocraft list
  
• While looking at robocraft on the CRF
  

The reassembly time shown is an average and not the maximum or minimum amount of time to re-assemble. You’ll re-assemble much faster if you are in the seat compared to being a distance away from the debris of your Robocraft.

Hello Robocrafters

Hovercraft reborn update launches on the 7th of December!

A highly requested feature that many were after was Undo! We’re pleased to reveal that Undo will be a part of the next update! We previously shared an exciting video that showed undo in action



Of course, take some time to sit down, put on the kettle and collect yourself from the exhilarating footage you just witnessed! When you’re ready, we’ll continue talking about some of the features that we have provided in Undo and why it will be an incredibly useful tool!

Firstly, we haven’t quite decided how many steps of undo you’ll be able to go back by. We’re currently thinking that it might be up to 200 steps. But in some cases, it might be useful to go back even further. The issue that this raises is the more steps of undo that you are given, the higher the memory usage of your machine. We’re considering whether we should let you decide how many steps of undo you are able to go back by via a slider in the options menu.

As a point of reference, graphic editors like Blender only allow you to go back 50 steps for this reason and you often have a lot of other software that have the same limitations.

In Robocraft 1, you were not able to enter test mode until you saved the craft. At this point, any changes you made before then were permanent and an Undo would not save you if you made the machine perform worse. In Robocraft 2, it will remember your steps even when you return from testing your robot. So if you’ve made a bit of a mess of your vehicle, just undo it when returning back to building!

The Undo feature does not currently work with materials and colours, but that functionality will be added in a following update.

In a surprise addition, We have added another feature… Redo!

That’s right, Undo & Redo will launch in the next patch, Redo performs in the same way as Undo, except instead of undoing your actions, it will redo anything.

Undo & Redo will be part of the Update launching on 7th December. Tomorrow we’ll share more news and information on another feature planned for the next update.

Hello Robocrafters!

Yesterday we unveiled a new Robo Herald which is our own special way of teasing content that is coming in an update very soon. You can read the Robo Herald here and theorise what’s coming in the next update which will be released on 7th of December! We’ll be going into content daily and this is the very first post!

The next update will feature a brand new movement part, Hoverblades!



The Hoverblades have been a Robocraft staple for many years and have been a highly requested movement part from the community since we began work on Robocraft 2.

The Hoverblades are easy to get working as they automatically wire up to the pilot seat! Throw them onto a Robocraft with a pilot seat and they just work!




Advanced builders can customise the hover blades via config mode too.



Hoverblades work very similar to how they are in the original Robocraft, but there are several changes which you should be aware of.

First, Hoverblades apply not only an upward force, but a downward force too! In the original Robocraft, if you fell off a cliff, you would slowly float downwards. Whereas in Robocraft 2, you’ll fall quite fast but it allows you to more comfortably navigate the environment by going up and down hills.



Hoverblades cause "equal and opposite" forces to other blocks around them so that if you encase them inside a robocraft the forces will cancel out and you will render your Hoverblade useless

We are looking forward to seeing what you create with this new movement part!

[h2]Art and Landscape improvements[/h2]
You may have noticed from the gifs above that there has been a change to the Robocraft environment. We’ve been working on tweaking the visual style of Robocraft 2 and discussed our plans with the Discord community earlier in November.



If you do want to follow the development more closely, please consider joining our Discord where we share and discuss feedback across many forum posts.

With some initial positivity, we worked a little more on improving this and the environments now look like this:





We feel that these changes capture the Robocraft visual style better and are a step in the right direction in improving the overall art style, tone and graphical quality of Robocraft 2. This is just the start on the graphics side as the art team is all working hard to raise the graphical bar all over the game over the next few weeks and months.

In addition to the changes to the environment, we’ve also removed edgewear from the game. We have decided to stick with a cleaner edge style which we feel more closely resembles the original game.

The update is scheduled to launch next week! Stay tuned for more information on the other pieces of content coming in further blogs.

Hello Robocrafters!

Read the latest Robo herald now!



Stay tuned for more updates over the coming days!

You can download a full-res PNG version here