Spring dampers

The latest GearBlocks demo build now has coil-over spring dampers that can be used to build all kinds of suspension for your vehicles!  The spring rate and damping can be adjusted through the part behaviour menu (accessed in the usual way, hover over and hold Shift + E).

I had the physics side working nicely early on, but it took a while to figure out the best way to present the spring / damper functionality to the player, within the constraints of my construction system.  In the end I decided to have two parts, a “barrel” and a “piston” that the player fits together to form the spring damper unit.  Originally I was hoping to provide a pre-assembled unit to avoid making the player do this, but it would have required too many changes to the construction system to allow for “multi-element” parts.  Anyway, this way allows the barrel and piston to be attached in different orientations which is a bonus.

Now, actually using the spring dampers for something useful (like car suspension) might not be immediately obvious, so I’ll make a video soon to go over this.

Ball and Socket joints, CV joints

I have also just finished working on adding a whole new set of connecting joints to the game.  There are ball and socket connectors that snap together and can attach to axles or blocks.  They allow the connected parts to rotate through all three axes, and are essential for building a proper steering mechanism with a vehicle that has suspension, but they have many other uses too.

I’ve also added constant velocity joints, which attach axles together and allow rotational drive to be transmitted through changing angles.  These are useful for building drive shafts for vehicles with suspension, and / or front wheel drive (or four wheel drive).

These parts are not available in the demo, as I’m keeping them back for the full game.  I’ll be doing a video on these too though, to show how they can be used, it can get pretty complex!