Re-sizable parts

As I mentioned before, I wanted to try having re-sizable parts as a way to make selecting which part to spawn more manageable for the player while at the same time having a greater choice of part sizes and material variations available.  Over the past month I have been working on prototyping and building this feature, and it’s now in the latest build and working pretty well I think.  Beams, plates, axles and slider rails are all now re-sizable to a range of different sizes, eliminating the need for a separate entry for each different size in the spawner menu.

To achieve this, I implemented code to procedurally generate the render meshes for these parts rather than use pre-made meshes.  Also, I had to modify the construction controls slightly to allow the player to easily re-size parts.  Figuring out how to nicely integrate the controls for re-sizing with the existing control scheme actually took most of my time.  I explored a few different ideas, but I’m fairly happy with what I ended up with.

Re-sizable parts can be identified in the part spawner menu as the ones with the +/- icon in the top left corner of their preview images.  Parts can only be re-sized if they’re not currently attached to any other parts.  If something is already part of a construction you have to detach it first, re-size it, then re-attach.  Any existing saved games will be automatically converted on load to use equivalent re-sizable parts in place of the old fixed size ones.  Let me know if you have any problems with an old saved game not loading properly, but hopefully I have covered all of the cases!

Construction controls changes

Note that the following only applies when a construction is currently selected by the player:-

• Hold shift + move mouse (used to be shift + WASD) – Translate the selected construction relative to the cursor.
• Hold shift + directional keys (WASD) – Re-size the selected part, as long as it’s not attached to any other parts.
• Hold Q + left click (used to be shift + left click) – Attach the selected construction (if it’s currently being aligned to some other frozen construction), after first cloning it.

Soon, I’ll make a video to go over the new controls and part re-sizing in more depth, so watch this space!

Next steps

An often requested feature is to have flexible key bindings for controlling part behaviours (e.g. motors, servos etc.), rather than only being able to use the directional keys.  For a few different reasons that I won’t get into now, this is not as easy to do as you might think.  To facilitate this, I need to overhaul the input system somewhat, so this will be coming up on my horizon soon.

I also want to introduce a painting tool to allow the player to easily change the colour of beams and plates.  I think this will be big improvement to the creative flexibility afforded in the game, but I’m not quite sure how it’s going to work yet.  Something I’ll hopefully be looking at soon.

Finally, to support some more complex parts I want to add down the road, I need to totally rework the current system I have that decides which types of parts can be attached with other parts, in order to make it a lot more flexible.

So…lots to do!

Gear, motor and spring damper tweaks

This updated build brings increased motor torque and spring damper values, which should work better with larger, heavier constructions.  It does mean however that you will probably have to tweak the spring damper settings in your existing constructions, as well as perhaps remove some motors if you’re currently doubling them up to increase torque.

I have also made some tweaks to reduce gear slip under high torque loads (in fact this is what allowed me to increase the motor torque).

This build also has a bunch of bug fixes (see the release notes for all the details), but one fix in particular affects motors.  Depending on what order motors and axles were attached together, the motor rotation direction could be different.  This has now been fixed so that the direction is always consistent, but it does mean that you may have to flip the reverse direction toggle in your existing constructions.

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!

Full game features

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on some new features: the challenge game mode and construction damage.  These won’t be in the demo (got to hold some things back for the full game!) but I thought I’d talk about them so you know what I’ve been working on.

Right now the challenge mode just consists of built in saved games that you can choose from as starting scenarios.  The plan is to extend this to add various possible constraints (e.g. a limited part budget) and scoring / win criteria.  Eventually there will be a system where you earn points by completing challenges to unlock later, more advanced challenges.  There’s still a long way to go on this feature!

I’ve also been working on my first attempt at a damage system.  Each attachment starts with an initial “integrity” level based on the material strength of the two parts it joins.  When a construction sustains impact, damage is propagated to its attachments, reducing their integrity level.  Once an attachment’s integrity reaches zero it is deleted, causing parts of the construction to break off.  Note that the parts themselves don’t get damaged or destroyed, only attachments; I decided to do it this way for simplicity.

UI improvements and bug fixes

There are still plenty of new things in the demo though, I have made some UI improvements (animated loading screen, saved game images, and other tweaks), plus a bunch of bug fixes.  I’ll keep continuing to update the demo, wherever I improve or bug fix an existing feature.  I’ll still be adding one or two new parts to the demo as well!