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One problem I've been having with repair/improving is bring able to carry enough scrap to repair after a decent dust up, never mind improve. How does the current cost scaling for repair work exactly?
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Aug 9, 2015 08:53
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SymmetryrtemmyS posted:e2: Can you configure single-shot weapons to fire individually or all at once, or do they always use the same behavior? Is it possible to set weapon groups, so you can fire two guns in one volley and two more in the next, while the first ones wait for cooldown? Active weapons always fire all at once, if they can. You can't set custom weapon groups at the moment, but you can select individual weapons, or all weapons of the same type, or all weapons - plus the "proximity firing" mode I mentioned in the update above can be turned on or off. I'm thinking of changing it or making it an option to have active weapons of the same type fire in a chain though, evenly spaced out, instead of all at once - since I realise in many cases it works out better. Splicer posted:One problem I've been having with repair/improving is bring able to carry enough scrap to repair after a decent dust up, never mind improve. How does the current cost scaling for repair work exactly? Still balancing this, it's pretty hard to get exactly right. You know you can add scrap containers to give you more storage? Repair costs are equal to scrap costs, like a part that costs 100 to buy costs 50 to repair 50%, otherwise you'd be able to get more from selling parts by repairing them first and things get complicated. Though, if your total wealth (vehicle value + scrap held) is greater than the starting scrap allowance, repair and part purchase costs start to go up to prevent a leading player snowballing a better and better vehicle forever. P.S. Going to add support for auto-replacing destroyed parts in the near future, so replacing parts during evac that are totally gone will be less tedious.
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Aug 9, 2015 09:52
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I haven't been making a post for each small update but I've made a few recently: 2015-08 - 0.5.1.5 and 0.5.1.6 - Revamped collision damage calculations. 2015-08 - 0.5.1.4 - XP earned now syncs with Steam Cloud. - Edited a default vehicle and added a new one.  - More minor weapon balancing. - Maybe a little fewer crazy physics events when colliding with laggy vehicles (there's still SOME crazy physics, but I've been experimenting). - Removed the old screenshot code - Steam supports this anyway with F12. 2015-08 - 0.5.1.3 - Multiplayer work that should make things generally smoother and improve "teleporting" laggy vehicles. - Stopped vehicle damage sounds playing when setting initial health on vehicles when joining games. - "Proximity firing" mode isn't the default anymore, but made the keys to switch it show in the GUI. - Sped up unlock progress a little again. - Some minor weapon balancing. - Updated "how to play" screens with the proximity firing mode key. Expect new parts in the next serious update: Full turret versions of the MMG and Medium Cannon and a non-turret version of the Large Cannon.
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Aug 16, 2015 03:17
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Made a video of the Scraps Godlike AI being awesome in low-grav mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DaE4xXOHs4
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Aug 17, 2015 21:32
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That one where it shoots, does a full backflip from the recoil and then keeps driving is amazing.
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Aug 18, 2015 14:35
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Working on full-turret versions of the MMG and Medium Cannon and a non-turret version of the Large Cannon. 
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Aug 20, 2015 07:02
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Oh hell yes
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Aug 20, 2015 13:52
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Aug 25, 2015 06:28
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It's been a couple of weeks since the last update so I'd like to show what's going on, even though there's about a week remaining until the next update. Large chassis:  Finished those turret (full Y-axis rotation) versions of the MMG and Medium Cannon, and a non-turret version of the Large Cannon (cheaper, more snap points):  Plus game performance work. Objects made up of lots of smaller parts, many doing their own movement (turrets etc), all of which need to be able to detect hits individually and operate with appropriate physics has always been a bit of a challenge. I've worked out some potential tricks recently, and learnt a couple of others from people who are better wizards than I. Working on implementing that magic now. Mac and Linux people, I have not forgotten you. I am putting a tentative release date for the Mac and Linux versions of Scraps at September 29th. Getting all that working perfectly will be the focus after this next update goes out next weekend.
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Aug 30, 2015 02:40
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Scraps version 0.5.2.0 is now live on Steam. I'll go into some more detail but here's the changelog first: 0.5.2.0 - Added full turret versions of the MMG and Medium Cannon, and a semi-fixed version of the Large Cannon. Balanced other weapons to match. - Added Large Chassis. - Some in-game CPU performance improvement, particularly for vehicles with many parts. - Major in-game GPU performance improvement. - Switched from DirectX9 to DirectX11. - Increased max scrap limits a little (40,000->50,000 for 8 players. Select less Max Players for more). - Build screen inventory shows a little icon next to turrets (weapons with full y-axis rotation). - Small and Large sizes for the Proximity Firing mode. - Made the spinning camera effect in menus much slower (it hurt some people's heads). - Increased max suspension spring value by 25%. - Darker shadows. - More outlines on stuff. - By popular request, leaderboard now only shows while the key (~ by default) is held. - Background music for Round End and Game End screens. - Other minor audio changes. - Changed the angle calculation for projectile weapon trails - looks more "correct" when shot from moving vehicles. - Added something to the Test Map? Bug Fixes: - In-game messages now show the correct amount of points a player earned from destroying another vehicle. - Fixed weapon "can't fire" sound playing too much. Weapons and Large Chassis    The new turret versions of the MMG and Medium Cannon can rotate fully around if the space is available, but cost a bit more. They should help in the early game against opponents who've unlocked other turret weapons. The semi-fixed version of the Large Cannon is cheaper and a little stronger. One minor note: Currently in the "same type" weapon link mode, all the weapons are considered as different, whereas I'm sure it'd be better to have normal and turret types of the same weapon linked together. I'll change that in an update tomorrow. Performance The other major work in this update was on performance (check the changelog above for all the other, minor stuff). I learned some graphics magic and implemented that to drastically reduce draw calls on the GPU, and graphics performance is now much improved. You might get a framerate that's improved 50% or more in some cases. In fact GPU performance has got so much better, that the game is now often heavily CPU bound when dealing with complex vehicles with lots of weapons, mainly because of all the physics work. I also did some physics optimisation in this update, but it's not as drastic as the graphics improvement. I've pretty much optimised things as far as I can for now, and the next big step might be upgrading to Unity 5, since it's supposed to have improved physics performance. Unfortunately before I update the game to Unity 5 I need to write a custom wheel collider (or buy someone else's one), because the built-in wheel colliders have changed completely and can't work well with Scraps anymore. I wrote up some technical details of the graphics performance improvement in the version of this post on the main Scraps website. What's Coming For the next few weeks I'll be working on the Mac and Linux versions, with a plan to hopefully release those publicly on the 28th or 29th of this month. I'll be seeing how crazy or sane that deadline actually is in the next couple of days as I start testing on those platforms again. I'm also aware that the multiplayer has gone quiet recently. I always feel especially sorry for that lone person on a server when the stats read 1/8 (sometimes I join for a few minutes  ). I've been doing what I can with both some paid and unpaid marketing, and I have more to do, but the best thing I can really continue to do now is make the game as good as possible.So the next major thing I'm currently planning to focus on after the Mac and Linux releases will be some expanded single-player content. I have a plan but I won't elaborate on that just now. That way even if things don't pick up multiplayer-wise there'll be more fun single-player stuff to do, so you shouldn't miss out too much either way. Of course there's already the AI (and you can always Multiplayer -> Internet -> Host A Game with AI to play against, that's open to humans to join as well), and the Scraps demo can also join LAN games - so only one person needs to own the full version to play on LAN. Or if you can find some people that do have the full version, you can also host your own Internet games and they can join. Thanks for continuing to put up with my rambling updates.
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Sep 9, 2015 02:17
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Nition posted:Thanks for continuing to put up with my rambling updates. I love in-depth dev updates, never stop. And don't fret the lack of activity, at this point most people have burned out on alpha/beta versions of games so often that they're content to let them cook for a while.
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Sep 9, 2015 04:28
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I haven't bought the game because I'm still broke, but the fact that you're continuing to put out large, high-quality updates makes me look forward to playing this. Have you put out word on other forums/Reddit/etc? The more people that are active, the more people will keep playing, and that'll snowball into making this a well-known, popular game.
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Sep 9, 2015 06:33
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I've done quite a lot of marketing throughout development, a little bit of paid marketing and a lot of unpaid posting everywhere, emailing press/YouTubers/etc. Read all the articles on what to do and how to do it. Just haven't had much luck with it for the Early Access release - I actually had a better response back when I ran a Kickstarter. One issue is that there are just more and more good quality indie games coming out (just saw this article today). There's always more I could do, but it's always a tradeoff between game dev and marketing as well (or spending more money). I've swung my time back more towards dev than marketing at the moment because I've done most of what I can for now on the marketing side, and well, I need to actually make a good game too. The Mac/Linux release will have a marketing push though.
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Sep 9, 2015 11:04
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Nition posted:This is true. The reason that's not possible at the moment is that the AI is run on the host client rather than on the server. That's why dedicated servers can't have AI. It makes things simpler because the server can treat all vehicles as clients - human and AI the same - and just take their inputs etc. But dedicated server bot support is something I would like to add. It's not impossible, it's just some extra work.
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Sep 9, 2015 13:09
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Bug! The Scrap Used tax doesn't take into account damage. So if a 15,000 cost car hits the evac zone with 1,500 scrap stockpiled the game declares you to have a 16,500 scrap car and taxes you 5% on everything, even if you're nothing but a chassis and cockpit. Bug? If you sell a piece of equipment it always returns the base cost. Since paying for equipment is done as soon as you click on it, if click on an item and then think better of it any snowball tax scrap will still be subtracted from your total. Returning everything at your current tax rate sounds easily exploitable (since you could sell something you already had for more than you paid for it), but in actuality since you'd only be selling it to buy something at your current tax rate there'd be no net gain. Unexpected Behavior? If your banked + spent scrap is over the match limit Tax seems to occur on all purchases, not just on overbuilding. I tested this by driving a 10,000 scrap car in a 15,000 scrap match. I evaced after picking up 1,500 scrap and taking no damage, giving me 6,500 banked scrap. I then bought 5,000 scrap worth of new guns and paid 250 scrap in tax, leaving me with only 1,250 scrap left for improvements (all of which are also being taxed 5%). Someone who started on 15,000 would get to spend all 1,500 (with 5% tax). The reason this niche situation matters is because, assuming the first bug I listed gets fixed, this would also apply to someone who had spent all 15,000 scrap, got beaten up for 5,000 scrapsworth of damage, and then evaccced with more than 5,000 worth of scrap. Splicer fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Sep 9, 2015 |
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Sep 9, 2015 22:04
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Splicer posted:How much work would non-host client bots be? If I could join an official server and spam a few bots running off my pc that would work for visible idling about as well as server hosted bots. Have the option disabled by default but enabled on the official servers. Huh, that's a pretty good idea. This is dumb of me but I'd never quite thought of that method before, where clients that join a dedicated server could spawn their own AI. I want to add AI support to servers themselves, but the problem is that at the moment the AI runs on the host player's machine, and having AI run on the server itself is difficult due to the way the game works. It does some unusual stuff to get you no input lag, physics, and some cheat prevention all at once. Only thing is I'd have to add an in-game interface for adding AI (select the difficulty, select their vehicle), and it'd have to be voted on by all players so random people couldn't join and fill the game with their novelty penis-vehicles. Of course if you were the only player you'd get auto approved. Or maybe rather than a voting system, the first player to join a server should just become the "host", with AI-adding powers. And if they leave someone else gets to be the host. It's also possible to get AI on dedicated servers working, so the game could just be created with AI already set. Just hard to do. You can already sort of do what you want though. You just have to host your own Internet game (via Multiplayer -> Internet -> Host A Game). You can add AI and if players join they can automatically replace the AI players, so you don't need to worry about leaving slots free (although I need to make the AI respawn when they leave). Basically same as singleplayer but people can join your game. Splicer posted:Bug! It doesn't take damage to parts into account, but it does take destroyed parts into account, so if you've actually lost parts then things will get cheaper. Splicer posted:Bug? Bah, getting the extra costs to be fair and also unexploitable is annoying. Your points are good. I'd like to do away with the whole extra cost thing - it makes the code more complicated, the game more complicated, and it's unintuitive. But I'm worried about players getting ahead and staying ahead with a vehicle that gets way better than everyone else's. I'm open to good ideas. I could give more points/XP for killing players with killstreaks for a start. Like if you destroy someone who's got 4 kills without dying, you get more points for that kill. I wonder if that'd be enough on its own to prevent "snowballing."
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Sep 10, 2015 07:02
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Nition posted:Huh, that's a pretty good idea. This is dumb of me but I'd never quite thought of that method before, where clients that join a dedicated server could spawn their own AI. I want to add AI support to servers themselves, but the problem is that at the moment the AI runs on the host player's machine, and having AI run on the server itself is difficult due to the way the game works. It does some unusual stuff to get you no input lag, physics, and some cheat prevention all at once.  Nition posted:It's also possible to get AI on dedicated servers working, so the game could just be created with AI already set. Just hard to do. Nition posted:It doesn't take damage to parts into account, but it does take destroyed parts into account, so if you've actually lost parts then things will get cheaper.   Check out the scrap used. Something funny going on. Why doesn't it take into account damaged parts? If a 2,000 scrap gun is down to 1HP it's going to cost 1990 scrap to repair, and not repairing will make it explode next time you use it. If the worry is about people skirting the line by not repairing guns to get more guns out, that seems like less an exploit and more a valid tactic with a reasonable risk/reward tradeoff. Nition posted:Bah, getting the extra costs to be fair and also unexploitable is annoying. Your points are good. I'd like to do away with the whole extra cost thing - it makes the code more complicated, the game more complicated, and it's unintuitive. But I'm worried about players getting ahead and staying ahead with a vehicle that gets way better than everyone else's.
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Sep 10, 2015 12:05
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Just a short announcement that the Scraps Mac and Linux versions are set for a Monday September 28th release on Steam, and are looking good. Some Scraps players on the forum have also been organising a time to join multiplayer, so if you want to get in some multiplayer when there're people on, check out this thread: http://forum.scrapsgame.com/t/weekly-games/335 The scheduled one right now is for 8pm EDT on the 19th. That's midnight UTC. Here's a timezone converter that should tell you when that is in your local time. Splicer, I haven't forgotten your post either, and I'll see if I can improve the "wealth tax" stuff in that same Mac/Linux release update. Nition fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Sep 18, 2015 |
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Sep 18, 2015 06:34
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Actually had lots of people on for the organised game above. Would be good to do it again sometime. I did some recording while I was on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGKtSYu71t0
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Sep 20, 2015 05:16
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The Scraps "weekly game" is happening again this week, where everyone is invited to join the multiplayer at roughly the same time to get some people on playing together. The main one is again at 8pm EDT on Saturday (that's midnight UTC). But if that's out of your timezone or you just want to play twice, try coming on 12 hours earlier at 8am EDT (midday Saturday UTC). I've added both to the Steam events calendar which should also auto-convert to your timezone: http://steamcommunity.com/games/350150/events
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Sep 26, 2015 08:19
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Right, packages are updated, depots uploaded, game updated etc and Scraps versions for Mac and Linux are now available alongside Windows. They're all fully cross-compatible so you should be able to play in the same game with people from all three OS's. There are just a few known issues right now: Known Issues Windows: - None. Mac: - When playing singleplayer or hosting a multiplayer game, a Scraps Server icon appears and sits bouncing in the dock. Linux: - MSAA anti-aliasing settings may not work in-game. You may be able to work around this by manually enabling AA in your graphics driver settings. e.g. For Radeon cards, open Catalyst Control Center and go to 3D -> Anti-Aliasing, then set Mode to "Override application settings" and set Level where you like (4x is nice). - On multi-monitor setups, screen resolutions may show up as options that are higher than your main monitor's resolution. If selected they'll look wrong and you'll just need to change it back to a lower resolution. Changes I've also had time to make a few updates to the game: Aiming This was partly a performance choice (the new system requires a few less checks), but the aiming system now works a little differently. Whereas all the little weapon cross-hairs used to show what they'd actually hit if firing in a straight line, they now essentially just show the aim direction of that weapon. Theoretically that sounds worse, but in practice the old system was often a bit confusing when trying to aim at something, and it caused some issues like getting really close to a vehicle and having your cross-hairs sort of sweep out of the "proximity aiming" circle range. Bullet drop from some weapons also sort of negated its usefulness. See what you think. Aiming things with a camera that's at a different place than the things is always a little complicated. Some games just cheat and shoot everything straight out of the camera, but that causes some other issues - you get people doing stuff like shooting over walls they're hiding behind. Health info for key parts  As shown above. Gives a better idea of things than just the damage textures. Showing health for all parts on the vehicle is a bit much, but the cockpit and chassis are the ones that actually get you destroyed, and they also tend to have the most HP, so they're useful to see in more detail. The labels and icons over enemy vehicles fade in and out at different distances, to try and avoid blocking your view. All the bars are also sized based on total HP - that is, stuff with more HP starts with a bigger bar, and the same amount of damage will also take off the same chunk. Blocks  Lots more basic block shapes. Full Changelog 2015-09 - 0.5.2.5 - Added cross-platform Mac and Linux OS support! - Updated player name labels and added health info for their key parts under the label. - Also added health info for the player's own key parts into the GUI. - Rounded off the bridge on SandyBridge a little (less getting stuck on the corner). - Reticles (crosshairs) for active weapons now show them aiming at infinity, instead of showing them on what they'll actually hit if firing straight. - Added several additional basic blocks. - The "wealth multiplier" that increases costs for rich players now (more logically) only takes vehicle value into account, rather than total wealth. - Vehicle scrap value now also takes part damage into account (damaged parts have less value). - Reduced max collision damage a little. - Updated Russian translation text. - When choosing an initial game resolution, if your native res is ridiculously high (looking at you, Retina displays!), the game looks for a good lower one at the same ratio so you're not squinting at tiny menus. On Linux Scraps will actually start windowed the first time it boots instead to avoid the following known issue. You can still set fullscreen and any resolution in the game options. Bug Fixes: - Scrolling the inventory no longer also zooms the vehicle camera. - Fixed a server memory leak that I accidentally introduced in the previous release. - Fixed loading text not updating to the new language right away when the language was changed.
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Sep 29, 2015 03:34
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Was tooling around with this today... is it intended behaviour that destroying a block generates no scrap from anything destroyed as a consequence of destroying that block?
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Nov 15, 2015 16:23
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It generates a reduced amount, but it does generate some. Currently the first part will drop all its scrap (with some random variation), and connected parts that got destroyed as a result will drop for the first one 77.5% of its scrap, then 60% (.775^2) for the next one, then 47% *.775^3) etc, until it gets down to 10% at which point it stops any ignores any remaining. It all spawns from one spot, which might make it look more like only the one part drops scrap.
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Nov 15, 2015 23:36
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I just made a 15000 scrap bot out of an orange cockpit, the small chassis, and loads of anvils. I lasered the cockpit until it exploded and got a total of ~1900 scrap. That's less than the cost of the cockpit. e: This is explaining my "can't get enough scrap to even repair never mind improve" problem
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Nov 16, 2015 01:47
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Hmm, I'll test that exact scenario soon. Edit: Looked into it, thanks for pointing that out. The problem: When you destroy a part, you get wreckage from that part, then from dependent parts as described above, radiating out from that part. When you destroy a vehicle however, it always starts at the chassis, and from there the order is basically random. Your particular case showed this up as an issue since you have one expensive part (heavy cockpit) and lots of small cheap ones (anvils). If the cockpit gets preceded by a bunch of anvils then you essentially end up with less than you probably should because the big-value item gets a small multiplier. What I've done about it: When destroying anything - vehicles or parts - parts in the wreckage calculation will now be sorted from most valuable to least before the calculation is done. An update with the change will be out in a few hours, because I had some changes to make today anyway.
Nition fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Nov 16, 2015 |
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Nov 16, 2015 02:07
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I've added a new map called RiverRift to the game. It's got jumps as shortcuts, water, and a big rift in the ground that you can shove vehicles in to destroy them.    Skidmarks are finally back (see my post here for a technical writeup on the skidmarks effect).  And leaderboards now show whether other players have their vehicles currently in-game.   Icons are a vehicle on terrain for in-game, a spanner & hammer for build screen, and a dash for no vehicle. I've also adjusted vehicle speeds a little: Very light vehicles will be a little slower, but heavier vehicles will generally be a bit faster now with the same engine configuration. Mass in general had a little too much effect on speed. The first time I made the change I set the multiplier too high. Actually so high the frame optimisation ruined this gif I tried to make of it:  You'll also find a little more wreckage drops in general, due to a change of calculation for drop amount from reliant parts (when a part is destroyed that has other parts that are reliant on it for their connection to the vehicle). Full Changelog 2015-11 - 0.5.2.11 - New engine power calc. Very light vehicles are now a little slower, but heavy vehicles are significantly faster. - Vehicles with a high centre of mass are a bit less prone to tipping over. - Better wreckage spawn calculation; reliant parts get sorted by cost. Bug Fixes: - Fixed SFX volume, which was no longer affecting all sounds. - Better collision damage calculation in some cases. 2015-11 - 0.5.2.10 - ## New Map - RiverRift. - ## Skidmarks make a triumphant return, now without the ridiculous garbage generation. - Minor work on existing terrain FX. - Improved game camera obstacle avoidance. - Added icons to leaderboards to show player's vehicle state (none/in-game/building). A little driving tour of the new map: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqH2CEsbtuo
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Nov 18, 2015 00:05
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Here's a bit of a look back through three years of Scraps work: http://www.scrapsgame.com/three-years-of-scraps-development
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Dec 3, 2015 01:59
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Steam posted:19 MARCH - NITION 
Splicer fucked around with this message at 11:33 on Mar 19, 2016 |
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Mar 19, 2016 11:30
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Small bonus feature, they also say something in chat in their own language when they rejoin:
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Mar 19, 2016 22:41
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