Games Scraps: Modular Vehicle Combat - Vehicle combat with buildable vehicles

Thanks for the comments; at least I don't feel so much like I'm the only one who's having this trouble. Yeah, it $60USD to get Steamworks.NET support. I might do that tomorrow.

 

Turns out my Steamworks issues were due to a bug on Valve's end. They've recreated me a new App ID which unfortunately has wiped all the config I'd already filled in, but fortunately has also fixed all my App ID troubles. Not sure about networking troubles yet.

 

Yeah, so, most of my Steamworks networking issues seem to be fixed. I still have a remaining issue with the case where a user wants to host an Internet server and play in the game on the same machine, but a couple of potential solutions have presented themselves there.

In other news, I sent out a build with single-player and LAN play to a wider group yesterday. Looking for bug reports and gameplay feedback from that.

Someone on the forum pointed out that force from explosions pushes everything in the same direction, so I fixed that (internally - it's not in the builder demo now):



Vehicle shoots, projectile hits on the far side of the cubes. Previously that shot would have pushed all the cubes away from the vehicle. Now, an object hit directly will still get pushed in the opposite direction to the projectile, but objects caught in the explosion will be pushed away from the central hit point instead (with less force for objects farther away of course!).

I also gave a reply on Reddit about the genesis of Scraps which might be worth reposting here:

 

Quick demo of some single-player Scraps with different weapon types:

 

Trying to make my maps look a little bit nicer. This is the older DustBowl map that I haven't touched in a while.



Although I think it also looks better in motion.

 

In other news, I told the AI that they could make this sweet jump:

 

Nice changes to the map - adds a lot to the atmosphere!

 

Thanks.

Tried Scraps in Unity 5. Good to see the physics working perfectly without any changes needed.

 

Really love your idea, ambitions and execution. Respect and good luck!

 

Thanks

 

AI Players in Scraps currently use a navmesh to work out a path from where they are to where they want to go, using Unity's NavMeshes which are really nice and easy to use, until you want to do anything fancy. I've been trying to wrangle some better meshes out of it.

It feels like the NavMesh support is one of those Unity features that had enough work done on it to look awesome, but not quite enough to be great to use. You can set some parameters:



And then tell it to auto-generate a mesh based on all your static (non-moving) geometry. Here's an example on my SandyBridge map:



Using that generated mesh (the blue area), you can then simply ask it to calculate a path from one point to another, and it'll efficiently calculate the route. Now your vehicle (or other entity) can avoid hills etc and get anywhere effectively.

Except not really.

Entities can path anywhere within the mesh, and since they're always finding the shortest path, they'll often hug the edges. That path behaviour is unchangeable. You can't say "try to go down the middle." So the above mesh is actually too generous with its available area. A vehicle pathing on the bridge often falls off the side, while a vehicle pathing near the edge wall or an obstacle can get stuck on it. It doesn't help that scraps vehicles can be all different sizes, but the mesh must be baked to one specific size.

I can increase the Radius setting to bring the navmesh in, but that introduces another problem: The navmesh won't return a path - not even a partial one - to a target that isn't somwhere in the mesh area. Interestingly there is a path status called "partial", but it never seems to happen. Maybe it only happens when you use Unity's built in nav agents thing (which I don't use)? You might say well, maybe there's something to at least get a point on the mesh closest to a given point, like they have with ClosestPointOnBounds for bounding boxes? Then at least you could path to there instead, then go straight to the target from there? Nope.

So say you're on the mesh and the AI is on the mesh and they're chasing you, right? And they have a nice multi-point path to you that goes around a hill. But then you drive off the area covered by the mesh. Now the AI recalculates - suddenly there's no path! So it has to just drive straight at you, right over the hill.

The navmesh pathing is awesome when it works. You can even link different parts of the mesh and weight them to balance when they're chosen, like here where I told the AI it could do this sweet jump on the DustBowl map but only if it was a major shortcut:



You can also have different layers, with different weights and exclusions, so I can say "vehicles can drive on the hill layer if they have x or more engine power" or "only use the hills if it's this much faster than going around."

So I figure the best thing to make this work is to make sure the whole map is covered with navmesh, but there's a normal section, a hilly section, and a usually-out-of-bounds section just for chasing targets in crazy places. Then AI will be able to path anyway, but usually will only go in good places.

But the terrain can't be split up into layers. And you can export a generated navmesh to a 3D model and cut it up there (I wrote a script for it), but you can't import it back in - only generate another mesh from the first mesh, which is like photocopying a photocopy.

Using two separate NavMeshes and some 3D model hacking in Blender I added a hills layer:



But there's still lots of empty space, and I need to fill the rest with like an "out-of-bounds" NavMesh so that things can get a path.

Can I just put a big flat plane underneath and generate a mesh off of that to fill the gaps automatically? No! The mesh has to line up nicely with the other mesh layers or it won't join up. You can use "off-mesh links" - if you want to manually place a million of them. Trying to get different layer meshes to join up is an art in itself.

Oh yeah, and if your modified mesh doesn't line up well with the actual terrain, pathing won't work either. Objects have to been within a few metres of the mesh vertically, and that parameter can't be tweaked. I understand you have to allow for stuff like the over-and-under the bridge above, but I'd love an "automatically path using the closest mesh" option. Maybe I could use SamplePosition to get the y position of the mesh instead of where the vehicle is an get a path based on that...

Anyway, I managed to hack together a system for filling the gaps in my mesh with another mesh that could be the out-of-bounds mesh. But it's a terrible process that could replace the preliminary Mensa test in terms of mental leaps required. The process sucks, and it still gets weird gaps and things in it anyway.

That isn't even everything but this post is too long already. Right now I'm working on a script that will export my terrain already cut up into separate meshes based on slope; Then I can generate the different layers I want based on that. But I'm sure that's also going to have issues when I try to generate a navmesh from it. One day I'll probably have to throw out Unity's built-in solution and use another one - preferably one where I can edit the source!

Thanks for for following Scraps' tortuous development.

 

Getting AI to behave intelligently inside large open area can be a rough experience, and butting up against a few quirks of the navmesh system each time you think you've solved it would have probably made me throw something by now

 

Oh man, I finally worked out a semi-automated method to generate nice slope-based layered NavMeshes for my terrain:


But now Unity crashes whenever I use it.

 

Yeah so, as I mentioned briefly above I wrote a script that would automatically split my terrain into layers based on slope, so I could hopefully then assign those as different layers in a NavMesh.That actually turned out quite nice.



From that I could finally generate a nice layered NavMesh in unity:



Slow vehicles can stick to the blue area, more powerful vehicles can include the purplish area in their path calculations, and almost everything is covered by NavMesh so targets outside both areas can still be pathed to. Basically what I wanted last week but couldn't quite get. Static obstacles still have gaps around them but that's not a big deal. It's almost too good to be true...

So of course it was. As soon as I tried to calculate a path with it, Unity crashed. Is there no end to these sisyphean trials? It seems like the extra detail generated from the layer joins is just too much for Unity to handle (although I notice that the actual path calculation, when it occasionally works instead of crashing, is still very very fast. So er, C+ for effort Unity).

A couple of people mentioned the A* Pathfinding Project as an alternative option after my last post, which I'd seen before but not really looked into. It seemed like an opportune time to give that a look.

In summary it basically looks good. It gets around some limitations in Unity's built-in system by allowing 3D model meshes to be used directly as navmeshes (Unity only allows generating navmeshes based on meshes), and not crashing when you use it is a nice bonus. But its interface and API is quite different to the built-in Unity one and it'd require a bit of time to convert things over - and this whole process has already been way too time-consuming!

So I simplified the Unity NavMesh to a point where it has as much coverage as possible while not crashing.



THAT'S GOOD ENOUGH.

Sometimes it's all about knowing when to stop and move on.

 

Not a lot to write this time as most work has been on code that just isn't that interesting to show. I've been through the high severity bugs and fixed all of them (although I'm sure more will appear). I've been through all ~200 TODOs in the code and fixed all the ones that needed attention before release (luckily not very many).

Dave has been too busy to do much on the AI or Internet play so not much to report there just yet (he's got other full-time work).

I have been working on one interesting thing:





Part unlocks. Destroy enemy vehicles and you'll earn XP. As you gain XP you'll unlock more parts. Obviously a basic set of parts is also already unlocked from the start. This is actually the last major task on my list before the first release. The rest is marketing stuff, and a bunch of smaller tasks.

This serves a dual purpose:
- It gives the game some progression and changing content in the absence of a campaign/story mode.
- It functions as a sort of tutorial so players aren't overwhelmed with selection the first time they play.

Although I still need to add a better, proper tutorial thing before the public release though, even if it's just a big static HOW TO PLAY screen with a bunch of words and images for now.

No parts in Scraps are really "better" than others, because more powerful parts are also proportionally more expensive. I'd hate to make a system that put new players at a forced disadvantage. But I'm setting it so players tend to start with smaller parts and proceed to unlock bigger, more expensive parts as they go, so it's (hopefully) still exciting.

Anyway, really this system is more of a personal opinion thing, but I've always had more fun with games when there's progression. I enjoyed unlocking the levels in Rollercoaster Tycoon more than I enjoyed having everything unlocked from the start in Rollercoaster Tycoon 2. As counterintuitive as that might sound it really just seems more fun to have something to work towards (applies to real life as well!).

Having said that, this won't be some fancy cloud-deployed network-synced online-profile-linked DRM'd progression system. I don't need to protect any content. XP is just a dumb saved number on your local machine and certainly not un-cheatable. In fact I think I'll put in an official way to cheat and unlock everything, for people that would really prefer it that way. I know not everyone is like me.

P.S. Hey NomadKing, I appreciate the Likes I get from you on all my news posts.

 

I just liked you liking me liking your posts... Likeception!

Totally agree with the points about progression, although I wonder if by linking it to parts some new players will feel at a disadvantage even though they really aren't because everything is balanced. I can't really think of a good alternative though as being overwhelmed with options as a new player is probably just as bad!

In regards to tutorials, in Heroes of the Storm they put their level-specific game info onto the loading screens like This. Wouldn't work for every game, but it lets their actual tutorials focus on core gameplay (moving, abilities etc) without overwhelming players.

 

Still making progress. Things have been pretty busy for me over the last couple of weeks, with some non-Scraps-development stuff to do. But work continues and we have Internet play basically working, with just a bit more to do on it.

Although we have what looks like a normal client/server system with a server browser, we’re doing it though Steam’s matchmaking system so we can utilise their excellent setup for making sure anyone can host a game – no port forwarding or other messing with your router required. Now if only they’d reply a little more often on the Steamworks dev forum.

I agree this is quite possible. I have put in a sneaky way to cheat and unlock everything, just in case it's needed, which might help alleviate the concerns of complainers.

 

This looks fantastic, will definitely be watching this one. Lego Racers rules!

 

Congrats! This game is looking better every day

 

Game looks great. Can you share some background on how you're developing the game? Things like tools, assets or inspirations? Thanks man.

 

Engine: Unity (obviously )
Code: C#
3D modelling: Blender
2D: Photoshop CS5
Audio: Pro Tools 8 and Audacity
Networking: uLink, with Steamworks for Internet play

Code is almost all custom - I don't use any major Asset Store assets, though I do have a few minor ones. The Ramp Brush is quite nice for ramps on terrain.

My original post in this thread basically covers inspirations.

 

I think I have about three months of work left to do including finishing the game itself, marketing work like making a new trailer, and a final testing run; not too bad considering the long 2½ years it's taken so far.

Right now I'm making some in-game help, for those people who are going to be playing this having never seen the game before and who really won't know where to start. It's a few static screens for the moment. I'm a fan of context-based help that hands out the info when you need it, but that can wait for a future version.

Here's a help screen with some vehicle design examples, to show how you can spend your scrap in different ways:


Internet play is working though Steam quite nicely now, with anyone being able to create a game and have others see it in the game list. Unfortunately it still seems a little bit hit-and-miss about whether it works perfectly so there's a bit more work to do there.

Looking through the SVN commit logs for the last fortnight, I also fixed some bugs, improved graphics performance (I did have to remove that nice Sun Rays effect though - it was causing a ridiculous 25-30% performance hit when turned on), Dave knocked out some CPU performance issues for the AI, I made it so the host or the server can kick players, added in-game chat, made dedicated servers better configurable and ready for release, added and updated some default vehicles that come with the game, and added some neat little flags to show what country a server is in. Actually let's talk about that.

Little Flags
Steam has two major ways to host multiplayer games. There are servers - the older system- which can be browsed in a server list and joined by players. Then there are lobbies, which are similar to servers, but have extra features intended for smart multiplayer matchmaking. Team Fortress 2 for instance has both of these systems available.

For Scraps I basically want servers and a server list, but we use lobbies to do it because (as I know I've said previously) they do NAT punch-through and other magic that makes it easier for Random Person X to create a game and have it show up on the public Internet, and the server system doesn't have those features. Dave has set this up cleverly so we can still get a nice server list out of it anyway.

Unfortunately we can get everything except the ping. That is, the network round trip time. And I don't know about you but a lot of the time if I'm looking for a server to play on in a game I sort by ping first. It so happens that Steam has that function for servers but not for lobbies - unless you want to actually connect to every one, and that doesn't sound very scalable.

Luckily there is something usable - lobbies are (ostensibly at least) always returned in order of how far away they are from you, which should give a reasonably good indication of best-to-worst ping. As far as I can tell that's basically how the normal matchmaking works in other games.

Unfortunately the actual distance data is internal and we can't get to it, so there's no fancy number to show in the ping column. Right now I'm just showing a "Distance Rank" instead, which is just an ordered one-to-whatever for distance away. If you choose number 1 then you're choosing the best one, which is all fine, though the problem I have with that is for all the player knows they could be all super close or all super far away.

However, there is a function to get what country Steam user is in. So I have the server get what country it's in, save that value, the server list on the client reads it, and you get this:



With a little flag under Dist. Rank that should give a decent indication of how far away a server might actually be.

NavMesh Sadness
I also thought Unity might have actually fixed the NavMesh crashes I was getting because the Unity 4.6.4 release notes say:

• AI: Fixed potential hang when NavMesh connecting wrong side of thin polygons to neighbor tile.

And in some early tests with my stuff it looked like that may actually be the case. Unfortunately it turned out that it just crashes a bit less quickly than before. Unity QA hasn't actually even confirmed my bug report yet - I wonder if they've pretty much abandoned 4.x QA for Unity 5 because usually they're pretty fast. Unfortunately Unity 5 has some other major issues that make upgrading right now seriously not worth it.

 

Is that other vehicle another player? How'd you get multiplayer physics to work so good?

 

It's a local AI player. Unfortunately it doesn't work so well in multiplayer. You can knock people around fine (which does damage too), but precision ramping them over your vehicle like that, not so much.

Actually if the ramp vehicle sits still and the other vehicle uses it as a ramp, it works fine. But if the ramp vehicle is driving it will tend to just bash them out of the way instead of ramping them over.

 

I showed one of the help screens last time. Here's all of them:

















Yeah, they're pretty dense, even though I tried to be as concise as possible. I know a lot of people will never bother actually reading any of it, and one day I might get some time to replace it all with better, context-specific help that guides players as they go. But it's something that's there if people need help for now. Hey, Minecraft did pretty well with no in-game help whatsoever.

I'm adding time limits on game rounds right now. So if servers are left running, you can have games take 30 mins, and hour, whatever. So you won't join a game where someone's been playing for 8 hours with a score of 1000 that you can never hope to catch. And conveniently it can also act as a safety measure if it needs to - if there are any bugs or memory leaks around that I haven't found by release, at least they'll probably be cleared when the round resets instead of staying around until the server shuts down.

Here's the actual list of what I have left to do before I can release the game publicly:

- Basic timed map resets for games (in progress).
- Making a new game trailer, release marketing and updating the website, forum posts etc.
- Testing and balancing part stats.
- Checking both the main app and server for memory leaks, and fixing if necessary.
- Updating the demo version.
- Check controller support.
- Setting up and confguring a bunch of Steam stuff.
- Final big testing of everything and fixing as necessary, especially Internet play.
- Check what happens when players don't have enough bandwidth to keep up and handle as necessary.
- Link Kickstarter backers to a couple of reward items.
- Fix a bug with vehicles falling badly onto the build screen.
- Maybe set up a couple of "official" servers run on some US Amazon/cloud type thing? Check costs/bandwidth.

That's it.

 

Not sure if it's new, or I just hadn't noticed it before, but I like the ingame UI. Simple and sexy!

 

Thanks. It also scales based on screen res so it should always take up about the right amount of the screen.

 

Four weeks ago I gave an estimate that Scraps might be about 3 months from release, which would put it at two months away now. However in something of a departure from the norm, things seem to be going better than I anticipated. I won't go so far as to announce an official release date just yet but I wouldn't be surprised if it's around end-of-June for the Windows version.

The Mac and Linux versions have a few issues which need to be ironed out (particularly the Linux version, which randomly crashes). Since it's mostly just me handling everything here, I think it will be best to stagger the release (sorry Mac/Linux people, I know this happens to you a lot) so I can handle anything that goes wrong in a timely manner once the whole world is suddenly playing the game. Then the Mac and Linux release can come a little later and include any updates that were done in the meantime for the Windows version.

And yes, multiplayer is fully cross-platform compatible. Windows, Mac and Linux machines can all play in the same game at the same time.

The game is pretty much ready for release now (to Early Access - I'll still be adding more content later) - it's mostly testing and fixing and some marketing work from here on.

Thanks for listening!

P.S. Some new screenshots here.

 

You can see some of the Interstate '76 (left image) inspiration in Scraps here. Note the crater-like map, and the machine-gun tracer FX.

 

Man that brings back memories! I'm sure I have i76 on CD around here somewhere... (I feel so old saying that lol)

 

The play disc is also a standard red book audio CD that you can play in your car stereo to pretend you're a highway vigilante.

 

Wow, this game looks awesome.

 

New trailer:

Barring any major issues, a July 7th release on Windows is looking good. Mac/Linux hopefully coming soon after. Thanks for sticking around this long.

 

Fantastic trailer. Great job.

 

All game components are complete for release now, everything just needs some final testing. I'll be sending out game keys to Scraps Kickstarter backers in the next couple of days, which should provide some interesting real-world use. Then press, then full release.

Demo Update
I have one last trick up my sleeve. The demo has been upgraded* - it's now a demo and LAN joiner. That's right: Only one person needs to own the game to play on LAN.

Someone who owns the full version hosts a game, and the demo can then be used to join it.

I haven't heard of any other game going this route before, though a few games had "multiplayer spawn" installs in the late 90s which were similar. Marketing departments may freak out at the "lost sales", but how many people are going to actually buy like 8 copies of some random indie game to play on a LAN? More likely they'll just play some old game they can copy with impunity instead.

With the Scraps Demo & LAN Joiner, they can play Scraps, and maybe even go home after the LAN wanting to play more Scraps instead! So maybe they'll buy it too! It's the perfect solution for everyone! Of course considering that I've never seen this done before, there's probably some factor that makes it a terrible idea that I haven't thought of yet...

* The new demo version isn't entirely an upgrade: There are less parts available in the demo than in the previous version (although you can unlock a few more), and it's Windows-only until Mac and Linux multiplayer are tested and stable, so if you have the older v0.3.1.1 demo you may like to hold onto the older version as well.

 

Good idea. I should consider something like that as well (for the far future since I'm nowhere near as far).

Also, that last sentence made me think of myself, because I think that quite a lot for ideas I have regarding game design and marketing. Having other Indies trying stuff out helps pave the way for the rest of us.

 

A little vehicle building animation:

 

I hear a 'Vroom' sound in my head when that animation hits the end

 

Nice Scraps gameplay video from someone with a pre-release key:

Oh yeah, I commissioned that awesome Scraps art too. It's also used on the Steam page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/350150

 

So, the release is very soon - although my fellow NZ and Australian people should note that the release will be on Wednesday morning for us. For those of you in the US it will be on Tuesday afternoon.

The game itself is looking good and stable, and I've been making a few small updates over the last week to fix minor issues and make a few improvements.

Another nice video:

I've also been sending out tons of personalised emails to press, YouTubers, Twitch streamers etc which takes forever. And I've got some more of that to do now.

 

Scraps is out!

Scraps is NOW AVAILABLE for the public to buy on Steam Early Access: http://store.steampowered.com/app/350150

Thank you very much Scraps fans for sticking with this rather long project. I'll be continuing with updates to keep improving the game, and I really hope you guys enjoy playing it. If you are a Kickstarter backer and you haven't received your key, please send me a message.

If you're enjoying Scraps, there are a few things you could do to help it get noticed if you want to:

• Making a YouTube video of Scraps (gameplay, your awesome vehicle design etc).
  
• Posting a positive review on the Steam page.
  
• Telling popular YouTubers/Streamers that they should play Scraps.
  
• Telling other Internet people about Scraps - via forums, Facebook, Twitter...
  
• Just telling your friends about Scraps. Remember you can use the demo to join LAN games, so friends can join on LAN even if they don't own the full game.

And now I'm off to do more launch marketing myself.

 

Made a release post in the Showcase forum here: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/pc-scraps-buildable-vehicle-combat.339803

 

Right, first week of release report. I've been doing mostly marketing work recently, a lot of that being contacting various press, YouTubers etc. That's starting to wind down - there's a point eventually where you've contacted and followed up everyone on your list - so I'll be getting back into mostly working on the game from tomorrow.

Reception And Feedback
So far the reception has been excellent and I'm happy that people are enjoying this game that I've been working on for a long time. I've also got some valuable feedback, and the next few updates will focus on gameplay balance and improvements including:

• A new firing mode that will only fire guns that are aiming near where you're currently aiming (avoids wasting power/heat while easily switching around between weapons). This has been planned for a while but recently got suggested again, and the AI will like this feature too.
  
• Improvements and reduction to physics effects from explosions, so vehicles are less likely to be stopped in their tracks completely.
  
• Turret versions of the MMG and Medium Cannon, limited-movement version of the Large Cannon, and game balancing for turret vs. fixed weapons.
  
• Some side movement for the SMG. I've held onto this not moving horizontally for a while but I've conceded that it needs it, even if it's just a little bit.
  
• A change to the XP system so it's not just awarded on destroying a vehicle. Might be awarded for x amount of damage done or something similar.
  
• Score multipliers for destroying multiple vehicles in a row without dying. This will help encourage staying alive and escaping to repair/upgrade rather than just fighting to the death.
  
• Have spawning automatically try and happen away from other vehicles.

As I said though my time has been mostly taken up with marketing recently, but I'm getting back into game dev stuff now. I did have time to get out three updates this week with bug fixes, so the game is looking pretty stable as-is at least.

Exposure
The lack of response from press has been a bit disappointing. Hardly any games press got back to me or covered the Scraps release. A lot more covered the Scraps Kickstarter, including the likes of Rock, Paper, Shotgun and Kotaku, and the game is way better now than it was then. Maybe with the likes of Robocraft and TerraTech taking up residence the concept isn't as novel anymore. Some YouTubers have checked it out, all have enjoyed it, and I have a few more lined up - but many more just never responded. Oh well.

I’m doing a little bit of paid advertising as well but the next phase after plan “contact all the people everywhere” is basically “keep working on the game and making it great and go for the slow buildup”, although I have a few other ideas. A lot of games like this take a while to gather steam.

Think a YouTuber/Twitch streamer would like Scraps? Want to tell them maybe? They can contact me for a key. Made an insane vehicle? Maybe post it on Reddit or something. That sort of thing always helps.

Game Tip
Makeshift "boss mode":

• Set a low-ish scrap limit
  
• Add a bunch of AIs (so they auto-select low-ish value vehicles)
  
• Make the scrap limit higher
  
• Give yourself a fancy expensive vehicle
  
• Uncheck "AI Infighting"

This post has a lot of text so here's a series of images:

 

Oh wow... I'm more of the age to think of this as a customizable Demolition Derby or Twisted Metal than I am to even know what i76 is.. but dang this game looks good (and better than certain reboots of one of my two franchises listed above*coughcough*).

*goes to buy on Steam*

 

Ha, you're probably the same age as me, they're all from much the same era.

Funny actually, I've never mentioned Destruction Derby in relation to Scraps, but I did have Destruction Derby 1 on PC and it was sweet.

 

Great job so far, and grats on the Steam release!

You probably found this already, since that post was in May, but we had a similar problem with navmeshes and we managed to fix it by using NavMesh.SamplePosition with some raycasting and randomisation. It's still a little difficult to avoid some edge-cases when they re-path, but it works well enough for us.

Good luck with the final stages of development, it's looking great. I'm definitely going to spread the word, I know some people who will love this

 

Thanks, yeah, I have a solution now that's decent though it could be better. And it does use SamplePosition in a couple of places.

 

Congrats on finally hitting release (yeah I'm late...)!