We hope that you enjoy the first of many updates to Robocraft 2! Please let us know what you think and leave a review on Steam too!
Build, Drive, Fight!
HOVERBLADE UPDATE OUT TOMORROW
Hello Robocrafters!
We are very excited to share that our first content update to Robocraft 2 launches tomorrow!
Along with the titular Hoverblades, several features are coming to this update. But let’s start with the brand new movement part, Hoverblades!
The first of several movement parts coming to Robocraft 2! the Hoverblades allows you to create vehicles that ascend, descend and strafe! This allows you to be far more agile than many wheeled vehicles.
This part works very similar to the original Robocraft so you’ll need to balance the weight accordingly to create a vehicle that works well!
There will be plenty more parts coming in the future and we’re already working on Tank Tracks! Let us know which ones you’re excited about after you’ve had an opportunity to play with the Hoverblades
ARTSTYLE IMPROVEMENTS
We’ve had some comments regarding Robocraft 2’s art style and have been working on improving its overall quality. Our first step is to adjust the tone of the environment to match the original Robocraft visuals. The environment will now look like this:
This is just the first step to improving the graphical quality of the game. Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be sharing more information and examples of how we plan to improve Robocraft 2’s visual style.
UNDO & REDO
Undo has been one of the most requested features in Robocraft 2. If you’ve ever felt the pain of deleting your pilot seat accidentally, losing all of your complex wiring and logic systems with an ill-fated accidental right-click, you will be pleased to know that undo is here to save the day.
This update introduces the Scoreboard to the Tab key! You’ll be able to see how many kills you’ve made, how much damage you’ve done to other vehicles and also your ping to the server.
We’ve added mass stats to several areas of the game which will allow you to see more detailed information on your robocraft, whether you are in build mode, browsing through your robocraft list or looking through the CRF to check out other players’ robocraft.
There will be more building editor features in the future which will help to assist you whilst building your robocraft so stay tuned for more information at a later date.
PARTIAL CONTROLLER SUPPORT
We’ve been interested in supporting controllers since we began working on Robocraft 2. This is why we’ve used certain naming conventions for the pilot seat when wiring. In the future, we plan to look at releasing the game on more platforms so controller support has been very important to us.
We still have quite a lot of work to do which is why we’re starting with partial support for now. You’ll be able to use the controller in simulation and combat but will need to use a keyboard and mouse to navigate menus.
We’ve re-recorded all announcer voice lines so that their delivery is similar to Robocraft 1. Check out a few examples below:
CHANGES TO ONBOARDING/PROGRESSION
The Tech Ladder will be going through an important change in this update. Instead of unlocking build modes, tools and blocks, you’ll have access to all of these as soon as you start the game. This includes the new Hoverblades.
The Tech Ladder has been repurposed as a collection of tutorial videos aimed at introducing the various features and parts. This update also includes the Hoverblade video.
We understand that some new players may be slightly overwhelmed by the amount of features when first looking at the inventory but we wanted to do this to address some of the concerns players had over certain functionalities like copy/paste requiring an unlock and some other concerns in reviews that the game was pay to win even though the Tech ladder only used earned in-game currency from battles.
In the future, we want to introduce a progression system similar to the Robocraft 1 Tech ladder. However, this was going to take a considerable amount of time to design and would require work from our server programmer who is currently working on the Friends and Party system.
Below are several balance changes to the game and bug fixes that we have addressed since the last update:
Balance Changes
Laser - Penetration energy reduced from 2,000 to 1,500
Plasma - Penetration energy increased from 1,000 to 2,000
Rail - Projectile velocity increased from 450 to 600
Aiming Servos - Bond Strength Override increased from 4 to 24
Joints - Bond Strength Override set to 8
Other Changes - Art improvements - Lighting, colours, materials etc. to make the maps feel more vibrant - Removed Edgewear - Zoom no longer handled serverside - Fire/Zoom decoupled from place/delete blocks so they can be rebound separately - More actions can now be assigned to mouse buttons - Renamed some seat ports to be more generic i.e. LMB is now Fire - Removed Zoom port, zoom is now always RMB unless rebound - Shows tower health if you are nearby
Bug Fixes - Fix for some audio events not being assigned to the correct sliders - ‘!’ no longer appears on CRF bots that have materials or parts you do not own
We’re talking with many of our community quite frequently over on our Discord so please do check it out if you want to follow the development closely. Once you’ve spent some time with this update with its new features and content, please consider leaving a review on Steam! We hope that you enjoy this first content update and are looking forward to future content and improvements over the coming months.
Build, Drive, Fight!
New Announcer And Scoreboard Coming December 7th In The Hoverblade Update!
Hello Robocrafters!
In a couple of days on the 7th of December, Robocraft 2 will receive its first content update! Today’s post covers the scoreboard and the new announcer!
We previously shared an image of the scoreboard in an earlier post but now we can confirm that it will be part of the next update! The scoreboard will track:
Kills
Death
Assists
DMG Dealt
DMG taken
Objectives
To count as an assist you must be the last person to deal damage to the Pilot or their robocraft before someone else kills a pilot.
You can look at the scoreboard at any time by pressing tab. You can click the right mouse button while the scoreboard is open to sort the player list.
New Announcer
We’ve had a lot of reactions to the announcer's voice since it debuted. Some players liked the voice, and others disliked it. One of the requests that was made by many players was to have an announcer that was similar to RC1.
We will be updating the announcer's voice and you can hear some sample clips below:
We hope you like the new announcer!
Partial Controller Support Coming 7th of December With Hoverblades
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.
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.
Important info about the right mouse button zoom
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!
Mass Stats Coming December 7th in Hovercraft 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.
Undo Functionality Coming December 7th in Hovercraft Update
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.
Hoverblades and Artstyle Improvements Coming 7th December
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!
Art and Landscape improvements
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.
