The winners and honorable mentions for the latest Featured Vehicle contest (Excavators) are featured in the video below:
Here are the winners in text form:
FEATURED VEHICLES
- Overhead Deconstructor - Kitten
- Crabcavator - St. Nicolas
- Long Reach Excavator - PyroTeknikid
- Digamatron 3000000 - Jonny_Arson
- Heavy Walking Excavator - Stranger
- ACCT Dionaea - Arad
- ACMT T-R-X - Arad
- Excavator Crusher - Stranger
- Articulated Excavator - PyroTeknikid
- Mammoth Excavator - Zombie Ninja
- Heavy-Duty Excavator - St. Nicolas
- Modern Excavator - Phynnix
HONORABLE MENTIONS
- Liebherr R9800 Excavator - Rosli.Othman
- Excavator - TimeMaster111
- Excavator - Agent McNeil
- ACMT Hydra - Arad
- Liebherr R 9800 Excavator - TurtleBravo85
- X-Cavator - [Arch] B_Glo
- X-cavator - Stranger
- ACMT D-E-U-X V.2 - Arad
- Apexcavator - Stranger
- Tyrexcavator - Stranger
- Bagger 293 - Neo_Runner
- 14T Excavator - Stranger
- X-Crab-Scavator 2.0 - Mastersubliminal
- Cool-Scavator 2.1- Mastersubliminal
- Bucket Wheel Excavator - BlueSky2011
- TAC-495 - Stranger
- 2013 Excavator Pro - Jonny_Arson
There were a good number of entries, and the engineering/design was very impressive as usual. The Articulated Excavator in particular had custom treads that were both relatively efficient and excellent at turning. It's obvious I need to add custom treads as a single part at some point soon, as a number of entries had custom treads that were too slow even on my 13th gen i9 CPU.
NEXT THEME: FUN FACTOR
DEADLINE: MAY 17th
For the next theme we're going to shift the focus to something different. Instead of a specific vehicle theme, I want to see vehicles that are just fun to drive and use (and aren't too big). "Use" can mean many different things in this context; that could be making it as fun as possible to destroy a building, a fast vehicle with weapons that are ideal for blowing up racing cars, or something that's great at picking up containers and moving them around with ease (or anything else you find fun).
The key things I'm looking for are easy-to-use controls in a compact and attractive design. You can add notes about which map it's best to use the vehicle, but it should only take a few seconds for me to figure out the vehicle controls and start having fun. Don't add all possible options/weapons to a vehicle. Just make it do 1 or 2 things really well.
BUILDING FUN AND ATTRACTIVE VEHICLES
Part of the reason I'm focusing on these elements now is because of the upcoming campaign changes. I've spent a couple days recently trying to make vehicles that are easy and fun to control. While there will be a few familiar vehicles from the current Showcase Vehicles, most of them just don't cut it because they aren't particularly interesting or visually distinct enough. As I've been creating this new batch of vehicles, it's apparent to me now that we need more advanced controls over some parts to make them feel like fully-finished vehicles.
It's also become obvious that advanced vehicle builders (aka you guys) have been using impressive workarounds to get things to fit just right, particularly in smaller vehicles. For this problem in particular, version 0.227's big new feature is a new part: The Flex Connection. I've seen requests for something similar to it in various forms (particularly since the Flex Beams were added), but I didn't fully appreciate the need for something like it until now.
The Flex Connection basically removes the need to use workarounds to connect parts in unusual ways. Instead you just use as many Flex Connection parts as you want, and all the parts of the same Linkage index will be joined together (invisibly). This means you can build physically impossible shapes like things floating in mid-air, but that's not something I've worried about for a while.
Rather than ramble on any more, here's the full changelist for 0.227:
- Added new part: Flex Connection (Decorative) - Creates a solid but invisible connection between all Flex Connections of the same Linkage
- - NOTE: Creating a connection between rigidbodies that are connected in other ways will give the "Connected to Itself" warning/error
- Added adjustable spread for rockets and missile pods
- Changed damage/speed to be separate values for rockets/missile pods
- Added Default camera option
- Changed how hover drive calculates forces (should be less jumpy, more consistent)
- Added damage to plants from entity collisions
- Changed how isometric camera updates its offset while rotating
- Increased death timer of missiles pods/rockets by 5x (12.5/25 seconds)
- Fixed free and spring pivot collision (couldn't actually go 90 degrees)
- Fixed attacher ignoring alt input (Normal mode)
- Added 2 shift all structure buttons to the layout editor and fixed Compound buildings
- Fixed Control + MMB/Wheel only working in certain modes
- Fixed mirrored rotation for hooks
- Fixed Shift + click in build mode still colliding with connectors and letting you add a part
That's all for now.