Floaty Rail Stability System (for mechs, ships, sharks, bombs, whatever!)

Now that I've finally published my Gundam level, I can speak freely about the floaty rail system I use. =P Believe me, it's a lot simpler than it seems, but there are enough intricacies to mess it up if you're not careful. Having used many different methods and worked on this system for a very long time, I am proud to say this is probably the most proven stability system by far of its kind.

Not only have I used this to stabilize the player controlled mecha in my levels, I've also used this to allow a level of control and stability for my enemies with their tracking systems. This trailer vid I made of my previous level - SD Gundam Zaku Assault should help show the level of speed and maneuverability that can be reached with my floaty rail system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl116DMrHBU

Remember, this system is not meant for emulating any sort of physics. It's to help give creators the ability to somewhat cheat the physics engine and provide a great level of stabilization for whatever you want throughout a "majority" of a level, preferably something that is flying.

Since I'm at work, I hope this lame text diagram helps.

Code:

[Base] >>>>>(0 strength/stiff spring/max length)>>>>>> [ Pink Floaty ] [Base] >>>>>(0 strength/stiff spring/max length)>>>>>> [ Pink Floaty ] // // (two 0 strength/stiff springs) // // [anchor point]

Points of Interest
- The base can either be comprised of dark matter or a material that his heavy enough to hold up all of the mechanics.
- The pink floaty on the x axis should generally be larger than what is connected to the anchor point to prevent sway on the springs. If it's too big, issues with speed of movement will become present (i.e. sluggish). If it's too small, sway and tilt will become evident and can possibly (and will more likely) break your mechanism after a certain distance.
- The anchor point can either be the object that needs stabilization or another control box type mechanism that aids in movement/stability/etc. which the object will be connected to. I've done both examples and it works. For example, the Ball with a cannon in my Gundam level is representative of the first instance whereas every other enemy aside from the ball w/o a cannon represents the latter.
- If your anchor point is not the object itself, keep the anchor point light by obviously using light materials such as the floaties or dissolve/polystyrenes if you absolutely have to.
- The rail system can be placed either above or below the anchor point. I'm pretty sure you can flip the axes so that the pink floaties move on the Y axis and the anchor point can travel on the X axis. It's rather flexible so it all depends on how you want to apply it.

Things you want to stay away from:
- 0 strength pistons should generally not be used as they add just enough resistance to create the "death shake."
- The level of stability had with my floaty rail is rather great, but it does not hold up well at the extremes. A loss of stability can be found at the maximum vertical distance from the pink floaty to the anchor point. Breaking will generally ensue if you continue to move on these extremes.
- If your object has a decent amount of weight, never use 1 spring. Always use them in pairs.

Haven't tried an underwater application, but I can only assume it would help fight buoyancy if needed.

Any questions, just let me know. =)

So, a 2D tracker, without the tracking, yes? :p

Is there some benefit of using pink floaty for the top, rather than a haevier material (you are supporting a heavier object with a lighter one, is why it seems odd)? You could always have the heavier object supported on a track. Although I guess if the pink floaty is stabler then that would be all fine and dandy.

If you have issues with stability when getting too far between the pink floaty part and the anchor point you can simply duplicate the horizontal rail at the bottom. Then as you move further from one of the pink floaty parts, you move closer to another, this should stabilise the system better, if you are having problems with it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rtm223

So, a 2D tracker, without the tracking, yes? :p

Is there some benefit of using pink floaty for the top, rather than a haevier material (you are supporting a heavier object with a lighter one, is why it seems odd)? You could always have the heavier object supported on a track. Although I guess if the pink floaty is stabler then that would be all fine and dandy.

If you have issues with stability when getting too far between the pink floaty part and the anchor point you can simply duplicate the horizontal rail at the bottom. Then as you move further from one of the pink floaty parts, you move closer to another, this should stabilise the system better, if you are having problems with it.

Not to say that the dual rail system doesn't work, but if you duplicate the rail on the bottom (under the assumption that you have a rail on the top already or vice versa), it affects the ability to move at a decent speed (assuming you are controlling the anchor point). I've tested it several times and I haven't really had a need to build a level using the entire area. That's why the size of the floaty above or below needs to be at a certain size larger than the object, although if it's too large, then the sluggishness occurs once again. It'll definitely be stable, but you aren't going to get the fastest possible speed.

As for having it a floaty up top, it's all about weight issues assuming you are the one controlling it. There's no reason it can't be stone material or polystyrene, but if you want the fastest possible speed while maintaining a good level of stability, then pink/peach floaty is the way to go. Remember, under the assumption that you are controlling the anchor point, you are "pulling" this mechanism all over the place and you are still confined by the weight physics.

But yeah, 2D tracker and all that jazz. ^^

Time to go celebrate with the leprechauns for a bit!

That's actually almost exactly what I used in "Starfighter," but I was never able to get it to be very stable at long distances (though I guess, distance-wise, your level wasn't much bigger than mine: a bit longer, but not as tall). I used two anchors at opposite ends of the play area and ran pistons from both to the cornerstone. That solved my left/right stability, but when the ship got too high, it started to wobble a bit. I suppose that's what you meant by just enough resistance.

I did experiment a bit with springs once, but it turned out less stable than the pistons. Of course, I only tried it once and didn't try changing the cornerstone or anything, before I abandoned it. Guess I shoulda' stuck with it.

I'm also curious about pink floaty. Is there an advantage? I specifically avoided floaty because it seems like it has more drag than other materials... or the same drag, but you have to make floaty quite a bit bigger to make its pistons/springs strong enough, which means more drag.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rtm223

If you have issues with stability when getting too far between the pink floaty part and the anchor point you can simply duplicate the horizontal rail at the bottom. Then as you move further from one of the pink floaty parts, you move closer to another, this should stabilise the system better, if you are having problems with it.

I never tried that specific approach. I tried 4 anchors with two cornerstones once. It really really didn't work. I set it up on the grid and made sure everything was perfectly symmetrical, but it still tore itself apart pretty quickly. Never tried diagonally opposite anchors, though. I'll have to try that.

I liked the rail system well enough to use it for starfighter but it has MAJOR drawbacks. If you only give the player one life and one vehicle, then I guess it works fine, but that's completely lame. To get the emitters to work for starfighter, I had to place the ship object, manually move the ship itself (leaving the anchor/logic center) to where I wanted it to emit, capture it, and then set the emitter to emit in exactly the same spot. That way the anchors would overlap perfectly (cuz dm can emit overlapping) and the external things in the level, such as the sticker cheat codes, could interact with the ship's logic. Also, all of the moving parts of the logic center had to be made of dissolve so I could get them out of the way for the next one to emit (since I couldn't get a creature brain to get rid of it). I suppose I could've used demitter logic to work around that, but I've always been intimidated by the prospect of setting that up, and the destruction of the ship by explosives broke its association with the emitter anyway.

Wish I'd known your rail system was pretty much the same as mine. I got all excited for this great secret and I already knew it. It's even shown in my vehicle tools level (albeit in a simplified format and with pistons instead of springs).

Lol i suck with logic and smart people stuff so im still trying to understand that

Quote:

Originally Posted by donkey show

Not to say that the dual rail system doesn't work, but if you duplicate the rail on the bottom (under the assumption that you have a rail on the top already or vice versa), it affects the ability to move at a decent speed (assuming you are controlling the anchor point).

Ahh yeah, that makes sense. I was under the impression that the stability of series connectors was based upon their mass anyway, so surely big piece of floaty is as stable as smaller, but equally massive, piece of metal?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sehven

I'm also curious about pink floaty. Is there an advantage? I specifically avoided floaty because it seems like it has more drag than other materials... or the same drag, but you have to make floaty quite a bit bigger to make its pistons/springs strong enough, which means more drag.

In a way metal should work better, seeing as a piece of metal of mass x will suffer less from air resistance / drag than a piece of floaty with mass x. Although, I suppose using floaty will aid you stopping, whilst slow down your acceleration, which, from a gameplay perspective, could be a pretty nice feature (overshooting is far more annoying than taking a while to get going, IMO). You could always create a compound object to help balance the mass/drag ratio.

Quote:

Time to go celebrate with the leprechauns for a bit!

Darnit, I never picked up my st patrick's day costume and the store will likely be updated by the time I'm home :(

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sehven

I did experiment a bit with springs once, but it turned out less stable than the pistons. Of course, I only tried it once and didn't try changing the cornerstone or anything, before I abandoned it. Guess I shoulda' stuck with it.

Really? I was always under the impression that zero-strength stiff spring was equal to the 0-strength stiff piston? Just that the spring has no min/max values. Maybe it's just with a single moving part (1d/linear motion) they are comparable.

Quote:

the destruction of the ship by explosives broke its association with the emitter anyway.

This is also something I didn't know :) Ta

That is very interesting indeed, the manovourability is quite amazing for a flying mech, thank you for telling us how you did this i will have to have a go at this later on today, well done.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rtm223

Although, I suppose using floaty will aid you stopping, whilst slow down your acceleration, which, from a gameplay perspective, could be a pretty nice feature (overshooting is far more annoying than taking a while to get going, IMO).

That's a really good point. I'll have to try that if I ever use a rail system like this again. As I said, I didn't care much for its limitations, but his was more advanced than mine. Mostly, I'm looking into methods of stabilizing free-moving vehicles. It makes it easier to emit them.

Quote:

Really? I was always under the impression that zero-strength stiff spring was equal to the 0-strength stiff piston? Just that the spring has no min/max values. Maybe it's just with a single moving part (1d/linear motion) they are comparable.

I may be wrong. As I said, I did exactly one test before dismissing the idea. I was working on a mech (the walking kind) and using a piston cornerstone stabilizer to keep it upright while working on the walk cycle. The 0 strength stiff spring option was pointed out to me by a friend and I liked that it had no max length, so I tried replacing both pistons with springs. While the pistons stayed nice and rigid (mostly) and kept the mech upright, the springs sagged and let the mech lean back (it was walking forward). I never pursued it further, so there may have been other factors that I just didn't notice.

Quote:

This (explosives break emitter association) is also something I didn't know :) Ta

I might be wrong about that. More likely, it's outdated: emitter association used to break more easily (especially in create), but Mm patched it a while back, so the issue with explosives might be resolved too. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that exploded stuff can still be demitted: I saw a trick where a candle flame stuck to a bomb would leave the glow after the bomb and flame were exploded, but if that bomb came from an emitter, the glow would disappear at the end of the emitter lifetime, or when the max at once was reached. That would seem to debunk my earlier claim.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sehven

I liked the rail system well enough to use it for starfighter but it has MAJOR drawbacks. If you only give the player one life and one vehicle, then I guess it works fine, but that's completely lame. To get the emitters to work for starfighter, I had to place the ship object, manually move the ship itself (leaving the anchor/logic center) to where I wanted it to emit, capture it, and then set the emitter to emit in exactly the same spot.

Well, in an earlier beta level I made for my Gundams, I did create an emittable mech that was connected to the rail. Of course I used a heavier base (which acted as a logic center as well) instead of dark matter to hold it up. Once the Gundam was destroyed and the player died, they get sent back to another section where it emitted another one for use. I mean, it’s completely understandable that it does get rather inconvenient as you have to compensate for the size of the entire object, but it’s totally doable.

Quote:

I may be wrong. As I said, I did exactly one test before dismissing the idea. I was working on a mech (the walking kind) and using a piston cornerstone stabilizer to keep it upright while working on the walk cycle. The 0 strength stiff spring option was pointed out to me by a friend and I liked that it had no max length, so I tried replacing both pistons with springs. While the pistons stayed nice and rigid (mostly) and kept the mech upright, the springs sagged and let the mech lean back (it was walking forward). I never pursued it further, so there may have been other factors that I just didn't notice.

Springs are much more reliable, especially when you start attempting to travel the entire length and height of the level. With 0 strength pistons, I have tried the exact same system you did where you had anchored the “floating point” on both ends of it and came up with the same problems. It becomes even worse when you try to go beyond the max length by connecting the pistons at a further distance than max. Their pulling/pushing properties get out of whack and thus you have nothing afterwards, regardless of whether or not you have them connected to a switch that sets them off.

That’s why springs are better for a rail like this as it has the ability to go beyond max length without having too many issues. You use less parts (i.e. essentially no switches, less connectors) aside from giving yourself less headaches. Like I mentioned, the anchor point can get unstable, but generally at the max vertical height. Horizontal max is totally fine. In the SD Gundam level, it encompasses the entire length of the stage and there is no degradation of stability throughout while using only two springs from the base to the floaty rail. Always use the springs in pairs as well.

But the general rule of thumb is that the closer you are to the floaty rail, the more stability you have obviously. Now that I think about it, you should be able to throw the rail in the front glitch layers as my moving Green Zakus do occupy the first front glitch layer in the SD Gundam level… :O

Quote:

I might be wrong about that. More likely, it's outdated: emitter association used to break more easily (especially in create), but Mm patched it a while back, so the issue with explosives might be resolved too. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that exploded stuff can still be demitted: I saw a trick where a candle flame stuck to a bomb would leave the glow after the bomb and flame were exploded, but if that bomb came from an emitter, the glow would disappear at the end of the emitter lifetime, or when the max at once was reached. That would seem to debunk my earlier claim.

It still exists. With the enemies in the SD Gundam level, there are instances of both of these situations happening. With the Ball, there is a bomb in the robot that is obviously activated at the same time as the creature brain. When this happens, the bomb does destroy the emitter association, thus the debris from the explosion still exists after the brain activation.

But… with the other enemies such as the GMs and Gundams, I just used a one shot emitter that contained a bomb with an inverted key to be activated instead of internally having a bomb be activated when the enemy loses its “health.” This still gives the illusion of the enemy exploding all over the place, but the debris still disappears. Win, win.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rtm233

In a way metal should work better, seeing as a piece of metal of mass x will suffer less from air resistance / drag than a piece of floaty with mass x. Although, I suppose using floaty will aid you stopping, whilst slow down your acceleration, which, from a gameplay perspective, could be a pretty nice feature (overshooting is far more annoying than taking a while to get going, IMO). You could always create a compound object to help balance the mass/drag ratio.

Totally understandable, but floaties work perfectly for my applications. The less weight involved, the more responsive the controls are as evidenced in my SD Gundam level. I can see using metal or a somewhat heavy material with a weight of >= 10 for better stability when dealing with machines that don’t rely on too much user movement, i.e. jetpack movement.

Man this took a long time to write. I’m kinda hungover from last night and attempting to reply during work is kicking my butt, lol.

EDIT:

Quote:

Originally Posted by rtm233

Ahh yeah, that makes sense. I was under the impression that the stability of series connectors was based upon their mass anyway, so surely big piece of floaty is as stable as smaller, but equally massive, piece of metal?

You know, after using multiple kinds of materials for the rail, I honestly believe size does more for stabilization than mass does. There were many times I had done something similar by using a smaller/heavier material as the "floaty point" but it never was as stable as making the "floaty point" (regardless of the material) a certain size larger than what was on the anchor point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by donkey show

I mean, it's completely understandable that it does get rather inconvenient as you have to compensate for the size of the entire object, but it’s totally doable.

Yeah, my problem wasn't so much with emitting the first ships. The problem came when I wanted to add a checkpoint to the level. I couldn't just emit the same ships or move the emitter. I had to reposition them, recapture them give them their own dedicated emitters, which caused the thermo to count 4 of my ships instead of two. Since I do plan on including checkpoints in my final mech level (if there ever IS a final one: I'm on my fifth attempt at making a mech that's good enough to be in a final level), it pretty much rules out the possibility of using a floaty rail. My current wip mech is actually pretty darn stable for the most part, though, so I shouldn't need rails.

I'll have to do s'more tests on the effects of size vs. mass on this kind of thing. I wonder if a 4 small grid square block of floaty, with 10 layers overlapping (meaning 10 squares of floaty all in the same spot) have the same amount of drag as a single block of 40 grid squares. I'm also curious to know if pistons would be equal strengths connected to either of the objects.

Wow, thanks for posting this. I was wondering how you kept it upright.

Sometimes the simplist solutions are the best solutions :)

This is going to help a lot for my Crystal Flight level.

I remember you showed me this when you still used pistons. Oh how the time flys by!

I actually used systems like this long before the original Gundam levels were ever out, but that was before you could make pistons and such invisible, so I had to set the minimum length to cero and use a big long piece of DM to prevent the user from seeing the mechanism. I used Pink Floaty back then too, because for some reason anything else would drag the piston down (even though it was stiff) and break it. Very, very annoying. It was that or it would start shaking violently.

You can actually see one of my earliest versions of my mechanism in my level LittleBigUFO, which was published about a year ago. I was pretty proud of myself when I made it, and was one of the first bits of logic I made, along with a amazingly thermo inefficient counter, which became incredibly hard to manage after about 5, which limited the levels potential.
Sorry if I'm butting into a rtm223/donkey_show/sehven argument, otherwise known as an Einstein debate, I'm just trying to add a little input. Feel free to chew me up.

Don't really understand your text diagram, could you show us some basic pictures of it in create mode?

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i...animal0064.gif

umm dude is there a way to stabalise the object without "hidden strings" cause i like portable stuff, that dosent connect with the level. oh and btw look at this..

Base:darkmatter:pistons set to max length and MAX strength:rubber because its light and indestructable
Base:darkmatter:pistons set to max length and MAX strength:rubber because its light and indestructable
piston
piston
piston
piston
piston
piston
Rubberrubberrubber
rubberrubberrubber.
The thing you want to be stabilised
make it glued to the rubber, then
attach it to the bottom or top of item.

seems to be a better Idea to me.........

Nice idea, but try it out for yourself. Due to the pistons, it will not have the same kind of stability at the extremes, let alone past the 999.99 max length limit. And max strength? You're hardly going to move. The reason why I use really light materials in the first place is for as much freedom of movement as possible. Sure rubber is indestructible, but its not as light in comparison to dissolve and the floaties.

Is it wrong to use it though? It all depends on your application, but the piston diagram you brought up does not have the same freedom of movement and is prone to breaking... a lot.

BTW, my floaty rail works in the PSP version as well... which is where I first initially tested it. ^^

Oh sry i meant not max for the top one, and for the one that would attach to the actual vehicle not stiff, it works better then a spring cause it lets u go diagonal but it dosent pull u back or cause any probs to tilting and control.but i think springs are meant to be used for this sort of thing. pistons would probably cause to many probs..... i tried out this version and it works incredibly, the good thing about it too is that if u blow up the pink floaty will too..., btw where do u put the trigger explosives in the actual mech, or do u just emit and impact omb on top of it??