EndoSkull Gaming

‪@corvostudio‬ Marco and his team have been working hard for the WWII Sandbox Game that gives you sooooo much for so little. If you haven't check out this game - give it a look!

2 months ago | [YT] | 2

EndoSkull Gaming

‪@454ss_gaming‬ joined the Hunt last weekend. And to my surprise - recorded video. Not only that he did an amazing job of walking through a lot of the features the addon has. In fact I don't think we even realized how far it's come until we watched the video :-)

If you'd like to see Convoy 1943 from a different perspective you'll really enjoy this video.

Thanks to ‪@454ss_gaming‬ for giving it a try (and being brave enough to join into a crazy community!)

The team was really happy to see someone new to the add come in and have a good time and appreciate all the effort that has been made to keep TPS as high as possible.

Hopefully we'll see more of him in the game!
-Endo

2 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 3

EndoSkull Gaming

Minor Update but HUGE Update

As you know everything we do for the addon is about optimization so more than 4 players can play with more than 4 vehicles.
One of the things that allows us to run multiple vehicles was virtual ordinance - something that @Charlizard worked hard to implement.

The addon has code that spawns torpedos, depth charges, and hedgehogs. The reason for this is to eliminate as many sub-bodies as possible. This means no loose parts on ships or subs. We only spawn ordinance when it's needed.

The Downside
The problem is that everything spawns in from a dead stop. That means when a torpedo is fired it enters the world with its propellor at 0 and it's momentum at 0.

They take awhile to speed up and of course a uboat running on the surface is likely to catch up to it's own torpedo as they come to speed.

Last night @vmanhtown and I spent time trying to use rocket boosters to get torpedos up to speed. While there was some limited success we encountered a few things - rockets produce fire and smoke and even then the torpedos still did not come to speed in a smooth desired way.

@Charlizard had mentioned when component modding came out it might be possible to start torpedos at speed on spawn.
He was right.

It actually works...
It appears we have a rough draft of torpedos that spawn at speed...

3 months ago | [YT] | 15

EndoSkull Gaming

Gearblocks Update Just Dropped. Looks good!

3 months ago | [YT] | 0

EndoSkull Gaming

I Never Get Side Tracked... except when I do...

I've been wanting to test this idea for awhile - so after a long day I thought I'd do a little test.

RGB Indicators in windows. 😛
Lights are expensive to TPS in Stormworks we try to only use them in subs (spotlights to prevent light leaks) and a few on board surface ships to just see inside the bridge. Regular lights in stormworks can be seen as christmas tree lights from almost any distance... it kind of sucks to be honest.

LED have a short distance but i thought it might be interesting to use them as lights that turn on as a convoy ships sinks. You can see them from a far only when using binoculars.


Later That Day...
When ship is first hit and sustains damage - lights go on.
As the ship floods the light change from relatively solid to simulating a fire below decks
Before the ships sinks the lights and fire fade out and the ship sinks
(I think - didn't actually test that part just the lighting changes 😛

3 months ago | [YT] | 6

EndoSkull Gaming

After 3D Comes Blocking It Out

Now that the 3D model is loading into stormworks it's time to block it out.

The idea here is to get he basic ship of where the deck is and the walls. Then a rough hull - we don't care if the hull doesn't fit perfectly in the model - we'll use invisible blocks as needed.

For surface ships the main idea is to have a place to walk, a blocky hull that floats, and something for a torpedo to hit.

Note the deck is separated from the hull - this helps things from breaking up into multiple physics bodies - you can also put any other blocks on the deck you're using for collision detections another empty block between the deck. For example the mast starting block can be one block above the deck - this will help stop the deck from breaking up into multiple physics bodies.

The reason we do 3d shrouds is to hide that we are trying to make as little physics bodies as possible by using square sections.

The image is currently using a combination of Jakeisloud blocks and regular blocks which I am currently being replaced. Once I have things figured out for floating and collisions I'll replace the panels with invisible blocks from Jake trying to keep all deck parts sqaured off - we don't care if they go outside of our walkable bridge area we are more concerned with keep the decks and walls all one piece.

3 months ago | [YT] | 12

EndoSkull Gaming

Work In Progress
Currently the the goal is optimization.
All these games we've been playing has always still been testing - trying to figure out where the addon needs to go.
Originally we tried fast paced games - they made the game become predictable with uboats running into the convoy to get quick kills.
We slowed the game down and now we suffer from a different issue.

Single sub games result in escorts having no fear of convoy attacks, because subs now move slower getting into position takes longer, and with only one sub in the game escorts have no other options for gameplay other than to attack the uboat.

Optimizing ships and uboats further should allows us to bring in 2 vs 2 and hopefully even 2 vs 3 giving the uboats the ability to coordinate attacks. With only 2 escorts, surface ships will have to drive off uboats rather than hunt them to their death as there will be more than one threat to the convoy.

Cross your fingers we can keep pushing the stormworks multiplayer to the limits...

I'm currently jumping around but I'm starting to convert one of my favorites builders ships. @Eggnog was one of the original builders and players of subhunts. I keep hoping he returns as his surface gameplay put down many a uboat.

Anyway coming soon hopefully is a 12 knot trawler, meant to balance the speed of the SC497 as well as being a smaller vessel to optimize for TPS.

3 months ago | [YT] | 7

EndoSkull Gaming

After bugging @Alistair to rebuild the SC497 using optimized building blocks from @jakeisloud
We now have a surface ship that can run:

High Physics Test
12x SC497 = 62 TPS

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3 months ago | [YT] | 15

EndoSkull Gaming

New Radio Work In Progress Convoy 1943 - U-boat - Wolfpack Addon Progress.
All vehicles will have the following 2 radios installed:
1 for monitoring only, 1 for communications.

U-boats can only use Long Range & Local Bands.
Both U-boats and Escorts will have a 2nd radio they can use to listen only to other bands.

Example:
- U-boats can communicate on Long Range 20 km.
- Convoy ships can’t use Long Range, but can attempt to listen to U-boat communications by trying to find which channel they are using for audio.

- Convoy Ships can use Mid Range 5 km and Short Range 1 km to communicate with each other — this means if they remain close to the convoy and use Short Range, U-boats won’t be able to listen in until they are within range. But U-boats have 20 km range to communicate with each other.

- U-boats didn’t use voice communications and relied on encrypted Morse code — I have to revisit this, but for now - - Long Range band (20 km, channels 2.0 to 6.0 / 9 Channels) will be for their use.

The new radio is a component and is being set up to have static played between channels — radio operators don’t flip from 2.0 to 2.5 but use the dial to select the channel they want. The closer they are to the channel, the less static there is. (fun little immersive thing)

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3 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 7

EndoSkull Gaming

Currently I don't believe we can do button interactions with custom components. However you can reskin current parts with mods.

So here have a test of a turning dial by placing the dial on the side of a throttle.

Amazing! :-P

3 months ago | [YT] | 13