Posts by RandomMechEngineer

Hi, I wanted to open a discussion about issues in Principia in the hope that they would be fixed at some point in future.

For now I have these two issues in mind that affect the quality of life.

A minor thing that might not have come across for many but I have issues with, is the joint strength on PC vs Android version. When using multi-select to adjust joint strenght, the resulting strength is much weaker when set on PC compared to the same strength values on Android.

Another not so significant bug is the rendering of painted terrain. Sometimes it appears invisible on random spots, both while in editor and playing.

Hi, thanks for the response and for letting me know about the issue tracker.

This is what I meant by the strength setting.

1. I created a level with two identical setups: three thick planks connected together and supported by platforms at both ends, and a weight dropping on the center. I set the strength to 1.2 on one setup on Android using Multi-Select.
2. I sent the file to my PC. I set the strength on the other setup to 1.2 as well, using Multi-Select.
3. When played, the connections modified on PC broke, while those modified on Android only didn't.

For me the problem is that on PC I can't set the connections to be strong enough so I have to do that on Android.

Personally I would prefer the possibility to set a higher strength to the connections, because some of my levels benefit from those higher values settable on Android only. Even though the strength is multiplied by 10, the connection doesn't become indestructible when set above 0.1. Instead, the connection has a high stiffness and breaks under heavy load. This is unless the value is set precisely to 1 with the slider, in which case it becomes truly indestructible and stiff.

In my experiment 'Realistic Offroad Vehicle 2024' which I recently published, I have long beams consisting of planks which the vehicle is driven over. I can make them so strong but still breakable only on Android.

Essentially the best scenario would be to have the same strength values on PC as on Android because it allows the user to choose the strength from a wider range. To my experience the 'wrong' strength multiplier factor on Android is better.

Algodoo and Incredibots sparked my interest in physics games. Sadly Incredibots 2 and 3 are no longer playable because they require Flash to work, and Flash is no longer continued. Flash emulator Ruffle doesn't work either. I was very happy to find out last year that Principia had become open source as this is also one of the games I spent many hours playing back in the day.

Hello.

I want to bring up a problem in version 2025.04.05 which added clamping to objects that didn't have it or of which clamps worked inproperly. I understand that it was considered a bug to be fixed, but I believe many levels - some of mine included - benefited from the unclamped values. For example, My Realistic Offroad Vehicle uses a signal amplifier which allows values above 1 as input to a power supply, enabling much higher torque in DC motors. This update basically made the vehicle simulator unplayable, because the car now lacks in torque to climb over any obstacles.

If the solution to this is not to revert the clamping, I'd like to see the maximum torque of motors being increased, or perhaps power supply output being increased. Just some way of making machines more potent.

One other thing I think should be changed is the joint strength multiplier. It doesn't allow very strong yet breakable connections.

What I don't want to see is creativity being limited in a game about creativity, after all.

Aside from that, on the Android version there is a bug that makes the navigation bar stay on top of the game. Either it should be hidden or the game window should be scaled properly to prevent overlap.

Kr., RandomMechEngineer