Vehicle Physics

I did this prototype as I was thinking about what it would take to make a game like Nanogear.  I knew I wanted it to have physics interaction between objects, and that different types of vehicles should move and act in very different ways.  To this end I set out to become better acquainted with Unity's physics system and the different ways that I could make things move.  I had not previously used the wheel collider in Unity and quickly discovered that while it can be an effective way to make a traditional kind of vehicle, it also has its flaws.  That was okay though; it still provided a good way to try out and test different aspects of Unity's physics engine.

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It was when I got the hovering vehicle working that I really began to see the potential for what become Nanogear.  Because of the fun, toy-like nature of the vehicles, they tended to flip fairly easily, so I added a method of auto-recovery that adjusted their center of mass to use gravity to flip them back over.  This led to some very fun tumbling and rolling that seemed more playful than annoying.  The method I used to make the hover vehicle work as well as this auto-recover feature both made it into Nanogear and worked quite well.