ExplosionsNG
A mod that adds dynamic explosions to any freeroam adventure
This mod will work on any official map (and should work with modded maps) and with any vehicle (including modded vehicles). I cannot fully guarantee that this mod will play nicely with all modded maps and vehicles – please PM me if you’ve found oddities with any other mods interacting with this one!
This mod is in Beta - expect some bugs to be present, but for the most part it should be functional! This is something I started working on more than five years ago, before properly planning, designing and reimplementing in the middle of last year. There have been so many technical challenges that have had to be overcome, that it has become so much more than what I initially intended. However, it’s now reached the stage that is finally ready for an initial release!
Overview Trailer
Usage and User Interface
Add the app to your freeroam layout (if you’re not sure how to do this, the official wiki has a good guide you can search for).
To start configuring new explosives (skip to 1:06 in the video above):
- Click the + button
- Select the explosive you want with the arrow buttons – change the preset too for a different variation!
- Find a position you want to place the explosive; by either the current vehicle, camera, or a custom position
- Add as many explosives as you want
- Click the detonate button
Explosives
There are currently 10 explosives to choose from - some are shown below. Each explosive has its own tier and rank which indicate how powerful it is, along with stats and a description.
Hover over various parts of the UI to show a tooltip, which explain further details (such as what the property icons represent).
Chaos Mode
This mod comes with a chaos mode built in - simply select the mode, set the options you want, and activate it! Once active, chaos mode will randomly create explosives around your vehicle - perfect for free roam challenges with that extra bit of danger.
Technical Limitations
There are a few limitations that are currently noticeable within the mod.
The first comes from how the explosives affect vehicles. This mod instead has an algorithm which acts as a physics engine for any explosive effect that damages vehicles. This algorithm applies a shockwave of forces against the vehicle, which indirectly damages the vehicle as parts of it are affected by different forces. A bounding box of the vehicle is calculated to check for distances on the macro level for performance advantages, however, as the vehicle is damaged, this bounding box will currently stay the same. In most cases, this will generally mean that heavily damaged vehicles are less affected by explosives, however the main outlier to this are vehicles that can be split into multiple big pieces (such as vehicles with subframes). One part of the subframe may be treated as the actual vehicle itself, or it may never be affected again. To a certain extent, this will happen with doors, hoods and other detachable parts, but it is most notable with split-able subframes. In rare cases, this can cause the main vehicle body to never be affected by explosives again, after certain pieces of the car have been detached from it.
(For those interested on the reasoning behind this: the standard way that vehicles are damaged is by colliding with either static objects (like buildings) or other vehicles (anything that has a Jbeam structure is considered a vehicle in this context). Both of these are not suitable for this mod as neither are performant as the number of explosives active at once increases.)
This is something that I want to tackle in a future update, possibly using some form of clustering to allow a vehicle to have more than one bounding box, though it will not be implemented short term.
I'm going to put this in this section as it sort of fits here but also spans the following sections too: this will not work with any multiplayer mods. The explosions will not sync properly. Update: given how frequently this has been requested, I have since taken a look and it may not be as huge of a piece of work as I initially thought. While I'm not currently developing this for multiplayer mode, it may happen in the future.
Known Issues
- Some explosives that have multiple sounds may not necessarily always play those sounds (such as the cluster bomb explosive). As of yet, I cannot find a way around it without causing noticeable lag spikes, due to how sound effects are created in the game engine.
Code
For those interested in the code (or just how it all hangs together in the background), all source code can be found within the downloaded zip. For a technical dive, this mod comes with READMEs for both the server (Lua) and client/UI (AngularJS) portions of this mod. These detail technical decisions, including mathematical formulae used and any accompanying diagrams.
Future Plans
- More Explosives – obviously!
- Custom presets – this will be technically very involved to do, however I anticipate that this will be highly requested
- Saving configurations – this would allow you to save a particular set of explosives and be able to load them up again
- Controlling the UI with a controller – the in-built system for doing this is lacking and buggy, but it should be possible for me to create my own system to do this. However, this is a lower priority due to how involved it will be
Notes + Credits
All models and icons/images have been created by me – if you would like to use any of these for another mod or for any other reason, I would appreciate a DM before doing so
Finally, I’d like to thank the following people for the sound effects that have been used in this mod, all of which are used under the Creative Commons 0, Attribution 4.0 or Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 licences. For a detailed list of credits and associated sounds, see the sound licensing file inside the zip.
Additionally, thanks to the following people for the explosive box and projectile textures used respectively, both covered under the Royalty Free licence:
- agmdarchives2032
- musicace17
- SilverIllusionist
- alexdarek
- DaveOfDefeat2248
- Spennnyyy
- wjoojoo
- Connum
- Hard3eat
- ElanHickler
- Selector
- Aegersum
- bernhoftbret
- newlocknew
- alexo400
For any issues or bugs, please PM rather than writing a review so that I can have a conversation to get it resolved.
Please DO NOT repost this mod!
Dismiss Notice
In the upcoming weeks mod approvals could be slower than normal.
Thank you for your patience.
In the upcoming weeks mod approvals could be slower than normal.
Thank you for your patience.
Beta ExplosionsNG 1.1.5
Destroy vehicles with explosives, temporal entities, a collapsing star and more! Includes chaos mode
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Recent Updates
- 0.33 Compatibility Update Oct 16, 2024
- Environmental Effects + Tweaks + General QoL Improvements Sep 18, 2024
- Further Fixes Jun 26, 2024
Recent Reviews
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Author's Response
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Author's Response
Thank you :).
1. That's on my list to revert the change - it looked good when I was testing it in a specific light condition, but yeah as you've mentioned, it looks odd in most other light conditions :p
2. The pulsar attribute/property just means it sends out effects in pulse fashion (i.e. at set intervals) - the Orbital Strike has this property too for that reason :).
3. Those are some good ideas - the last one could be a good preset to the anti-vehicle mines
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Author's Response
Thank you :).
Possibly - I've left out any randomness to the configuration aspect as I intended it to be used to placing specific explosives at specific locations; the chaos mode is where all the randomness lies. That being said, it could be neat to have that as an option (in either of the two views) - I'll consider it :)
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Author's Response
Thank you :).
Both meteors and black holes I actually had as ideas myself - the latter I intend to add within the next couple of updates. I'm considering how best to implement the meteor, but it's something I have on my list at some point :).
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Author's Response
Thank you :).
If you crash, you're allowed to reset - if you don't want to take away from the challenge, you just need to not abuse it too much (there's mention of this on the info screen that pops up when you place The Convergence). Regardless, the update that I just pushed and released today will allow you to despawn it, using the standard remove icon on the configuration page :).
I initially planned particle effects, but the game doesn't (reliably) allow you to create your own custom particles and there are some performance issues around them, so I ended up taking them out for now. One of the things on my list is to look into whether I can create/inject my own particle system that would allow me to create and manage my own particles, but that's probably a long way off at the moment.
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