Hello everyone! Welcome to the ninety-seventh issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week. This week we have progress on several fronts, with a demo of station NPCs, a progress update from Lordrex and his work on backend systems and the lobby updates, and Idyllic's work on the Capital Weapons systems and the Capital Update, and an in-progress ship from Sae'Tzar. Stratiz has made some excellent work on NPCs to give station interiors life. Able to perform a variety of interactions with each other and their environment. Actions from waving at each other to starting a dance party, as well as the usual wandering and pathfinding, and eventually a wide variety of appearances, crowds of these characters should be filling up the stations of RoVerse very soon. While we're currently developing these characters to fill Developer-created stations like the Tutorial and Neutral Stations, eventually we would like for faction stations to be filled with them as well, using custom faction species and uniforms, and having the number of characters be based upon the success of the faction in the area - a star system under attack would have its civilians and members evacuate to a safer location, realistically, so why not make our environments reflect that. Think of it as a subtle indicator of how well your systems are thriving under your rule. Lordrex has continued modifying and updating systems originally coded with a certain feature set in mind, removing ones that we've decided against in the interest of simplicity, like multiple characters, and fixing the holes removing those features created in the code. Along with these tweaks comes correlated work on the backend servers, pushing us closer and closer to completion with each step. Sae'Tzar has been working on a fleet of ships that he's keeping private for now, but here is an in-progress shot of a new public-line battleship classed as an XL. Coming soon will be several new ships in this line, as well as larger additions to the Garfish line of ships. We can't wait! Idyllic has continued to tweak the missile mechanics, reducing their launch speed to a more reasonable number, improving their aim, and working on pursuit curves to hit moving targets. The target is set independently of the missile type, allowing a non-homing standard missile to have its target set to the mouse location on firing, while a homing missile can update the location and adjust its trajectory. Along with the weapons work, he has continued work on integrating the fighter updates done by TheFurryFish and Boysun with the Capital ship coding. In the coming weeks, we should get our first glimpse of a large capital ship and fighters together in the same battlefield. The work that remains on the Capital update includes implementing the Capital ship controls and spawning, Capital ship weapons kitting, collisions between Capitals and Fighters, and implementing Capitals in the gamemodes. We're getting closer! Each week we compile a Q&A section here whenever there are any new questions posted on the RoVerse Community group wall or in the Community Discord Server. Be sure to join if you have any questions about RoVerse: ROBLOX Group: https://www.roblox.com/My/Groups.aspx?gid=2948290 Discord server: https://discord.gg/npxBGwJ Q1: How exactly would I go about building a city base for my faction in the generated cities on planets? A1: If you so choose, a faction can build their own higher-resolution versions of the cities they build on different planets, and connect them to RoVerse through teleports tied to landmark structures. On our end, the cities will all generate the same way, with differences between building skins to fit your faction. On your end, you could build whatever you want as long as it's similar to whats on the other end (no connecting RoVerse to your tycoon). We'd prefer if you built the city to be of a similar size, for example, a newly founded colony city would be fairly small, we'd prefer the connected place to be a small colony city or a portion of it, likewise for your capital or other metropolises. Closer to release we will be able to say if we will be able to release the current city growth stage as an API, that it could automatically update to your end. We'll just have to see how popular that would be. Q2: Will there be clothing that effects player stats? A2: There will be two types of additions to your character - clothing will be purely aesthetic, from your faction uniform to a suave brown trenchcoat, allowing your appearance to be however you choose. Character upgrades are still in the early planning phase, and would effect stats like movement speed, jump height, and other fun stuff like that. Q3: Will capitals be able to 'shelter' turrets within the hull for better protection while underway? A3: We have no plans for this feature at this time, though it could happen at some point in the future, if gameplay proves to be unbalanced. Good points were made both for and against this addition, that we will definitely consider before any final decision is made. Q4: How large will cities be able to grow? A4: Theoretically, an extremely profitable and well-kept city or cities could grow into an ecumenopolis and encompass the entire surface of a planet. If this starts to look possible, we may add features for city layers at some point in the future, to support Coruscant-like cityscapes that could be quite interesting to explore or battle your way through. Q5: What sorts of things will you be able to export? A5: For the cargo business to be profitable, there would have to be more than just raw, unprocessed minerals to ship around, so cargo that can be transported and resold should be quite extensive - from the aforementioned raw resources, to refined metals, to light equipment, to even vehicles and ships crated up for delivery. If a faction is stealthy enough, they might be able to ship an entire invasion fleet to the surface using the local couriers, so your security forces best be on the lookout for contraband. You can support us by joining our Community Group or Discord server! So far, the community has been absolutely amazing, supportive, and very friendly. We are very appreciative of all the support you guys show us! If you want to catch any of our developers streaming, you can always follow our official Twitch channel here! Remember, we are always looking for new, talented builders, scripters and artists! If you’d like to help us you can always get in touch with us through RoVerse_Official on the ROBLOX website, or by contacting an Administrator in the community Discord! Don’t worry, we don’t bite! Hello everyone! Welcome to the ninety-sixth issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week. This week, Idyllic has continued on implementing the VLS missile weapons systems for Capital Ships, with improvements on targeting and launch systems from the demo's we've seen in the past few weeks. Let's get started! The missile demo brought to you last week was mounted to the ground, upright, and unmoving. This week, Idyllic has been working on all 3 of those problems. First, he set up the capital spawning system to allow the attachment of the Fixed mount type, where previous iterations of the autoturret and laser cannons all were of the Turret variety. With no rotating or aiming parts, the VLS missile tubes were quite a bit easier to code on their own, so a little extra detail will be added, with opening missile bay doors when launching missiles at hostile forces. This last detail isn't quite coded yet, but the schematic used to implement identical code on a variety of VLS mounts that factions may create in the future, the rigging that lets such flexibility exist. Here we have every turret on the Avenger replaced with a light VLS mount. I wouldn't recommend a ship with exclusively missile mounts for its weapons complement for any ordinary circumstances, but who knows? - it might have its uses. After getting the mounts locked on and the class defined, it was on to the finer touches of missile launching. A key detail of VLS is that missiles launch straight out of the ship, then turn towards the target. We've hit a few bugs in that regards so far, but early results seem to show that we should be able to hit our mark with the homing variety in the near-future. Launching a full volley at once also leads to collisions near-ship, so watch out. In the future, we plan to delay the activation of the explosive component a little longer, to prevent self-injury when you absolutely need to shoot off all your missiles. We also got some impressive shots of high-volume missile launches, which won't be possible with so few mounts on such a small ship, but with a large enough ship could be possible. It's important to test all the possibility when you allow such flexibility in ship design. Such lovely arcs of destruction. In the coming weeks we'll be refining the aiming and physics a bit, since they aren't quite where we'd like them yet, but I think the effects already look stunning. Each week we compile a Q&A section here whenever there are any new questions posted on the RoVerse Community group wall or in the Community Discord Server. Be sure to join if you have any questions about RoVerse: ROBLOX Group: https://www.roblox.com/My/Groups.aspx?gid=2948290 Discord server: https://discord.gg/npxBGwJ Q1: What types of weapons are planned for ground combat? A1: The basic types we have outlined are similar to the ship weapons, but in handheld or vehicle mounted versions. Things like miniguns mounted to vehicles, to plasma rifles carried by soldiers should all be included. And we want to remain flexible with clan tech as well, if a faction has a particular weapon type in mind, we'll do our best to add it to the list. Q2: Will there be any fog of war hiding planet surfaces, or will it all be visible anytime? A2: We are planning on the exploration of planet surfaces being an important and valuable adventure, so I would plan on some sort of obfuscation, at least of the finer details. It is assumed that for a faction to build capitals and be aptly space-faring, they will have mapped the local cluster first, so the galactic map will always be visible, and planets could be scanned from orbit in rough detail, but finding the best spot for a base, a colony city, or an ambush, will be up to dedicated scouts and adventurers to explore and map the finer details of the galaxy. Q3: What size or class of ships can hold other ships? A3: Our Capital classification system is based on size, so any number of different ships could be the same size. but have widely different uses. Each Capital ship will come with a default kit, a set of stats determining cargo space, hangar space, armor and engine capacity, and the like as a function of ship volume. Rekitting a ship at construction, or later at higher expense, with say a carrier kit, would increase hangar space for holding fighters, at the expense of the other stats. So a default ship would be the balance of all uses, but do none of them exceptionally. Q4: What sort of weapons will be mountable to ground vehicles. A4: In the past few months Idyllics side project has been attaching Capital turrets to a demo ground vehicle as a proof of concept and an aide in the coding process. We've shown anti-air autoturrets, as well an a non-functioning conventional turret, but those are just two of many types we have planned. Pretty much every weapon you can mount on a Capital, you should be able to mount to a vehicle, if it has the right mount on it, as well as some other weapons more suited for planetary warfare - those that use gravity for example. Everything from self-propelled artillery to point defense to infantry carriers, planetary vehicles should be flexible enough to fit any invasion or defensive needs. Q5: Will players be able to sit in seats or hang onto the side of vehicles and shoot at enemies? A5: The demos so far show the driver entering the mounted weapons on the vehicle, or otherwise remaining in 3rd person view, and that is unlikely to change. Unfortunately, character movements are physically unpredictable, often causing significant instances of launching of objects in the best of circumstances, let alone on a spherical planet with custom gravity. We'll do our best to let people shoot their weapons out loopholes in the vehicle, but attaching the character directly, even to support a first-person perspective, seems like more trouble than it's worth. You can support us by joining our Community Group or Discord server! So far, the community has been absolutely amazing, supportive, and very friendly. We are very appreciative of all the support you guys show us! If you want to catch any of our developers streaming, you can always follow our official Twitch channel here! Remember, we are always looking for new, talented builders, scripters and artists! If you’d like to help us you can always get in touch with us through RoVerse_Official on the ROBLOX website, or by contacting an Administrator in the community Discord! Don’t worry, we don’t bite! Hello everyone! Welcome to the ninety-fifth issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week. This week, Idyllic has continued his quest for the ultimate pew, with updates to the Auto-turrets Anti-Air gun effects, and scripting work on Vertical Launch System missiles. Lorenzo also got some work on a new capital ship. First, we have the updates to the Anti-air guns demoed last week. Last week was all about making the projectiles move and fire from the barrel, so the effects dropped in were simple particle emitters that honestly didn't look that good. So Idyllic took some time to upgrade the effects. Coming to you in glorious 60 fps to capture all the visuals, are two short videos showing the anti-air turret attached to a vehicle. The effects will work very similar in space, just scaled down a bit and without the gravity component. Now the bullets look like they're moving as fast as they're actually moving. Much better in my opinion. Up next on his list of weapons needed for the Capital Update were the VLS missiles. This 'turret' doesn't rotate or aim at your target, instead, missiles are fired in an arc away from the ship then guided towards the target. We are planning on several different types of missiles, from simple point-and-click unguided missiles that are cheap and effective for stationary or large targets, to a guided missile variant that's a bit more expensive, but better for chasing down those elusive targets, like fighters. The third type would be a bit more specialized - firing a volley of missiles to bombard a general area. Finding its best use in planetary combat against widespread or stationary targets, launching a volley would significantly lengthen reload times, but if you hit your mark you should be fine. Featuring opening doors, 8 missile loadout, and a firmly mounted launch platform, your fleets will be able to rain destruction on all those who oppose you. Along with the pretty stuff, there was some important coding on the rest of the update going on behind the scenes. Adding in states for planned and future features, adding support for the new missile turrets that have a slightly different format to Lorenzo has been hard at work on the newest addition to our growing fleet of widely-varying Capital Ships. While not quite to the christening stage, the results of his efforts are looking quite good. We can't wait to see this ship cruising through the stars. Each week we compile a Q&A section here whenever there are any new questions posted on the RoVerse Community group wall or in the Community Discord Server. Be sure to join if you have any questions about RoVerse: ROBLOX Group: https://www.roblox.com/My/Groups.aspx?gid=2948290 Discord server: https://discord.gg/npxBGwJ Q1: Will there be a single non-PVP zone, or several smaller ones scattered throughout the galaxy? A1: In the past we've mentioned some safe zones for new players to get accustomed to the game without worrying about factions claiming their cargo or pirates stealing it. There will be several 'systems' that are not marked on the current map scattered around the galaxy just for this purpose, though trading exclusively in these systems won't be all that profitable. Q2: Will there be stations designed for combat, or just the 4 supply types in the Stations video? A2: We have to walk a fine line between automating stations to the point that they become the best weapon, and their intended use as a supply point that has to be protected. If you're looking for a structure to fortify a location, the military outpost would be your best bet - smaller than the giant supply stations, and more easily defended. Q3: Will faction devs that submit ships and weapons be able to write lore that appears in a description panel when purchasing the items? A3: Definitely. If the developer puts the effort in to deepen the lore of both their work and RoVerse, we'll do our best to include in in-game. Not everyone has time to go look at the wiki. There will of course be moderation of both the designs and the lore. Q4: Will ship hitboxes be cubes, or will it more closely follow the shape of our ships? A4: The Dogfight alpha uses a standard ship, and all the planned fighters were smaller than one cubic stud, so simplifying their hitbox to a cube was efficient and simple. Since then, we've been updating our work to take into account different shapes and sizes, most notably on the capital ships where tiny fighters will be flying up and around them. With the eventual meshing process, we should be able to reduce detail slightly to create a mostly accurate hitbox for all types of ships. You can support us by joining our Community Group or Discord server! So far, the community has been absolutely amazing, supportive, and very friendly. We are very appreciative of all the support you guys show us! If you want to catch any of our developers streaming, you can always follow our official Twitch channel here! Remember, we are always looking for new, talented builders, scripters and artists! If you’d like to help us you can always get in touch with us through RoVerse_Official on the ROBLOX website, or by contacting an Administrator in the community Discord! Don’t worry, we don’t bite! Hello everyone! Welcome to the ninety-fourth issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week. The end of the school year has finally come, meaning our Devs will now have much more time to devote to RoVerse Development. Leading the team this week is Idyllic, with advancements in the turret operation systems. Taking community feedback from a gif we posted a few weeks back, he has tweaked the first person turret movement to track the mouse with better accuracy than before, most notably a smaller deadzone. The initial iteration had a mostly uncontrollable deadzone, making aiming harder than it should be. With the new system, shooting down invading fleets of fighters should be easier than ever. Also notable in the gif above, though maybe a bit hard to see, is the alternating of barrels. Since we've taken on the task of allowing factions to build their own turrets, supporting a wide variety of numbers of barrels in exotic locations is an important feature, that not only makes the system more flexible, but better looking too. As long as faction developers follow the correct format (to be released later) when designing and building their turrets, we should be able to support as many creative designs as they can come up with. A discussion about ground base buildings has also come up. Some of the prototypes from quite a while ago were very small structures that you could theoretically build anywhere, but were more suited to a 'camp' than a ground base. Bases are intended to fill the middle ground between temporary structures and cities, much like modular outposts in space are a middle ground between ships and faction stations. If a subfaction was to set up their Headquarters on a planets surface, the structure should be comparable in size and usefulness to those set up by space-bound subfactions, right? With this in mind, Idyllic has been developing a new prototype of base structures at a larger scale. Seen above, these buildings aren't quite the size of a cities' towering skyscrapers, nor are they the size of a vehicle garage. Perhaps we'll support small, medium, and large variants, to better fit different uses. While we continue to work on this slight change in direction for ground bases, we will be making sure that other base buildings, like hangars and garages are at a functional size for their use, and that they won't cost more resources to build than they will be worth. Any feedback the community has, can be directed to Idyllic in the Discord. Lordrex took a week's vacation, but I'm sure the work he has been doing to the lobby was on his mind while he traveled. Stratiz had some Computer Science Exams to study for, we hope he does well. Airwarfare has continued to work on the gravity system, working out some control bugs that occur under very specific circumstances, but we believe he'll figure them all out eventually. It's been another short week with tests and other important things to do, but that will definitely improve in the coming weeks. We wish those of you with tests the best of luck, and we'll see you around! Each week we compile a Q&A section here whenever there are any new questions posted on the RoVerse Community group wall or in the Community Discord Server. Be sure to join if you have any questions about RoVerse: ROBLOX Group: https://www.roblox.com/My/Groups.aspx?gid=2948290 Discord server: https://discord.gg/npxBGwJ Q1: How will flagships work? A1: A special ship only creatable and flyable by a faction leader or other high ranking member of a faction is an important feature on our list. If anybody could build any ship, it would be utter chaos. We should be able to lock certain submitted ships to specific factions, as well as specific ranks in groups, that doesn't seem too complicated. Q2: Will camera turning on fighters be improved? A2: We're sort of attached to the camera system that fighters currently use - its a balance between complete freecam, that takes you out of the ship altogether, and a locked first person camera that doesn't let you turn at all. This blended, custom version puts you in third person, but you are still tied to the direction your ship is facing. We are working on improving the radar and tracking systems, as well as a damage indicator system that can give you a general direction for incoming fire, but I don't think we'll change to a free camera for fighters - Capitals with their more limited maneuverability are the perfect candidate for something like that. Q3: How will group applications work? Can I reject members? A3: Accepting recruits into your faction should be a pretty similar process to accepting members on Roblox groups - if you want to be exclusive you set it to manual approval, and they can send you an application, or set the default rank to ensign or citizen, and don't give them any permissions. You can support us by joining our Community Group or Discord server! So far, the community has been absolutely amazing, supportive, and very friendly. We are very appreciative of all the support you guys show us! If you want to catch any of our developers streaming, you can always follow our official Twitch channel here! Remember, we are always looking for new, talented builders, scripters and artists! If you’d like to help us you can always get in touch with us through RoVerse_Official on the ROBLOX website, or by contacting an Administrator in the community Discord! Don’t worry, we don’t bite! |
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AuthorsVaktus: Leader of the Vaktovian Empire and head of the RoVerse Project |