Hello everyone! Welcome to the 241st 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 another sneak peek at the Oceanus map, coming soon to the Dogfight, a few new features coming to Hyperion, including a new faction advertising area, and some new ships. Last week we gave you your first peek at the upcoming ocean map, but it was missing one final feature that wasn't quite ready by newsletter time - moving oceans. Using the new mesh deformation system and some fancy math, we can generate huge ocean waves with much more flexibility than smooth terrain water. While it won't allow us to have the water reflect the sky anytime soon, it will allow us a huge number of other positives, like being able to make the waves gigantic, change the direction they're moving to match the wind or weather, and even wrap a round planet in them, which smooth terrain water will never allow us. Hyperion has received a few updates as well. There is a new Faction Embassy area that will be opening up soon, where Factions can build a booth to advertise themselves, their activities, and their tech to new players. If you want to make a booth of your own, contact IdyllicDestroyer. The other feature added to Hyperion is the very first functional jumpgate. Since we haven't coded in a way to land your fighter after launching, the jumpgate now provides an easy route out of your ship - for now it'll teleport you into the dogfight, but in the future, we plan on making it the official entrance to the galaxy beyond. A new faction ship has been rigged and is available in the dogfight: The Akatanan Spirit Kazan The first week of the cycle has come to a close, and with it comes the reveal of this cycle's exclusive ship. Introducing the Nihilos Tephra: This week in the dogfight there were 1147 kills, 84 with auto, 25 with beam, 60 with laser, 13 with plasma, 62 with railgun, and 903 with torpedo. The most dangerous ship was the VSa1-1_Kazan with 695 kills, followed by the VSa1-2_Spirit_Kazan with 128. The most dangerous map was Pillarum with 675 deaths, followed by Blue_Spaceway with 311. And now, the moment you've been waiting for... The three players that topped the leaderboard were FangABXY, with 596 kills and 28 deaths and a 21.28 KDR; PreadaterX51 with 290 kills, 28 deaths and a 10.35 KDR; and CptJaller with 52 kills, 5 deaths, and a 10.4 KDR. They have unlocked the exclusive ship Nihilos Tephra in the Alpha Dogfight. Nice work pilots! If you'd like to check out the rest of our data, you can find the spreadsheet here: Phase 1 Data (Week 85) Calexian Community Challenge Before the end of cycle 12, the community must strive to complete the following two challenges to unlock a Calexian ship for all to use. We've done quite well on the KOTH points front, nearly earning two week's worth. We've also done well on perfect outpost clears, winning 11 whole rounds! The challenges are: 5000 KOTH capture points, and 50 Perfect rounds of Outpost Strike. 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 fighters still be able to disable outpost turrets the way they do now? A1: Automated and manned defenses like the outpost turrets and station turrets will be able to be disabled, and need to be repaired. The difference will be that you’ll also be able to shoot the structure itself, to do damage and destroy it, not just the turrets. Q2: Will turrets be as underwhelming as they are now? A2: We’ll up the difficulty a bit when they're supposed to be good defenders, the current ones are balanced to not scare off new players as easily. 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 240th 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 been working on the Capital Update, working on fighter turret classes which continue to be a thorn in his side, and we also have a sneak peek at an upcoming map. We've circled back around to weapon classes, making sure mounting them works for each turret class, and that they work when it comes time to fly the fighters they're attached to. Unfortunately, we've run into a problem or two with a few of the turrets, with some of them being rigged incorrectly causing them to stick to the origin, and some have problems firing, even though they have the same base stats as the light turrets do. This Heavy Auto turret, for example, sputters when firing and the ship is moving, which is a really weird bug to have, as the fire rate is the same regardless of the class, and each class uses the same code block. But one success we did have this week is the near-completion of an upcoming map. We've always wanted to do a map based on the surface of a planet, but we couldn't figure out a way to make it work with fighters - we'd either need an excessive amount of terrain, to make a series of canyons or something interesting, or the map would have to fade into the background, with dogfight combat merely taking place overhead. However, we have solved this problem and are happy with the result. A while back, a member of the community suggested making an island map on an ocean planet. So that's what we did. The unluckiest ship in the galaxy, the Sphaera, has crashed into the surface of Oceanus, debris strewed everywhere, and waves crashing into its side. You may remember from a few week ago, when we demonstrated a water simulation using bones and mesh deformation. We intend to use this map as a testbed for using that water at scale - either through a high number of bones on a single mesh, or a chunk system of meshes synced together. With these waves giving the surface of the ocean character, it won't be a dull and boring flat plane for long. The community dogfight continued again this week, with members of the community coming together to blast each other out of the sky. Here are a selection of screenshots from the event - send in your own if you have them. Join us next week at 9am and 8pm EST and earn double credits for the duration. This week in the dogfight there were 875 kills, 6 with auto, 17 with beam, 103 with laser, 0 with plasma, 85 with railgun, and 664 with torpedo. The most dangerous ship was the Excalibur with 478 kills, followed by the VSa1-1_Kazan with 207. The most dangerous map was The_Great_Hollow with 365 deaths, followed by Blue_Spaceway with 280. And now, the moment you've been waiting for... The three players that topped the leaderboard were b_dy, with 401 kills and 0 deaths and a NaN KDR; PreadaterX51 with 200 kills, 45 deaths and a 4.44 KDR; and FangABXY with 126 kills, 16 deaths, and a 7.87 KDR. They have unlocked the exclusive ship Nihilos Errata in the Alpha Dogfight. Nice work pilots! If you'd like to check out the rest of our data, you can find the spreadsheet here: Phase 1 Data (Week 84) Now, for the overall cycle stats! Blue Spaceway was the most dangerous map, with 1985 kills, followed by The Great Hollow with 1959, and Pillarum with 1904. The top ship was the Kazan, with 2457 kills, followed by the Excalibur with 1255, and the Gladius with 446. The top weapon was the Torpedo, with 3497 kills, followed by Laser with 762, and Auto with 718. Beam marked up to 326, Railgun with 308, and Plasma with 269. Overall, 58 pilots participated this cycle and earned at least one kill, while 77 players died at least once. The lowest KDR belongs to The Outpost with a .08 KDR. The dogfight has seen 7,114 visits, with an 83% approval rating (143-30) and 351 favorites. This cycle there were 6,368 kills total. Topping off this cycle's leaderboard was FangABXY, with 2519 kills, 153 deaths, and a 16.46 KDR. He was followed by PreadaterX51 with 565 kills, 117 deaths, and a 4.82 KDR, and b_dy with 530 kills, 9 Deaths, and 58.88 KDR. These three pilots have unlocked the exclusive Golden Errata Skin, coming soon to a dogfight near you. If you'd like to check out the rest of our data, you can find the spreadsheet here: Phase 1 Data (Championship Series 12) Calexian Community Challenge This week marks the end of Cycle 12, and also the end of the first Community Challenge. The challenges are: Destroy 5,000 Outpost Turrets, and Destroy 2,500 Fighters. We successfully completed the Outpost Turret challenge, destroying a grand total of 5,267 in 7 weeks, surpassing the requirement by 267. Good work pilots. For successfully completing this challenge, you have unlocked the Calex Industries Esther for all to purchase, for a reduced price. Unfortunately, we were significantly short of the mark on the Fighter Kills Challenge, having destroyed only 1,175 of 2,500. This means that we did not unlock the second reward ship this cycle, and will have to complete a later challenge. With the end of the first Calexian Challenge, comes the beginning of the second. By the end of the 13th Cycle, we have been challenged to earn 5000 KOTH capture points, and to win 50 rounds of Outpost Strike with 100% of turrets destroyed. And as we do every cycle, here are the cumulative weapon usage stats, and some stats for the Outpost. 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: Can my faction essentially just run the planet itself and not faction stuff? Could it be like a lawless borderlands style world where there really isn't a main government, just a sort of hub for mercenaries and activities? A1: Independent systems and planets can exist. Factions will have to build structures up to a minimum threshold to claim ownership, they cant own something with just one building. If you want to keep it independent, you can attack and destroy anything they build there. Planets have even more control, as the surface is divided into a bunch of hexagonal sectors which can individually be controlled. A faction could have a colony city on one side, and the other could be wild, or owned by another faction. Q2: What do research points do? A2: Research stations and outpost modules produce research points based on whether they are constructed near strange phenomena, fed materials, or given tech to study. These points can then be spent to purchase a unit of tech, whether that is a Medium Capital blueprint or a type of station or ship upgrades. This research unit is an object that is then transferred to where it is needed, like ship schematics to shipyard stations. Physics points would be earned by ‘studying’ phenomena like black holes, binary stars, nebulae; Materials points by grinding up ore or raw materials; Mechanics by studying tech samples, like ships or vehicles or scrap. Each new technology would cost a combination of these three point flavors - a shield boost module could cost 5 physics, 2 material, 3 mechanics points. 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 239th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week. This week we had an excessive number of faction ships submitted, from more Cysov ships to a new publicly available New Years-themed Akatanan ship to a first faction ship for Onyx Hold; our first faction has submitted a custom hangar for their ships; and Idyllic has continued to polish up the final few issues before the Capital Update is ready for release, as well as adding a damage directional indicator. Starting with the ships: The Cysov Helios The Helios S We also discovered a fun effect while rigging the Helios S, that causes interesting reflections with the glass wings when scaled down. The Helios Mk. 2 The Helios Mk. 2 'Scorpion' The Hyperion The Hyperion E And the New-Years-themed Akatanan Niu: grab it while it is available! And the Onyx Hold Sable Axt, the first ship in their line: You may have noticed an interesting background behind the Cysov ships - a long time ago someone asked if we could support custom hangars for faction ships, and we said yes - but until now, no one had taken up the challenge of building a hangar for their ships. If you'd like to build your own faction hangar, feel free! We'd love to see them added to the Dogfight! Just remember, they are scaled down quite a ways, so don't do too much fine detail or it'll flicker. Directional damage indicators have been added to the dogfight! Now when you're under attack and you don't know from where, a popup will appear to point the way. Indicators only appear if the attacker is behind you, since you can see anyone coming from ahead. It uses a modification of the target-lock code to keep the arrows on-screen and pointed in the right direction. Thanks to an untold dev from long ago, the code is short and accurate, and does some incredibly complicated math to make it all work. Just to give you all an official progress update: Capitals are nearly here, we're just polishing up the last few features we want to have ready for such a momentous release as the beginning of Phase 2. This will not be the end of updates to the dogfight - we have a lot of plans for features to add to test out important mechanics that will be needed in Freeroam, and to make the game more enjoyable. There will be more news in the next few weeks. The community dogfight continued again this week, with members of the community coming together to blast each other out of the sky. Here are a selection of screenshots from the event - send in your own if you have them. Join us next week at 9am and 8pm EST and earn double credits for the duration. This week in the dogfight there were 1302 kills, 124 with auto, 89 with beam, 131 with laser, 77 with plasma, 90 with railgun, and 791 with torpedo. The most dangerous ship was the VSa1-1_Kazan with 361 kills, followed by the Excalibur with 248. The most dangerous map was Pillarum with 506 deaths, followed by Blue_Spaceway with 499. And now, the moment you've been waiting for... The three players that topped the leaderboard were FangABXY, with 413 kills and 28 deaths and a 14.75 KDR; redknight378 with 159 kills, 71 deaths and a 2.23 KDR; and PreadaterX51 with 136 kills, 17 deaths, and an 8 KDR. They have unlocked the exclusive ship Nihilos Errata in the Alpha Dogfight. Nice work pilots! If you'd like to check out the rest of our data, you can find the spreadsheet here: Phase 1 Data (Week 83) Calexian Community Challenge Before the end of cycle 12, the community must strive to complete the following two challenges to unlock a Calexian ship for all to use. We've just about completed the Outpost-kills challenge, but without significant intervention, we're unlikely to hit the fighter kills challenge in this last and final week. The challenges are: Destroy 5,000 Outpost Turrets, and Destroy 2,500 Fighters. 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 mining explosives? A1: We could consider the use of plantable explosive as a method of harvesting ore somewhere down the line, it would add a nice variety to mining. It'd likely come with some sort of bonus, but with extra costs involved. Q2: Will stone be a resource, or just junk? A2: Stone, or a similar common resource, will be available as a collectible item to be used in the construction of structures, along the lines of an aggregate used in concrete. 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 238th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week. This week saw continued refinements on the Capital systems, with work on the editing menus, and a brand-new version of the keybinds screen that now lists all the new keys and their functions that we've added since the dogfight alpha. Also, we've tweaked the Capital controls a bit more based on feedback and performance. It has long been time for us to update the help menu in the dogfight, since we've doubled the number of active keys. Since the original, we've added a dedicated Missile firing key, Vector lock, weapon toggles, and zoom, and we're nearing an entirely new class of ship that is controlled in an entirely different way. These features were not clearly labeled, particularly for new players, which was causing more than its fair share of confusion. Also, the old interface looks extremely outdated, and doesn't even fit on your screen during gameplay. Introducing the new and improved help screen - now with dedicated columns for Capital and Fighter controls. Eventually, this menu will let you edit your own keybindings, so you can tweak your control scheme to best suit your needs, but for now, it'll show exactly what you need to use to do the things you want to do, from toggling weapon groups to pitch and yaw. We have also received a bunch of ship submissions from the Cyber Sovereignty, which have been rigged and are ready to go in the dogfight. The SOV - Drone: the SOV - Talon: and the SOV - Pod: There were two more ships, but they used meshparts that didn't cooperate with our scaling plugin. However, with a bit of work we should be able to convert meshparts into specialmeshes, and then scale those down to fighter size. The community dogfight continued again this week, with members of the community coming together to blast each other out of the sky. Here are a selection of screenshots from the event - send in your own if you have them. Join us next week at 1pm and 8pm EST and earn double credits for the duration. This week in the dogfight there were 373 kills, 22 with auto, 22 with beam, 65 with laser, 47 with plasma, 28 with railgun, and 189 with torpedo. The most dangerous ship was the VSa1-1_Kazan with 110 kills, followed by the Excalibur with 74. The most dangerous map was The_Great_Hollow with 168 deaths, followed by Blue_Spaceway with 93. And now, the moment you've been waiting for... The three players that topped the leaderboard were FangABXY, with 114 kills and 2 deaths and a 57 KDR; tygrys202 with 64 kills, 49 deaths and a 1.3 KDR; and CandyCobalt with 54 kills, 2 deaths, and a 27 KDR. They have unlocked the exclusive ship Nihilos Errata in the Alpha Dogfight. Nice work pilots! If you'd like to check out the rest of our data, you can find the spreadsheet here: Phase 1 Data (Week 82) Calexian Community Challenge Before the end of cycle 12, the community must strive to complete the following two challenges to unlock a Calexian ship for all to use. We're progressing along nicely in the outpost turret category, approaching the 5-week pace needed to complete the challenge. Fighter kills is just over 3 weeks behind. The challenges are: Destroy 5,000 Outpost Turrets, and Destroy 2,500 Fighters. 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 complicated system determining whether rare ore spawns on asteroids? A1: Of course. We plan on having a wide variety of factors impact which ores spawn in which asteroids, varying by system location, system biome, and even their location within a star system. Q2: Can someone be in charge of a given planet, even if they aren't a faction leader? A2: If you have suggestions for lore or backstory or things that should be on any given planet, we're open to ideas. Random players wont be able to be in charge of a planet, but there could be room for people with good ideas to join the team. 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 |