Hello everyone! Welcome to the ninety-third issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week. With end-of-semester tests wrapping up, our devs are back at work on RoVerse, with Idyllic pushing Capital scripting further with turret features, and a new team member has taken on the challenge of planetary character gravity, and some progress on several other scripting fronts. First up is Idyllic's Capitals, which this week received a vital update in the form of weapon firing. You can't have spaceship battles without lasers firing off everywhere, so he's been working on scripting how the cool turrets will actually fire projectiles or energy bursts at your enemies. Two different turret types have been his major focus this week - a laser turret and an autoturret fire two of the main projectile types, and have different settings for rate of fire and range, and so are a good benchmark to compare. After some fun with gravity, Idyllic set to tweaking values to match what we want from each weapon type. The autoturret class of weapons fires physical light projectiles extremely efficiently at the cost of a low resulting damage to other ships. Great for finishing off hard to hit targets with low armor plating (fighters) a few of these in every ship complement is a must. Next up will be the more exotic turret types - missile launchers and plasma turrets, before finishing off with conventional and kinetic turrets. We can't wait to see further progress. We have a new member on our team who has valiantly taken on the task of planetary gravity scripts for characters. Many of you may remember the vehicle gravity demos that had excellent results, but when it came to the player, it wasn't as simple. Humanoids are hard-coded to want to stay upright - the same actions and reactions that make you stand up after tripping or getting hit with a giant block are working against us in our pursuit of round planets. But there is hope. A few of you might know about Blobbyblobs planetary gravity freemodel - though outdated, as a concept for smooth and nearly flawless character movement on spherical objects is unmatched - proof that round planets with a nearly original character model are entirely possible. In just a few short hours, airwarfare went from completely lost to a workable prototype. Where Blobby's scripts didn't work with R15, ours now do. And scaling the character is just a small step beyond that. Exciting work! Stratiz has continued his work on a more-complex-than-normal NPC system, so that these large stations factions will be building can be full of life and activity (based on the success of the faction hosting it) rather than a cold lifeless showcase. While he doesn't have any gifs of brain-dead automatons wandering around just yet, we're sure he'll have some great work to show in the coming weeks. Lordrex has dove into a rewrite of the original Lobby system, updating old scripts to function with our backend database, pulling and pushing the data it needs and collects properly; eliminating old features that have been edited or improved, and a few that have been removed since the first few scripters placed down the first lines of code all those weeks ago. The work of the ancients may be impressive, but a few updates here and there are necessary. 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 will happen when two nearby colonies expand at each other and meet? A1: With the procedural generation system expanding cities outward wherever there's room, two cities are bound to overlap. When this happens, the two cities should continue to expand in other areas, eventually forming a line between the two, similarly to how it works in real life. Its possible we may allow two cities to merge at some point in the future, like a real-life city would annex its neighbors to expand, but we'd need a good reason to. Q2: Will factions have a 'wallet' to purchase faction ships with, or will it be up to administrative players in the faction to hold onto a factions wealth? A2: Many of you might have heard of the horrors of EVE corporations being swindled by an untrustworthy administrator, and I'm not too sure the members of Roblox are either. With money coming in from territories and taxes, a faction bank account would balance the effort of administration with ease of play that should be the main focus. We want faction leaders planning battle strategy, not tied up keeping track of what money is where. Q3: Will there be safe places for neutral and beginning players to mine and practice? A3: We intend to create a few neutral systems that are not included in the faction conflict map where people don't have to worry about getting attacked by a war-bound faction. More on this to come at a later date. Q4: Will resources regenerate? A4: Definitely. While minecraft can get away with nonregenerating ores because the worlds are infinite, the planned systems we have are large, but finite. Resources should regenerate over a fairly long period of time, with considerations for rarity as well. Though now that I think about it, factions scrambling for limited resources sounds like it'd be fun to try at least once - maybe to stir things up if they go stale. 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-second issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week. This week, most of our devs were occupied by finals as the school year is wrapping up, so this week we'll be doing something a bit different. We've gone back through the community discord channel as far as we dared to gather some of the most impressive and inspiring works by members of the community with the intent to join RoVerse as a Faction or subfaction. Important to the development process is the use of concept art. In the discord we have seen hundreds of images of sci fi ships and mechs and tanks, all really cool designs that we hope someone attempts to make their own. Google image search is a surprisingly good resource when it comes to finding cool things to build. While we don't recommend directly copying the images from concept art, using pieces, or combining different parts, with your own flair, ends up with the best results. Ships of all sizes and detail levels are right at your fingertips, and with unions and mesh imports, adding those trickier details is easier now than ever. Recently, one of the most pervasive users of the #faction_fanart channel has been Juszl, Vis of the Ninazu. He's been working on an entire fleet, weapons, structures for his faction for quite some time, with excellent results. Some of his posts can be seen below. But he doesn't just build a ship in one go - an important and interesting part of his posts is how he shows his process. From creating an outline of a ship based on some concept art, to filling it in using some pretty great plugins, to the final result. We've certainly enjoyed watching his development, and with his results, we'd recommend those just starting, take a lesson from his playbook. Another thing he does quite well is keeping a consistent theme between ships - they are all built by the same faction after all, so they should have some consistent elements. As seen in the fleet pictures, bold stripes can sharp edges are carried through his many ships, even if their shapes are wildly different. Another detail he has used is slight variation as seen below. Two ships of similar size but different purpose are the same ship chassis with a different format, which is an entirely reasonable thing for a faction to do. Drawing inspiration from things is great - there is so much content out there that no one has seen everything, and everyone's experiences are different. Find a style that fits you, and we'll work it into the game. We've also seen some other great stuff here and there that we'd like to spotlight here too. Be sure to post cool stuff you're making in the faction channel, to get some feedback from the community and devs, and to inspire others to make cool stuff themselves. RoVerse is more than just another spaceship flying game, it's a game for everybody in the faction community. Build your own ships, conquer the galaxy, show the world that you're more than an old base-raiding warclan. And most importantly, have fun doing it. Catch up with us next week for more progress on the Capital Update, as well as cool new builds and features for the full game! 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-first issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week. This week has seen continued development on the Capital Update with a few new features for Capitals, as well as some Datastore work for saving player data. Idyllic has been hard at work whenever he has free time to get the Capital Update rolling. In recent weeks, we've seen it grow from simple ship movement to having nearly all the features we've been designing for the past two years. This week, we've implemented a community suggestion, adding a toggle for the turret aim indicators... So in those situations that require fine-aiming, you can toggle on the indicators and blow enemy ships out of the sky, while remaining undistracted when you aren't in a heated conflict. Beyond that, he has been working on ship selection, which is currently in its rudimentary stages with a simple gui menu, but it allows ships to be dynamically loaded based on a selection, rather than a preset variable. Moving forward, he will be refining this feature, and adding in a process to customize the turret selection on these capital ships. When he needed a break from Capitals, Idyllic took the chance to implement the turret system onto some of the ground vehicles you may remember from a few newsletters back. Using the same system to set up the organization of the turret pieces, and attaching it to an anchor point on the vehicle, this test was a success. Get ready to shoot invading fighters out of the sky with this Anti-Air turret equipped Behemoth! Following this test, it was brought up that aiming in 3rd person from this vehicle was less than ideal - particularly when an obstruction behind the camera could be in conflict - so we made a few modifications... Including a turret-mounted camera for the driver, or potentially a second passenger acting as a gunner, to operate the weapons system. Now you can see the fighters entering atmo to bomb your outpost, and return fire as well! On Lordrex's end, there has been work done on using Datastores to save particular information, as well as work around the 260,000 character per entry limit. Rather than pay for an external server to handle absolutely everything coming from this game, we're making the best use of every feature we have available, and testing the limits to see just how far we can go. Using datastores to cache data relieves the strain on an external server, and helps cut down on those HTTP requests which are severely limited to begin with. 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 faction cities be able to be made from a variety of different styles? Like a colony vs a capital? A1: If a faction has the developers to build that many different building types, we'll try our best to support features like that. There's definitely a benefit to immersion if a gleaming capital city looks different from a border system colony. Q2: Will there be anything special at the center of the galaxy? A2: Alpha Prime is at the center of the current sector that is available for exploration, and it does have some special rare resources found nowhere else, but there is nothing to say that the current map is the extent of the galaxy RoVerse takes place in. Who knows what mysteries lie beyond the edges of the map? Q3: Will there be giant ground vehicles to act as mobile ground bases during invasions? A3: Large sandcrawler-like vehicles are definitely on our wish list, and we'll try our best to make them happen. Ask us again closer to planets being done, they'd be a great addition to ground combat and invasion strategy, if a bit expensive. 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 ninetieth issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week. After the bit of fun we had last week, it was back to work for our developers. This week, we have quite a bit of significant progress on the Capital Update by Idyllic, as well as continued backend work from Lordrex. Let's go! While the name change may have been in jest, the content of the advert was no less valid. Fighters, fleets of Capitals, planets, mountains, cities, ground vehicles - all a part of the epic and ambitious world we're creating. Idyllic has been working extremely hard these past two weeks on the extensive list of Capital ship features we'd like to have out for the Capital Update. Among the many features added this week, we have Plane Lock, added to the Vector lock completed a few weeks ago - similarly to the plane lock for fighters, toggling this mode returns the capital to an upright position, so you don't get lost in the endless void of space, and to help when you're attempting to dock with something. Unlike the fighters, turning a Capital ship over is a bit slower process, but it still should leave the captain free to take care of anything else he's up to. While roll and pitch are returned to 0, you can still throttle and turn your ship. Along with the addition of plane lock, we've also added a visualization to show that the ship is locked to one direction, to help clarify that your steering isn't broken, which was one of the top bug reports from the Dogfight Alpha. Glad we finally cleared that one up. Also visible in the picture, was the addition of a aim visualization feature, that tracks with turrets showing you where they're aiming while not locked in on where you're targeting. Turret types have lots of stats to set them apart, and transit and elevation speed are just two of many that add a depth to the kitting mechanic. While it won't make an appearance in the Capital Update just yet, the ability to pick which turrets and what stats you'd like to boost based on your selections will be important to consider - it won't be as simple as buying the most expensive ship with the most expensive turrets. Turrets also have a max and min angle, giving some turrets a smaller range, but better firepower for that limited range. Here, on the Bolitho, the forward-mounted guns are at an angle, allowing them to fire straight forward, while the flank guns have trouble aligning with the target - this limited angle gives turrets a more defined use case. Flank guns are great at firing at targets alongside this capital, or above it, rather than targets directly ahead. A differently-shaped ship, with a different turret complement, could be great for direct engagement - something you might consider when developing faction ships. As an important step in this process, Idyllic rigged up a few of the turrets we have built for quick and easy implementation into the game - none of the turret models were designed with any rigging in mind, just whatever looked cool. With the flexible system he developed, any turret model could be added, and the system would still function perfectly fine - an important feature when factions will be submitting turret models to match their ships. Here we have a medium Autoturret, with it's elevation hinge near the back to the model, while the transit is centered around the middle of the base. Simple setup, simple implementation - not an impossible feature after all. In the future, we should be able to create a semi-automated system for setting up new turrets, to speed up the process even more. The system also works regardless of scale - he rigged up a few of the higher-tier turrets, two mediums and a heavy turret, with the same system, and it worked flawlessly. During the testing process, the temptation grew too much for Idyllic to bear, and he had to satiate his curiosity. The results, though they are unlikely to ever become part of the official game, were fun to make, and cool to see. We put over 100 turrets on the largest ship we have on hand, just to see how the system handled it. In a situation that will hopefully never arise, this XXXL Capital kitted with 102 light turrets, worked surprisingly well, both in the operation of the individual turrets, and controlling the ship. Though the stats weren't changed from the smaller ships we were testing with, it still was able to move with ease through the skies. And we wouldn't recommend getting in it's way either. Now that we have a system for rigging both ships and turrets, it was time to update all the capital ships we have on backlog to use this system. The Garfish The Guardian The Dauntless The Phoenix, with it's weird shape. The Protector and The Avenger All kitted out and ready to fly! Also this week, Lordrex has continued work on the backend systems that still don't make any pretty pictures. Progress on important stuff, like updating old lobby code and integrating the new features we've been working on are among the changes made. We look forward to his continued efforts. 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 factions be able to make takes with 2 barrels? A1: We'll be finalizing details on vehicles eventually, but putting two turrets on a tank should be possible, but don't expect it to give you any advantage. Best it would do would alternate which barrel fires the projectiles. Q2: Will mining make you a lot of money, or will other occupations be more worthwhile? A2: There should be a high demand for resources that only miners will be able to provide - play your cards right and you could make a lot of money. Of course, any occupation should be worth your time, you'll just have to find a niche market to take over. Q3: What's to stop people from mining with capital ships with large cargo holds? A3: This suggestion and question came up in the community, and after some discussion, we've considered the implication - we'll be implementing two different types of cargo holds. The standard, cargo hold for crated vehicles, and other boxes of junk, and the ore hold, that holds the minerals mined by mining ships in their raw form. Capital ships may be able to mine a bit of minerals, but designed mining ships will be a much more efficient option. 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 |