NEWS
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Hello everyone! Welcome to the twenty-first issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week! This week was thanksgiving week and we hope all of our US readers had a very happy one! Most of our team celebrates the occasion and were on trips with their families for the majority of the week, so progress has been a bit less than normal, as to be expected. The biggest achievement this week and probably in quite a while is the beginning of planetary development! Yes, we have indeed brought forward our plans for implementing planets into RoVerse as building progress has been so rapid and ship scripting is already being taken care of. So far progress has been quite astounding, with IdyllicDestroyer (who has managed to get some free time from his real life project to work on RoVerse) successfully generating our first full-sized planetoids: Next he'll be moving on to applying actual environment formations, which he aims to be able to do using grids across the planet's surface to generate data based on their geographical locations and relations with other nearby grids. Without terrain added it does tend to look like a giant golf ball!  This way we will be able to have continents and biomes based on actual tectonic plate locations and mountain ranges where these plates would have pushed against each other. However it should be noted, this is very experimental and there are many impassable roadblocks we could encounter such as ROBLOX data capacities. As our development process is completely open to the community through these newsletters, you'll see for yourself if these methods prove successful. Along with Idyllic, Galbotrix also got time away from thanksgiving to work on RoVerse, livestreaming his building progress of the industrial outpost interior on our Twitch channel. Here you can see the beginnings of the mineral review and secondary incinerator rooms:   iRavenActual, one of our new builders, got to work on building more shipwrecks for the Dogfight Alpha's initial release map:
 Last week we hit reached twenty weeks of consistent development, to mark the milestone one of our fans posted a compilation of all the media progress we've ever posted throughout the past months. You can take a look at it here: forum.roblox.com/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=202053043 Each week we compile a Q&A section here whenever there are any new questions posted on the RoVerse Community group wall, so be sure to join if there's something you'd like to ask about RoVerse: https://www.roblox.com/Groups/Group.aspx?gid=2948290 Q1: Will factions be able to decide what biome their planet is? Some groups(such as mine) have a specific planet in their lore and it would be frustrating if the group would be stuck with a capital planet that doesn't fit in with their lore. A1: Great question! Yes, you will absolutely be able to choose what planet type your homeworld is when your clan first enters the game. All homeworlds will have the same resource value in order to not give one biome type an advantage over another - the choice will be purely for the clan's lore preference. Q2: I have a question, this applies to starships and ground combat, will the shots fired go DIRECTLY where you want it to go (like most guns), or will actually be realistic and shoot somewhere else once in a while? A2: Guns won't have perfect accuracy, there will always be bullet spread but some guns will be more accurate than others, such as a shotgun vs a sniper rifle. Q3: How big are the ships going to be able to be? A3: Ship size will vary based on what class of ship it is, the largest class capital ships will be immense in size and control more akin to a mobile city than a space ship. Q4: Will the larger ship types be controlled by multiple people or only one person? A4: In the first release of RoVerse there will not be multi-crew but as we complete more and more of the core features of the game we will be able to implement the ability for capitals to have boosted performance by being manned by several crewmates. They will most likely work like tanks, with a driver, gunner and commander working together for optimal performance in battle. Q5: Pacifist movement groups? I am trying in SWR to do so, but I don't have a-lot to work with. Would I be able to successfully have the tools to forward a non violence act, aka pacifism in this game? A5: A large part of RoVerse will be non-combat content, such as mining, trading and exploring. Working with other players rather than killing everything is heavily encouraged and it is by cooperating with others that the most profit can be made. Miners can hire transports to haul the ore in their large cargo holds, traders can hire escorts to protect them from pirates, police and military keep the peace and patrol their faction's space ensuring safety for civilians. Player interaction is the core of RoVerse, so those who look for peaceful ways of playing will usually be much wealthier than those who get themselves killed attacking everyone they meet. When it comes to main factions, it can be impossible to avoid conflict with warmongering factions that try to invade your territories, but war is not all glory and conquest, it is extremely expensive and demanding of resources. A faction that is at peace will always expand and grow in wealth far faster than one that is at war, or even in multiple wars. If a faction is strong enough to enforce peace and intimidate nearby aggressive factions into staying away, that faction will flourish as a beacon of civilisation and prosperity for its people. Q6: As a small faction, how could we get into RoVerse but not have territory ( or territory that is shared with another faction) A6: The clans that enter RoVerse as the main factions are meant to be more like nations/countries that govern space and protect its civilians. Smaller clans that roleplay as corporations or guilds would be much better suited to being sub-factions in RoVerse, which players can create once they build and own an outpost. Sub-factions don't own star systems on the map, however the presence of their outposts and ships give them influence over areas within a main faction's space without being aligned to one. Q7: How will carriers work, and what types of carriers will there be? I also want an idea of what types of fighters there will be as all we know so far is that they are sorted by size. A7: Carriers will be the most important ships in a fleet, due to their incredible tactical advantage of allowing players in fighters to use them as mobile spawn points. They will be very large but very slow and poorly defended as they trade weapons for hangar space. Fighters perform roles relative to their size, lighter ships are great scouts or interceptors and suited to pilots who prefer agile controls and speeds that spin circles around other ships, at the cost of less powerful guns and weaker hull. Heavier ships play the roles of bombers or heavy attackers, big guns and thick hull but slow and sluggish. Medium sized fighters are a balance of both, like a jack of all trades, they generally perform well in both agility and firepower but not particularly great at either. That's all for this week's newsletter, we hope you can all understand the limitations real life conditions can have on our progress rate and trust us to not let it deter our spirit to continue development! Thanks for taking the time to read and we hope you'll join us again next week! Hello everyone! Welcome to the twentieth issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week! Things are really picking up this week! We've hit twenty weeks of development and have just made a massive leap in script production with the arrival of a new scripter, Firebrand12, who brings much-needed activity to the job of ship scripting. Almost all of our scripters have been so occupied with studies that progress towards the Dogfight Alpha's release took a big hit, but now that's changed and we're kicking it into overdrive! In only a week, we've added multiple features to the flight model, including afterburner speed, improved projectile physics, refining core code and finally integrating rotating gun mounts for starship weapon systems. Lordrex12345 has been very busy getting a head start on our custom communications menu and chat system, which will give players 5 choices of channels to broadcast on - 'Local', for anyone in the nearby vicinity and in sensor range. 'System', for everyone in the same star system. 'Direct', for privately messaging a specific player or your current target. 'Group', for anyone currently in a wing/grouped-up with you. Your game will default to showing any of these chat broadcasts you receive along the left of your screen, however you'll be able to select specific channels if you only want to see messages received on that channel. Each of these chat messages will be colour-coded to make them easier for players to recognise what channel they are being broadcast on. Along with this chat system will be an entire communications menu where you can both view chat history, select broadcast channels and also add friends to a list for future direct communications! Meanwhile, Ninja has continued to blast through ground combat development, most recently adding an object pool system for bullet projectiles, greatly increasing performance. Opacor has continued work on the extensive core MySQL database coding and integration of travel between the servers of the persistent multi-world universe that makes up the physical map of RoVerse. Our team's progress doesn't stop at scripting either, we're continuing to steadily complete the building portions of development. Building work has shifted from focusing on outposts now to interior work and shipwrecks for the Dogfight Alpha's initial release map. Real world conditions are still an issue as always though, this week ArcticCitadel has had to temporarily pause building due to his PC no longer being able to run ROBLOX Studio without freezing so he won't be able to work on anything until he can pay to get it fixed. IdyllicDestroyer will also be unable to work on the outposts until the start of December, as he's now part of a school project to redesign a local museum and meet their state governor, so we wish him the best of luck! But don't fear, as despite two of our main builders being unavailable, the rest of our builders are working extra hard to make up for it! The most noteworthy building progress being the outpost interior work done by Insentious, with the first portions of the industrial Operations module looking very promising:  As well as the interiors of the arms that branch the separate modules of the industrial outposts:  With all the starships we need for the Dogfight Alpha constructed, HeroMaster has spent the week making minor tweaks and performance fixes to previous designs. Next week he'll be moving on to designing new shipwrecks to fill up the graveyard map of the alpha.
Before Idyllic had to divert his free time to focus on his architecture project in real life, he managed to gather just enough time to finish the last module of the military outpost variant:   Each week we compile a Q&A section here whenever there are any new questions posted on the RoVerse Community group wall, so be sure to join if there's something you'd like to ask about RoVerse: https://www.roblox.com/Groups/Group.aspx?gid=2948290 Q1: Will there be a different flight schemes for capital ships since they are heavier and move slower or will it be like the small craft flight scheme in the dogfights? A1: Of course! Capital ships will have an entirely different play style to fighter-class vessels. Whilst fighters use gimballed forward-firing weapons, capital ships are much too sluggish to always point towards their target, so to compensate for this they rely heavily on massive fully-rotating turrets similar to real life warships. A great deal of capital ship combat will be fought with powerful broadside bombardments and flak barrages for dealing with smaller attackers. Fighter combat is mostly a matter of a pilot's skills in flying and aiming their shots, however capital combat is much more strategic with tactical plans of attack being crucial to victory. A big part of capital ships in RoVerse is that they play very specific roles, big vessels like battleships are for killing other large capitals with their massive weaponry, but their guns are much to slow to deal with small ships like fighters and bombers. Then there are smaller more nimble capitals like frigates or corvettes which don't have the firepower to take out battleships on their own but possess just the right balance of resilience and agility to be the perfect escorts for large capitals as well as being able to act as lone patrol ships. Capital ships are very expensive to own, both in terms of maintenance and the repair bill should you not make it back to port in one piece. Most capitals, mainly the larger classes, can only truly be played as part of a fleet of other capitals with an organised set of escorts and line ships. This is in order to ensure each type of capital is being protected from its weaknesses and is free to focus on using its strengths. Q2: Any way I can incorporate my somewhat Modern Military group into RoVerse when it comes out? A2: If your group doesn't quite fit into a sci-fi setting then we'd advise that you wait a while until we eventually release the expansion for RoVerse that adds content for other eras. A similar question to this was asked about a month ago regarding a western-themed group, we told them the same thing. We don't want to force people to change their clans to match the space theme, we very much want to give everyone a place in RoVerse to live, whether that be a medieval kingdom, a modern country, a tribal village or a WWII inspired nation. It will take time for us to add support for these other eras which will exist on restricted planets that contain other groups of the same era, but we believe it will be worth the wait. So please, only submit your clan to join RoVerse when it comes out if you're actually happy with it being a sci-fi clan. If you have any dislike for your clan being in a space theme then you should look forward to the era expansion instead. Q3: Will character looks in RoVerse be separate to that of your ROBLOX character? Will it be optional? Also, for clans, will there be a set character 'soldier' look that automatically takes place on players within a clan if the owner sets it that way? A3: Yes, when you first join RoVerse you will get to design the appearance of your character, customising features like tattoos or aesthetically implants. Your character will start off with a standard outfit, as you earn credits you will be able to spend them on purchasing clothing, when you're not spending the credits on new ships or weapons of course. We want to make players feel truly immersed in the world of RoVerse, enhancing your character and expanding your wardrobe as you master more of the world will play a big part in that immersion. Groups in RoVerse will be able to design and submit outfits and hats to sell at their stations, they will also be able to designate specific uniforms for specific careers, such as police or military uniforms. Players who then join that power's police force or military will be provided that uniform for free, for as long as they are in that career. Q4: How advanced will ground combat be? A4: Ground combat will be similar to popular ROBLOX FPS front page games, such as Phantom Forces, however the main difference from those games is that there will be a toggleable over-the-shoulder third person view for players who prefer it. Q5: What are the kind of variety in weapons you will have, and will you have special items like grenades or bombs? A5: There will be several different types of weapons in RoVerse, ranging from pistols, to shotguns, to snipers, to assault rifles, to LMGs. There will be plenty of civilian weapons available on all stations when the game releases, but a great deal of variety in weapons will be down to the different designs that clans will submit to the game to arm their nation. Gun submissions will go through a specific process for entering the game where clans will be able to tailor the stats to fit their play style whilst maintaining balance (think Fallout character creation). Q6: Can larger factions make sub factions that are allied with that larger faction? A6: Yes, sub factions will be able to ally or make enemies of the main factions. This will be especially useful for clans that wish to set up state-owned agencies or corporations and benefit from the use of outposts. That's it for this week's newsletter, it's been a great one and we'll be working to bring you more good news next week! Hello everyone! Welcome to the nineteenth issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week! This week's may be a bit short, availability has been heavily impeded by our studies and some of us were on vacations with our families, but don't worry, we're still determined as ever! We've got a heavy workload and many intricate features that we still have yet to tackle. If you know have advanced scripting knowledge or have friends that might be interested in scripting for RoVerse, please spread the word that we need all the help we can get to make RoVerse a reality. Spreading word of RoVerse to others is the best way you can help to speed up development and get into the game faster! The most noteworthy event during the week was the release of a new Guide to RoVerse developer diary episode, which if any of you missed it, can be watched here: We've continued making steady progress on the outpost modules, this week being the research module of the military outpost variant:   Ninja has returned to us after a long absence and has starting back on the ground gameplay scripting, here's a little bit of footage of how the first person view looks: Meanwhile Insentious has been spearheading our Twitch livestreams with his building of outpost interiors. He's scheduled to be streaming again tonight soon after this newsletter is posted, so don't forget to catch him over on our Twitch channel here: www.twitch.tv/roverse_official Each week we compile a Q&A section here whenever there are any new questions posted on the RoVerse Community group wall, so be sure to join if there's something you'd like to ask about RoVerse: https://www.roblox.com/Groups/Group.aspx?gid=2948290 Q1: I'm wondering how you will implement the way vehicles can be brought into combat (for example: teleportation, spawn pads, drop ships ETC.) A1: Ground vehicles will be deployed from your ship once you land, depending on how many backups you purchased you will be able to redeploy the vehicle from your ship if it gets destroyed. Your character works the same way, if you die planetside you will respawn at your ship, unless it gets destroyed! Q2: How will you prevent players from ganging up on outposts at like, 2 in the morning, when nobody is on? A2: Very good question, we have a plan in mind for ensuring this doesn't happen, however it will require long-term testing before we can refine it and confirm that it works. The concept is to only allow outposts to be attacked during active hours of the day and non-damageable during the hours when player count is low (the times when a defense fleet is likely offline for the night). In theory this should solve the issue entirely however loopholes can be quite difficult to fully nail down so we want to test this method before ruling out others. Q3: How will the areas work? will we have to travel to a different parts/servers/ areas of the game to get to different planets, systems or cities? A3: Each star system will be separated into different servers, the whole space portion of the star system will be all available within that single server. The one exception being planets as they will be in their own separate servers from the star system in order to maximise performance and stability. The entirety of the planet will exist within that server without any loading screens or transitions. Q4: What ship types will there be? A4: In RoVerse there will be a vast variety of ship types, ranging from light fighters to heavy battleships. After the game is released we plan to expand the game to include more types of ships such as cloak ships that act as submarines in space and doomsday super weapons. In the initial version though, the fighter classes will be as follows: Light Fighter (LF), Medium Fighter (MF), Heavy Fighter (HF), Very Heavy Fighter (VHF). Capital ships are categorised by size in order to avoid any confusions (battlecruiser vs battleship vs dreadnought). The classes of capitals are as follows: Small (S), Medium (M), Large (L), Extra Large (XL). Q5: What happens if i get shot down? A5: In the initial release of RoVerse - you die. Upon death you will respawn at the last station you docked, inside of a regeneration bay, which in lore is essentially a storage of your clones which your consciousness is uploaded to upon what would normally be death. As RoVerse's content is expanded, you will be able to eject from your ship in an escape pod and attempt to fly to the nearest port, successfully doing so will significantly decrease the insurance bill to replace your lost ship. Q6: Will there be any combat between players? (Outside of ships) A6: Absolutely! Ground combat is a major part of the clan community's interest and there simply wouldn't be a true level of immersion if you were always restricted to your ship. In the first release of RoVerse you will be able to fight other players on board stations and outposts, however as expansions are released you will be able to fight inside your own ships and most importantly - on planets themselves. Q7: How can a small group of players interact with larger countries? A7: Sub-factions can affect the major factions in many different ways, whether that be raiding a power's facility to impact their production, pirating/blockading their traders to choke their economy, or by simply aiding an opposing power in battle. Similarly, sub-factions can greatly benefit a power by helping their economy to prosper through trading with their markets, building outposts in their space, escorting their trading convoys, or aiding law enforcement throughout their space. Sub-factions may not own territory on the galactic map but they should never be underestimated, their efforts can make or break a ruling government. Q8: Will ships have interiors? A8: Indeed! In the initial version of the game these won't be included but soon after release, ships will have fully detailed interiors. A large deciding factor on what ships have unique interiors will rely on the clans that submit their ships to provide the interior layout though. These interiors will provide locations for other players to board and sabotage in the case of war, or attempt to capture in the case of pirates! That just about brings us to the end of this week's newsletter. We hope you're all as excited for the Dogfight Alpha as we are and we look forward to seeing you out in the black. Stay safe out there, pilots! Hello everyone! Welcome to the eighteenth issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week! We're into the first week of November and into the deadline period we're hoping to release the Dogfight Alpha in. Unfortunately, due to end of term exams our scripters have been forced to spend this week focusing on their studies, meaning the alpha won't be releasing just yet. However we have still been making progress in all other areas of development and tomorrow we we'll be uploading a new episode of our Guide to RoVerse developer diaries, where we'll talk about how outposts will function in the game! Lots of our progress will be seen throughout the video, as you may recognise if you've been following our weekly project updates. On that subject, there seems to be a great many of you who are only just discovering RoVerse for the first time each passing week, as shown by many questions being asked that have already been answered in the past. To remedy this, we have taken the suggestion of one member of the RoVerse Community group and created a Frequently Asked Questions page comprised of all the past Q&A sessions we've had throughout development. This new FAQ page should help all new fans to get up to date on all the current info we've released on RoVerse - you can find this page here: http://ro-verse.weebly.com/faq.html The new developer diary also includes new work we've done on the outposts, Idyllic has been hard at work on the latest pirate outpost builds:
 With the majority of outpost exterior construction completed, we're now beginning work on the interiors which we're very excited about. More good news is that Andross has returned from being away to sort out real life matters and will now be continuing work on the hub station interiors:  The outposts aren't the only area of development reaching completion, we've also finished all ship designs that will be implemented into the Dogfight Alpha. So instead of ship building, HeroMaster has spent this week writing up the descriptions and history of each ship manufacturing corporation: Unlimited Frontiers and Starship Manufacturing Pick a star and go there. Created out of a need to facilitate free trade and exploration, the UFSM made deals with several exploration, mining, and trade corporations to gain exclusive rights to sell them specialty ships. Unfortunately, the deals fell through and the UFSM was forced to sell their ships at low price to civilian consumers, flooding the market with viable freelance trade, mining, and exploration vessels - subsequently (and ironically) bankrupting some of companies that backed out of the deal. Known vessels: L-Class Savannah M-Class Danube Paragon Dynamics Cut a path through the skies. Founded by a conglomerate of veteran naval officers whose goal was to arm small planetary militias and benevolent mercenary guilds, Paragon Dynamics set about making affordable, reliable, and modifiable "militarized" civilian vessels. The end product wasn't very modifiable or powerful, but the Excalibur line became one of the most recognizable fighter designs in the galaxy, serving mercs, pirates, and militias alike. Known vessels: L-Class Excalibur L-Class Halberd Kobune-Yoi Interplanetary Swift Wings - Sharp Beak When eccentric billionaire artists try to start starship manufacturing companies, the result is unpredictable, and nobody predicted the success of Kobune-Yoi's line of "traditionally inspired" ships. The board of the directors "assisting" said billionaire were sure to make them cost efficient at the expense of a number of other things, resulting in in a bungled release campaign. Despite this, the near infinite funds poured into the project made it a relative success and the company has survived to this day. Known vessels: L-Class Hummingbird H-Class Cardinal Roswell Industries Devoted to keeping you thinking big. With the rise of independent trading, mining, and exploration, several scientific groups claimed that there were no ships catering to their needs: ships specifically built for scientific missions. Roswell Industries was formed by science industry supporters to complete this task, but with a caveat. All the ships produced for scientists would have retrofit equivalents also released to civilian pilots for purchase. Within two and a half years and thanks to the successful ad campaign "Now you can too!" the line of "science" ships became a mainstay in the public eye. Known vessels: L-Class Procyon M-Class Centuri Parakeet Corp Go fast with big guns. For twenty years, starship racing leagues enjoyed exclusive ship design contracts with a number of manufacturers and engineering teams. However, after a period of constant fatal incidents where poor designs and safety testing were the cause, almost all of the contracts fell through and leagues needed a new provider of quality fast ships. Thus, Parakeet Corp was formed. Now, years after their inception, classic racing ships have been updated with the latest technology (and weaponry!) and released to the public. Known vessels: L-Class Pulsar M-Class Comet Nyte Manufacturing Shhh. Fly silent. Founded by a former guerilla warfare expert, rebel, and engineer, Nyte Manufacturing hasn't strayed far from its roots. High speed, high damage are at the top of every engineer's checklist for design priorities and each ship is built for stealth. While the initial goal was to sell the ships to supplies-starved rebel groups (whose causes were deemed just by the CEO) and militias fighting much larger enemies, the ships often ended up in the hands of espionage groups, assassins, mercs, and pirates. Nevertheless their ships are regarded as the greatest ally you'll never see, or the enemy you'll dread for the same reason. Known vessels: L-Class Shuriken H-Class Silencer Blackstar Heavy Industries Industry veterans you can trust. When Blackstar was founded, they were initially considered a branch of Paragon Dynamics. The group that became attracted to the ships, however, were the ex-military officers whose records weren't exactly spotless. In a devastating act of corporate warfare, Blackstar was forcibly ejected from the Paragon group for selling specifically to pirates in order to get militias to buy their other ships. Blackstar still denies these claims and operates with the single goal of eliminating their former colleagues - not literally, of course. It's just business. Known vessels: L-Class Red Wolf M-Class Blue Komodo Argon Engineering Corporation At the forefront of starship perfection. Five years ago, a group of explorers working for an archaeologist found a still functional craft from one of the Old Wars. Within the week they'd been fired, the archaeologist patented whatever he could reverse engineer, and he formed A.E.C. However, he couldn't remake the original design, so the resulting Argon ships are a combination of new and old technology. Their slim profiles and maneuverability make them prized interceptors and racing ships, but the secretive nature of the company HQ and CEO (supposedly to prevent corporate espionage or assassin) makes seeing them a rarity. Known vessels: L-Class Mercury M-Class Iridium Each week we compile a Q&A section here whenever there are any new questions posted on the RoVerse Community group wall, so be sure to join if there's something you'd like to ask about RoVerse: https://www.roblox.com/Groups/Group.aspx?gid=2948290 Q1: In ground combat, will infantry have classes similar to Battlefield's classes (medic, assault, recon, support), or will we be able to customize our kit? A1: Much like space combat, you will be able to purchase your equipment from stations or planetary bases that you bring with you into combat. These won't be specific classes, but there will be weapons that have specific advantages in certain areas, such as sniper rifles when you plan on long-range engagements. Q2: Will infantry play just as big a role as mechanized infantry, tanks and other vehicles, or will vehicles steamroll infantry? A2: Infantry will have a major advantage over vehicles in that they are very hard to detect other than by other infantry. This makes troops very important for a combined offensive as they will be responsible for the protection of their armoured forces. Q3: Will guns be 3rd-person or 1st-person (or will it be optional)? A3: We held a community-wide poll on how on-foot combat will function and the decision that was reached was for 1st person shooter style gameplay with optional over-the-shoulder view similar to games like Armed Assault. Q4: Will there be a political map for leaders to see alliances and relations between nations? A4: Good question! There will indeed be different view modes on the galactic map which can show the territories of either factions, alliances, allies of your clan and enemies of your clan. Q5: Will it be in R6 or R15? Or will it be optional? A5: This is still to be decided, we'll likely have a community vote on it as we did with the combat system. This is only the first stage of RoVerse's development yet we're already so ecstatic to show you what we've made and what RoVerse has in store for our community! It won't be long now before you can begin honing your dogfighting skills to become a true ace pilot. We'll see you all tomorrow with the newest episode of the Guide to RoVerse developer diaries! |
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AuthorsVaktus: Leader of the Vaktovian Empire and head of the RoVerse Project |
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