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RoVerse Development newsletter #305

6/5/2022

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 305th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, we've continued working on the crafting system and added new stuff to flight mechanics in preparation for the future.

Last week, we showed you a pretty simple demo of the flight mechanics boiled down and extracted to run on a baseplate without any gamemodes going on. This week, we added on from there lots of exciting things, starting with getting Capitals working correctly.

So after remembering to set the folder to the large versions of ships correctly, we got the Bolitho up and flying.

There will be a few graphical things to fix, like scaling up engine particles and increasing how solid they look, but we're well on the way to having functioning Capitals working as intended. While there won't be many Capitals besides the Bolitho showing up at Hyperion any time soon, it will serve as our proof of concept and test bed for Capital features moving forward. Speaking of Hyperion, we needed a new function added that correctly locates Capital ships when they spawn, because they just don't fit at all inside the Fighter Hangar Launch Bay. So we added a bit of code and a reference point, and now Capital ships can spawn properly at the berths in the docking arm.

It works with both Port and Starboard docks, as long as the ship fits in the area, which at Hyperion is unfortunately very small. Capitals any larger than Bolitho don't quite fit...

...like the Avenger, that sorta has to sneak in at an odd angle to make it fit. Just watch the large step from horizontal gravity to vertical gravity at the jetway.

The code is flexible enough that we can pick the specific location to spawn any new ships, based on what class of ship is spawning and whether the bays are already occupied by someone else. Capitals spawn on the Docking Arm, Transport ships spawn at the Docking Ring, and Cargo/Mining ships spawn at the Refinery Sector. Mining ships like the vaunted WTT-017-MI-CARGO, which has been rigged and added to the boilerplate to help us test out mining lasers and drills.

Here we have the first mining ship test, which unfortunately used the fighter flight code, and was very nauseating. The Capital mode is much more suited for normal flight and mining operations.

Last up is the changes we've made to the crafting system. This week, we've added categories to sort crafting recipes so they're easy to find, and we've refined the menu a bit more, making the scrolling frame scale properly with the recipe contents, improving the visuals of the recipes pane, and tying the number of require materials to the quantity selected in the center pane.

We have also done quite a bit of math to figure out the base-cost of the different fighter classes. Creating a fake ship with 0 stat points in every category gives us a base cost of about 14,000 credits, with the points adding up from there - points in the hull and shield category increase the cost much faster than the points spent on speed or agility. However, the goal here is to get the cost as close as possible to the cost of the ship in the Dogfight, if not exactly the same, and I think we were fairly successful on that. Ships are crafted from a reasonable amount of raw materials, and while 5000 credits to make something fly is a pretty low bar to cross, I don't see anyone getting very far with a zero-stat ship.

On top of all that, we've added a few more constituent pieces to the crafting table, things that aren't used directly, but are an intermediate step of the crafting process for more complex and expensive final products. In particular, the different advanced machinery used to construct different variations of turrets. Progress in all these areas is moving fast, and we hope to get a working demo out soon.

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!

RoVerse Development Newsletter #304

5/30/2022

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 304th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, we've got a new tracking function using Highlights, another crack at a crafting tree, and the latest in boilerplate flight scripts.

A new feature that a few helpful members of the community tested out in the Dogfight, is a target-selection highlight function. Using the new highlights feature (what else?) we've made it so that when you target-select any hostile, whether that's a ship or an outpost turret, it gets highlighted for you. No more fumbling around in the dark corners of an outpost strike trying to find the hitbox of the turret you were diving in on, now it'll be revealed even in the darkest parts of deep space.

We're still discussing the exact visuals we want to use, so don't be surprised if it changes over time. There have been arguments made about the white outline and Frostland map in particular, and the red fill does wash out a lot of detail that we might be able to fade out as you get closer, or apply a pulsing effect.

Overall, it makes target selection that much easier - the target boxes are nice, but rather large and non-specific in the grand scheme of things. With highlights, you can see exactly what you're aiming at. We're also excited to test out highlights as a method of warp-destination selection - allowing you to highlight a specific structure at a significant distance and watch as it grows bigger as you approach.

Also, while we were messing around in the code, we found an explosion effect that wasn't parented properly to outpost turrets, so they'll now explode with a bit more gusto. We also added a feature similar to the capital wreck generation that messes up destroyed turrets, sending their pieces spinning into the void.

Explosion delayed to show visual destruction.

We took about the 6th stab at developing an intelligible crafting tree for the various resources we've had on our list. Every previous tree has been abandoned because it ends up unintelligibly complex, and no one but Idyllic can read it. This attempt is no different, and we'll be looking at alternative ways of conveying the steps needed to construct the most complex machinery in the galaxy.

The crafting steps are very simple in concept - a higher-tier item is made of up to 4 different ingredients. But conveying that information has been very difficult. If any of you have any recommendations or references to how other games have done this, let us know and we'll check it out.

This week wrapped up with spaceships. We've extracted everything flight-related from the dogfight, and boiled it down into the specific things that ships will need to fly in every other place we intend them to fly. That means that they have shed their gamemodes, their modification menus, and their various other fluff and fanfare - everything that doesn't make ships go vroom. All the new features that have been added to the Beta that haven't been available at the Hyperion ship hangar are now copied over into the boilerplate system - stuff like vector lock, the new target highlighting feature, and the latest keybinds. This also includes Capitals, that are just a little bit more work away from taking flight at Hyperion.

With the boilerplate systems copied over, we got around to organizing and condensing the various folders of assets that have expanded over time, as well as adding in code that handles the variations of scale between Hyperion Station and Star Systems - all the fighters from the Hangar we put together were copied over and dropped into their respective folders, where they can be summoned up with a small amount of editing.

From here, we'll be working out the kinks of scaled-up fighter combat, like turret attachment sizes, collisions, and being able to spawn capital ships on command. And last but not least - the ability to land your ship and return to your explorations of Hyperion.

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 do we trade material at stations? Do we have to touch a contact point, or just a close distance?

A1: There are a wide variety of locations players will be able to exchange resources with each other or the system. At Hyperion, trades will take place at dedicated consoles in the Refinery Sector, between two different players. Players selling resources off their ship will be able to interact with the station from nearby or in the Tortuga Hangar. In Space, players piloting ships will be able to trade (or rob) ships in close proximity, while those close to faction stations will have to be in a pre-determined area.

RoVerse Development Newsletter #303

5/22/2022

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 303rd issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, we further developed the questing system, making it modular and easy to expand, and we took a stab at version 1 of the crafting and resources system.

Last week we left of the questing system with a few simple crime interactions. Next up on the to-do list was making those individually functioning interactions into a modular quest system, complete with a quest board, the ability to pick up a mission, and exclusivity in completing that quest to the person with that specific mission. What this led to was quite a bit of code working behind the scenes to make all these features function. What they also allowed was the addition of a few new interactions - like the report crime button.

Snitches get Stitches

Neutral players who have a quest to report criminal activity in the station, will get a popup button that appears if they were within range and had clear line of sight on crimes underway. While they won't pass out like in the gif above, they will do a short point animation, before the crime and its location is reported in chat.

Using a fantastic modulescript called ZonePlus, the location of a crime is entirely accurate based on the location of the crime. We'll be able to preset the shape of each location ahead of time, and use that info to keep track of where players are, and report where they are when crimes happen.

The crime board is quite simple for now, but quests will be sorted into locked and unlocked categories based on the level of the player who is looking at it. Clicking the arrow picks up the quest and removes it from the available quests list for other players, and triggers dialog instructing you on what to do to complete it.

With all this complete, we present to you the first complete (and reported) crime using the new system.

With crimes well underway, we thought it was time to take a look at another important area of the Station. Mining resources and turning them into useful stuff will be a key aspect of the game, far exceeding the limited reach of the Hyperion reputation system. And so, we made a list. A very comprehensive list of everything we have ever wanted players to be able to craft or collect. We even dug up some really old crafting tree ideas we'd written down but had set aside for their complexity. And we combined all that into the official list.

A small selection of the item list.

This list, in Google Sheets format, is the official items list. It has item index values, credit values, and what items it takes to construct that item. This data is all compiled into a table that we can copy and paste directly into a modulescript, which can then be read from by the crafting system, the interface of which you can see below.

Every item on the list is compiled into the scrolling frame on the left - a temporary feature, until we finish the crafting tree layout). Clicking an item brings up the other two panes - one showing the item, a description, the value per item, the maximum number you can afford to craft, and the time it'd take to craft the quantity you have selected. The right pane shows all the constituent parts you'd need/already have to build the quantity you've selected.

We're still working on the scale of the textboxes, since those look quite terrible, so don't worry about that. The important part was that we can import an item list, and break every item down into its recipes. Now we just need an inventory system and a way to collect minerals, and we'll have players cranking out explosives, I mean structural frames, in no time.

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 we rig our stealable vehicles to explode when someone steals them?

A1: There will be alarms on vehicles that can go off and alert you when someone's trying to steal your stuff. However, we don't have any plans to make your stuff explode if they do manage to steal it.

Q2: Can we disarm explosives set to explode when you steal something?

A2: I think it'd be a nice feature to have to be able to disable laid explosives if you notice them before triggering them, but we'd have to look at how that feature works when we get to making explosives in the first place.

Q3: Can we rig explosives to explode when someone tries to disarm them while trying to steal a vehicle?

A3: Uhhh...

Q4: Can we disarm explosives set to explode when trying to disable them exploding when someone tries to steal a vehicle?

A4: Ahhhh! *head explosion noise*

RoVerse Development Newsletter #302

5/15/2022

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 302nd issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, we did crimes...

…and by crimes, I mean we developed a range of criminal activities that players can undertake to ruin their reputation and join the ranks of the Hyperion Sect, a dangerous and profit-mongering mafia who have a strong grip on the businesses in the Entertainment District of Hyperion Station.

Any enterprising young criminal is going to want to dive right into the most illegal aspects of the underworld - however, the crime boss isn't going to trust you with anything dangerous like theft or murder right off the bat. You'll need to work your way into his good graces by performing a variety of petty crimes first, to get your reputation low enough to take on the more difficult crimes. And what better way to start, than by throwing bricks through the windows of stores controlled by the boss's rivals?

Just don't get caught by any officers patrolling around looking for hooligans.

And a second petty crime you might get asked to do, is graffiti the walls of the entertainment district with various symbols and logos. Using a sci-fi digital applicator, even the least artistic of criminals can spray a flat surface with an incredible work of art.

We intend for there to be plenty of variation in the graffiti images, so if you have a piece of faction artwork that'd work as graffiti, send it our way. Bonus points if there's lore behind it, like a subfaction of rebels trying to overthrow your faction.

Next on the list of crimes is Surveillance. The Boss will ask you to keep an eye on a location or a person, and your job is to check it out. You'll want to get close enough to get a good view, but not so close that someone gets suspicious about what you're up to.

With you developing a trust with the Boss, he might allow you to take on bigger jobs, like Theft and Smuggling. You'll go to a location, pick up an item, and deliver it to its destination. Just be careful - not every item you're stealing will be entirely unguarded.

And don't get caught with any stolen items, or you'll get arrested and sent straight to jail.

The next crime on the list is a fun but quite challenging one - Hacking. The Boss will have you find and obtain access to a console or junction box, and you'll have to complete a hacking minigame to obtain the cache of data contained within.

In this minigame, you'll have several choices, with most of them being incorrect, and one option moving you forward. Don't make too many incorrect guesses, or the alarm will start to go off, and you'll need to quickly hotwire it to keep it silent. Too many failures, and it'll go off regardless. With this crime, practice will be important - the actions aren't impossible, but getting good takes a few tries.

And to round off the whole thing, Cyrus has created a neat keyboard-typing animation that plays while you're standing at the keyboard.

There are a few more crimes on our list, but they'll take quite a bit more work to get functional. In the meantime, we'll be working on the other side of the reputation system - the lawful quests that will raise your reputation, not lower it.

RoVerse Development Newsletter #301

5/8/2022

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 301st issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week saw a little bit of work in a lot of different areas. Hoverquads have been improved on the coding side, with better resistance to spinning when they run into things, and improved performance when driving off of cliffs. Instead of plummeting immediately to the ground at the bottom of a fall, they now drift gracefully down.

Here's a demonstration of the previous falling issue:

We did a bit of testing at Hyperion, and found that they had another issue that was related - if you managed to fall out of the station, which hopefully won't often be an issue, you'd fall to world position 0, then hover there. While this was rather entertaining and led to some fun police-chases in space, it has been remedied with the new gliding code.

The original porpoise of the testing was to try out our newest feature - Vehicle Hijacking. The Police Hoverquads we've added will serve quite well as a stand-in for testing out a system that lets players hack and steal vehicles given a bit of time, skill, and luck. Stealing a hoverbike will be a bit easier compared to stealing an entire untended ship, but the skills you pick up committing petty crime in the halls of Hyperion Station will do the enterprising criminal well in their illicit career.

Added this week are two vehicle-requisitioning consoles for Deputies to call in their Hoverquads. It also includes an ownership system, that registers the vehicle to the person who summoned it. Anyone else who attempts to ride the hoverquad will find disabled controls, and a 'Hotwire' prompt.

Be sure not to requisition too many hoverquads, or the Sheriff might fire you.

The hotwiring system itself is quite simple - you must hold down a series of keys with the correct order and timing, and the vehicle will become hacked. The gif below shows the functionality of the system, however it has been significantly sped up to fit in the seven second gif format. The keys you'll need to hold will follow a common pattern, but be randomized, to encourage investment in the hacking skills you'll develop over time. A skilled thief will be able to complete even the most complex hacks in a single try, and make off with anything not bolted down.

Testers described the mechanic as "difficult" which is what we were aiming for - difficult and slow, but possible if you're determined.

While Idyllic was modifying the hoverquad code to glide gracefully to the ground, an idea appeared. The vehicle performs quite well at Hyperion, where the ground is flat and level - but what if it was somewhere that was neither? And so we set about making them work at Daedalus Rex, the planetary proof of concept.

Using a variety of the new constraints and some simple code, we were able to modify the original hover function to work on a spherical planet. There are quite a few handy settings on the constraints that ended up working perfectly for our porpoises, like AngularVelocity's RelativeTo attachment setting making steering on the underside of a planet easier than figuring out the relative direction and rotation. AlignOrientation has a PrimaryAxisOnly setting that lets you make a part face perpendicular to the surface of a target.

Among other changes made this week, was a first-pass at the Station's first restaurant. The Donald Bar has been renamed the Donald Café, after its proprietor, Donald P Sullivan. Serving a variety of snacks and meals that are replicated on demand, the café is the cheapest option available for the hungry traveler. Hungry for some rock candy or a plate of nachos? This is your next destination.

Last up, is phase 1 of the new manufacturing wing of the Station - The Refinery where ores collected by the Tortuga or personal mining vessels will be melted down into the valuables they contain, using a high-powered magnetic resonance furnace to separate the gold from the space rock.

Don't get your limbs caught in the grinder-feeder.

RoVerse Development Newsletter #300

5/1/2022

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 300th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, the security checkpoint has received both and upgrade, and a fatal flaw. In addition to more details added to the checkpoint, the scanners now have interaction when players walk through them, lighting up green when you're clear to pass.

And the cameras can randomly choose to track you, even when you haven't done anything suspicious recently...

But if you get caught smuggling any contraband through the scanners, they will hunt you down...

If you're an enterprising individual that wants to make some money, and you don't care about anything as boring as getting caught going through security, keep in mind that every time you get caught, your bounty on the station will increase, and you'll soon have the law and any bounty hunters on your tail soon enough. But there is another option - find a hidden maintenance access tube that is poorly guarded and just off the beaten path:

If you've found the randomized code of the day, you can punch it in and work your way down a tunnel guarded by poorly-powered forcefields. It may be a bit slower than making a run for it, but if you're careful you'll sneak entirely under the radar.

I just hope your jedi master doesn't meet his untimely end while you're trapped on the other side.

RoVerse Development Newsletter #299

4/24/2022

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 299th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, the Hyperion Station Security Checkpoint has been constructed, which will be the point of entry for players and npcs getting off any docked Capital and Civilian ships berthed on the dock arm of the station. Their inventories will be scanned for any contraband they may be trying to smuggle in, and their every move will be watched by a high-tech security system.

The Eyeris™ Security system is the best money can buy - it can track 6 targets independently, maintain a preprogrammed search pattern, track and follow selected individuals, and converge menacingly on anyone who dares to break the law within their view.

The hoverquads have received an update as well, with a new high-hover mode that puts you just a little bit higher than any ground-based obstacles you might encounter. Now your high-speed pursuits wont be interrupted by a civilian getting in your way.

vroom

RoVerse Development Newsletter #298

4/16/2022

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 298th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week was a productive one for Hyperion, getting a brand-new sheriff's office for those who maintain order in a chaotic universe to arm up, track criminals, and maintain the peace. Inside, players with a positive reputation, will have access to the Deputy's Armory, full of high-powered weapons for taking on the baddest criminals; A security system that tracks the locations of persons of interest as they make their way around Hyperion's Ring District; A bounty board and Most Wanted display, for tracking the whereabouts of the worst criminals in the sector; and an armory with the latest peacekeeping tech.

The Security Hologram is a scale representation of Hyperion Station, focusing on the Ring and Ship Docks, that highlights the locations and relative reputation of everyone inside.

Here we see the NPCs clustering around the entertainment district, while the viewer is in the Sheriff's Office. Below, two players are seen active.

Next up is the Armory - where those on the side of law and order can arm up, kit out, and keep the peace in the often rambunctious Hyperion Entertainment District. And what better way to get where they're needed than by taking a Hoverquad?

For those with the highest reputation, or those who manage to steal the keys to one, driving the Hoverquad is a job held in high esteem.

And what's a security-force Hoverquad without some fancy flashing police lights?

Hyperion has also gotten a facelift - we have enabled Shadowmap Lighting to make use of the best and latest lighting technology. And though our previous lighting is way overblown for this lighting mode, we'll be toning down the lights that are too bright for this new setting.

And a side-by-side comparison:

This week in the dogfight there were 102 kills, 30 with auto, 0 with beam, 0 with laser, 0 with plasma, 0 with railgun, and 72 with torpedo. The most dangerous ship was the Excalibur with 57 kills, followed by the Diptera with 26. The most dangerous map was Blue_Spaceway with 60 deaths, followed by The_Great_Hollow with 32.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for...
The three players that topped the leaderboard were Imperial_Prime, with 57 kills and 3 deaths and a 19 KDR; redknight378 with 26 kills, 6 deaths and a 4.33 KDR; and FangABXY with 18 kills, 0 deaths, and a N/A KDR. They have unlocked the exclusive ship Radiant Corps Moonray 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 139)

Calexian Community Challenge
The challenges are: 10,000,000 Kill Distance, and 100 Outpost Victories

RoVerse Development Newsletter #297

4/3/2022

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 297th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week was a busy one, with several members of the Dev team gearing up to add the new features to Hyperion we talked about last week, we talked with the community about ideas for the Hyperion Arcade, and Idyllic quickly added a ship-unlock notification menu to let you know when you've unlocked a free ship.

In the midst of coding an April fools day joke spaceship, Idyllic noticed a small oversight we'd made in the code a long time ago that was supposed to be a temporary patch, but had become permanent. The original dogfight code would automatically award all players joining the game any ships that had a cost of 0 credits, regardless of whether they had access to that ship or not. To fix this, we set the cost of all unlocked event ships to 10 credits - an irrelevant amount of credits for any players who completed a challenge and unlocked a ship, but still a weird user experience if you didn't know why.

Now, we have added a simple unlock alert popup, to let you know when you've unlocked a free ship, and where you've unlocked it from. This involved a lot more research than Idyllic was anticipating, but we think we've nailed down exactly where each free reward ship came from. Now, the ship will be automatically unlocked for all eligible players, and they'll get a handy popup letting them know. No more searching the event ships sort for unpurchased ships, they're all yours without any effort.

Hyperion's renovation has gotten underway, with Maximus taking on the tasks of building new trains and a black market hangout, two new recruits helping with the storyline and bounty systems, and Idyllic beginning to lay out all the new areas. A discussion of ideas was held in the Discord this week, with members of the community contributing simple game concepts for the Arcade. The community was quite helpful, and we've now got a concept list for over 30 simple games - hopefully we can find the room for all those cabinets.

One of the first things changing will be the train station location - instead of blocking off the Faction Hall area, the train stop have been moved into the tunnel. The Sherriff's Office will be located in the far corner, and the security checkpoint will be getting a cell block to hold unruly stationgoers.

The largest new section will be the refinery and cargo dock, home of the Tortuga. You may recognize the ship from last years Hallows Eve event - it's the Stationmaster's ship that players can borrow to mine asteroids with before they have bought their own ship.

And Vaktus makes a guest appearance, with a concept addition to the Faction Hall - the Hexagonal Galaxy map we developed displaying a live-view of system ownership.

This week in the dogfight there were 199 kills, 0 with auto, 1 with beam, 0 with laser, 6 with plasma, 0 with railgun, and 192 with torpedo. The most dangerous ship was the Chariot with 81 kills, followed by the Godship with 80. The most dangerous map was Pillarum with 108 deaths, followed by Blue_Spaceway with 55.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for...
The three players that topped the leaderboard were devOmegax, with 95 kills and 0 deaths and a N/A KDR; tygrys202 with 61 kills, 2 deaths and a 30.5 KDR; and SabineWrenDemo with 31 kills, 0 deaths, and a N/A KDR. They have unlocked the exclusive ship Radiant Corps Moonray 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 138)

Calexian Community Challenge
The challenges are: 10,000,000 Kill Distance, and 100 Outpost Victories

RoVerse Development Newsletter #296

3/27/2022

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 296th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week was jam-packed with more bug fixes, focusing on the Juggernaut gamemode and its propensity for failing whenever the juggernaut dies, which turned out to be a problem with wreck generation. This has been fixed, thanks to help from the community with helping Idyllic debug.

A new feature has appeared, after Idyllic saw an inspiring gif on twitter, and just had to have it - Beams now leave a burning trail of molten metal in their wake, instead of using the generic laser hitmarker effect.

Using some simple but tricky to implement logic, the trail cuts out whenever the beam leaves a particular surface, so it doesn't just track across the empty void. And special thanks to devOmega for helping make the glowy bits extra glowy.

Also, try not to get banned for drawing anything weird on the stations - remember some poor maintenance worker has to go on a several-hour-long spacewalk to patch up any marks you leave on his station.

Next up is a special treat, with another weapon effect that has been refined - this time it is for the Railgun turrets that will grace the Station Strike gamemode. Picture it now - you're exploring a silent asteroid field, searching for the rarest ores and valuable veins of minerals, but you've unwittingly stumbled into the territory of the most reprehensible of enemy factions. Their station, on high alert since it picked you up on long-range scans is not interested in diplomacy, and as soon as you maneuver into range of its heavy railguns, it strikes:

With a huge round so magnetically charged that it ionizes the scant particles of space dust into a glowing shockwave, the railgun bolt travels at incredible speed, slamming into your ship and leaving a hole straight through.

It's also quite scary when the turrets lock on to a fighter, as seen below:

And when you get stuck on a rock, and are entirely helpless to defend your ship:

Next up in this Newsletter, we'd like to talk about our plans for Freeroam.
With the Capital Update wrapping up, it has come time to discuss our plans for the first steps of Freeroam. Before now, we've left this step of the project pretty ambiguous, only describing it as having the basic features of the final game, and working up from there. But now, we've got some solid plans for you. Things are still flexible, so if you have any input be sure to discus it in the community.

By now, you all should be well acquainted with Hyperion Station, home of the Egg Hunts, Christmas Drinks, and the occasional reactor meltdown. Right now, it is practically just a showcase you can visit occasionally, whenever you want to check out the latest Faction Stalls. But with Freeroam, Hyperion Station will become so much more. Hyperion is the heart of RoVerse, the first place new players will join, where they will receive their orientation to gameplay mechanics like piloting ships, collecting ore, and completing quests.

But Hyperion isn't destined to just be a lobby for brand-new players, it will also be a central social space for all sorts of visitors to the RoVerse galaxy. To that end, as the first stage of Freeroam, we will be fully developing Hyperion Station into a full gameplay experience for all members of RoVerse, not just the new ones.

Think of it as RoVerse, but distilled down to a single star system to begin with. It will have all the important gameplay features, like Quests, Currency, and Ship Combat. But we also want to embrace the roleplay aspects of the game early - we want to develop a functioning economy to match the credit-earning capabilities of the quests system with things to spend your hard earned credits on. Clothing and Weapons to equip your player, expanding out into entertainment, like an Arcade with fun minigames, a Hotel with rentable and customizable player cabins, and Restaurants to purchase exotic and faction foods. We want to have a Bounty System, to establish a bounty-hunting force to keep rulebreakers and havoc-causers in line, a Station Security Force to maintain order, and a thriving Black Market Quest system, to cause disorder. We also won't let the Faction Stalls area fall into disuse - we want to add more purpose to those beautiful creations, and allow factions to sell their uniforms, and if Roblox adds a group-join prompt in-game, actively use those stalls to recruit new members.

In short, we want to create a fun game that players can spend their time in everyday, instead of continuing with our current process of large content updates to a Dogfight that everyone has played out. There will still be room for the Dogfight, however, with plans to turn it into a competitive VR simulation game that the best pilots in the galaxy come to Hyperion Station to compete in, as an in-universe explanation for its existence.

These features will not all be completed when we intend to open Hyperion Station 2.0 up - they can and will be added on over time, as they are completed. Instead of waiting months for new content with nothing to do in the meantime, you'll be able to enjoy the gameplay experience the full time, with exciting updates keeping you engaged. Earn credits to purchase ships and customize them to your liking, including civilian mining ships and transports, customize your own cabin with decorations like a Cyrus Gold Bobblehead or a fancy couch, or try some sushi shaped like a capital ship - what you make of the game will be entirely up to you.

And to wrap everything up, as system exploration systems are completed and the wider galaxy becomes ready for players to explore and conquer, a collaborative quest will begin. Players will be challenged to collect and deliver the required resources to construct the first galaxy's first Jumpgate, under the direction of the Professor and the Stationmaster, and unlock access to the rest of RoVerse in what we hope will be an exciting live event.

We hope you'll stick with us as we finish up the Capital Update to the Dogfight, and as we begin this exciting work on the first stage of the "Full Game" of RoVerse. And be sure to drop by the Discord with any ideas you have, we love to hear them.

We have the leaderboard stats from last week's leaderboard for you, which also involved bug fixes of its own sort - the extraction code we used incorrectly calculated whether a specific entry was on the correct day or not, so that led to it counting all kills after the week start date as kills from that week. With a little bit of code, we had that edge-case fixed:

Last week in the dogfight there were 131 kills, 47 with auto, 13 with beam, 12 with laser, 0 with plasma, 24 with railgun, and 35 with torpedo. The most dangerous ship was the Excalibur with 47 kills, followed by the Gladiator with 22. The most dangerous map was Pillarum with 65 deaths, followed by The_Great_Hollow with 35.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for...
The three players that topped the leaderboard were devOmegax, with 52 kills and 21 deaths and a 2.47 KDR; FangABXY with 31 kills, 21 deaths and a 1.47 KDR; and Niracih with 24 kills, 0 deaths, and a N/A KDR. They have unlocked the exclusive ship Radiant Corps Moonray 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 136)

This week in the dogfight there were 411 kills, 38 with auto, 40 with beam, 10 with laser, 31 with plasma, 9 with railgun, and 283 with torpedo. The most dangerous ship was the Chariot with 228 kills, followed by the Excalibur with 58. The most dangerous map was Pillarum with 162 deaths, followed by Blue_Spaceway with 119.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for...
The three players that topped the leaderboard were devOmegax, with 269 kills and 13 deaths and a 20.69 KDR; FangABXY with 60 kills, 14 deaths and a 4.28 KDR; and cakespy123 with 41 kills, 0 deaths, and a N/A KDR. They have unlocked the exclusive ship Radiant Corps Moonray 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 137)

Calexian Community Challenge
The challenges are: 10,000,000 Kill Distance, and 100 Outpost Victories

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 Capitals be able to have Mining Turrets attached to them?

A1: Unlikely, as they are two separate classes of ship. While they may overlap in size, Mining ships are specifically designed for their purposes, able to mount various mining devices on their turret mounts to collect and process ores from asteroids. A Capital ship is designed as a combat platform with various specialties from Carrier to Offensive intent, and would not be particularly effective at collecting ores. Mining ships will be able to get quite large, though they will lack the combat effectiveness of a dedicated combat ship.

Q2: Can we have blast mining with rockets/missiles/torpedoes?

A2: Those do sound quite cool. We'll look into it.

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