Category: User Interface

RoVerse Development Newsletter #143

4/13/2019

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 143rd issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, Idyllic has been hard at work on several features, completing the coding for several important ones this week.

First up is the re-enabling of a feature coded a long time ago - weapon toggles using the number row keys. Demoed in a newsletter a long, long time ago, this feature allows the player to turn on and off specific turrets by hitting the corresponding number key. While only marginally useful now, it forms the foundation for the eventual weapon-group toggles we hope to expand this feature to cover. The code is there for turning weapons on and off by key, it should be straightforward to expand that to turn groups on and off.

The next feature on the list was the binding of Missile firing to the 'F' key. While eventually we will allow full customization of keys to our players, for now the default is F. Instead of trying to fire the Missiles every 10 seconds with the left mouse button, which interfered with firing the faster weapon types, Missiles have been modified to use their own bit of firing code and be tied to a keybind.

This missile version being a torpedo, unsteered mono-directional explosive.

In a slight bug fix, Idyllic corrected some scaling issues with the turret stat gui, that caused it to move off-center with different screen sizes.

Another small change was some code that allows teams in gamemodes to tie, rather than just picking whoever had the highest score first. Should prevent some anger down the line when Team Alpha always wins the tie.

The last feature directly involves faction ships. Prior to this point, all ships available were added to the sort and purchasable, if you had the money. Now, those ships belonging to specific factions and restricted to faction members only, are now grayed out and unpurchaseable, unless you join their group.

Both their stats are not displayed and the ship is made transparent, to keep faction ships a little secret. We might also hide the description, if that is something faction leaders would prefer - vote in the community discord for your preference.

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: Do factions need to be militaristic, or is there room for other kinds?

A1: While nothing is forcing factions to be strictly military-based, defending and claiming territory without a strong presence in the game will be quite difficult. If it's a corporation you're looking to start, a subfaction might be more your speed - it doesn't hold any territory, but it can work with a faction host or on its own doing business around the galaxy.

Q2: Could you unlock faction secrets through exploration?

A2: While we don't have any plans for a system like this at the moment, there's nothing stopping us from considering it somewhere down the road as a way to discover faction lore even if you're an unaffiliated player or a member of another faction.

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 #138

3/9/2019

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 138th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week was another code-intensive week, with lordrex patching up a few bugs and adding a few features, and Idyllic making sure weapons are working correctly before moving on to the next item on the list. Skinny got some work done meshing more fighters, and found time to stream a bit of the process today.

First up, Skinny has continued to mesh the default fighters. This week he has increased his count by 6, with ships like the Hummingbird, seen below, being reduced from 37 parts all the way down to 6. There was a rocky start to his work, however - for some reason the Danube refused to be imported as a meshpart. Idyllic and Skinny spent quite a bit of time trying to solve the problem, from repeating the process independently to changing file types and export settings, but to no avail.

Wow, stream clip resolution is atrocious...

The problem was eventually identified, and we hope the solution will help other mesh-importing developers in the community: the word 'Danube' is censored. Yes, the solution was something as simple as renaming the filename so it didn't get bounced back by an overzealous censor...

Another tidbit learned during the meshing process - importing meshparts from .obj allows scale to be properly maintained from studio export to re-import, without having to resize the mesh or meshes when you get back into studio.

A few of the members of the community got the chance to tune into our latest development twitch stream, hosted by Skinny while he worked on meshing fighters. For his first stream it wasn't bad, but in the future we'll try and add background music or something, so it isn't just clicking and scrolling and the occasional exclamation. It was inspiring seeing the twitch channel back in use, especially since most of the original streams were heromaster building the ships skinny is meshing, and we hope to keep that going moving forward.

Lordrex has been working on a loadout saving system for a week or two now, and is making some great progress. Loadouts are officially saved, so when you return to a ship you've purchased your kit is sitting there waiting for you to take it into battle.

With the replication bug patched from last week, Idyllic set about with the next important update - correcting some coding missteps that had the clients using your own ship's weapon table lookup for every other ship loaded on screen. The problem is quite obvious - unless everyone is flying an Excalibur with dual-plasma loadout, the code won't work. It is unknown where in the code this problem originated, or who made it, but the good news is that it is fixed.

As part of this correction, Idyllic and Lord got to dive into the game and test out every combination of weapons in an intense bug-finding-and-fixing session. Every ship from the Cardinal to the Blue Komodo was rigorously tested against both the loadout saving system, and the weaponry replication system. With a small loan of 1 billion dollars, Lord and Idyllic purchased and edited every currently-rigged ship to ensure the system is working correctly, and patched a few bugs that were found during the process.

Here we see Idyllic 1, in a fully-loaded Cardinal, firing warning shots at Idyllic2 - plasma-, laser-, auto-, missile-, and railgun-turrets all ablaze. Gameplay in this update will be much more complex and interesting than what was possible in the Dogfight Alpha, with a selection of weapon types suited for different players and different situations. We can't wait to see what sort of combos and loadouts players come up with to dominate on the battlefield.

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 ground vehicles have any complex damage mechanics?

A1: The best answer to that is we don't know quite yet, as many aspects of ground combat are unplanned yet, though a system more complex than whats used in spaceships is unlikely. For the sake of clarity and not confusing players, the systems will most likely be nearly identical.

Q2: Will far-off objects be rendered as sprites?

A2: We actually coded a feature specifically for this, back when max render distance was 10,000 studs from the origin. Now that max render is at 100,000 studs, the system is unnecessary. There are other technical limitations restricting the size of the map now, so even creating sprites won't let us make real-scale systems.

Q3: What will be the range for missiles/rockets/torpedoes?

A3: Ideally, missiles will keep going on in whatever direction they were fired in indefinitely. Torpedoes might be useful at long-range on an unsuspecting and unprepared target, while homing missiles and guided rockets will be unable to give chase to their target when they run out of fuel, limiting their ranged effectiveness.

Q4: Will there be any weird worlds?

A4: Definitely.

Q5: Will there be planets made of metal?

A5: Not directly, but there will be planets with more metal resources than others.

Q6: Can I just mindlessly attack people in RoVerse?

A6: Yep. You are free to do whatever you want in-game, but you will have to live with the consequences. Kill too many ships and get put on a piracy list, marked as kill-on-sight? Consequences. One of the problems we identified with modern factions is how they can refuse a war, either by not defending their outpost, or not acknowledging your victories. To that end, RoVerse is full-combat outside of a few select neutral systems. What good are fleets of ships if you can't invade a system and take over, stealing its valuable resources for your own war efforts? On the player scale, systems may be governed by the faction in power, but you could potentially be a very successful pirate, maybe even get a sponsor from another faction that wants you wreaking havoc on their enemies.

RoVerse Development Newsletter #133

2/2/2019

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 133rd issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, Idyllic took a trip back in time to work on two of the most-requested features immediately following the launch of the dogfight alpha - boost charge and hit markers. Lordrex has been busy, adding an experience tracking and ranking system and patching some bugs.

If you've spent any time at all playing around in the dogfight alpha, you know that the boost function is a very useful tool for blazing across the map to attack your enemies. But you quickly realize that it's easier to just hold down boost all the time, and nearly always have the advantage over newer players that don't know the controls yet. This wasn't always the plan. One of the features that got bumped to be added "after initial release," the addition of a boost charge meter was mostly forgotten, along with many of the planned additions, that were deemed too complicated to add to the original scripting. Now, after a code refactor and other various improvements, it was finally time to check that tickbox.

Finally adding function to the second set of tickmarks on the ship ui, the boost charge meter does exactly what it sounds like it does - keeps track of how much boost energy you have left in the tank. When not boosting, this power recharges slowly over time. This also means that boost does, in fact, run out. No more boosting non-stop through battles. Sorry.

This addition involved a few tweaks to the code, that all started with Idyllic patching the boost-throttle bug. In the dogfight, if you were to hit boost while also holding 'W' the throttle key would override the boost and you would remain at regular max speed. Letting go would also catapult you forward to max boost speed instantly, and was seriously problematic. Good news, though - this bug has been patched.

Another feature that was highly-requested post-dogfight was a visual hit marker to go along with the auditory ones that play when you hit an enemy ship. The code has always been there to make the sounds work, so adding in a small bit of code that creates a hit marker on the player's cursor was trivial - it was the design that required some thought. There are lots of hit marker effects in sci fi games, from your standard cross or x, to fancier ones that have crazy effects. We wanted to stand out, but not be too excessive, so we went with a simple addition to the existing cursor you know and love.

The key is to not go too big, or it becomes distracting, don't go too fancy or it'll be hard to read in combat, and with enough contrast that you can see it when deep in combat.

Lordrex has been working on an experience and rank system to reward players for completing various activities, and to reward the most dedicated of players with a badge of honor showing their skills as a pilot.

Now you'll get a handy popup notification when you are rewarded with credits or exp, or when you rank up. We're still working on what exactly the ranking system entails, but you might be able to achieve some fancy titles fitting for your position, or even unlock fancier skins. This feature should add a nice extra dimension of depth to the game, to keep players coming back for continued challenges and to unlock cooler things over time - all unlockable with igc, of course.

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 the targeting hud from the dogfight alpha be available in the full release?

A1: The existing targeting system will be used, though there will be restrictions to the range you can see enemy ships at, similar to the radar. We don't want to lose all the stealth aspects of the game, but we can't expect players to pick out two moving pixels kilometers away.

Q2: Will there be a release of the RoVerse gun and vehicle scripts so that factions can add them to their bases?

A2: That remains to be seen. On the one hand, security is important - on the other hand a game with as lofty goals as RoVerse is a prime target for exploits and placestealing, so it might be better to release anything ourselves. We'll see.

Q3: Will ground combat become obsolete it the face of overwhelming aerial firepower?

A3: We don't want it to. We'll be setting up ground combat to be equal parts air support, vehicles, and infantry. Expect obstacles for vehicles to run into, small shields to minimize airstrikes, and large distances requiring transport, each playing off of each other in a fun and rewarding combat system.

Q4: What sort of content will come after the full release?

A4: After release there should be a slew of new default ships added, as well as skins to go along with them. There's always room for new weapon types and expansions to keep combat interesting, and the list of features on Idyllic's wish list that would be cool to have, but aren't vital for release.

Q5: Can we program station defenses with targeting priorities for their automated functions?

A5: The full depth of automated station defenses are still being planned, but we would like some way to set priorities - why have the cannons trying to shoot small fighters when a capital is doing more damage. I'd put that on the 'eventually' list.

Q6: Could a subfaction pilot undock a corp ship, fly to a neutral station, and dock it as their own there?

A6: No - ships constructed by a corporation are inherently that corporation's property, a solo player on a thieving streak won't be able to make off with it. In this case, it would remain the corporation ship, just docked at a neutral station.

Q7: Will there be infantry shields?

A7: A handheld shield is a possibility. Depending on how flexible the ground combat system is, we plan on supporting a wide variety of weaponry and arms.

Q8: How many horsepower does the excalibur have?

A8: At least 7.

Q9: Will you be able to stop midway while warping in the middle of space and mine asteroids or build a base?

A9: Definitely. The warp system is just there to help speed along the process of travelling across the vast reaches of space, it's not locking gameplay into small spheres around landmarks. Asteroid belts will stretch all the way around stars, there will be endless risk and reward out in the void for the brave adventurer. And, if you wanted to, you could set up a station or outpost out there, which would then turn into a landmark you could warp to.

RoVerse Development Newsletter #132

1/26/2019

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 132nd issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, Idyllic has continued work on intra-system warp and a tweak to the credit system, while lordrex has made some changes to solar flare code.

In an update to work we hinted at last week, we now have some official photos of the radar system update. Here you see all the points of interest in your local system arrayed out around the edge of your radar map. We might have to bump up the size of those icons yet, but the code behind it is complete and fully-functional.

With that work out of the way, it was time to dive back into the warp systems, which involved creating a toggle-able HUD to display available warp targets very much like the radar system, allow the user to select and target that location, similarly to the way fighters target enemy fighters, and then tie that into the warp system, allowing you to vroom across the stars at high speed to your next destination.

With lots of technical checks to make - like making sure you're on-target, out of the warp zone you were previously in, and not in a warp cooldown - a few tweaks needed to be made to the existing code, but nothing too substantial. The most complicated part was the custom intersection check, basically a raycast to make sure your ship is lined up with a valid warp sphere. While a regular old raycast would work in most situations, planets are larger than any sphere part can go, so there's nothing to intersect with. Sure, closestpoint would work, but with a max range of 1000 studs, a custom solution seemed like the better option.

Target selection is rather straightforward - you toggle on the HUD that highlights your options, from planets to stations to jumpgates to wormholes. A simple right-click and it's highlighted - then all you have to do is align your ship with your destination. For that, we plan on two systems - manual, where you turn your ship until it intersects the valid sphere, and automatic, where your ship auto-turns towards the center of your target. Manual, of course, offers the greater flexibility when it comes to picking where exactly your ship will land, while automatic leaves the pilot free to fight off any pursuers chasing after them. Each should have their useful scenarios.

The system is nearing completion, with successful jumps being made from spawn to planet, planet to planet, and planet to wormhole already. There are a few rough edges to clean up yet, but capital ships should be cruising the skies in no time.

Another bit of code Idyllic worked in this week, was the thousands-separator for the credit bank. Nobody likes reading a bunch of zeroes trying to figure out just how much money they have, now you can tell in a single glance.

For some reason roblox doesn't support adding commas in their string.format function. A shame, really.

Lordrex made some changes to his flare code, this time adding a smooth transition from on-screen to off-screen.

RoVerse Development Newsletter #131

1/19/2019

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 131st issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, Idyllic has been at work on the Capital update, implementing a universal credit system for the purchase of more powerful and higher tier ships, weaponry loadouts, and skins, while Lordrex has patched a few bugs with several of our gamemodes. Idyllic also put in some work on the intra-system warp system and radar, as well as refactored the menu guis to scale with the user's screen.

First up, the new menus. A member of the RoVerse Discord community mentioned this past week that the images we were showing in the newsletters lacked the appropriate scaling features necessary for game guis to work on screens of all sizes, and that in a few studio testing gifs and pictures the UI was crowded and out of place. Taking this advice, Idyllic spent a little time this week setting up the UI to use UISizeConstraints and UIAspectRatioConstraints, to allow our hand-made guis to scale with the size of the user's screens.

Going to show that even the most knowledgeable developers can still learn new tricks, the use of the Aspect Ratio Constraint was instrumental in the success of the gui modifications. Without it, any sort of design goes out the window when a player with a 4:3 square screen starts resizing gui elements defined by scale.

Changes were also made to the top menu bar, where we opted for a more condensed icons-only version. Previously we had both icons and the menu name spelled out, and Idyllic developed a collapsible version to save screen space on smaller screens, but in the end it just didn't seem necessary. The icons themselves, if properly selected, should be able to tell the story of what they do, otherwise they're pointless.

The Description panel and Stats panel were anchored appropriately to the bottom corners of the screen, with only a few tweaks needed to allow the stats panel to scale by its parent element. The centered arrows used in loadout editing and ship selection also scale, but keep their aspect ratio and are still anchored to the center of the screen.

You may have noticed another feature tucked into the corner of the new menus. A mysterious number and symbol, but what could it mean?

That's right! Players can now purchase ships and mount weapons to their ships for a fee, and the interface tells you right there how many energy credits, or €, you have remaining. Prices are still to be negotiated and calculated, don't expect to buy a Heavy Fighter for 10 credits.

On the topic of credits - the fighter refactor did include the addition of credits, and functions to award the player credits for kills and other gamemode events, so tying into that system was straightforward.

Lordrex spent the week patching bugs and making modifications to our existing gamemodes, and making preparations for any new ones we plan to add in the future. Currently there are three gamemodes - the Team Deathmatch you all know and love, a Free-for-all match, and a Team King of the Hill. A nice variety to get us started, while we work on the extensive list of gamemodes the members of the Community have voted for in the discord voting channel.

Spending a bit of time on Capital features, Idyllic expanded the feature set of the radar system we debuted quite a while ago, adding in the ability to see important landmarks outside of the ships natural radar range. You'll only be able to pick up enemy fighters within a range of about 500 studs, but we want you to be able to find your way around a system easily too, so planets and wormholes/jumpgates will also appear on your minimap, giving you a heading to steer your way to wherever you want to go.

Along with this update, Idyllic added the ability to toggle these icons on the player's HUD. No longer is there just your selected target, but also distant planets and other celestial bodies you might want to warp over to and take a closer look.

Fortunately enough, the planet radar icon created by Mikey is an excellent fit for highlighting distant planets on the HUD, as it gracefully encircles the target, getting the information it is trying to convey across simply and elegantly. And I can't imagine trying to find a wormhole out of a system without any sort of guide, as you can see by comparing the photos above and below.

These new features are still in their early stages and have a few bugs to be worked out, but working on them was a nice change of pace from working so hard on fighter mechanics.

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 are the benefits of using fixed vs gimbal weapons?

A1: The difference between the two weapon types is fairly straight forward - fixed weapons are mounted directly to a ships air-frame, and cannot turn to lead your shots, whereas gimballed weapons require a mounting structure that can turn in place, with several angles of motion. Your fixed turrets will generally have better stats, like more damage and better accuracy, while gimbal weapons have more aiming freedom and don't require lining up your ship with your target.

Q2: Missiles, how do they work?

A2: We plan on having three types of missiles - the homing ones demonstrated a few newsletters ago, a guided version that tracks the cursor, temporarily called rockets, and an unguided version called torpedoes that fire in a straight line.

Q3: What happens when you reach the edge of a system?

A3: I think Juszl put is best - "The inherent subspace gravitational field of each solar system is minute in most forms, but when concerning the pull of the sublight drives relying on the ambient gravity signatures of celestials in the core of the systems, it renders them increasing inefficient the farther out a craft goes, to the point of it becoming dangerous to venture any further. Coupled with this the already present dangers due to the lack of proper equipment to deal with deep space operation, this can pose quite a threat to spacecraft." Sure, we have technical reasons for limiting the map size, but that doesn't mean we have to slap up a wall and say turn around. So go and write your own lore about it.

Q4: Will Capitals ever get combo turrets?

A4: Unlikely. Combo turrets are still on the board for vehicles and armor on the ground, because having an auto turret to support a main battle cannon is an important feature to have when you're limited to a single turret mount. Capitals, on the other hand, have plenty of mounts to allow players to select the proper assortment of weapon types, making combo turrets unnecessary.

RoVerse Development Newsletter #127

12/22/2018

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 127th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, Lordrex has made excellent progress on the Capital Update, implementing the leaderboard gui we talked about last week, as well as varieties for a bunch of different gamemodes. Idyllic began implementation of his Capital functionality and main menu revisions, as well as created the most recent system mockup. We also discuss the implications of the new Roblox feature - automatic LOD.

Last week we showed you the original graphics mockup for the game-end leaderboard. This week, Lordrex has spent a good chunk of time turning it into a functional board - better layout for coding, columns for stats we want to track, list layouts for the actual lists of players, and hooking all that up to the gamemode system so it actually shows valid data at the end of a match.

With that out of the way, he jumped over to the in-game displays for important gamemode information - for instance in the KOTH gamemode, you'll be able to see the current top players, compared to team gamemodes that show the two team's stats that you are familiar with from the dogfight.

Speaking of the dogfight - there is a relative simplicity and ease-of-use that came from the way information was displayed on-screen.

The two teams are clearly defined, and the information is well-labeled, though the team identifier needs some work. But just plain numbers simply don't cut it for every situation - it's hard to tell how far you've come if you're heading for a goal as in koth, or fighting off destruction as in tdm. To that end we've been working on adding in a system of percentage bars, that you're all well-acquainted with from all over Roblox, most prominently in ammo displays.

So far lordrex has the coding done, but the presentation is being worked on. We'll be sticking to the center display for this information moving forward, rather than sliding it off to the side of the screen where you have to actively go looking for it, which pulls you out of battle and could lead to disaster.

Idyllic spent time this week working directly on the Capital Update code, removing the intro animation for the fighter hangar that had become severely broken over time, instead laying the groundwork for combining the work he has completed over the past few months with the dogfight alpha file. This meant trading the full-scale hangar for the space-scale fighter hangar that supports showing the player their ship options at native scale, rather than requiring a set of scaled-up ships rigged with a special format, among other code changes to better support the new menu systems.

He also got a chance to work on the system mockup - a few weeks ago we determined our boundaries were going to be right around +- 50,000 studs from the origin, before floating point rounding errors caused significant warble among ship parts when moving. Since this limit was recently expanded to this size, and it doesn't look like there are any plans to move that any further in the near future, we're intent on developing an at-scale mockup of the layout of a typical system, from planets to asteroid fields to jumpgates to stars.

Speaking of stars, this new limit will require us to reduce the actual size of stars in systems, but not their visual size. There are plenty of tricks up our sleeves when it comes to creating mirages, from billboard guis to fancy coding, that will let stars feel enormous, without taking up a significant portion of the system they reside in - made possible by the fact that of the objects in systems, the stars are pretty much the only things you won't be able to interact with up close (well, you can try, but I wouldn't recommend it).

Roblox recently released a feature that we've been testing for its viability in making RoVerse Systems even better - Dynamic CSG LOD, or Level Of Detail. This feature takes parts that have been made using CSG, and at a distance greater than 500 studs, generates a lower-resolution model so save on rendering power. This is of particular interest to us in an application to the asteroid fields that will fill the 220 star systems available in the galaxy.

While it doesn't function quite as intended, since RoVerse is scaled down significantly, it may work best for our needs in combination with a chunk system - rather than outright remove asteroids at significant distance from the player, we could thin them out, with a few low-res versions taking the place of an entire field of full-res asteroids.

It is important to note that as of this newsletter, this feature only applies to CSG and there is no word on any future support for meshes, so its applications so far are rather limited, but luckily our csg asteroids built with such care by Heromaster and Domeboybeene should work for any immediate testing.

It's actually hard to tell if it's working or not, so that either means it's doing a really good job, or it doesn't work at all. We'll keep testing and let you know.

It's the holiday season again, and on behalf of the entire RoVerse Development team I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. We'd like to thank you all for sticking with us through thick and thin these past two years, and hope you'll stick around a bit longer as we keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible on Roblox, all to support a fantastic clan community that keeps us excited and optimistic about the future we're all building together.
--Idyllic

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 land vehicles have limited fuel?

A1: Fuel is a feature we're still on the fence about throughout the game, but I will say this - if capital ships have fuel, expect ground vehicles to have fuel of some kind.

Q2: Will you be able to build extremely large ships that can carry other ships inside them?

A2: Definitely. If your ship has the hangar capacity, you can stuff it full of whatever ships you want - fighters, civilian craft, mining teams, even small capitals.

Q3: In the capital alpha will there be a first-person view?

A3: No. The views you've seen in the dogfight alpha and the newsletter previews are what you'll get. Care was taken in the design and coding of the camera and its relationship to the ship you're piloting, throwing in a cockpit surface view would only be disorienting. We found that a third person camera view was the best balance of visibility and control for piloting both fighters and capitals.

Q4: Will RoVerse use FiB?

A4: Of course! We waited a whole year in anticipation for it to be released and make our games look as epic as veds pictures made them look, it'd have to be extremely broken for us not to.

RoVerse Development Newsletter #126

12/15/2018

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 126th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, we have continued work on Capital features from Idyllic, coding work from lordrex on gamemode and menu systems, Juszl has begun work on a new map for the Update, and skinny has progress work on a medium Capital turret.

First up is the weapons work Skinny has been up to. We have here a double-barreled Plasma turret fitting into the medium turret category, comprised of 2 (two) single plasma turret barrels welded together, showing the adept engineering talents of the designers over at the Celestia Vega Defense Incorporated.

Early progress this week involved defining the form of the turret, then going in and adding detail as needed.

With results looking excellent. Earlier versions had neon loops at the ends, but they kicked the triangle count through the roof, so neon spikes have been substituted.

Juszl has been hard at work on his studies, but also a new map for the Update. Featuring mysterious and alien rock formations, and a sinister environment, intrepid explorers and seasoned fleet commanders alike are cautioned against entering this field of battle, for within it lie the wrecks of countless precursors who have fallen before.

Building a map for the Update isn't as straightforward as setting up a randomized asteroid generator, adding a few spawn points and calling it a day - real planning has to be involved to create an interesting map with variety and opportunity for unique engagements. Picture your favorite FPS map - there should be different paths to take, different heights to be at with opportunities for advantages and disadvantages based on your team tactics. In space we have a lot more degrees of freedom for players in combat, so to keep the map interesting special care needs to be taken.

A feature that sets us apart from other games in the genre is the variety of scale in our ships - from the minuscule Excalibur to the behemoth Capulus, but that also leads to a problem - designing maps to work at different scales. A Capital ship may want a clear area with lots of large rocks and debris to maneuver around, but to a fighter a large empty space means being stranded if they get caught. This doesn't mean there won't be gulfs of space, just that we have to be careful with their placement.

Lordrex has taken on the task up updating the dogfight alpha's ui elements that tie into the gamemodes we plan on adding, making UI mockups like the image below into functioning team lists and leaderboards.

This is no easy task, though - these menus were designed by a visual artist, not a ui designer, and as such aren't properly set up to code right out of the box. But they are pretty sweet.

Idyllic's work this week focused primarily on the systems that have been in development for the past few weeks, like shields and nameplates, and a few older features like lights and engine effects - rigging and adding them to the rest of the roster of ships we have awaiting the Capital Update. This is no small task, however, so he's been working on processes and automation to make the whole thing easier.

Part of this task was rigging up a high-quality mesh created by skinny to test the triangle limits of the system, as a sort of impromptu-capital ship. This 400k tri, 56 meshpart ship functioned perfectly under normal conditions, casting a positive light on future ships having a quite substantial triangle count.

The gif above shows the hitmarker system developed this week as an addition to the shields demoed last week, in it's most basic form. The effects will eventually be scaled to fit the size of the ship they're hitting, as well as consider the size of the projectile hitting them - a pea shooter wouldn't leave a mark on a battle tank.

The images below are a selection of the ships that have been fully rigged and are ready for combat.

Each week we compile a Q&A section here whenever there are any new questions posted on the RoVerse Community group wall or in the Community Discord Server. Be sure to join if you have any questions about RoVerse:

ROBLOX Group: https://www.roblox.com/My/Groups.aspx?gid=2948290
Discord server: https://discord.gg/npxBGwJ

Q1: How will managing stations work?

A1: The idea is that a Faction leader assigns someone the role of stationmaster, who has access to all the controls involved in managing and operating a station - for an industrial station this would include setting prices to purchase ore from independent contractors, for a military station it would be managing fleet storage and access. These players would have access to the menu systems that allow all sorts of controls.

Q2: Can faction devs have input on their ship stat style?

A2: Faction-submitted ships will be able to be customized to faction specifications within reason - if your faction prefers meters of armor over advanced shield systems, we will buff your ship armor stats and debuff shield power. A faction has already requested such variations, talk to Idyllic if you have something else in mind.

Q3: How does the inter-system drive that ships that can't fit in jump gates work. Is it like cynosural fields where there has to be a ship on the other side making a beacon?

A3: Our current plans are nowhere near that complex - a large Capital would trigger the wormhole device, and it would connect with the nearest system in that direction. Vectors will be calculated to determine the exit point of these temporary rifts.

Q4: Can you upgrade your FTL drive for more speed?

A4: We don't plan on allowing this at the moment, as ftl is planned to be a really fast speed close to the max the server can handle us slinging players around at. I'd look for more useful modules to add first, like shield enhancers or repair bots.

Q5: Can you upgrade turrets to be more powerful than usual?

A5: This isn't currently planned. There are the different turret classes and mounts, and the variations between fixed, gimbal, and turret types, as well as faction asset custom stats, but other than that it will be a fair playing field.

Q6: What would happen if an XXXL rammed an outpost?

A6: Someone would get fired. Imagine going through the months to years of effort to construct the largest most devastating weapon in the galaxy, then destroying it by crashing it into a solid object. I highly recommend using the actual weapons we so helpfully provided on ships to attack things, not destroying yourself by running into an immovable object.

Q7: Can Capitals dock with other Capitals?

A7: No. Find a station or use a shuttlecraft to transfer personnel between ships.

Q8: Can ships honk?

A8: I just might put our best audio engineers to work on making that happen...

Q9: How long does it take to get a ship rigged and ready?

A9: Now that Idyllic has had plenty of practice, rigging a capital for flight is a matter of minutes, when the ships are set up nicely to let him work. Grouping attachment points for weapons together, engine particle emitters, and nameplate surfaces makes his job easier, as well as placing a center core for the ship and anchoring all the parts before submitting it.

Q10: Will lunar mining be a thing?

A10: There will be all sorts of mining possible, from using a mining ship in space armed with lasers that eat through rock, to landing on planetary bodies with a hand tool or heavy equipment to scour the surface for minerals - moons being no exception.

RoVerse Development Newsletter #123

11/24/2018

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 123rd issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, we have a number of features added to the Capital Update code by Idyllic, including an addition to the explosion system, the base code for inter- and intra-system warp of ships, a proximity alert and bank UI addition, work on some weapons and weapon effects from Skinny, as well as an update on where lordrex is. Other than that, the holiday week was pretty quiet.

To get us started this week was a suggestion that came from the community as feedback on a feature we demoed a few newsletters ago - ship explosions. Our original version was sure to make a large and visually strong impact when something as expensive as a Capital ship was destroyed in combat, but it could be improved. Provided with a concept video from another space game, Idyllic set about adding in more, smaller-scale explosions along the hull of the ship before the full reactor-breach explosion that leaves a pile of rubble in the skies.

Since the ship is already provided with a hitbox, and the math for collisions and bouncing was already done, adding in smaller explosions was only a matter of a few lines of code slipped in before the big bang. There will be further refinement to keep the explosions closer to the ship, as you can see in the gif was a problem, and there may be some edge cases that ships aren't convex that may need a bit more work, but we can chalk it up as a new feature. Also included in the suggestion was the loss of helm control once your ship is down but not exploded, which coincidentally was already included as a feature.

On the UI front, recent additions to the Capital Update required new UI elements, like a bank to display how many credits a player has accrued, and other useful HUD info like a proximity alert function that players may find extraordinarily useful as they explore the dark and dangerous regions of space that fill the galaxy.

Now you'll be warned in time to take action when you stumble into range of a hostile station or pirate outpost, strange nebula, or even when the daring adventurer gets too close to a star.

Idyllic also dove back into Capital ship functionality, adding in the basic functions that will govern warping from point to point within a star system, but will also be useful for the future implementation of jump gates and wormholes, which should receive their initial testing in the Capital Update. Below we have a demo of camera FOV scaling and ship speed being pushed to the max, though destination calculation and selection, along with the other visual effects will come at a later time.

No more will you have to plod your way through the barren voids between asteroid fields, stations, and jump gates - warp systems shorten that time significantly, though as you can see it will not be instantaneous.

Lordrex has wrapped work on the station replication system, and has joined Idyllic in working on the Capital Update, already implementing a data saving system to record your stats across sessions, which will be an important expansion on what was available in the Dogfight Alpha. His help on this portion of the project should speed things along.

Skinny took it upon himself to create a new, higher-resolution plasma turret of the default variety, which then led to him working on particle flare effects.

Now with 150% more neon.

Muzzle Flash Concept

RoVerse Development Newsletter #115

9/29/2018

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 115th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you up to date on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, Idyllic really dove into his work, with substantial progress in quite a few different areas, from HUD updates to ship explosions. Lordrex has also continued his work on replication data, with a status update on his progress.

First up is a small but important feature added to ship loadout modification.

The new addition, there at bottom center, is a list of the turrets you have exchanged, and the number of each type, giving you a total cost to rekit the current ship. This marks one of the first steps towards in-game purchasing by the player, meaning we get to mark that section in the roadmap as 'in-progress.' Please note, prices are for testing porpoises only, and may not reflect final in-game cost per turret.

With that out of the way, Idyllic moved on to the next feature on his list. Integrating the health and shield HUD demoed quite a few newsletters back, with the new turret weapon systems. Last week, the bullet reflection demo didn't quite manage to show it, but bullets that don't reflect are marked as hits, triggering the damage function. This week involved fleshing out that system, including a small part that registers damage to a ship's health, and updates the player's hull health display.

But how to test this system? Loading a test server takes so much time, and integrating every new feature into filtering-compatible takes too much time and effort... So how about the next best thing?

The Automated Rapid-Fire Conventional Turret Weapons Platform, or ARFCTWP, for the linguistically flexible. Using the latest in target-seeking technology straight out of the Roblox wiki scripting cookbook chapter 2, to find and eliminate all threats in its vicinity with extreme prejudice.

Serving both as a proof-of-concept for any future plans we might have for automated defense turrets, and a helpful tool in testing damage and combat systems, the automated turret does its job quite well, well enough that we're optimistic about future implementations of it.

On a technical side, it functions on the same code as ship turrets, but with all the ship code trimmed out, meaning that any tech we develop for ships will also function for automated turrets, from missiles to fixed mounts. In the future, we would like to improve the targeting system to be a bit more complex and anticipate locations, as right now it shoots for center of mass, but that will come with time.

Further work on details involving health and damage systems included the classic explosion effect finally brought forward again, with the beginning work on spawning in shipwrecks when ships are destroyed. One detail we'd like to specifically point out is the fact that the ship continues moving after sustaining critical damage. In the Capital Demo video, ships froze and exploded when they had taken too much damage, with led to some awkward transitions from high speed to dead stop. Now, the loss of helm control and the ships inertia mean it continues to travel forward, before being completely destroyed. While we acknowledge that the wreck should also continue to move, the fact that we aren't doing solar gravitation physics requires that it stop eventually.

On the replication front, another week of intense coding has gone by, with more and more work being added onto the data replication scripts that make parallel servers possible. This week saw some early-stage data tables being sent from one server to the VPS, where it is compared with existing data, then distributed to other instances, to edit an object's 'health.'

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 different branches of a faction have different styles of ships?

A1: Definitely! If you go through the effort of developing different branches, we'll support it. You can submit the different ship designs the same way a faction would, and we might be able to give you the power to restrict members to their specific branch of ships.

Q2: Will there be faction ships in the Capital update?

A2: I hope so, the rigging system was rather straightforward, the only barrier remaining would be restricting use to members of that faction, which doesn't seem all that hard to overcome.

Q3: Can factions add more ships after the game releases?

A3: Definitely, we plan to allow rolling submissions of ships for the entire duration of play, as new factions join up, plant their flag, and take on the galaxy, as well as the established factions improving their designs and updating their styles.

Q4: Asteroid harpoons?

A4: I sure hope so.

Q5: If someone steals a ship model and tries to reupload it as theirs, what will happen?

A5: We intend to have a moderation system to verify that ship designs aren't already in-game, but you should be pretty well off if you have a distinct theme of ships. It would be hard to pass a Vak fighter off as your own, in theory.

Q6: How will time be calculated in RoVerse? Could a week be a year?

A6: Our current plans for a RoVerse calendar include cycles of 7 days as the default unit, four cycles making a quad, 12 quads making an annum, and 7 annum making a septum. Of course, it's recommended that factions have their own calendar systems to fit their lore, while the RoVerse time system is there to help keep track of events happening in-game.

Q7: Could factions build relics to have scattered around a few lore systems?

A7: Sure, if you build some cool old stuff, we'll do our best to include them in the generation functions, either as ruins on planet surfaces, or wrecks and debris floating in space.

Q8: To what extent can factions have moving parts on ships? Foldable wings, or just spinning turbines?

A8: As of now we don't have very many plans involving details on ships that move, as most of the movement we currently have uses particles and beams. A few moving pieces may be possible, maybe as a landing gear function, but we'll have to see how things perform later down the line.

RoVerse Development Newsletter #109

8/18/2018

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 109th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, Idyllic has continued working on Capital ship systems and menus, with work this week in selecting ship skins, support for faction turret models, and an addition of turret identification while selecting different ships. Lordrex has continued work on asset loading systems, and hopes to have a working demonstration soon. Stratiz had surgery then broke his nose while doped up, so he's been otherwise occupied recently.

Up first is Idyllic's progress in the world of Capital ship loadouts. Over the past few weeks, it became apparent when putting the default turret models on the wide variety of default ships, that one-design-fits-all isn't true. So we'll be developing lines of weapons for each line of default ships as we move forward, with the added bonus that the code will work for faction-created ships as well.

Seen here with the faction-built blank slot models, instead of the default blanks shown last week.

And this doesn't just include unmounted turret locations, but different turret types too. Here we have a rough prototype model for a Ninazu beam turret.

So if you're in the middle of building faction ships, keep in mind you'll need to build the weapons that go along with it. And be creative! A few Ninazu turrets are spheres that discharge energy, not your usual transit turret type by a long shot.

Next on the list was a minor tweak to ship selections, adding a way for players to easily identify all the turret locations on a ship at a glance. Eventually it will feature different icons for Light, Medium, and Heavy Turret Mount locations, for now it gives a nice overview from the static positioning of the camera while selecting a ship.

A nice little quality-of-life feature.

Continuing on, Idyllic took on the task of adding a way to interchange ship skins in the editor. While not a top-of-the-list feature by a longshot, he had a busy week and needed something flashy for this week's newsletter, and it was a logical extension from the rather mundane task he actually had to do.

Any good game has vehicle skins.

Before now, all the pictures and gifs of the Avenger have been of a brick-modeled ship, made of about 400 bricks of various colors and shapes. This was the model that was rigged up, and the model that every other feature has been tested with.

But now, the body kit of the ship has been perfectly replaced with its meshed duplicate, that we demoed ages ago, but just haven't got around to replacing it with. And since Idyllic was already working with meshes and textures, creating a few new ones to spice things up wasn't all that much more work.

We had a question this week about recoloring ships, and to answer that question directly, it won't be the same process you're used to in most other Roblox games. Since the ships are meshed for performance reasons, it's really only one part with a texture applied in a variety of colors. If factions want to recolor their designs, they can edit them via texturing, but you won't be able to pick different colors in-game.

We'll put out a demo on Blender stencils in the future, for those aspiring fans that want to design their own skins for their own ships, or other player's ship designs.

And yes, it does function with the turret loadout system...

...and the deployment system.

We also recommend marking turret locations in your ship exports, as Idyllic learned the hard way, it's very easy to cover your designs with turret mounts.

We'd like to note that these designs were quick 5-minute painting sessions, we're sure there'll be much more detailed and interesting designs in the future.

And who knows, the people who play the Capital Update might get access to an exclusive skin come full release...

One last change made to Capitals these past few weeks, and still an in-progress job, is the transition from planar capital ship combat, to true 3D combat. While the star systems may be of a more horizontal nature, it wouldn't be fair to restrict you to a perfectly flat playing field without good reason.

And we haven't got a good reason, so unlimited rolls and turns and twists, for all your battle-strategy needs.

A few bugs yet to work out, and the matter of a good following camera, but nothing insurmountable.

Lordrex has had a very productive week on loading and saving, with basic functionality coded at this point on the server end, with some supporting code on the game side. We can't wait to see a station loaded into two parallel servers at the same time!

The rest of our devs have been quite busy this week, from military service, to employment, to having dental surgery then smashing their face into the ground doing a backflip, and as we get back into the school year for some of us, it is important to know what to put first. But we can't wait to see what they come up with in their free 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: As a feature of the city population system, could we transfer in more people to boost production for a short period of time?

A1: An excellent expansion of the population system, I think. Rewarding those with transport ships for shuttling people to different colonies, and rewarding the factions that don't shoot down transport ships with increased production and expansion. If you play your cards right, you could land a bunch of people at once for an even bigger boost right when you need it.

Q2: How will missiles work? Limited range based on fuel? Hit other missiles? Hit objects on the way to their intended target? Will guided missiles follow the direct path to the target?

A2: There will be a variety of missile types, each with slightly different functionality and purpose - homing missiles that track down a selected target, as seen in the newsletters prior; guided ones that go towards a designated position; tracking missiles that follow the aiming reticle; and a scattershot variety. They will most likely have a timed lifespan, which should be fairly substantial due to how big space is and how far targets could be. Our demos showed a few missiles colliding after the arming distance and exploding, and I don't see why they wouldn't. Yes, they'll explode if they hit anything in their way, so aim carefully. And the path they take is arc-based, not a straight line - unless you're pointing the turret right at the target.

Q3: Scrap ships to recover value?

A3: While I wouldn't expect you to get 100% of the materials back, you should get a percentage, and a better percentage than you would by scavenging a wreck. Credits spent to get the ship up and running, unfortunately, won't be refunded.

Q4: What's the status on imprisoning people on stations?

A4: An early idea was mentioned concerning player interactions on stations, and arresting people who break the law. Unfortunately, to make this happen, we'd either need universal laws about what was legal or not, or let factions establish arbitrary rules. Neither option is all that appealing, and would result in the general public avoiding stations at all costs, rather than be imprisoned for an arbitrary amount of time. On the bright side, though, it might be possible to capture people with a bounty on their head, and taken back to wherever the bounty is from, which would be a limited duration imprisonment.

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