Hello everyone! Welcome to the seventy-third issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week. It's been a wonderful few weeks with a lot of new features released perfect for developers, and in our case, for creating fantastic effects that make our game that much cooler. And so, our developers have been hard at work performing advanced scientific work on the applications these new features have. First up, the 100k stud clipping distance expansion. While for most maps currently on roblox, extending the clipping distance past 5000 studs in any direction won't make too much of a difference. But in the space genre, this has always been a problem. You'll be flying along in your ship and suddenly, a giant planet appears out of nowhere! Then you crash into it and explode. But now, with an expanded distance, you'll be able to see as far as you want, in any direction! We had tried to solve this problem by scaling down ships, and working on an object-to-surfacegui script to fake things past the view distance, but with this update, we'll have to fake it no longer! So in our final release, you'll be able to see as far as you want, and with Morgan working on our amazing star system generation scripts, you'll be able to see everything in each system, from the stars to the asteroids, to any capital ships warping in! There are still quite a few benefits to keeping ships scaled down significantly, so for now, that will remain a feature of the game. Also newly released this week, was the glass material. While still a bit buggy, this material offers some unique features that we might be able to use, most importantly the lensing effect. Ved has done a few tests that look quite promising. In other news, Skinny has continued his work on a large Cargo cruiser ship, designed to carry as much cargo as you or your faction needs. And RobustTitan has taken over work on the Industrial Outpost Interiors from Galbotrix, with some new details to spice up the layouts a bit. Progress on the Dogfight Alpha Capital Update is progressing exceptionally well, with lots of new features getting coded in daily. This week saw the implementation of the Radar Gui that Idyllic has been scripting, the Chat gui, the Health, Shield, and Speed display, and the rest of that lovely UI Ved designed a few weeks back ported over and polished up a bit. There have also been bug fixes on a number of fronts, from ship selection to combat, as well as the addition of ship trails and new, updated sound effects. We're excited to see the rest of the game come together in the coming weeks, nice work to TheFurryFish and SmellyPencil! This is just about your last chance to sign up for the Dogfight Alpha Tournament. Sign up with a team of your friends and prove who's the best pilot in the galaxy. You can find the form here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17KKApFQwTK-EW0uWbNQlWvq0i7OXem1Hf4YVh4SVOn4/viewform?edit_requested=true We should be announcing the date or dates of the battle soon, so don't wait too long! Each week we compile a Q&A section here whenever there are any new questions posted on the RoVerse Community group wall or in the Community Discord Server. Be sure to join if you have any questions about RoVerse: ROBLOX Group: https://www.roblox.com/My/Groups.aspx?gid=2948290 Discord server: https://discord.gg/npxBGwJ Q1: Will there be implemented mysteries ingame by the developers for extra fun and adventure? A1: There might be! And it wouldn't be much fun if we went and told you about them... Q2: Will there be limits on how many sub-factions can be created? A2: Starting up a subfaction won't be as easy as picking a name, there will be a significant cost to creating a new subfaction, to make sure you have the resources to succeed, and the dedication to lead a group of people to victory, either economic or otherwise. Q3: In this RoVerse community server, will there be new chats or maybe a whole new server only for the game which could, perhaps, be composed of a Trade chat so people can make offers, bounties, job employments ads and things like that? A3: Upon release, the Community server will receive a full overhaul in preparation for a new purpose - supporting a larger community, with functions for trade, hangouts for different groups, and so much more! Q4: Assuming a faction decides to withdraw from RoVerse a few months after game release for "x" reason, how would the mods handle it? Choose a random subfaction which occupies the territory and set it (if they're willing) as an official faction or simply remain unclaimed? A4: In the unfortunate case of a faction deciding that RoVerse isn't for them, we'll probably let the course of 'nature' take over. Each week they lose a system to invading forces, get pushed back to their origin system, and eventually Capital planet, until they meet their doom. If the members then decide to completely give up, that faction will never resurface. We might keep the capital city ruins around as a landmark, but they won't return. Q5: Will there be points of interests scattered around the map that could be related to a faction's lore but serve no purpose whatsoever? Like for instance, an ancient battleship wreckage, an abandoned space station, a hidden underground facility. Those points of interests would of course contain logs or things to collect which would explain a faction's lore or what happened in the location they are in, and maybe even make references to other events that happened during the faction's past? A5: We want a faction's presence to be a part of the wider galaxy, making RoVerse more than just a giant empty space game. We'll definitely work with factions to include monuments from their lore with a few restrictions, to better immerse the player in a giant galaxy where things actually happen. Q6: Will system expansions be a thing? Such as 6 months to one year after release, we'd get a bunch of new systems added to the game, maybe a whole new cluster. If yes, how will they be implemented? Since simply throwing them at the corner of the map wouldn't be fair, maybe put a neutral area for transition to a new galaxy or an undiscovered area? A6: In the eventual case that a system expansion is necessary, we'll have more firm details on how exactly an expansion would work, but we'll look into expanding the map with more interstellar systems, systems in new arms of the galaxy, or perhaps a whole new level above or below the current plane. We'll just have to see! Q7: How will exploration work? Will all information be known in advance when a fleet gets into a system or will you have to scan planets, survey them, maybe make maps of them or something? A7: Exploration will be an important part early in the game, for factions looking for specific mineral locations or which systems to invade and capture, what sources an enemy has control over. We've been thinking about including some sort of science vessel that's purpose is to scan objects to determine precise information, rather than just relying on what players report and see. And making maps of planets seems like a fun little task to do, especially if you can sell the data you've collected, or hide base locations on a faction planet. Q8: Will Vaktus ever talk in the Discord again? A8: Probably only if he's really needed for something. He's a very busy man. Q9: Can a ship owner customize their ship to their liking? A9: We have a whole host of features planned for customizing ships, from naming it after your favorite ship from history, to changing colors and textures, to changing weapons and consumables equipped. Each ship should, if the owner puts in a bit of effort, be completely their own. And there's always the option to start a subfaction and submit your own ship designs, or pay a subfaction to do it for you! Q10: How will attacks work when no one is present to defend? A10: Faction system defense takes place on a regular, predictable, weekly cycle, so that a faction can marshal their forces and defend it at a variety of predetermined times, to either successfully defend, or fail and lose their star system. Outposts and bases on the other hand, as territory controlling devices and defensive positions, are open to attack for a longer length of time. We're still nailing down the details, but it will probably be most of the time, to all of the time. You'll need to have a few friends around to defend them, and they will be heavily protected by weapons systems, but don't leave them unattended for too long. 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! Any fans of the science fiction genre on Roblox can join the Science Fiction Genre Discord and find other fans and developers like you. Remember, we are always looking for new, talented builders, scripters and artists! If you’d like to help us you can always get in touch with us through RoVerse_Official on the ROBLOX website, or by contacting an Administrator in the community Discord! Don’t worry, we don’t bite! Hello everyone! Welcome to the seventy-second issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week. This week, our devs have all been hard at work on a variety of tasks, from using the new beams feature to upgrade and update warp effects, to building ships, to adding more features to the radar gui. With some incredible progress to show, let's get right to it. You may remember a newsletter quite a ways back showing a demo of a warp field, and an even older newsletter with the jump gate portal made out of spiraling particles. Over the past week, our best effects experts have been updating and upgrading those effects using the new beam effect. This version is much less intense, especially for lower-end computers, making sure anyone is able to fly through a wormhole or a jump gate without a problem. We all can't wait to get the chance to fly a ship through one of these portals, and end up someplace completely different. What lies beyond these wormholes is for the adventurous and the brave to find out! We've also had some devs get back to work developing new capital ships, including this lovely ship developed by JangofettAlex. With its unique shape, and fancy exterior, any pilot can cruise and command the galaxy in style. Skinny has had quite the busy week, but he has continued his work on a large cargo ship that he has been working on. He's been busy adding details to the ship, like container numbers - it's important to keep who owns what cargo straight, or the unwitting captain might start an interstellar war. Idyllic has been quite busy as well, this close to the end of the semester, but he managed to add another important feature to the radar system - beacons. Beacons mark locations out of range of a ships radar system of important structures in a system, like the location of access wormholes, jumpgates, stations, and planets, showing them around the edge of the radar in the direction they lie. These locations will be visible in the HUD as billboard guis, but being able to see the ones behind and to the sides of your ship will come in handy. Seen in this demo are a planet icon, a wormhole, a jump gate, and a few fighters, as well as some capital target identifiers used to test the system, including weapons control, hangar, and a very far off escape pod. Thanks to Mikey for creating such a lovely set of icons for the radar. And the Capital Update dev team has been hard at work as well, and we're getting ever closer to release of that exciting update. This is just about your last chance to sign up for the Dogfight Alpha Tournament. Sign up with a team of your friends and prove who's the best pilot in the galaxy. You can find the form here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17KKApFQwTK-EW0uWbNQlWvq0i7OXem1Hf4YVh4SVOn4/viewform?edit_requested=true We should be announcing the date or dates of the battle soon, so don't wait too long! 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 cities have a more detailed district for when people walk in as opposed to doing a quick flyover? A1: One of the limits behind generating cities procedurally is that there really isn't an option to create a more detailed version of the city without some human interaction. That's why we're putting so much effort into designing somewhat realistic cities, so that they feel like cities, with roads to drive your tanks down. We're still courting the idea of clan-built capital sectors accessible through landmark structures and place teleports, so that factions, if they put the effort in designing their own structures, we can integrate them in some way. Q2: Will factions have theme songs that play when they fly into battle? A2: While this wouldn't be supported on our end, there's nothing stopping a faction discord from broadcasting theme music to get their troops prepped for battle in a voice chat. We'll be sure to include a mute function so you can turn off the epic music Animula's created and listen to your own, without missing the sounds of people shooting at you. Q3: Will there be an alpha for ground battles as there is for space battles? A3: More likely than not, since planets will definitely be the most intense part of the game and we'll need to test how well they perform. That, and we do love showing off our work whenever possible. Q4: Will large capitals be able to use Time Dilation? A4: While cool when used effectively, especially in single player games, in the multiplayer world, I feel like messing with the speed players move and are used to at arbitrary times might be more frustrating than its worth. But we might keep it under consideration. Q5: Will structures have health? A5: Of course, that has always been planned. Static structures will have a bit more health than normal, and probably some sort of defense mechanism, and the owner should be around to protect it, but we don't want anything to be too permanent. Pretty much everything but a faction capital will be able to be completely destroyed, with enough effort. Q6: Will there be locker rooms around for you to change clothes on your character? A6: We want characters to be as personal as possible, even more so than those on the Roblox website, so the ability to purchase clothes and other items has always been planned. And changing into a group uniform before a battle, or putting on a new purchase should be as easy as possible. Expect changing rooms on stations near stores, as well as options to equip items from your inventory screen, for ease of access. 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! Any fans of the science fiction genre on Roblox can join the Science Fiction Genre Discord and find other fans and developers like you. Remember, we are always looking for new, talented builders, scripters and artists! If you’d like to help us you can always get in touch with us through RoVerse_Official on the ROBLOX website, or by contacting an Administrator in the community Discord! Don’t worry, we don’t bite! Hello everyone! Welcome to the seventieth issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week. This week has been an intense week for backend progress, with lots of work on the Dogfight Alpha Capital Update, bringing it that much closer to release; We've got another teaser for ship systems, with an improved UI that's starting to take shape; and some more lovely building and environment work from Vedrakkerous. Let's get started! Idyllic has been hard at work coding one of the more important aspects of the updated ship UI - the Radar! After a few simple iterations, we think we've found the right balance between simplicity, and usefulness. Currently, it tracks locations relative to the forward facing direction of the player's ship, so it's useful at any angle. It also tracks the vertical rise and fall, helping you level out with whatever you're aiming for. And it works quite well. Tracking and eliminating targets at a distance has never been easier! Though it does get a bit more interesting when a fleet of a thousand ships shows up ready to crush you. You better get used to watching your 6 for any Space Turkey fleets coming after you. We managed to stress test the system, and it works quite well with a higher-than-expected number of markers, so you can look forward to using this sci-fi game staple soon. Ved has been working on the Capital ship hangar for the Capital Update, and has made some lovely progress. Custom designed to hold all shapes and sizes of ships. And it makes a few ships look very, very small. On other fronts, Skinny has been developing another ship, and has been fixing a few issues with our custom sun flare script with Sutic. Lordrex has continued work on backend systems, and we've started integrating those scripts into some nice fancy UI elements that Ved has been developing, which we'll be showing off soon. It's getting close to a busy time of year for most developers again, but we'll keep working hard to make this epic game a reality. If you haven't already signed up for the Dogfight Tournament, now's your chance to do so. You can find the form here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17KKApFQwTK-EW0uWbNQlWvq0i7OXem1Hf4YVh4SVOn4/viewform?edit_requested=true We've got a few 2v2 teams signed up, but not enough of the larger teams to have a full tournament. If you sign up now, you'll have a pretty good shot at winning the prize! 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: At character creation, will you select a clan right away and never be able to leave? A1: We're looking to find the middle ground between locking you into one clan, which we don't really want to do, an allowing anyone to clan hop all over the place which is all too common with your standard Roblox groups. Getting fired from a faction or subfaction will definitely be possible, but there might be some sort of fee incurred if you start laving groups too often. Q2: Will custom animations for different species possibly be supported? A2: We're still working on finalizing the details on how fancy our character system is, but once we do that we will be able to give you solid information on that, but right now it looks to be restricted to a humanoid form, both for fairness, and for ease of implementation. Q3: If you have a family bloodline, will that be recognized as a subfaction? A3: While you wouldn't get special treatment just for having a family bloodline, there's nothing stopping you from building your own subfaction, and operating like the mafia. Anything less official than that would have to be character names, clothing, alliances, all left up to you. Q4: Will I be able to behead someone? A4: If bloxxing someone is your goal in life, who are we to stop you from doing that? I'd expect people in RoVerse explode the same as anywhere else. Q5: How's the devlist coming? A5: Its nearly completed, will all the items we want factions to develop to fit their own unique style, but we're still working on setting limits for everything from size to minimum and maximum dimensions, which will take a bit more work, and collaboration between nearly every department. Q6: Will there be grenades that can slow people down? A6: We're looking to develop a comprehensive set of weapons that cover anything a faction could desire, from giant armored tanks to rocket launchers and railguns, anything with any sort of scifi theme is up for grabs, and that includes specialized weapons like frost grenades. I can think of one clan that would love to use those. Q7: What will the server limit of players be? A7: This is one of those details that we won't know until right up to release, but our goal is to get as many people as possible into every game, so that space is full of non-stop action, if you want it, and enough far-off planets for those who prefer solitude. Once we get everything coded and optimized, we'll let you know. Q8: What are the requirements to form a corporation? A8: Just like in real life, there are two primary things you need to start a corporation - a lot of money, and be able to provide some service, from manufacturing to security work. Once you have enough money to found a HQ, and hire on some members to run things, you can take on all sorts of tasks, from protecting borders or shipments, to producing the best gear in the galaxy. Q9: Will there be a rarity list of all minable minerals? A9: We're not quite sure yet if we'll be releasing that sort of information, partly because it ruins the mystery and exploration aspects we're hoping for, and because the rarity of minerals will vary significantly from system to system. Take spice for example - a staple in the core systems, and a valuable luxury in the outer systems. Q10: Will mined minerals have to be picked up like minecraft, or automatically sent to an inventory? A10: The way minecraft deals with mined items is probably the least efficient method for going about it, and more suited for the stone age. In RoVerse, in the era of galaxy-spanning empires and spacefaring civilizations, I'm sure someone would have perfected the technology to mine with lasers the put things right in your inventory. Q11: How will sending orders to fleets and armies work? A11: Faction leaders will have access to a few in-game systems to help with directing their armies and fleets as they battle for control of the galaxy, but relying exclusively on systems on our end might not be the best choice - I recommend setting up a faction battle discord server or channel, for the higher ranks to direct players by sending messages to a wider audience, or taking advantage of the voice chat features. Q12: How will you tell who has declared war on who? A12: We'll be setting up a comprehensive system for tracking who's at war with who, and with a special system of battle cycles taking place over a week, at set times and for a set duration, we can avoid the confusion that occurs with the current ways of doing things. At the beginning of the week you'll know when and where you'll need to send troops, and which systems you'll have to defend. 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! Any fans of the science fiction genre on Roblox can join the Science Fiction Genre Discord and find other fans and developers like you. Remember, we are always looking for new, talented builders, scripters and artists! If you’d like to help us you can always get in touch with us through RoVerse_Official on the ROBLOX website, or by contacting an Administrator in the community Discord! Don’t worry, we don’t bite! Hello everyone! Welcome to the sixty-fourth 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 some more work to show on the lobby menus, with Mikey creating a nice mockup of the character select screen. We've also got some good news from Idyllic on the planet generating front, and the completion of a feature we showed off last week. Here we have a mockup of what we intend the character select screen to look like, where you can see what your character looks like, its faction alignment, its credit balance, and its location in the galaxy. The images above are placeholders for the characters, which we intend to replace with the actual character models, so you can rotate your character in 3D. We'll be working on the implementation of lobby menus over the next few weeks, stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes info. Idyllic has been hard at work generating high-resolution planets. This week, he's got an update on the 9-step generation that he has been running for a month and a half now. With over 2,600,000 vertices, that level of detail will put us very close to the final detail level of planet surfaces. With that many triangles, each triangle will be about 12 studs long on each edge. From there, we can either subdivide one or two more times, with an excessive growth in file size and generation time, or we can generate most of the details at that resolution, and fill in the gaps live during chunk loading. We'll just have to see how long the rest of the 9-step generation takes, before moving forward. Something we don't have to wait to move forward on, though, is the importing of the previously generated planets. Idyllic spent all week working on the code that imports the data, which is in the form of 3 tables - the points, their locations, and their nearest neighbors. From these three tables, it should have been a breeze to reconstruct a planet. But it wasn't. Curiously enough, the second table was short 8 values, causing weird things to generate during reconstruction. A chaotic web of lines and points, that form a not-quite-random pattern, but no pattern that we can understand... But a cool enough structure to run into in outer space, so of course we sent an expendable dev on a mission to try and fly through the mysterious structure. Miraculously, the heroic pilot survived the trip! After a bit more furious typing, Idyllic managed to find the error that led to the problem, and managed to successfully import the first planet into the game. Drawn from only a text file, this planet is the first of its kind, and looks to be the beginning of a really cool experiment made real. In the coming weeks, we should be able to load in the higher-detail planets, and have the import system ready by the time the 9-step generation completes! Lordrex has completed implementation of the Trello updates feature we showed off last week into the Lobby. Details about the system can be found in last weeks newsletter, if you're interested. He also spent some time increasing the security of back-end systems so that user data is less corruptible, which will be a very important feature for the game we're making. Each week we compile a Q&A section here whenever there are any new questions posted on the RoVerse Community group wall or in the Community Discord Server. Be sure to join if you have any questions about RoVerse: ROBLOX Group: https://www.roblox.com/My/Groups.aspx?gid=2948290 Discord server: https://discord.gg/npxBGwJ Q1: Will factions be able to create drone fighters for capital ships to deploy? A1: This question came up in the community, and stirred up quite the conversation. Sure, it would be cool to be able to launch ships to do the fighting for you, but in the long run, automating ships in any way really draws attention away from player participation. If you want to fly into a battle zone with a carrier, you should definitely take a squadron of fighter pilots along with you. Q2: Will you use the new pathfinding system in-game? A2: The new pathfinding system looks incredibly cool and very useful, and there are quite a few applications we can see applying it to in RoVerse, but before we make any promises about using it, we will have to put it through rigorous testing, and wait for the first few bug patches that usually come with any new feature. But, it should make our stations much livelier, if it does work out. Q3: Will ships have jump ranges? A3: Ships jumping from system to system will either have to use the jump gates they've constructed, the open wormholes where they should be constructing a jump gate, or by attaching a warp core to a capital ship. Each of these methods will produce the same results, jumping one system over. There won't be any bypassing systems by pointing your ship into the abyss. Q4: Will factions be able to create science vessels? A4: We have considered the inclusion of ships designed purely for scientific porpoises, but in the larger game plan, they really served no unique purpose. Any traveling could be accomplished with other craft, and it would require the development of many new unique systems to make them worthwhile and fun. They may be possible in an expansion at some point, or we may decide to include them closer to release!
You can support us by joining our Community Group or Discord server! So far, the community has been absolutely amazing, supportive, and very friendly. We are very appreciative of all the support you guys show us! If you want to catch any of our developers streaming, you can always follow our official Twitch channel here! Remember, we are always looking for new, talented builders, scripters and artists! If you’d like to help us you can always get in touch with us through RoVerse_Official on the ROBLOX website, or by contacting an Administrator in the community Discord! Don’t worry, we don’t bite! Hello everyone! Welcome to the sixty-third 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 some exciting work on the planet front, with some in-depth information from Idyllic on how planetary engagements will work. We also have some updates from lordrex on the backend systems, and a new feature awaiting implementation to the lobby. Here we have the command view of a planet's surface, as seen by the ranking officers of a given faction. The surface is divided into a number of cells determining the ownership of the planet, the more cells you control, the stronger your faction's foothold on that planet. Each cell can be claimed by building a structure of some kind, from a simple comm tower for those out-of-the-way cells that aren't too important, a ground base for those locations you want to have some sort of base to work out of, either with ground vehicles or aerial ships, up to founding a city. To claim control of a cell from an enemy, factions will need to attack and destroy their opponent's claiming structures. This could be as simple as bombing a radio station, to attacking an entire city. These structures will form the focal points for territory conquest - when a faction claims the star system above, they must be sure to root out any local resistance from their opposing faction, or they may find a well-supplied counterattack the following cycle. From this view, a battle commander can view the units on the ground, in the air, and in the water, being able to direct their movements from afar. Similar to a real-time strategy game, but with actual users manning the units. Properly trained battle commanders, and troops that follow orders are a must for a successful ground campaign. "Squad Bravo, redirect course north to comm tower defense in cell 155." "We just lost a cargo ship in the area, expect engagement." "Squad Bravo here, orders received." In this view, factions can take stock of which areas of the planet are under their control, with their claimed cells highlighted, as well as viewing opponent territory. If no factions build any sort of structures on the ground, the cell remains neutral, a place for Pirates to set up a base to trade without having to worry about the contraband or taxes of a faction. At this time, the number of cells per planet has been set at about 300 per planet, providing enough cells to create interesting borders, without creating too many cells to claim that factions have to build a structure every mile. This, of course, means that for a faction to gain absolute control of the entire galaxy, from each of the 220 star systems to the surfaces of every habitable planet, they will have to capture about 330,000 cells of terrain. I'll definitely be impressed if anyone manages to pull that off, though the goal of capturing 220 star systems seems like the more likely victory strategy. Idyllic had quite a bit of fun this week developing the cell division strategy - while it may seem simple at first, it actually was pretty complicated. Rather than going with the easy route, and dividing the planet into triangular cells, which would be really simple, he went with the hexagon approach. The planets are built from a list of each point, its location, and its 3 neighbors, so to divide the surface into cells, he had to develop a system to trace out both pentagons and hexagons, without repeating or forming deformed shapes. After many, many errors and planet generations, he finally managed to get the system working late this week. Expect to see some more cool planet-related stuff in the coming weeks. Lordrex has some good news to report on the server backend front - all the important data has been transferred from the old VPS to the new one, and work has begun on some of the important systems. He has also been toying with an interesting feature that will make it easy for the developers to post update logs that become visible in the lobby menus, using trello to create cards and descriptions, and using HTTPGet calls and the trello api to gather the information about the update, the authors, the version, pretty much anything we want to show up in game. Over the past few weeks, we've been picking up some work on updating the Lobby server that was set up all those months ago, so look forward to a fresh set of guis, and lots more feature updates moving forward. 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 Vaktovians to play in RoVerse? Will they be some type of galactic event? Or simply a large faction residing in RoVerse? A1: Vaktovia will be one of the factions applying to enter RoVerse, and will more than definitely be a foe to contend with in the game. The game is community driven, and we are determined to create a fair battlefield free from the problems of the current clan world, so you can count on us to not give them any advantages, even though Vaktus is leading the project. They will be a faction just like everybody else, fighting for control of star systems, invading planets, and having fun. Q2: What possible options will there be for grenade-like weapons? A2: While we haven't gotten that far on alternate weapons, we should be able to support a variety of the best scifi explosives out there, hopefully with cool effects to match. This isn't the 20th century, after all - if you're going to blow something up, might as well make it exciting. Q3: Will giant asteroid-devouring ships be a thing for miners? A3: That's one of our goals for the game. It remains to be seen how we'd go about building a ship that large... Might have to make smaller asteroids. You can support us by joining our Community Group or Discord server! So far, the community has been absolutely amazing, supportive, and very friendly. We are very appreciative of all the support you guys show us! If you want to catch any of our developers streaming, you can always follow our official Twitch channel here! Remember, we are always looking for new, talented builders, scripters and artists! If you’d like to help us you can always get in touch with us through RoVerse_Official on the ROBLOX website, or by contacting an Administrator in the community Discord! Don’t worry, we don’t bite! Hello everyone! Welcome to the fifty-sixth issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week! Lots of cool new stuff was worked on this week, with progress from planets, ships, an update on the ground vehicle coding, and a sneak peek at some upcoming updates to the Dogfight Alpha! Unfortunately, its also getting to that point in the year where we start to lose developers to school, but hopefully they settle into their schedules and can rejoin us soon. IdyllicDestroyer has been hard at work on planets for several months, but most of it has been behind-the-scenes coding, optimizations, and other mundane aspects, but this week he's been working on something we've had a lot of questions about. Cities! You may remember the various questions we've answered about cities and planets over quite a few different newsletters, but I think its time we condense that into the actual newsletter, along with some cool pictures. Cities have been promised since the first RoVerse Trailer, showing an interesting cityscape on a river,with ships flying around. Since then, the planets around them have changed in scale and scope, to become something even cooler than was originally imagined, and the ideas behind cities has changed as well. Initially, they were to be static structures built at a much larger scale, akin to Faction stations. This, of course, would have led to a lot of repetitive, boring city layouts. But we can do better. Our ideas for cities has evolved from plug-and-play city models, to dynamic, growing, evolving cityscapes that can grow or shrink with a Faction's success and failures. Idyllic has been at work creating the system that grows cities from a single initial founding point selected by faction or planet leadership, into a bustling metropolis. Now cities don't just grow outward ignoring everything in its way. It avoids and passes around obstacles like steep slopes or rivers, it slows down when expanding into dense forests or other biomes, and its central core grows more dense than the outer reaches. This system incorporates most of these features, and there are quite a few more features still in the works to create truly unique places for clans to call home. No longer stuck to just defending a remote outpost, clan members can take part in the defense of their own capital city, where failure means destruction. You can see here an early version of a city growing procedurally, much faster than they will in real time. When generating cities quickly the system slows down, but the cities in RoVerse will grow quite slowly, relieving much of the strain on the server. While this demo shows the placement of single block structures, the eventual goal is to support a variety of different shaped and sized structures fit to each clans architectural style, to create truly unique cities on each planet. In the case where factions wish to include lore-specific buildings or landmarks in their cities, those would be placed manually in a similar way to the foundation of the city itself, demolishing as many automated structures as it need to make space for the new structure. Landmarks like a Senate Building or Temple or Palace, whatever sort of structure fits your clans needs, we hope to be able to support! Nearly the entire building team has been temporarily retasked to work on large capital ships for the upcoming updates, so there isn't much to show from that department this week. Now for some sneak-peeks at the updates coming in the next few weeks to the Dogfight Alpha! IdyllicDestroyer has been working on coding the new HUD for fighters and capitals that KidVeggito designed, making it work to show hull health, shield strength, as well as your ship's speed. Here's a demo of a ship taking Shield Damage. Creating guis in greyscale allows us to change any colors we want at a later point, letting us make the guis reflect teamcolor, or any other color combination we want. Two new additions to our team, SmellyPencil and TheFurryFish, have been hard at work creating all the extra features we've always wanted to add to the Dogfight Alpha, including a cool new ship selection screen! I can't wait to see and share everything else they come up with, the work they've already done is astounding! Stay tuned for more updates and an official release date for the newest updates! 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 cities have meters measuring happiness and faith which could decrease or improve productivity? A1: What a fitting question for this newsletter! We are looking into ways to dynamically vary the output and expansion of cities based on real factors, not just random numbers, and happiness might be an interesting idea to look into. If your faction fails in battle, losing several systems to opponents, it would make sense that your citizens would be a bit more wary of their situation, and their productivity would reflect that. Q2: If factions can provide original theme tracks, will they be implemented? A2: We will try to support as many assets that clans wish to submit as possible, if you'd like to create a faction-controlled space background theme or battle theme, we'll try our best to make it happen. I wouldn't go spending too much money on it until you're accepted, though. Q3: Will I be able to plant, grow and sell potatoes? A3: That's a very interesting suggestion. While initially we only plan on players mining and collecting naturally generated substances, there is the possibility we could support resource farming of not just potatoes, but crystals or ores as well, somewhere down the line. Q4: Will there be naval ships for naval or sea engagements? A4: While it's not on our immediate feature list, somewhere down the line we'd like to support a wider variety of combat situations, to keep combat interesting. Battles over a planets surface would get quite interesting if water-based vehicles were involved, but we'd have to figure out how to implement them in a way that isn't immediately outclassed by flying and space vehicles. 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! Don’t worry, we don’t bite! Hello everyone! Welcome to the forty-second issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week! This week we finally have some long overdue images of the chat system, news from Sae'Tzar and an update on the command center's progress! Let's start with most requested of these; the chat system! Lordrex has been busy at work improving, tweaking and gradually making the chat system much more efficient and aesthetically pleasing, and has managed to come out with a very nice design that we hope you all enjoy as much as we do! The coding behind the GUIs are still a work in progress, of course, but the chat system is very aesthetically pleasing, fits with other UI elements and is as unobtrusive as possible to give players plenty of screen-space to blast their enemies! RexPatriot has begun full work on the planetary command center this week, and has taken a modular approach to the development, and plans to complete a segment each week so he can show off the progression of the structure from week to week! As a reminder, the commander center is the central military stronghold of an outpost, and will be perhaps the most important military structure in an outpost. This week, he has begun the outer wall designs and the first entrance hall, as seen below: Sae'Tzar is working diligently to get more ships out when he is able to salvage his laptop's hard drive for use in a new computer. We look forward to his impending return to active development, and we especially look forward to his beautiful ship designs! 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 Planet Terrain be destructible by explosions, will it be editable by hand? A1: We want planets to be as immersive as possible - if a capital ship is bombarding the surface, but there is no left over crater, it would ruin the immersion. The plan right now, is for things to be locally destructible to a point, with bombs leaving craters that are only persistent to your server. Digging trenches and caves will take a bit more work, but we'l see if we can pull it off. Q2: Seeing the realistic planet generation system, will there be any alien-like planets with stuff like floating islands? A2: The realistic planet generator is only the first step of many in creating a unique and interesting galaxy to explore. Things like floating islands and xeno biomes are on the list of features for sure. If you have any concept art you really like, feel free to post it in the suggestions channel on the discord. Q3: Is RoVerse still looking for developers? A3: Yes! We are always looking for talented members of the community that want to help out in the creation of this expansive game. A wide variety of talents will be accepted, from builders to advanced scripters. Send an application over to RoVerse_Official on Roblox, and we'll get in contact. Q4: What sort of land vehicles should we look forward to? A4: I think we may have covered this a bit before, but you can look forward to quite a variety of vehicles - from offensive vehicles, like tanks and mobile artillery, to defensive mobile missile platforms and troop carriers, to civilian craft. 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! Don’t worry, we don’t bite! ~Written by Aleuvian ~Edited by IdyllicDestroyer |
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AuthorsVaktus: Leader of the Vaktovian Empire and head of the RoVerse Project |