Hello everyone! Welcome to the one-hundredth issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week. Those of you in the Community Discord server celebrated the 100th issue milestone this past evening with a dogfight team battle to the death, with Team Idyllic taking the first match over Team Lordrex. The second round, a 2 vs. all match, left CptJaller and Arorias victorious, making them undeniably the best fighter duo around. On to progress we've made this week. A significant milestone was reached this week on back-end systems with a successful test of system loading, further design work on a crafting system and various system and faction model storage solutions. Adding to our arsenal, we now have both a conventional and railgun turret and firing mechanism, and a first-look at ship destruction and debris. Let's check it out! Up first is a demo of the object loading from a table of values pulled from our external server. Using trees rather than asteroids to better gauge how well rotation aspects are loading, the system will be used to load all user-placed, temporary, and permanent objects dependent on which system has been selected to load. Stuff like faction stations and outposts are classified as temporary, with the ability to be destroyed and removed from the table of saved locations, while objects like wormholes and stars and planets all will remain unchanged for the time being. Asteroid and debris fields will be loaded in with a randomized system, to cut down on the number of asteroid positions we have to save and load each time a server is started. Other work on backend systems this week includes the first successful transfer between the lobby, and a character's saved location in the galaxy. In the next few weeks, we should have a demo video showing the process, but for now the code is there, and it works! For those new around here, each of our 220 star systems are saved into data files like the one shown above, and when a player attempts to enter any star system, it loads up the System save file, and depending on which system the player is travelling to or loading into, loads the objects and locations that should be there. That way, we don't have to save each system and planet as an active place, or use a hack based on the createplace API. Lorenzo has created the 6th turret model of our 8-weapon feature list for the first Capital Update, the Railgun Turret. With its sleek lines, cooling fins, and matter accelerator housing, the railgun accelerates a physical projectile to incredible speeds using a directed magnetic burst, with the kinetic energy released on collision doing extreme amounts of physical damage. Designed as a higher-tier weapon that bypasses the shielding of enemy ships with a physical projectile, these turrets will be one of the more expensive and hard to obtain weapons of the game, so a ship won't likely have a full loadout like the one above. Instead, look for one or two turrets in strategic locations to do that last bit of damage after enemy shields have cycled. And finally we return to the Bolitho with its conventional turret loadout that we demoed with the early-stage Capital scripting. This time the flak mounts have been replaced with full cannons, which won't be allowed in a playable kit, but does serve to highlight the flexibility of the turret attachment system, that works with all sorts of angles and positions. The conventional Turrets boast dual barrels which alternate each shot, but unlike the missile turret, do not have individual cooldown times. Faction designs could theoretically have more barrels, but their turrets will not fire any faster, which would be a severe balancing problem, leading to an arms race to put the most barrels on every turret as possible. To prevent the two physical weapon types that ignore energy shields from becoming the default weapon type everyone uses, they will have some downsides. With a physical projectile, how the projectile hits is just as important as where it hits - a shallow angle of attack and the projectile will bounce right off. This concept is used in tank design, with angled deflecting surfaces protecting its crew better than heavier armor designed to take the full force could. To that end, railgun and conventional turret shots that have a high angle of attack will wreak significant havoc on your target - miss your mark, though, and your shot will bounce off, sailing off into the void, perhaps hitting another ship in the process. With 6/8 weapon types coded, it seemed only appropriate that we do a test of every weapon type assigned to a single ship, rather than the uniform loadouts of the past few weeks. In a concept primarily for the full RoVerse, debris fields will litter star systems as a reminder of the conflicts that have raged through the stars. These masses of scrap and fire will be prime spots for scavengers to work their magic, gathering the scattered cargo thrown from the ship when it exploded. Though not everything will survive, a faction would be wise to protect and recover their resources from downed ships in friendly sectors, though one's in hostile or neutral space might as well be considered completely lost. We plan for wrecks to remain a permanent aspect of a system, to preserve the history of the clan world beyond bases that automatically reset when the time runs out or the raiders win, to further our goal of a permanent battlefield upon which clans of every kind can fight and win with real rewards. A quick update on the status of the Capital Update - with weapon systems nearly completed, it shouldn't be too much longer before we get a playable demo out there for community members to help us test out before we go for a full public release. Highest on the list of things to do are integrate fighters and capitals, replication, and UI coding. Each week we get closer to release, and each step closer we get more excited to see the public experiencing something we've poured our hearts into over the past nearly 2 years. I'd like to especially thank everyone in our community for supporting our work through the development process. We were honest from the start that we were undertaking an ambitious project that would take a long time to complete up to our own, and everyone else's standards. We've all had a great time interacting with everyone, from losing horribly in a dogfight competition to watching you develop cool ships and faction ideas and unique ideas and pushing us to do better than we ever thought possible. As long as you're still around, we'll stick to it and get this awesome project done. I'd also like to thank all the developers who have worked with us over the past 2 years, many of whom have moved on to other projects, but have definitely left their mark where they added their expertise to a little portion of the project. Even if you're not around the project anymore, we'll keep doing our best to put your work to use, and make this game the landmark project it's always been destined to be. 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 different species be able to survive in different environments? A1: Generally, characters should be able to survive in quite a wide variety of environments, with only a few being damaging or dangerous, probably exclusively no-atmosphere or radioactive areas. From the high deserts to the swampy lowlands, characters should be able to survive just fine, but if a faction lore wants to name a specific zone as a preference they can, though it won't have significant gameplay influences. Q2: Will we be able to make hostile environments survivable? A2: I wouldn't look to any permanent solution to hostile environments, though you may be able to construct bio-domes or enclosed bases to keep the bad stuff out (or the good stuff in). If we make a location hard to get to, it'll be for a good reason, and it'll probably stay that way. Imagine a rough border outpost perched on a lava-fall, harvesting rare elements for sale across the galaxy. Half the fun is the danger, and pure terraforming could theoretically influence the production of luxury resources, so that wouldn't be a good idea. Q3: Will ships be able to have small animations, like engines turning on takeoff, or doors closing? A3: There isn't anything outright limiting such animations, though adding different ones for every faction would be a lot of work. We might be able to add such fine details somewhere down the line, and it might cost a bit more. Q4: Will you be able to shoot down incoming missiles? A4: Missiles would be incredibly overpowered if they were an unstoppable force pursuing your ship, so yes, there will be ways to shoot them down, though they aren't a 100% guaranteed defense. A version of the autoturret powered by a light AI will probably be the form it takes, and can benefit from increased or decreased accuracy, with a few variable changes. And perhaps an outgoing conventional projectile or laser bolt triggers the mechanism, in a rare occurrence. 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! Comments are closed.
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AuthorsVaktus: Leader of the Vaktovian Empire and head of the RoVerse Project |