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. 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. 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 |