RoVerse Development Newsletter #111

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 111th 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 quashing bugs, dropped in the radar module, and experimented a bit with mining lasers. Lordrex fought an epic battle to the death with one bug in particular (stay tuned to hear if he survived or not) and a new member of the team made some important contributions to asteroid field generation. Let's go!

Idyllic has had a list of bugs to work on this week, with varying success in tracking them down and fixing them. Switching Capitals from a direct rotation mode to an inertial system like the fighters use had a few kinks to work out, and a few test pilots died from the excessive g-forces that appeared in testing.

Fine-tuning the inertia system will be an ongoing and intensive process. We'll continue tweaks until ships are flying just how we like them, which will be much slower than the nimble fighters of the Dogfight Alpha, but still recognizable as our own style.

We have a new ship all rigged up, and though it isn't a military craft, being able to rig and test it is an important step for the future. We have here the WTT-017 Mining and Cargo vessel, with a pirate-modded laser turret mounted on top. We thought it interesting to show here because it shows the importance of turret transit speed - if your ship is fast and nimble and turns on a dime, a slow-transit turret may not be able to rotate to stay on the mouse fast enough. Consider spending some points boosting transit speed, rather than damage or fire rate, to ensure effective performance.

"Was that a mining ship you added?" asks an inquisitive reader. "What led to you adding that specific type of ship to the game?"

You may have heard the news this week about the release of the live CSG operation api - you can now code unions and negations to happen while a game is running. For those of us with mining lasers and giant asteroids in our game plan, the chance to cut a hole in real time is a really exciting opportunity. Unfortunately, the system isn't nearly robust enough to support real-time mining just yet - testing shows that even our low-poly unioned asteroids that heromaster made for us are too complex for the system to cut holes in.

We'd have to reduce asteroids to cubes before it'd work, and at that point we might as well use smooth terrain. So we will wait on that feature, testing routinely, until it becomes possible to rely on, because cutting holes through rocks in space would be a really cool feature. For now, we'll stick to shooting mining lasers at veins of minerals lodged in the surfaces of the giant hunks of rock orbiting stars, planets, and other dense objects in the futuristic old-fashioned way.

You may have noticed in the above images a few new features relating to Capital ship piloting - yes that's right, we have dropped in the radar module meaning talented ship captains can now home in on their quarry from beyond visual distance.

Still works like a charm.

When ships aren't spinning uncontrollably killing their crew, the full-range movement model really starts to shine.

Attack from above, attack from below, from the side, from an angle, fly circles around your enemies - it's all possible. This isn't a 2D battlefield of naval ships, it's a battle for the stars in a completely wide open 3D world!

This week lordrex faced down a bug of epic proportions, one that threatened to sink the entire project into years of debugging and re-coding. The stage was set - system asset loading and replication, the stakes outlined - 220 star systems in peril; it was a fight to the death. But who emerged victorious? Find out next week.

We'd like to welcome a new member to our team - Legomadamada from over at CCS has taken on the fun and exciting task of star system generation. While we have the database of stars and planets, we've lacked any progress on generating fields of asteroids for players to mine for minerals, gas clouds to obscure and amaze, and all sorts of other fun environmental zones for the adventurous player to explore. He will be creating a system that is run by seed, but that creates a complex environment that is unique from system to system, so everywhere you turn there are new and exciting places to find.

Early work is promising, such as this cluster of over a thousand asteroids of varying sizes. Each biome of asteroids is made from a set of about 8 meshes, so loading time for an entire field is not outrageous. Color changes and textures add flavor, while changing scale and rotation makes for an outstanding complexity.

If you have any ideas for interesting environmental forms, send them by Idyllic and we'll see about adding them to the generation system.

In the past week we finally publicly debuted the RoVerse wiki, a community-driven enterprise for players to fill out information they discover on their travels, search for important stuff to know before they head out into the black, or even discuss the various happenings of the galaxy.

If you're a Faction hopeful, feel free to add a page about your faction, or look through the faction list page to find out what other players are planning. We plan to add information on planets, systems, minerals, and all sorts of other interesting fact pages as development progresses.
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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 all the weapon types work so far?

A1: All the ones shown in newsletters are passably working, but not completely polished. Mines are going to be added yet, and haven't been coded.

Q2: How will shield regeneration work?

A2: Similar to the way it works in the Dogfight Alpha - after a period of no damage, it starts regenerating. This exact time, and how fast it regenerates, will vary per ship.

Q3: Will player-generated wormholes connect to a jump gate in an adjacent system, or pop out in a relative location?

A3: The easy way would be to sync up with the closest wormhole in the adjacent system, but that sort of defies the point of making your own. So the other option is to either pick a random location in the system, or calculate the angle from where you started to where you are trying to go. With the inherent instability of wormhole travel, we'll leave that up to chance.

Q4: Has the newsletter come out yet?

A4: By the time you're reading this, yes.

Q5: What sort of stats on turrets will be customizable?

A5: While we don't have the official list done just yet, expect stats like rate of fire, transit speed, and power consumption to be on the table.

Q6: Will anyone stop me from putting 50 beam turrets on the front of an XXL and firing them like the death star?

A6: Layout and firing patterns will be based on ship shape, I don't think we'd try and stop you on that front - on the other hand 50 turrets is probably a little overboard for what will be possible.

Q7: Will using headlights and beam turrets reduce fuel/power reserves?

A7: The topic of fuel for ships has come up a few times. It would be neat to have refueling ships moving with convoys to ensure they have enough fuel to get where they're trying to go, but it does add the problem of getting stranded somewhere. We'll need a bit more time to think about it, but it's still on the table. As for weapons drawing power, we'll have to wait and see.

Q8: What are the average dimensions of a star system?

A8: I don't have any hard numbers for you, but we plan on using the full 100k render distance and beyond as best we can. Using our chunk system to load only assets near the player like asteroids and debris, while turning far away objects into surfaceguis will keep things manageable on the lag front. The full size of a star system will never be explored, with combat and construction focusing on a few landmark points throughout systems, like planets, gates, and asteroid fields, while mining may venture a bit further. In other words - very, very big.

Q9: Will there be random wormholes that lead you to dark and dangerous places?

A9: You might just have to wait and find out.

Q10: Can you dock and despawn ships, or must they stay in-game all the time?

A10: You'll be able to drop anchor at stations or use a feature called 'subspace parking' that shifts your vessel into another dimension while you're away. No need to worry about pirates stealing your ships at anchor.

Q11: What factions do the devs enjoy the most?

A11: The creative ones. Don't be afraid of gimmicks, sometimes a really cool feature makes a faction stand out. The Contagion idea that died a while back had one of the most original concepts I've seen, which was pretty much a gimmick. Any factions that go the extra mile to be unique and original are my favorites.

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​​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!