Hello everyone! Welcome to the 122nd 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 few feature updates for Capital ships from Idyllic, involving fighter skins and HUD effects, a fighter and a fighter skin from Juszl, a status update on station replication, and an inquiry for faction leaders. This week, Juszl has been a bit busy, but he found the time to collaborate with Idyllic on an expansion of the ship skin functions we've so far only demoed with Capital ships. He took his classic Ninazu ship, the Dervish, and gave it an Urban Camo paint job - which Idyllic then rigged up with attachment points and engine effects, and imported into the Capital Update fighter hangar. This particular ship skin uses a different process than the one we used to texture the Avenger. Where the Avenger used a UV unwrapped mesh and a baked texture, this option uses decals applied to every side of a meshpart, which obviously requires that the model is properly segmented. Moving forward, the team is willing to support both types of texturing in the codebase, since one is a cheaper and easier alternative to texture painting, and will require minimal additions to the code. Along with expanding textures into the fighter category, Idyllic also added code to support ships segmented into more than one meshpart. The Avenger was efficient enough to only require one mesh import, so it's entire frame only required updating one textureID - other ships, like the ones shown last week by Skinny, aren't that lucky. Also included in the decal application system is the ability to change part colors - if the model is properly set up, with each part being named, and those names are encoded in the texture system, their new color will be applied. This portion of the project was the most involved, requiring brickcolor be recorded on a per-part basis into the texture table, along with any bricks that had textures applied, which meant a whole new table format to set up. Luckily the Dervish is only 8 parts. This opens up a whole range of opportunities for fighter skins that are either simple recolors, or simple decal applications to different meshparts. If you have any recommendations for skins, let Idyllic know in the community Discord server. A feature Idyllic was working on implementing last week that wasn't quite completed in time for the newsletter, is the implementation of the beautiful speedometer gauge in the ship HUD, coded by Boysun and TheFurryFish. It was pure chance that Idyllic stumbled upon this code edit while delving into the updated dogfight alpha code, as the duo hadn't mentioned they had coded this feature exactly as requested when they were first hired on - an excellent bit of work that functions much better than anticipated, is much more fluid, and sure is a lot easier on the eyes than looking at a number readout that says '35'. A further update on the station replication system from lordrex states that stations, when killed, both explode and are deleted from the server and database, which was still an in-progress feature the last time we showed a demo. With that feature implemented, and a bit more cleanup work to do, lordrex is preparing to move on to projects more directly related to the Capital Update, to speed along its release. We have an important inquiry we'd like to bring to the discussion table this week, and any feedback from faction members or leaders and those interested will be greatly appreciated. For a while now, we've been discussing an extension of the roblox group ranking system that would allow for much more flexible organizational structures. Currently, Roblox locks groups into a linear hierarchy, ranked from 0 to 255 - we think we can improve on that and create much more interesting group structures in RoVerse. To that end, we are interested in whatever group structures you guys can come up with, from the traditional monarchy to an anarchosyndicalist commune, with an executive officer of the week, to a council of elders in charge of everything, to a democracy. If you want to do separate branches for your military and civilian corps, list out the different ranks in each, and their prestige level compared to each other. Branch separation would mean that a combat sergeant that outranks a miner pilot, but belongs to a different branch wouldn't be able to boss them around, that sort of thing. Be creative, think outside the box, and show us what you've got. Below we have a few examples, from the one Idyllic put together, to a few submitted by community factions earlier today. (draw.io is a useful web app for making flowcharts.) 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 asteroid field types spawn different ores? A1: Certainly. Field types aren't just an aesthetic choice, they will also have different varieties or concentrations of various minerals found within them - learning which type of field spawns the most of the ores you're currently looking for will be an important job for miners and miner management. Q2: Will there be asteroids that might damage the ship? A2: If we were doing a fully-simulated asteroid field, we'd have fast-moving bits of rock do damage as they bounced off your ship, but as it stands asteroids are quite large compared to the player's ship, and don't move. As for asteroids emitting damaging radiation and the like, there is a distinct possibility. We'd also recommend you don't crash into any type of asteroid head-first, as that will hurt regardless, even if you do bounce a little. Q3: Will shield regeneration make ships kitted solely with armor useless? A3: Definitely not. There are several factions planning to go the hard-target route, armoring up their ships to sustain a lot of damage during battle. If you play your cards right, an armored ship should be able to take more hits than a shielded ship under constant fire, as shield cycling is interrupted by consecutive hits. Both health types will have available options for quick-repair, like worker bots or shield capacitors - and both options should be viable in gameplay. Q4: Can you change the ship classifications to an arbitrary naming scheme? A4: Unlikely. Grouping by ship size is much more intuitive and self-consistent than any other scheme that has been suggested. Q5: Will the biggest ships be entirely immune to smaller ship fire after a certain point? A5: No, health is scaled by size, rather than a set percentage - the smallest fighter will do only minimal amounts of damage to the largest capital, but it will still be counted. Regeneration systems are interrupted while in combat, so your damage won't be erased unless you are. Q6: Will planets use terrain water? A6: This was originally ruled out due to a stepping effect that appeared when doing spheres of water, but since then it has come to light that different methods produce different results - fillblock creates steps at 45° angles, while writevoxels can be made smooth, at the cost of render speed. 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 |