RoVerse Development Newsletter #127

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 127th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, Lordrex has made excellent progress on the Capital Update, implementing the leaderboard gui we talked about last week, as well as varieties for a bunch of different gamemodes. Idyllic began implementation of his Capital functionality and main menu revisions, as well as created the most recent system mockup. We also discuss the implications of the new Roblox feature - automatic LOD.

Last week we showed you the original graphics mockup for the game-end leaderboard. This week, Lordrex has spent a good chunk of time turning it into a functional board - better layout for coding, columns for stats we want to track, list layouts for the actual lists of players, and hooking all that up to the gamemode system so it actually shows valid data at the end of a match.

With that out of the way, he jumped over to the in-game displays for important gamemode information - for instance in the KOTH gamemode, you'll be able to see the current top players, compared to team gamemodes that show the two team's stats that you are familiar with from the dogfight.

Speaking of the dogfight - there is a relative simplicity and ease-of-use that came from the way information was displayed on-screen. 

The two teams are clearly defined, and the information is well-labeled, though the team identifier needs some work. But just plain numbers simply don't cut it for every situation - it's hard to tell how far you've come if you're heading for a goal as in koth, or fighting off destruction as in tdm. To that end we've been working on adding in a system of percentage bars, that you're all well-acquainted with from all over Roblox, most prominently in ammo displays.

So far lordrex has the coding done, but the presentation is being worked on. We'll be sticking to the center display for this information moving forward, rather than sliding it off to the side of the screen where you have to actively go looking for it, which pulls you out of battle and could lead to disaster.

Idyllic spent time this week working directly on the Capital Update code, removing the intro animation for the fighter hangar that had become severely broken over time, instead laying the groundwork for combining the work he has completed over the past few months with the dogfight alpha file. This meant trading the full-scale hangar for the space-scale fighter hangar that supports showing the player their ship options at native scale, rather than requiring a set of scaled-up ships rigged with a special format, among other code changes to better support the new menu systems.

He also got a chance to work on the system mockup - a few weeks ago we determined our boundaries were going to be right around +- 50,000 studs from the origin, before floating point rounding errors caused significant warble among ship parts when moving. Since this limit was recently expanded to this size, and it doesn't look like there are any plans to move that any further in the near future, we're intent on developing an at-scale mockup of the layout of a typical system, from planets to asteroid fields to jumpgates to stars.

Speaking of stars, this new limit will require us to reduce the actual size of stars in systems, but not their visual size. There are plenty of tricks up our sleeves when it comes to creating mirages, from billboard guis to fancy coding, that will let stars feel enormous, without taking up a significant portion of the system they reside in - made possible by the fact that of the objects in systems, the stars are pretty much the only things you won't be able to interact with up close (well, you can try, but I wouldn't recommend it).

Roblox recently released a feature that we've been testing for its viability in making RoVerse Systems even better - Dynamic CSG LOD, or Level Of Detail. This feature takes parts that have been made using CSG, and at a distance greater than 500 studs, generates a lower-resolution model so save on rendering power. This is of particular interest to us in an application to the asteroid fields that will fill the 220 star systems available in the galaxy.

While it doesn't function quite as intended, since RoVerse is scaled down significantly, it may work best for our needs in combination with a chunk system - rather than outright remove asteroids at significant distance from the player, we could thin them out, with a few low-res versions taking the place of an entire field of full-res asteroids.

It is important to note that as of this newsletter, this feature only applies to CSG and there is no word on any future support for meshes, so its applications so far are rather limited, but luckily our csg asteroids built with such care by Heromaster and Domeboybeene should work for any immediate testing.

It's actually hard to tell if it's working or not, so that either means it's doing a really good job, or it doesn't work at all. We'll keep testing and let you know.
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It's the holiday season again, and on behalf of the entire RoVerse Development team I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. We'd like to thank you all for sticking with us through thick and thin these past two years, and hope you'll stick around a bit longer as we keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible on Roblox, all to support a fantastic clan community that keeps us excited and optimistic about the future we're all building together.
                              --Idyllic


​​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 land vehicles have limited fuel?

A1: Fuel is a feature we're still on the fence about throughout the game, but I will say this - if capital ships have fuel, expect ground vehicles to have fuel of some kind.

Q2: Will you be able to build extremely large ships that can carry other ships inside them?

A2: Definitely. If your ship has the hangar capacity, you can stuff it full of whatever ships you want - fighters, civilian craft, mining teams, even small capitals.

Q3: In the capital alpha will there be a first-person view?

A3: No. The views you've seen in the dogfight alpha and the newsletter previews are what you'll get. Care was taken in the design and coding of the camera and its relationship to the ship you're piloting, throwing in a cockpit surface view would only be disorienting. We found that a third person camera view was the best balance of visibility and control for piloting both fighters and capitals.

Q4: Will RoVerse use FiB?

A4: Of course! We waited a whole year in anticipation for it to be released and make our games look as epic as veds pictures made them look, it'd have to be extremely broken for us not to.

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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!