RoVerse Development Newsletter #13

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

It's been a pretty tough week between real life obstacles and errors with Studio. Throughout the week team create has been crashing within a few minutes of building, changes to group construction places not saving and unions seem to have stopped working and become invisible. These problems have apparently been due to recent ROBLOX updates and affects almost everyone so all we can do is wait for ROBLOX to sort it out before we can get back to our usual rate of progress.

Nonetheless, we've spent our time working on whatever areas are currently functional in Studio. The most stable being scripting which we've made progress in lobby functionality which handles players entering the games within the universe and physical travel between different star systems (which are each individual games) through jumpgates/jumpholes.

Even with Studio being unwieldy, HeroMaster has already completed a light fighter belonging to the ship manufacturer invented by the winner of our recent competition:

​And not only that, he also finished the majority of medium fighter from one of our other ship lines:

​Hero's not the only one who's managed to make great progress through all the troubles during the week - ArcticCitadel completed three whole industrial player outpost sections just this week:

Last week we started up a community group for fans of RoVerse (which you can join here: https://www.roblox.com/Groups/Group.aspx?gid=2948290 ), in this group we said anyone could post their questions and we'd compile them into an Q&A in the following week's newsletter. Here are the questions you asked about RoVerse:


Q1: How will the building situation be? Will only the owner of a faction be able to edit the territory?

A1: Clans will need to expand into different star systems in order to be able to place structures in those territories for construction, such as space stations or defence platforms. When clans join RoVerse, they get to select up to 5 leaders to be appointed their clan's 'Commanders'. These players will be able to enter a command mode which allows them to administer and govern their clan's operations.


Q2: How will the movement of off duty clanners be affected by the territory owned by other clans.

A2: That will depend on if the two clans are currently at war with each other. When your clan is at war with another clan, you will no longer be able to enter that clan's star systems *apart* from systems which border ones that belong to your clan. This restriction is in place in order to stop fleets of ships from just flying straight to an enemy's capital deep in their territory and camping their homeworld, when realistically a fleet of enemy ships would never be able to get into the core territories without it being a part of the frontline advance. The only reason players would be able to do this is simply down to activity times, there can't always be border patrols blocking every entrance to the clan's territories. We've planned RoVerse out very carefully and this is why steps must be taken to ensure griefers can't ruin the game or break the immersion.


Q3: How big will the Ground be? Like will there just be a Facility? Or multiple locations?

A3: We cannot yet confirm it at this point as we've been focusing on space development, but we believe we will be able to make planetary gameplay actually exist as full spherical planets with gravity and camera scripts that make it feel flat just like in real life. Again, we cannot be sure yet that this will be possible or feasible with the gameplay we have planned, but this is what our "best case scenario" hope for RoVerse ground gameplay is.


Q4: Will Ro-Verse include any type of lore regarding different locations and whatnot? If so, how lore-based would the whole project be when completed?

A4: Our intention for the physical world of RoVerse is to build it as a fresh, clean slate that the clans in it will slowly develop over time. We want it to be a blank canvas that clans have total freedom to build into the world they're wanting to live in. Just like with our current clan world, we have such great historic tales of past ro-wars, massive alliances/coalitions, legendary crusades, devastating battles... all of this being *real* events that actually happened, not just an idea for a cool story that someone had. It's that sort of real living world that we hope RoVerse can become, so our community can actually have a real literal clan world to call home, if we so wish.


Q5: Will there be weapon manufactures?

A5: Yes, there will be both fictional civilian manufacturers to start off so everyone has a selection of weapons to purcahse rather than just clan-specific weaponry. Later on we will then be adding the ability for players to start their own businesses and submit weapons/ship designs for approval and then to sell to other players at their personally-owned space stations/outposts.


Q6: Can factions/clans make up lore about their own planet? How does a clan enter RoVerse?

A6: Absolutely, we want RoVerse to be the perfect place for clans to enrich their clan with culture and personality! When RoVerse is near completion, we will be posting a thread on C&G with an application template for groups to apply with to become an official faction in RoVerse.


Q7: Will super clans be allowed to join or is it more like "Power Clans" because I want my group to participate full time in the RoVerse.

A7: All forms of clans are welcome to apply to join RoVerse! The requirements are still to be decided on but they will focus on originality and activity, rather than popularity and size.


Q8: What are the 3 ship classes?

A8: There are many ship classes in RoVerse, they are based off of size/power to simplify classifications and avoid confusion (e.g Battleship? Battlecruiser? Heavy Cruiser? Dreadnought?). These classes are split into twp categories, capitals and sub-capitals. Sub-capitals are starfighters, usually flown by one pilot, these exist in the following classes: Light Fighter (LF), Medium Fighter (MF), Heavy Fighter (HF), Very Heavy Fighter (VHF). Capitals are anything above sub-capital classes, usually the sort of vessels most sci-fi games don't let you fly, these exist in the following classes: Small (S), Medium (M), Large (L), Extra Large (XL).


Q9: At the start of RoVerse, clans will have to meet some expectations & there won't be a lot compared to the future. But say after about a year or two in development, will it be easier to get in? Also, for late-late clans to get in with all of the star systems taken up by everyone, what sort of territory will they start out with?

A9: As time goes on, it will likely become harder rather than easier to get into RoVerse, this is because a major part of getting your group into RoVerse relies on originality and a cultural style that can stand out from the others. The more clans in RoVerse the less original styles there will be, however we will still be as fair as possible in the approval of clans once we can see that the members are passionate and dedicated. When a clan joins RoVerse, the game will randomly give it one star system which would be designated their 'homeworld system', for a certain period of time the clan will have boosted resources and immunity from invasion in their homeworld system to ensure they get a good chance for success against unfriendly neighbours.

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We'd like to thank everyone for understanding how life can be hectic during these times of the year and not losing faith that progress will pick up again shortly!
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