RoVerse Development Newsletter #141

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 141st 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 even more fighters meshed by Skinny, bringing the total up to 18 ships and a feature or two completed by Idyllic, including the long-awaited turret gimbal patch, and the completion of the camera offset code.

First up is Skinny's next batch of meshed ships, starting with the Shuriken, which saw significant reduction, the Silencer, the Xerynite, the Vortex, the Defiant, the Gladius, and the Scutum.

Over the past few weeks, the bug causing problems with the gimbal code has been identified, potential solutions have been attempted, and finally this week, an actual, working solution has been found! After way too many hours spent debugging why the code absolutely refused to point at the cursor, and instead pointed either left, right, up, or down instead, the answer was found in the arrangement and setup of the turrets themselves. Instead of a bit of code rotating the turrets 90° to the right, as was initially supposed, the problem was instead that the welds that operate the turrets while attached to the ship were facing 90° to the right or left, causing all the problems.

Turns out that rushing to rig the turret models a year ago caused a month of problems down the road - take it from us that doing it right the first time is a much better option than doing something quickly but incorrectly. 

Here we have a gif of the Halbert equipped with gimbals, which will eventually be replaced by fixed so you can't shoot the front of your own ship off. An odd aspect of the bug was that turrets would work on certain ships - say the Excalibur - just fine, but when attached to the Cardinal or Halbert, would be pointing awry. The above gif shows the first successful test of the different weapons on different ships.

We had another stream this Saturday, where Idyllic took a new fighter from the design phase all the way through rigging and testing within two hours. If you missed it, you can catch it here for a few days, or we'll upload it to our YouTube shortly.

Introducing the Australis Transom!

But Idyllic didn't go building new ships and streaming for no good reason, it was instead developed with a specific aspect of the code in mind. A while back we demoed the proof of concept for offset cameras, pulling the camera away for the bigger ships like the Cardinal so you weren't embedded in the engines while trying to fly. This week, Idyllic has completed the implementation of this feature, with every ship having a shiny new cam_offset vector3 that can move the camera up and down, left and right, and forward and backward, supporting more unusual configurations of fighters.

The Transom features an offset cockpit on the right wing, making use of this feature in a way that allows us to test it under normal conditions. While a bit unusual to fly when you're used to following the center of mass, it doesn't seem all that complicated to fly in tight maneuvers as long as you know what you're doing and are a practiced pilot. So build your unusual faction ships with cockpits off to one side, just remember that your pilots may need a bit more practice avoiding crashing into obstacles.


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 players be able to transport NPC's for money?

A1: There was a writeup in a newsletter a while back that when over the planned system in detail - a class of ships specifically designated 'transport ships' are designed to move people from place to place more efficiently, and provide an alternate source of income where you transport NPCs from station to station or other destination. If this proves valuable enough, it would encourage the opportunity for players stuck on stations to hitch a ride on these transport ships to a distant part of the galaxy without having to fly there themselves.

Q2: What do factions do with money, aside from stations and ships?

A2: There're lots of things a rich faction could use its treasury for, from hiring private security, purchasing minerals from freelance miners, funding research and construction of stations and outposts and colonies. And of course building ships. There should be no end to what you can spend money on, though we recommend you manage your wealth well. Your enemies might even pay some pirates to disrupt your economy.

Q3: Will taxes be manual or automatic?

A3: The taxation system that we have planned will of course be automatic. Transactions occurring within your controlled territory will have a fee associated with them, but the details of the extent of this system are yet to be determined. Unincorporated areas, unclaimed or independent systems might not have an automatic taxation system, but security forces may stop passing ships and demand a cut of the profits for safe passage, which would be an ad hoc manual tax system.

Q4: How many core systems are there?

A4: We have a handy starmap page on the website to assist with any stellar questions you may have - there are 97 core systems, but it is a wide and varied area that may see unique names pop up, like Mid-Rim or Solari Cluster.

Q5: How long will fleet battles last?

A5: That is hard to say. Combat will vary significantly, depending on strategy, armament, supplies, and the size of the factions. Short conflicts may involve small groups getting outnumbered and retreating, evenly matched battle groups may have hours-long slug-fests where billions of credits end up in flames. Variety is the spice of the game.

Q6: Will you be streaming more?

A6: Certainly. Idyllic has fixed his OBS and Skinny is getting into it, look forward to more streams in the future. As always, they will be announced in the #announcements channel in the discord community.

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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!