Hello everyone! Welcome to the 142nd 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 worked on the turret types code, making modifications to the original hitscan system, Juszl has begun work on another map, and Lordrex has undertaken a map-loading quality-of-life feature. First up, Juszls new map: It seems to appear to be based around either a fractured small moon, or a large asteroid mining quadrant. Either way, lots of little things to get in the way, and avenues for capitals to take. Should be fun for small ships in large groups to dip in and out of cover to evade capitals, while giving capitals the necessary firing lanes to properly engage others. - Juszl If anyone has any recommendations or ideas for maps, let us know. The next item on Idyllic's list-of-things-to-complete-before-release was weapon variant coding. It was a simple enough task to modify the code to support multiple weapon types on the visual end, but this week was spent upgrading and expanding the features of the raycasts that go on behind the scenes. The original dogfight alpha uses a hitscan raycast, where it's fired instantly at whatever the turret is facing, which created some unusual situations where it appeared the bolts were hitting a ship but not registering, or hitting them when the shot was nowhere close. To fix this, Idyllic has implemented a progressive raycast function, where several raycasts are done over the lifetime of the projectile, for better resolution when detecting the hits of moving projectiles. Ships that move into the path of the projectile after the shot is fired can now be hit, making lead-time a critical factor to consider. This gif from the archive shows it best: Matching up the projectile speed to the visual speed has been an interesting task, to say the least, but the good news is that the procedural system was very modular, and transferred from the Capital turret code to the fighter code extremely easily. In the process of testing the Capital Update, the devs noticed a significant lag spike whenever a round started. This spike interrupted menu controls for ship modifications, even the music playing in the background stuttered. The cause - the map loading in. Lots of rocks don't take well to being called into existence at the exact same time, causing that frame to grow significantly, as the engine calculated visible geometry and physics for everything. But there is no cause for alarm, as the solution to this problem has been implemented across many a Roblox game - incremental map loading. In exchange for a slightly longer intermission period, the map loads chunk by chunk instead of all at once, reducing one huge lag spike in numerous barely-noticeable ones. Lordrex has taken on the task of implementing such a fix, and has begun laying the groundwork for the system this week. Roblox has released its 2019 roadmap, and we thought we'd take a minute to review some of the features we're most excited about and what they could mean for RoVerse in the future. Up first, the features that are nearly here.
Later this year.
Features big enough and far off enough that they probably won't happen this year,
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: How big is the galaxy in miles or kilometers? A1: That is a question for the most intelligent scientists factions can provide. Only individual systems are accessible, and the jumpgate system bypasses significant portions of space, so there's no guarantee the galaxy map is to scale or complete. Q2: Will there be a system of punishment for glitch abuse? A2: There will be a reward for reporting glitches you find, as they will be inevitable in a game of this scale. Punishments for abuse will vary case by case based on severity of abuse. If you're destroying whole enemy fleets, or building fleets of your own, don't expect to be allowed to play anymore. Minor glitches that don't do much will either be reversed or just patched. Q3: Can factions create skins and give them out for free? Division skins for ships and weapons? A3: That sounds entirely reasonable, sure. For faction-related ships and equipment that you built yourself, it would only be reasonable to allow you to sell or gift to whomever you see fit. There may have to be some sort of review or limit to ensure that factions don't just go making a duplicate of RoVerse skins or random stuff like that, but it should be simple enough. Q4: Will you be using 100 player servers in RoVerse? A4: We'll certainly try, though stability is more of a concern than having that many players in one server. Until such gameplay is stable, don't expect wide adoption. Q5: Could you make fake or decoy Capitals? Shield ships? A5: In theory, you could. But in practice it might not work too well. Any construction of a ship is going to have a base cost, you can only strip it down so far. We recommend visual deception, either by having big ships be scaled versions of smaller ships so they're hard to identify at a distance, or unusual shapes or skins. Shield ships are more viable, armor and shield stats can be maxed over firepower, allowing them to absorb damage meant for other ships in the fleet. Q6: Will I kill Idyllic one day? A6: Every man is on the way to his last sunrise, but Idyllic's last is in another place and time. 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.
|
Archives
January 2023
Categories
All
AuthorsVaktus: Leader of the Vaktovian Empire and head of the RoVerse Project |