RoVerse Development Newsletter #221

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 221st issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week saw the completion of two big features for Capital Ships - Flak replication, and Flak damage. Keen-eyed readers may have noticed that all of our demos of the Flak turrets on Capitals were shown from the point of view of the Capital shooting the turrets, rather than the fighters being shot at. This was because there were a few major features remaining to be coded, and replication was particularly important.

This was a particularly interesting problem because Flak turrets are rather unique - their projectiles explode after a certain distance, but with automatic targeting, that distance can change. On the capital ship's client, these values can easily be read and set as necessary, based on the target acquisition system. However, when it came time to render these shots from the point of view of anyone else in game, there were two options. Send the range value with the turret angle update function, or perform all the target acquisition code over again, and hope it ends up close to what the original player sees. One of these options was significantly easier than the other.

target acquired

The range of flak shots now replicates with each turret aim update, seamlessly sharing where flak bolts should explode with each player in the server.

With that out of the way, the next big step was making the flak explosions damage ships. The flak shots could initially occasionally strike a fighter and damage them, however the explosions were still just visual. The Outpost Strike gamemode has a functioning damage system in place, that was ported over to the client and is now fully functional. We will probably be tweaking this in the coming week with a few more updates, but for now, ships can take damage.

Dodging automatic flak fire is just as chaotic and adrenaline-filled, if not more so, as the Outpost Strike. Light ships alone will have a difficult time closing the distance on any size Capital ship, but a strike team with some heavier protection will do just fine.

The community dogfight continued again this week, with members of the community coming together to blast each other out of the sky. Here are a selection of screenshots from the event - send in your own if you have them. Join us next week at 8pm EST and earn double credits for the duration.

This week in the dogfight there were 184 kills, 3 with auto, 0 with beam, 58 with laser, 0 with plasma, 2 with railgun, and 121 with torpedo. The most dangerous ship was the Lethe with 114 kills, followed by the Excalibur with 52. The most dangerous map was Pillarum with 239 deaths, followed by Classic with 3.​

And now, the moment you've been waiting for...
The three players that topped the leaderboard were IdyllicDestroyer, with 135 kills and 21 deaths and a 6.42 KDR; devOmegax with 39 kills, 7 deaths and a 5.57 KDR; and daddyreign with 10 kills, 8 deaths, and a 1.25 KDR. They have unlocked the exclusive ship Elysion Kokytos in the Alpha Dogfight. Nice work pilots!

If you'd like to check out the rest of our data, you can find the spreadsheet here: Phase 1 Data (Week 65)

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: h?

A1: h.

Q2: When turrets fire, do projectiles gain the speed of your ship movement?

A2: While realistic, momentum is not preserved by projectiles fired from turrets. This would require more calculations and some questionable math, and would just make players miss shots more often. Lets go with the idea that firing computers compensate for ship motion when firing.

Q3: Does neutralizing/disabling Outposts involve destroying all its turrets like in Outpost Strike?

A3: It's important that when destroying a station or outpost, you have to shoot the structure itself to deal damage, not just shoot its turrets. We've thought about it, and we've decided that it makes more sense for turret destruction to come about as a natural byproduct of ships attacking a structure - destroying the defenses shooting back at you makes destroying the rest of the station easier, but it isn't a mandatory aspect of the destruction.

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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!