RoVerse Development Newsletter #269

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 269th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, Idyllic worked on a feature we've wanted to add to target selection for a few weeks now - Targets being obscured by obstacles, rigged some updates to Inikan Legion ships, and finished off the Cycle reward ship.

A few weeks ago, we debuted a change to targeting that added non-players to the HUD, specifically Outpost Turrets in the Outpost Strike Gamemode. Almost immediately, we had renewed requests for the ability to hide behind rocks and obscure your radar signature by going out of view. This sounded like a fantastic idea, so we brainstormed how we could make it work. While we can't just blast a hundred raycasts every frame to see when a target leaves your field of view, we can spread those out over a short duration, and add in a bit of randomness, to simulate a tracking system slowly losing track of the target.

So that's what we tested. The location of a target is randomized ever so slightly, and the raycasts aren't immediate, but losing sight of a target will lose the lock on and ability to select that target. This should add a bit of variety to some gamemodes and maps - Frostland will likely be a lot more chaotic when you cant track players down from thousands of studs away.

We have the disappearing portion down, but it just vanishes without you noticing. That wouldn't do, so we modified the UI a bit, and added a vanishing animation to make it more noticeable. There remain a few kinks to work out, and raycasts don't seem to be working consistently, but we're optimistic this will be a quick and easy addition to the dogfight.

On the ship-rigging side, a slew of changes to Inikan ships have been made, to get them ready for the armament updates coming soon. As some of the earliest submitted ships, they were set up for a slightly different set of rules than what we've worked out through the process, and as such they needed a few changes to make them competitive. Hopefully we'll be seeing them in the sky more often.

Introducing the newest Cycle reward ship: The Cosmos Vostok

This week in the dogfight there were 81 kills, 18 with auto, 0 with beam, 19 with laser, 35 with plasma, 9 with railgun, and 0 with torpedo. The most dangerous ship was the Gladiator with 20 kills, followed by the SSA3-2_Ritojin_Kai_OH with 19. The most dangerous map was Citadel with 28 deaths, followed by The_Great_Hollow with 26.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for...
The three players that topped the leaderboard were devOmegax, with 23 kills and 10 deaths and a 2.3 KDR; TheUnderseer with 19 kills, 25 deaths and a 0.76 KDR; and FangABXY with 18 kills, 14 deaths, and a 1.28 KDR. They have unlocked the exclusive ship Cosmos Vostok 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 113)

Calexian Community Challenge
​​The challenges are: 6000 Outpost Turrets, and 3000 Non-Torpedo kills

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 we be able to manufacture weapons with different stats to sell to other players?

A1: Yep! Most custom submissions that aren't particle effects will be able to be customized with an expansion of the points system used on Faction Fighters.

Q2: Will a station's appearance change if it gets taken over by another Faction instead of being destroyed?

A2: It will not change directly to the capturing faction's designs, though we might be able to work with players on designing details to add on to the original design to make it clear that it has been taken over by a new faction.

Q3: Will custom armor be unlocked through research?

A3: If it's a custom version of basic armor, it will be unlocked at the same time the basic version is unlocked. For special armor of higher tiers, that would also be custom, it will be unlocked through research.

Q4: Will we be able to assign custom armor based on rank/branch of military?

A4: We'll try to make that work. Distinguishing the branches of the military, and even ranks, would be a great addition. Whether that is automatic remains to be seen.

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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!