RoVerse Development Newsletter #301

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 301st issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week saw a little bit of work in a lot of different areas. Hoverquads have been improved on the coding side, with better resistance to spinning when they run into things, and improved performance when driving off of cliffs. Instead of plummeting immediately to the ground at the bottom of a fall, they now drift gracefully down.

Here's a demonstration of the previous falling issue:

We did a bit of testing at Hyperion, and found that they had another issue that was related - if you managed to fall out of the station, which hopefully won't often be an issue, you'd fall to world position 0, then hover there. While this was rather entertaining and led to some fun police-chases in space, it has been remedied with the new gliding code.

The original porpoise of the testing was to try out our newest feature - Vehicle Hijacking. The Police Hoverquads we've added will serve quite well as a stand-in for testing out a system that lets players hack and steal vehicles given a bit of time, skill, and luck. Stealing a hoverbike will be a bit easier compared to stealing an entire untended ship, but the skills you pick up committing petty crime in the halls of Hyperion Station will do the enterprising criminal well in their illicit career.

Added this week are two vehicle-requisitioning consoles for Deputies to call in their Hoverquads. It also includes an ownership system, that registers the vehicle to the person who summoned it. Anyone else who attempts to ride the hoverquad will find disabled controls, and a 'Hotwire' prompt.

Be sure not to requisition too many hoverquads, or the Sheriff might fire you.

The hotwiring system itself is quite simple - you must hold down a series of keys with the correct order and timing, and the vehicle will become hacked. The gif below shows the functionality of the system, however it has been significantly sped up to fit in the seven second gif format. The keys you'll need to hold will follow a common pattern, but be randomized, to encourage investment in the hacking skills you'll develop over time. A skilled thief will be able to complete even the most complex hacks in a single try, and make off with anything not bolted down.

Testers described the mechanic as "difficult" which is what we were aiming for - difficult and slow, but possible if you're determined.

While Idyllic was modifying the hoverquad code to glide gracefully to the ground, an idea appeared. The vehicle performs quite well at Hyperion, where the ground is flat and level - but what if it was somewhere that was neither? And so we set about making them work at Daedalus Rex, the planetary proof of concept.

Using a variety of the new constraints and some simple code, we were able to modify the original hover function to work on a spherical planet. There are quite a few handy settings on the constraints that ended up working perfectly for our porpoises, like AngularVelocity's RelativeTo attachment setting making steering on the underside of a planet easier than figuring out the relative direction and rotation. AlignOrientation has a PrimaryAxisOnly setting that lets you make a part face perpendicular to the surface of a target. 

Among other changes made this week, was a first-pass at the Station's first restaurant. The Donald Bar has been renamed the Donald Café, after its proprietor, Donald P Sullivan. Serving a variety of snacks and meals that are replicated on demand, the café is the cheapest option available for the hungry traveler. Hungry for some rock candy or a plate of nachos? This is your next destination.

Last up, is phase 1 of the new manufacturing wing of the Station - The Refinery where ores collected by the Tortuga or personal mining vessels will be melted down into the valuables they contain, using a high-powered magnetic resonance furnace to separate the gold from the space rock.

Don't get your limbs caught in the grinder-feeder.

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

No questions from the community this week - send them our way via #dev_questions in the discord.

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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!