RoVerse Development Newsletter#295

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 295th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, we've continued crossing bugs off our list from the 3rd community playtest, with some exciting things solved like UI issues with the gamemode scoreboard, faction turret errors, fighters being able to fly straight through Capital ships, turret shot rendering, and turret descension. We've also snagged several other generic errors that were stopping things like respawning or dealing damage, particularly with Missiles.

The community tests were also invaluable in helping us establish a baseline for how much health a Capital ship should have - the Bolitho would be considered a light Cruiser, and is in the very smallest Capital category of ships, so it should be able to hold its own against a limited number of fighters, especially with its complement of 7 flak cannons, but it shouldn't be an impenetrable wall if you sneak up behind it or outrange it's flaks. After the testing last week, we've doubled the health of the Bolitho, which gives it a bit more appropriate bulk for taking fighter hits. We've also taken the opportunity to tune Capital vs Capital damage - two Bolitho fighting each other with 3 Conventional turrets currently feels exactly like we'd want it to feel. Not too many hits to take one down, but it doesn't feel like it's made of glass either.

A new feature requested last week and quickly added in are turret reticles. These small pips will always be directly in front of the turrets on your ship, showing you where your shots would go at that exact moment, while the turrets are still transiting towards your mouse.

While they no longer get stopped by flak, this does give you a good idea of a ship's best firing angle, which on the Bolitho is directly ahead, with all guns to bear on the target.

A feature that is making its return, but at a fully-improved level, are ship wrecks. Randomly generated from the Capital ship model that just died, these wrecks appear with a brilliant explosion. Now, they work with any Capital you happen to be flying, not just the Bolitho.

We're to the point where we're testing the Capital Beta out every week - Join us next Sunday to help test out multiplayer aspects of the update. Your help is greatly appreciated.


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 add Hangar space to captured enemy Capitals?

A1: Unfortunately a captured ship is very difficult to modify without the original schematics. They'll be stuck with the Hangar space they have, unless you build a version of your own and spec it as a Carrier.

Q2: An annoying issue with capitals is that some small obstacles will stop the largest and strongest ships in their tracks. I can see this becoming a significant issue and/or exploitable strategy for many factions. Especially as larger ships get deployed. Will there be a mechanic to overcome this?

A2: We're working on a way to deal with this - the first change is live that prevents your throttle from getting set to 0 when you run into something. In the future, we want to use the collectionservice to tag small debris that should be able to be moved out of the way of Capital ships. We tried out detecting the size of debris live when you run into it, but unfortunately the debris isn't uniformly set up, and would be a pain to detect that way. This will take some dedicated effort to group and tag items in the existing maps.

Q3: Can we collect debris to turn into resources?

A3: Sure, debris that is created by the destruction of ships will be a vital aspect of any faction's fleet maintenance scheme, since most of the resources that went into a ship should be recoverable from the wreck, if your particular side wins the battle. Now you wont be able to scoop this debris up with a net or anything, but you will be able to mine them like very valuable asteroid chunks.

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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!