How We Built an FPS in ROBLOX

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ROBLOX Base WarsThe ROBLOX Content Team is wrapping up version 1.0 of ROBLOX Base Wars, a competitive first-person shooter (FPS).

The concept is familiar: up to 30 players join a game, and each player is randomly assigned to a team. Players contribute to their team’s score by taking out opponents and capturing control points. It’s a little like Team Fortress 2, but without the hats. We created Base Wars to show that an exciting first-person experience is possible in ROBLOX, as well as to give ROBLOX builders a resource they can draw upon for their own FPS creations. The source code for ROBLOX Base Wars is free, so download – or play – the most recent version here.

New Game, New Challenges

ROBLOX developers Deepak Chandrasekaran and Luke Weber built Base Wars using ROBLOX Studio, the same tool that ROBLOX players use to create games. Our developers encountered some challenges that had no solution in ROBLOX Lua and, in these cases, we added to the existing Lua functionality, which should help power users’ own FPSs in the future.

Base Wars Screenshot

First-person camera
Traditionally, ROBLOX uses a third-person camera. We lobbied Ben Tkacheff to add support to the ROBLOX engine for a “force-first-person-camera mode”, so that players see from eye-level and can aim accurately. Base Wars uses the new Player.CameraMode property, set to “LockFirstPerson”, to make the first-person view happen.

Low-lag guns
Weber designed most of the weapons for Base Wars. He spent a fair amount of time experimenting with ways to reduce perceptible trigger lag on the guns. The solution we decided on was to use server-side raycasts for hit detection. We’ll flesh out the technical details of our implementation in a future blog post.

Character classes
Base Wars uses character classes to encourage strategy and add replay value. There’s the basic, well-rounded Trooper, the nimble Assault class, the long-ranged Sniper, the damage-soaking Brute and healing Support class, each of which was play-tested time and again by the developers at ROBLOX. Testing Base Wars sounds like pure fun, our own little LAN party, but it was actually a tedious search for bugs and imbalances – a lot of work.

As Chandrasekaran said, “you can’t be sure it feels right until you sit down and play it.”


Above: Gameplay footage from Base Wars

Capture points
Base Wars features a modified version of the capture points from our 2011 Halloween level, which we drew from one of Weber’s prior levels. Players gain control of them by holding their position for 10 seconds while in close proximity. Chandrasekaran and crew created four states for the capture point, each one indicating whether either team controls it in full or in part. There’s a lot of math going on behind the scenes, as controlling a capture point gives the controlling team points every five seconds, and the more teammates on a capture point, the faster you capture it.

Leaderboard
The Content team dove into uncharted territory when it decided to add a custom leaderboard. The leaderboard was necessary because Base Wars is a competitive, Base Wars Leaderboard (and MVP)score-driven game, and players need to know where they rank. The leaderboard constantly grabs data from the game server and updates with the latest player and team scores. Plus, the best player gets showcased at the end of the round.

If you look at the source code for the Base Wars leaderboard, you’ll see that, at the time of this post, we’re using a clever hack to crash the default ROBLOX leaderboard script and insert our own. (This trick was inspired by ROBLOX pro-scripter Quenty.) We’re working on a better, more official way to make specific CoreGui elements optional in the future.

Minimap
Pressing “V” or “E” in Base Wars will bring up a minimap of the level, which will show, most importantly, which team controls which control points. Due to current limitations of our scripting API, this only works when your character has a weapon equipped. In the future, we’ll have a more elegant solution for this, too, which should benefit many scripters.

The Future

ROBLOX Base Wars is the Content Team’s first big project. We’re almost finished with version 1.0 and, from there, we plan to launch a new project in a completely different genre. What kind of content – strategy, role-playing, action – would you like to see from ROBLOX’s official developers in the future?

180 thoughts on “How We Built an FPS in ROBLOX”

  1. The heads and body are junk…Plain junk…If you make them, and leave out the original, you will lose millions of players.Your taking a turn for the worst, ROBLOX.

  2. Well, OK, or….Buy Modern Warfare for your PC, Wii, XBox, or PS3. (Watch me get banned for this comment, check on me in like a week or so).

  8. I would love to see a good role playing game… Post Apocalyptic would be nice though… :3

  9. I would LOVE to see a good roleplaying me on Roblox! The ones I’ve seen haven’t been very good.

  10. i think they should team up with lego to let players buy thier places

  11. I think they should like create an new building tool like stamper tool but much better were You could like make your own brick.

  12. I think ROBLOX needs a properly good racing game and one with a decent collision system.

  13. ROBLOX use to look like some kind of lego game (it maybe does still look like it to new users on Roblox) but now it’s even BETTER

  16. if u see this builderman i got to ask u to check out my place and say if i did good.ok?

  17. It’s a great game, I’ll give that to you. Could do with more maps, and less TF2 monopolisation :L

  18. I bet the ROBLOX team could DESTROY all other ROBLOX Racing maps if they tried… they’d have to make a whole new driving system though, one that the front wheels actually turn left and right in… I bet they could do it. :D

    • Depends on wich user is making the game. (I bet Me, grappler123, and stealthyninja588 could if we could build together!) :D

  19. I always wondered how to make CoreGuis disapear.One day, I was experimenting with leaderstats and to see what happened if you inserted something besides an IntValue. LOL

  20. i have school left righ now but i added it to muh facz so when im done u better nelieve that im gonna b doing this epic work :U quack.

  22. Can you make a base war with like different modes such as deathmatch and capture the flag?

  26. i want to make a game like that it wil be the best i got always good places only not good script

  28. Not to be rude or anything. It is a very awesome game! Though, I think you should change the name from “Base Wars” to something else. Base Wars AKA Base War was already made by Roblox user dark886 (d4rk886). I’d say change the name to “Roblox Fort Wars FPS” or Roblox Bloxxer Arena FPS” instead of Base Wars, ‘kay? =) If you use Base Wars, it kind of goes into a copyright.

  29. I think you guys should also refine ta sound aspect of your game, I mean, it really helps the atmosphere!

  30. Play Green vs. Yellow Base War. It is awesome. My little brother got 20 KOs in 1 hour

  32. does anyone have a raycasting script that works cause when i try using roblox’s against my friends well it does not shoot…Please send me (poseidon132) a raycasting that wont break while play with my friends. Please help

  33. I would love to learn to build like this but i cant really figure out how.One of my biggest troubles is (Scripting?) sCripting….I test with ppls scriptz and cant figure out how to work them or make my own. Ive learned some of the basics but i pretty much need help from a grownup but dont want to bug anyone.

    • I would love to learn to build like this but i cant really figure out how.One of my biggest troubles is (Scripting?) scripting…I test with pols script and cant figure out how to work them or make my own. Ive learned some of the basics but i pretty much need help from a grownup but don’t want to bug anyone.

  34. If you’re doing all that, you might want to add an option so that you can see your body, such as arms, in first person by choice. That may increase players wanting to play.

  37. :D lol xD I see my self (name, walt999) as last killed and 2 kills in the pics xS

  38. Well, I was thinking. This game is just a copy of the BETTER Base War by d4rk886, that is ALWAYS on the front page. Even the name is copied!

  40. Role-Play in a realistic environment. I haven’t seen Roblox employees make an RPG before, while the other genres they mentioned have been done by them before. It’d be interesting to see what you guys can come up with…..

  43. that to me is a good idea

    some games im planning are actully first person shooter games

  44. Sometimes Roblox is getting on my nerves, Not that I hate Roblox, I just think we should not copy the layouts of things in other games, Team Fortress Leaderboard?

    • Everything we see is copied from another source, with only about %10 originality. Since Team Fortess is a familiar layout for most gamers, they might as well “copy” the layout.

  45. Love the idea, I also like how ROBLOX doesn’t use a capital letter when he chats in a game, and ROBLOX looked epic when he fought, he’s just so GOOD at stuff, and I know ROBLOX is the whole Roblox Team so it might be some one else.

  46. Too bad many people on ROBLOX are lazy at building and scripting, relying on free models and coping other places so they can get rich.

  47. You’re kidding right?
    Have you guys not seen Litozinnamon’s game?
    The one that’s been on the front 3 pages for around a year?

    • Me too, it was a server test to see how many people could fit in one server. I saw TELAMON (aka Shedletsky) and SORCUS even, and I KILLED SORCUS ONCE :P! I have it on video too!

  49. I love the game, but the rounds seem to go pretty fast. Just 1-2 mins and the round is over…

  51. Personaly i dont like these new bricks, i liked the old ones. Still theyr were aq bit lagy to, but i still think th eold tools and starter places is better. But now it would be a bit stupit if teh Admins put it back, much hate.
    But i would be glad

  52. I would like to see where you can use mics to talk to other players just make the voices where can change them becasue its awesome. But my dad cusses alot so make it where the voice is only yours not someone in the background

    • A mic system would be impossible to moderate. Plus, you just _HAVE_ to expect mic spam, just look at TF2. PLUS, Roblox is a kids game, you’d hear loads of angry kids over the mic every time you say, kill them in a game similar to this.

    • @nickjonas1324
      that would be cool but using your own voice is kind of impossible,so there should be a key you press when you want to talk

    • How are they meant only to be able to make yourself hearable. This isn’t year 9001.

      • Gladoxia, it isn’t hard. A webcam would easily do the trick. Anyway, I completely agree with BCGames and all the guys that say they won’t add it because of harrasment. Can you image some of the abuse Guests would have to put up with? And what if they could talk themselves…?

    • Ok, have you opend your eyes? This is a childs game. If they allow mics then the older people will start yelling and harasing the younger children and i belive harasment is bullying and i dont think roblox allows that.

  53. This is cool. I just equally wish, however, we could go back to the simple days where things made sense to users of all kinds and you didn’t need to be a delevoping admin in order to get some action.

    • ROBLOX has changed dramatically, we can’t expect anything to be like 08′ ROBLOX. The site has to cater to its users, being the most used gaming site for kids in the US. With the immense size of ROBLOX these days, the action is intense, mostly because ROBLOX have to keep up to date with rivalry. You can’t expect them to keep us continually updated with what is happening, they’re busy people.

  55. I’d like to see something like a driving game, where there are other drivers, not players, so if your alone, there are still other drivers, that would be cool.

    • There are driving games out there like that. they just haven’t been made yet.
      Some of the great scripters of roblox could probably make AIs, as that I have seen a few myself.

  57. I’d like a well scripted rpg like RangeMeludE’s, But better core implementer screen gui’s controlling the stats and such and free so that users can use all the base scripts out of it.

  59. Gear? Meh.
    A first person shooter? Alright.
    A first person shooter with viewmodel? I’LL GIVE YOU A MILLION DOLLARS IF YOU MAKE THAT EASY TO IMPLENT!

  61. The ROBLOX Team should develop a RPG style game, similar to what RangeMeludE and others have built, but way better and better scripted and planned out like this!

    • Nice but Make it so you can see your arms and put First person shooter games in their own category.

    • Dude, this isn’t even past version 1.0, it’s still in beta testing. Cut them some slack.