Author: Khanovich
“I better see more naval combat out there, devs!”

Vehicles have always been a huge part of gaming that I enjoyed. They add a layer of gameplay and unpredictability that can’t be replicated with just characters and environments. One of my favorite implementations of vehicles allows players to share space inside of a vehicle like a helicopter without having to be directly attached to a “seat,” unlike the most common implementation of vehicles in games.

The ability to freely move around on a vehicle in motion has always been something that added extra immersion and excitement to many gameplay scenarios. Raiding a pirate ship that may be sailing at 40 knots wouldn’t be the same if you had to remain attached to a seat to not fall off. While games like Galleons were able to make this work, they had to jump through hoops with custom character implementations that required a lot of workarounds.

We’re excited to announce that this is no longer the case! At the beginning of October, we enabled a feature that allows players to interact better on top of moving objects — and the best part is that you don’t have to do anything special to take advantage of it. As long as the object you are running on top of is large enough and is not part of a Player/Character, we will automatically replicate the positions of this character with respect to that platform.

Previously in Roblox, standing on a car that someone else was driving would result in the character dragging far behind the vehicle due to latency. With the new system, you will more consistently see characters sharing space on a vehicle in a more realistic way. This means that games with boats, trains, and large vehicles that players can jump around on will see a huge boost in visual fidelity and consistency in behavior. Imagine this behavior in highway heists and train hijackings that was not possible before!

The current implementation is best suited for terrestrial vehicles such as aircraft, boats, and cars. We have a long-term vision that would be to extend this feature for advanced users in order to make multi-crew spaceships possible, however this requires some extra technological planning in order to properly accomplish. With a bright future in mind, I can’t wait to see what our seafaring developers bring to Roblox!

Let us know what you think about this new feature on Twitter @robloxdevrel, and for all the latest news and updates on Roblox, stay tuned to the blog.