Sea Power News

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[h2]The JMSDF is coming soon![/h2]

Hello commanders, Noah here again to provide an update on what all is going on within sea powers art side of our team's work! So to start off, we are happy to start showing off more of our upcoming batch of JMSDF units! While these units will not be in this weeks update, we want to give you a sneak peak below of the units.

QH-50D Dash Drone (Also coming to applicable US vessels like the Gearing FRAM II):

P-2H and P-3C (in JMSDF colors):

Minegumo Class DD:

Takatsuki Class DD:

Yushio Class Submarine:


[h2]New Language options![/h2]

Next up, we've now added some new languages thanks to the many volunteers helping us with localization. In this latest update, we've now added Korean, French, and Spanish to the list of supported languages. Of course, if there are errors you spot in these translations, please let us know with a bug report (via discord and in English) please via the Microprose Discord! We are very excited to expand Sea Power to more languages in the future, and hope the community can help aid us in this process going into the future.


[h2]Saving and Loading Follow-up[/h2]

Yes, we know it's exciting and it's coming very soon. In the coming weeks, we will be releasing Saving and Loading into the Beta Branch for further testing in the public. We've been keeping it to our dev and closed beta testing recently to help narrow down some big issues before letting everyone tear into it! For example. last week, some of the bugs we found and fixed were as follows:

• Non-Leader Units dynamic formation waypoints not loading properly
  
• Submarines cavitation allowed toggle not saving/loading properly
  
• Helicopters in takeoff stage from an airbase could cause the loading system to break a scenario
  
• and more..
  

While we want to get this out to everyone officially, this is a feature that needs more thorough testing given the sheer complexity of our game. A ton of information needs to be saved and recalled properly, so there is lots of room for potential defects. Please pardon our progress. For those who help test on the beta branch (once it's available), we would really appreciate bug reports around saving and loading coming soon.


[h2]Coding Team Update:[/h2]

Our programming team has been hard at work as well, still further improving stability across missile calculations, aircraft behavior, and performance. Ian for example has been hard at work moving trees into our Autogen system, as well as improving the overall performance impact of such systems. Making SP run smoother and better in the process as well! We are also working on a new debug tool to help us further analyze missile intercepts due to the alarming amount of bugs around missile hit chances. A new button will be added that will share your game log, even log (shows us the missile hit chance, intercept chance, what was being targeted, etc), and the mission file. Such info is essential for us to help reproduce reported incidents.


[h2]Community Screenshots Showcase![/h2]

Image by ftcap:

Image by tonykito:

Image by notanthony11:

Image by Cent:


[h2]Workshop Showcase![/h2]

If your looking for some exciting missions to try out, please check out Jane's Fleet Command Redux by Techno! You can check out the classic missions remade in Sea Power by visiting this link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3366829667

And last but not least the full release notes for version 0.1.1.4 #139 below:

Aircraft/Helicopters

Bug Fixes:

• Some weird altitude restriction on landing of planes like MiG-25
  
• Aircraft no longer descend and acellerate to max on RTB
  
• Some squadron names
  
• Aircraft gun alignment could override bomb alignment which could prevent bomb drop
  
• Update VF-33 Callsign
  
• More USN Callsigns merged from https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3388219888 with permission
  
• Aircraft should no longer teleport on losing formation lead
  
• Custom Air Group should now load from file
  
• Fixes for flightdeck filter system
  
• Helicopter flying to stratosphere during VID
  
• Some animation state fixes for aircraft
  
• Failsafe for aircraft waypoint arrival
  
• Landing failsafe was cancelling formation relative position tasks.
  
• MiG-21 associated sensors key was wrong for the hardpoint, coould not use radar-guided missiles
  
• Fixedwing takeoff doesn't go supersonic
  
• Aircraft stuck in engagement state
  
• Tu-16P Damage Models misnamed
  
• Tu-16k could not guide AS-2
  
• F-14 had only 1 weapon channel for Sparrow
  

Improvements/Additions:

• Helicopter gun alignment improvements
  
• Cobra gun tweaks
  
• WIP: Aircraft continuous attack
  
• Balancing: Unified aircraft and ship chaff system
  
• F-14 radar split to common guidance system and Phoenix guidance system
  
• WIP on aircraft multi engage
  
• Aircraft Turnaround times implemented outside of Editor. Base time 20 mins. Large aircraft 40 mins. Heavy bombers 80 mins default. Settable in aircraft and helicopter ini with [General]CoolDownTime.
  
• Various improvements for flightdeck, including ability to specify Takeoff Ground Run distance, ability prevent planes to takeoff before previous on runway and changing pending tasks to spawn planes consequently. Added mandatory spawn delay.
  
• Active sonobouys to most ASW planes/helicopters
  
• 3 more torpedoes to Tu-142m
  
• Taxi interval values for helicopters. Landing pitch for soviet planes. Su-24A loadouts
  
• MiG-23MS profile pic
  
• "VeryLarge" plane category and flight deck filter
  
• Basic aircraft group attack
  
• Aircraft group attack on missiles
  

Vessels/Submarines

Bug Fixes:

• AI formation vessel could stuck in Sprint&Drift state when made formation leader
  
• Kitty Hawk cavitation particles
  
• Variants loaded all sections, not just ones less than the number of variants field
  
• Sverdlov ammunition numbers
  
• It was possible to request identification from submerged submarine
  
• Belknap GFCS orientation
  
• Incorrect positioning of units in LineAbreast formation type when spawned in the beginning of a mission
  

Improvements/Additions:

• Removed excessive variants of Yankee sub
  
• Show Depth below Keel for submarines
  
• Add ability to position cavitation particles through ini file
  
• Soviet vessels RWR/ELINT/ECM
  
• Added Turkish Gearings
  

Weapons

Bug Fixes:

• Reduced Pegasus-Class 76mm Mk75 to have 400 rounds (down from 5000)
  
• AGM-84 Launch range set to 65 nmi, down from 120
  
• Collateral damage to torpedoes by chaff rebalance
  
• TEST-71 torpedo could not be destroyed if exploded with debris creation
  
• Attempt to make CIWS to be able to shoot down only intended target
  
• Weapons could reveal positions of disappeared targets
  
• Torpedo TerminalApproach required target to be observed by shooter taskforce
  
• Attempt to prevent torpedoes to fly overwater
  
• Offset of container weapons like FFAR pods, when spawned far enough from center
  
• CM-5 muzzle velocity
  
• Ammunition bound to containers (e.g. FFAR) was not listed in Unit Reference
  
• Guns angles on japanese destroyers
  
• Fix for missile group and weapon time compression limit increase
  

Improvements/Additions:

• Chaff rebalance
  
• No auto-sorting for gun weapons in BottomBar
  
• Seaskimming penalty increased
  
• RBU nerfed
  
• Torpedo counter measure resistance lowered
  
• Harpoon buffed due to now being jammable
  
• WP and NATO ASM chaff resistance
  
• Sonobouys deploy depth menu now selects deploy mode instead instant attack state init
  
• Sonobouys mode context menu entries removed from GetSalvoSize method
  
• Changed projectile logging to same style as missiles
  
• Bomb drop distance in DM/Weapons (debug tool)
  
• Modder request: SARH and RC missile launch range limited by FCR max range
  
• Modder request: Max radar range cuts off missile connection
  
• More info on weapons in DM
  
• Ability to deploy sonobuoys to default, above and below layer depths via right-click context menu on bottom bar; depth of deployment for deployed sonobuoy; automatic regulation of deploy depth to avoid being set below bottom level
  
• Automatic change of sonoboy deploy depth to different values when setting up Attack Waypoints (for Player only)
  
• Intermittent depth deploy mode for sonobuoys
  
• Current sonobuoy depth mode is now checked in the right-click context menu
  
• Current sonobuoy mode display on the weapon entry tooltips
  
• "no layer" status for sonobuoy
  

Sensors

Bug Fixes:

• Fix for IR visual system
  
• Incorrect Buket offensive ECM reference in sensors.ini
  
• Head Lights radar colliders were too small that lead to invincibility against AGM-45
  
• Creation of new seeker while locked on countermeasure
  
• Wrong Seeker band for some sensors
  
• MSO Aggressive nav radar not rotating
  
• Jammer cone parameter
  
• Unsupported frequency band used for Cross Sword search radar
  
• Sonobuoy deploy time was not reset if using sonobuoy from pooling
  
• Incorrrect sonobuoy sensor depth on creation (above water)
  
• Jamming state was carried over from afterlife
  
• Jammed missile could retarget to some random target for unknown reason
  
• Passive Sonar Guidance for ASW torpedoes didn't work
  

Improvements/Additions:

• WIP on Jammers, Jamming is a soft kill now
  
• Increased transmittion range of all sonobouys up to 30 NM
  
• Radiation seeker weapons now don't retarget to another sensor system when distance to a target is less than 1nm left
  
• Radars tweaked after the nuclearstonk research
  
• ELINT, RWR, DECM/OECM for aircraft
  
• Added LOD2 to generic "Nato Radar" and TPS-27 radar, TPS-27 inflatable dome smoothed out
  

Mission Editor

Bug Fixes:

• Unit Types dropdown could contain units from wrong category when switched from and back to empty group
  
• Delete to remove group changed to Shift+Delete
  
• Pause Menu in Mission Editor Mission
  
• Some of the formation presets in Mission Editor will do stuff now
  
• Formation Editor stations moveable in Mission Editor again. Bonus! The preset formations now work in editor!
  

Improvements/Additions:

• WIP on Station Role in Mission Editor
  
• Added station roles to US CVBG formation template
  
• Template for Soviet CBG
  
• Air Group editing enabled
  
• Add Reform and Disband Formation to Mission Editor. Should allow correct teleporting of formations
  
• Trigger action area Height text field, should help to avoid aircrafts crash on spawn and submarines spawn on surface only
  

Misc

Bug Fixes:

• Queuing multiple duplicate actions. Change Duplicate key to Ctrl+D
  
• Terrain painter did not mark vertices correctly when being used on terrain chunk edges
  
• Null refs
  
• Get full description for mods
  
• List of colliders was formed only for systems of Vessels and Submarines
  
• Some voiceovers
  
• Autogen: unecessary reloads of materials
  
• Autogen: relaxed hard viewport culling and always render close up objects to avoid they disappear because projected pos outside viewport.
  
• EventLog now actually gets cleaned up on exiting a mission
  
• Add Description to Morvarid
  
• Typo in Borderline, make name less likely to trigger offence.
  
• Background data (e.g. ports) was not loaded anymore due to change to coroutines
  
• Contact faded audio appends track number now for one track.
  
• Refresh top level paths before calculating relative paths
  
• Make it less likely for UI Context to get lost in CreateModMenu
  
• Folder Creation will refresh search directories
  
• Units with no texture or material definition relying on models were not loading.
  
• FileManager was causing game to halt on load if Steam Mod file was deleted.
  
• Change Task Force Trigger also moves formations over (if all units in the formation are in Action Units).
  
• Contact information window height correction
  
• Saving/Loading: Fix absolute waypoints of non leader ships
  
• Saving/Loading: fix local position for parented units (i.e. heli in hangar)
  
• Saving/Loading: fix the relative waypoint for unit without a Formation (default position of spawned vehicle from carrier)
  
• Saving/Loading: fix the Stations positions inside a Formation in save files
  
• Saving/Loading: fix independant waypoint is saved when a unit is in formation
  
• Saving/Loading: fix no waypoint is saved if in formation and no independant waypoint is set
  
• Saving/Loading: fix SonoDeployState both for units (heli, aircraft) as a launch setting and the
  
• Saving/Loading: Added launch timer / deploy timer correct behavior for sonobuoy bombs
  
• Saving/Loading: fix flightdeck loading messing with ObjectBase.UniqueID
  
• Saving/Loading: fix sonobuoys
  
• Saving/Loading: fix FlightDeck, fix heli OpenHangarDoor
  
• Saving/Loading: fix LaunchTask object restore if already exists or to be created
  
• Typo in DM panel "taget"
  
• Delhi spelling mistake
  
• Having non-existent units types no longer crushes game on load, report an error instead
  
• Target memory not working properly
  
• Recalculate normals when there was a terrain modification
  
• Trial of fix for 180° E/W location
  
• Check for existing SOP blocked special "Random" unit type
  
• Odd behaviour with layered UI in Linear Campaign. Essentially the extra UI layer hooking the mouse clicks.
  
• Dead vehicle was not updated with last truth info
  
• RMB placed marker instead of canceling it
  
• Typo and text parsing in Material Ini
  

Improvements/Additions:

• German, Chinese and Russian translations
  
• Isafjordur airbase
  
• Autogen improvements
  
• Tooltip font size set to 12
  
• Event log to stack in bottom right corner
  
• Linear Campaign Proto Update
  
• Saving/Loading: separate Air/Surface search radar states
  
• Saving/Loading: added cavitation setting for submarines
  
• Saving/Loading: Added RotatedWithLeader to support "relative position" Formations
  
• Saving/Loading: added a warning message box to ask confirmation if quick loading a different mission
  
• Saving/Loading: added UI notification when a quick save is done
  
• Adjusted lots of terrain textures properties that were capped at 2k limit instead of their native 4k resolution
  
• Allow loading of textures from file in variants.ini
  
• Symbols for TargetLost, Chaffed and Jammed misseles on map
  
• Make the tags list more pretty in Create Mod
  
• Collider-based aimpoint for system
  
• Debug tool to reload Linear Campaign Events
  
• Some work on example Linear Campaign
  
• Fallback to English in trigger messages
  
• Select All / Select None in Context Menu for ModManager
  
• Enabled SSE4 for burst compiler
  
• Ability to load materials from file using the format as below. Modding tool, untested.
  [Shader]
  Path=Marmoset/Bumped Specular IBL
  [Properties]
  ;ShaderPropertyName=Type,Value. The below will be set by default which are the normal values used by Marmoset
  _Color=Color,#808080
  _SpecColor=Color,White
  _SpecInt=1
  _Shininess=6.5
  _Fresnel=0.75
  [Textures]
  ;TextureSlot=TexturePath. The normal values for marmoset are below. No extension will load from resources.
  _MainTex=pathToFile
  _SpecTex=pathToFile.png
  _BumpMap=pathToFile.png
  
• Intercept size bonuses are exposed in damage.ini
  
• Speed intercept calculations to VID task
  
• Bug reporting via pause menu
  
• Turkey flag and nation
  
• Cursors for drawing tools
  
• French, Spanish and Korean translations
  

Happy new years everyone! Noah (Also known as Zelos on MPS Discord!) here today to do this dev blog! So first up, I hope all of our captains out there enjoyed their holidays, as we certainly took the chance to take some much needed time away to relax. During the first two months, the SP team has been hard focused on improving stability on bugs and performance, but now we are going to be moving into working on new systems as well. For now, let's go over a few of the big topics that are going to a factor going into 2025.


[h2]Performance and Bug Fixing[/h2]
On that front, we've made some pretty good strides on optimizing as well, improving FPS across the board a good bit. We still have some systems we will be looking into (for example: map system and taskforce data link) to further improve stability and frame rates. We've already addressed a handful of memory leaks with the terrain system and the trees as well, further aiding in longer player session stability.


When it comes to bugs, and oh boy there was a lot.. Everything from flying submarines to IR seekers failing to see targets (aiming at the wrong aim point vs target pos.), and everything in-between. Matt, Ivan, Martin, and Danill have all been hard work fixing issues across the board, and we still will be addressing bugs going forward as we also begin our move into new systems (which I will reveal further into this dev blog). Matt will be spending some time with aircraft formations as well, to help improve their use and the overall stability of aircraft operations (this means trying to prevent aircraft from achieving orbit). On a final note of bug fixing, thank you all for your bug reports on both Steam, Reddit, and Discord! For example, there have been a lot of reports about missile guidance defects, and issues with aircraft functions (namely around landing). While we may not respond to them all in writing, we are still watching and working on fixes!


[h2]Art and Units[/h2]
Over on the art front, Mek and Nils have been working very hard on fixing already existing units and working on the new 2025 line up of units will now begin as well. Ian has is also going to be working on some of our autogen systems to help create more interesting landscapes as well, starting with trees in the near future! Right before we took a break, Nils and Mek managed to add two of our beloved Cube Ships (CV Enterprise and USS Long Beach)! There are many units that we did not get a chance to work on for Early Access, which will be our priority going forward towards a 1.0 release in the future. To give you a tiny sneak peek at what's to come, some units you can expect to see added will be..

• Farragut Class 1969 Config
  
• A3B/RA-3B Skywarriors
  

These are just a small handful, as we certainly will keep you informed elsewhere and with other post as with teasers of other units to come!

[h2]Systems Improvements and Additions[/h2]

[h3]Saving Loading..[/h3]
Saving and loading will be coming in the very near future (one of our top priorities), as Victor will be rejoining the team to help us finalize the saving and loading system for public release. From the survey results, Steam forums, and Reddit, we hear you on the demand for saving and loading. We didn't want to rush a release on this feature until we had the manpower and time to make sure this feature runs smoothly given how important it will be going forward. There is so much data that needs to be saved (sensors, flight deck phases, ship position, weapon stores, etc), that making it functional is a big endeavor for our small team. We are very excited to get this feature into your hands!

[h3]AI improvements..[/h3]
Given SP is a single player game, the current implementation of AI is not very developed, and this showed on the survey. Now that the crunch time of early access bug fixing is behind us, we can start working on the many steps it will take to further implement a new system to make combat more engaging and dynamic going forward. With the team being back together from the holidays, this will be one of our priorities going forward into Q1 of 2025.

[h2]Closing Words[/h2]
Thank you all again for the bug reports, youtube videos, twitch streams mods, and missions on the steam workshop! Shoutout to all those taking awesome and silly screenshots as well, and here are some we found particularly awesome below!

[h2]Community Screenshots[/h2]

Image by tzatzikiiii - MPS Discord

Image by Timber_Loves_Lemonade - MPS Discord

Image by Ayrton_Senna30 - MPS Discord

Hello everyone, here comes a hot fix for our last patch, sorry again for the trouble!
We're aware of ongoing issues with aircraft and formations and currently working on them, thank you for your patience!

Bug Fixes:

• Exception in formation when trying to assign movement data to new leader
  
• Bottom Bar weapons free states could show a tick next to all items
  
• Coontz 68 issues with colliders
  
• Added Coontz 68 profile picture
  
• Encyclopedia PauseMenu Resume button
  
• Su-24a and Su-24m cruise altitude fix
  
• P-3C Loadout Keys
  
• No descriptions for SPS-12, SPS-32, SPS-33 radars, added stubs to all languages
  
• Wrong peak power level for LN-66 radar, upped to 75 Kw
  
• RIM-67A (SM-1ER) missile max range increased to 40 nm
  
• Firing arcs of Coontz 68
  

Improvements/Additions:

• Autogen: Improved frustum culling to viewport culling
  
• US SAM missile models
  

Dear all, we're very sorry for the issues with the latest release #127 and rolling back to an older version #124 until we get the root cause fixed which shouldn't take too long. Thank you for all your reports, support and help!

A belated happy new year to you all! We're releasing the first patch of the year, fixing some issues.

About saving/loading: This is heavily worked on. Our main dev for this feature is back and we're making very good progress on it. Again sorry, that it takes that long.
Beside that we also work on Performance improvements. Have fun!

Bug Fixes:

• Numerous null refs
  
• Out of range exceptions for units which don't have 2x5 compartments
  
• RemoveEngageTask was called for the wrong object which potentially messed up the engage tasks in overall
  
• Crash in Noesis (patched to 3.2.6p1)
  
• Spelling error in S-3 description
  
• SH-2F had 3 undefined squadrons
  
• Minor fixes in English ammunition_names.ini
  
• Tu-16 restored missing kill effect spawn meshes, shootdowns should look correct now (apply to all Tu-16 models)
  
• F1 family Damage Models not displaying fix
  
• Fixed a material error on Americas no 2 elevator
  
• Torpedoes used AimPointGeoPosition to determine FOV but the seeker gudance still used Vector3 intercept position
  
• Fixed ESM for P-3
  
• IR AA missiles were prone to miss because FOV was checked against aimpoint instead actual target
  
• Some edge case with terrain at 180° E/W where the center tile was calculated wrongly and led to a relocation loop (still WIP)
  
• Campaigns now use FileManager in menu
  
• Change start engines to update loop rather than coroutine as coroutine seemed heavy
  
• Props should start animating again, note to self check shutdown for coroutine performacne too
  
• Aircraft shutdown migrated out of coroutine to avoid error on despawn
  
• RU description for P4 torpedo boat was missing
  
• Some audio issues on spawning aircraft
  
• Incorrect number of sensors on various vessels
  
• SK flag on Soviet RoRo
  
• Ordered speed was not transferred to new formation leader when switching leaders
  
• Less than adequate altitude correction failsafe
  

Improvements/Additions:

• Descriptions for Enterprise and Belknap 72
  
• Updated Sentry to 2.4.0
  
• Set UseAssetBundles to false per default for now to avoid broken games outside when that setting is accidentally set to true
  
• Aircraft carrier deck ops overhaul - many thanks to the great work by Mateusz Ossowski alias Ossesek without whose hard modding this work would would not be possible.
  All carriers now recover aircraft at a rate of 50-70 second intervals, and launches are also faster.
  Carriers are still limited to either recovering OR launching, that is, no simultaneous launch and recovery is possible as this is the way all carriers operate IRL. We will soon introduce Alert 5 status for the bow cats to allow a 'launch on warning' ability even during recovery, though.
  
• EN ui text for Disable Triggers
  
• Boilerplate for future work. Significant changes to Pause Menu to support configuration in code rather than through XAML.
  
• Russian and German translation
  
• Business jet weight, fuel weight and engine thrust
  
• Added modex mesh and many liveries
  
• Added more P-3 liveries
  
• Added JMSDF P-3 with liveries
  
• WIP: Initial Linear Mission set. Now able to run missions from it. Simplified some stuff in UI
  
• Workshop: Initial Tag limiting controls (WIP)
  
• Move to Top and Bottom commands in Mod Manager
  
• Load Order for disabled Mods is preserved
  
• Modders requested ability to influence outOfAltitudesPenalty and SpeedPenaltyMultiplier
  
• 1968 Coontz version