Sea Power News

Hello everyone and a happy belated start into December! 4 weeks have passed since the release of Sea Power and we're working hard to improve the game and to work in your feedback. Saving/Loading is still heavily worked on so we hopefully will have it in soon!

[h3]Air Defense State Changes[/h3]

What it did

With this update will come a big change to Air Defense states. Previously, the 'Weapons Free' mode would be one of the options available. Past implementation of this made it so the ship would engage all track types (land, air, sea, and submarines) at will. During this process of engagement, it would often lock users out of control of their unit which was not intended design and a placeholder for testing.

What it does now

Now, this command to go 'Weapons Free' is still available, but has been tuned to only allow your ship to engage Air Tracks (missiles, helicopters, and aircraft that are classified hostile). However, Inside of the options menu, we have added a new option to 'Allow firing on surface targets with weapons free' (Off by default). Now, Anti Surface Weapons and Anti Submarine weapons will need to be manually used against those target types.

This change will allow those who like to watch the AI battle each other still be able to create epic scenes, while letting those who want a bit more control of their vessels. We are still discussing how we want to change alignment controls to give you even greater control of your vessels in combat as well. This means your units will still ignore move waypoints while engaging a track at this time, but should be less often now.

[h3]Contact messages[/h3]

We added an option in the menu so you can toggle if you want to hear the contact faded messages or contact messages at all.

Aircraft/Helicopters

Bug Fixes:

• Helicopter blades clipping through hangar on Belknap
  
• Blocked waypoint deletion for landing Aircraft
  
• Aircraft not selected weapon by click if outside range brackets
  
• Ka-25 and Ka-27 ASW helicopters use the vgs-3 dipping sonar model instead of the American one
  
• Aircraft could go into circuit while being way to high for landing to succeed
  
• Prevented RTB order for not yet launched aircraft
  
• There was an incorrect alignment position in aircraft states
  
• Typo mixing unity units and miles in aircraft attack
  
• Helicopter landing was broken
  
• Some fixes for erronous non-entry into attack states for aircraft
  
• Phantoms sidewinder positions correction
  
• Fueltanks could be dropped while at carrier
  
• F-15 wheels seen through Air intakes
  
• A number of fixes for gun aiming against surface tracks, mildly experimental
  
• Phantoms tanks materials corrected to use proper DiffuseIBL shaders
  
• Aircraft States take on alignment positions for LandUnits
  
• Aircraft aiming problems in AI off state
  
• Aircraft did not always launch weapons when possible
  
• MiG-17 weapon positions
  
• MiG-17 fuel tank pivot rotation
  

Improvements/Additions:

• Aircraft Divebombing experimental state
  
• Tweaks to Popup and Dive attacks
  
• Reposition state for aircraft attacks in ASuW mode
  
• More Aircraft attack state stuff, this tries to make simple attacks just launches. Long range attacks use low ingress and then popup for the most part.
  
• Aircraft States, modifying some of the attack stuff.
  
• F-4j gets upwards chaff as by user report: "navy phantoms were equipped with the upward firing an/ale-29"
  

Vessels/Submarines

Bug Fixes:

• Underwater range of D/E submarines was much less than expected on slow speeds
  
• Wrong Hatch reference in Charlies HatchCloseAnim_8
  
• Submarine could be spawned below crush depth in Encyclopedia
  
• Bugs on Spruance, Garcia
  
• Towed decoy cable could not get initial state on deploy
  
• Incorrect waypoint array member was used for ToLower(), made subs to ignore waypoint depth settings on load from mission file
  
• Incorrect sensors assignment for weapons on Kirov and Udaloy
  
• Kirov's Stbd Osa FCR rest position
  
• Sverdlov's gun range
  
• Albacora class chin sonar bulge shape fix
  
• Missing merchant liveries/decals
  
• Uragan magazine quantity
  

Improvements/Additions:

• Type 205 submarine mesh fixes, LODs, colliders
  
• Renamed jammers on Israeli ships to universal one instead "defensive" because it created some confusion among players
  
• Collision avoidance overhaul, should work more adequate now
  
• Cavitation Toggle for Subs. Going to flank auto allows cavitation.
  
• OHP and Spruance now carry AN/SQR-18A towed sonars instead TACTASS that is more modern system available from end of 80's only
  
• Added Noisemakers to Kilo SS
  

Weapons

Bug Fixes:

• Anti sub missiles could go to space while attacking noisemaker
  
• ASW range of Metel and Rastrub was limited by incorrect horizon
  
• Missiles and bombs with seekers lost targets when intercept point moved out of seeker FOV
  
• Cut-off for MissileGroup leader to prevent MissileGroup non-activation at waypoint
  
• Some weapons like ASROC acted weirdly in case of a relocation event (basically stopped their ballistic move and dropped 90° vertically)
  
• Limited intercept positions to seeker FOV for all missile types
  
• Another crutch to determine "we have missed te target" case
  
• Error in displaying range for Metel and Rastrub
  
• Don 57mm orientation
  
• Wrong calculation of intercept bonus
  
• Incorrect range for RC+Seeker missiles
  
• Removed the ridiculous nerf on AIM-54 vs smaller targets
  
• SAM can target closing in missiles beyond max range
  
• Missiles used to retarget to another target at last meters of flight
  
• TLAM used to miss target and fly into sunset
  
• Potential too long interception time by CIWS
  
• Laser designated weapons should require target
  

Improvements/Additions:

• Bomb drop time uses ballistic equation
  
• Adjust bomb drop timing to account for dive
  
• Jamming of missiles targeting vessels will always make them go into water
  
• Make max launch altitudes more generous
  
• Passive seeker range override for SARH misisles to avoid situations when seeker enables earlier than it can potentially see anything
  
• Adjusted missile group leader altitude for Granit and Basalt
  
• Narrow FOV value for TASM seeker to avoid horde attacks on one target
  
• Reduced Terminal dist for TASM to avoid premature retargeting when launching to specific target
  
• AS-4 speed/range tweak
  
• AS-4 missile now uses Deceleration parameter to slow down to TerminalVelocity to simulate slowing after the start of dive due the air density
  
• Interception bonus nerfed for high-speed missiles
  
• Hardcoded deceleration factor value replaced by Deceleration parameter in AmmunitionParameters, it defaults to the former hardcoded value of 3.0
  
• Intercept calculations for SAM
  

Sensors

Bug Fixes:

• Corrected usage of OTH multiplier value for ESM systems in all cases (was only in one case)
  
• ESM detection was overrated because there was no division by 1000 to get correct value of incoming power in kilowatts
  
• Incorrect radar Power/Gain settings for Cyrano family radars
  
• Corrected Aida radar to make it usable in game
  
• Cloud state from SceneCreator was ignored by SensorSystemVisual due to case-sensitiveness
  
• Wrong freq bands on Cross Sword
  

Improvements/Additions:

• Convergence zone bonus is now applied only when both sensor and target locate in positions where bottom level is deeper than 3000 feet
  
• MinDepthForConvergenceZones parameter in feet to environment.ini (3000ft)
  
• Successful defensive ECM spoofing of incoming weapon now registered in Event Log and displayed as message
  
• ESM sensors now have 1.3 default radar horizon bonus for detection; Band Stand radar + Band Stand ESM to Tarantul; Band Stand ESM for Nanuchkas
  
• Separate min detection treshold value for ESM/anti radiation seeker to make ESM detection less omnipresent
  
• Hard-limit for active sonar range
  
• Active sonar Gain/Power for some sonars, still WIP
  
• Convergence zone now applicable to Low-Frequency active sonars
  
• ECMs for all US carriers, fixed some sensor mount positions
  
• Bottom bounce for active (only LF and MF) and passive sonars
  
• Sonars reviewed with emphasis on active sonars effectiveness increase
  

Mission Editor

Bug Fixes:

• Any mission now saved only when all data is proccessed correctly on WriteFile, so faulty saves should not corrupt mission files anymore
  
• When user returned from Play -> Exit journey, all changes were lost because original mission file was loaded instead of the temp mission file
  
• SelectedUnitInGroup was not nullified when adding new group, so data of last selected unit in previous group was modified when adding new group
  

Improvements/Additions:

• Massive logging for Mission file saving process, WIP
  

Misc

Bug Fixes:

• Null refs
  
• Blank News Item
  
• Abrams turret
  
• Single click file selection
  
• Double despawning of parachute effects
  
• Add second layer back to Emcon Menu
  
• Rare race condition where the positioning of the units could go wrong during mission start up
  
• SystemName was not used for towed decoy systems
  
• Allow loading of voicover from mod folder
  
• Context menu remove waypoints applied only to non-inFlight aircraft and heli
  
• M1 Abrams barrel mesh rotation fix and normalmap fx layers fix
  
• Wrong ammo for T-55
  
• Ability to spawn ports nice in encyclopedia
  

Improvements/Additions:

• Updated steamworks plugin to latest 2024.8.0
  
• Russian, German and Chinese translations
  
• Updated Manual to v1.8 (11/18/24)
  
• Descriptions for NATO missions (thx Dave!)
  
• Better ammo selector rules for AutoAttackByClick
  
• Enabled relative light and shadow culling for the camera
  
• Sensor Menu should ne show correct state. Prep for Silent Running Button.
  
• Tweaks to terrain meshes around Suez Canal and Bosphorus
  
• Make Formation Manager clicks require less precision
  
• Allow Delete of Files through File Picker
  
• Modification to Bottom Bar weapons display
  
• New player waypoint / return to formation / resume course command Ceases fire and sets state to Tight if it was weapons free
  
• Support for custom rotation axis of depth planes for submarines
  
• Invert y axis option for camera movement
  
• Contact voice overs and contact faded voice over can be toggled in the options menu now
  
• Set Radar range and Altitude in Encyclopedia to Nautical Miles and Feet Respectively. Also lay some groundwork for user swappable measurement units later.
  
• Disabled "distance shadowmask" for medium quality setting
  
• Updated Noesis UI to 3.2.6
  
• Player units engage ONLY air targets on "Weapons Free"
  
• Options checkbox to allow player units to auto attack surface targets in "WeaponsFree" mode
  
• Fine-tuning of friendly fire prevention
  
• Modifications to Weapon Encyclopedia to use user changeable distance and altitude values. Also add more details to encyclopedia and localisation values for them
  
• Lowered the size of standard Flak airbursts, added flak_burst_large and flak_burst_large_2 for future use
  
• T-55 Max Elevation changed from 20 to 18 degrees
  
• Set underwater depth factor to 1 (was 2) for original depth values
  
• Better seabed texture
  
• Depth dependent underwater screen rays
  
• Adapted missions (All your Guam belongs to us (both sides), Crimson Tide (blue side), Don't mess with Texas (blue side))
  

Small Patch Update 0.1.0.7: This change just adds some logging for the mission editor to allow better bug hunting.

So after over SIX THOUSAND and more responses, the first thing I want to say on behalf of Triassic Games is thank you for the many responses you all have made! I'm going to take a moment here to talk on a few of the points that were brought up from the survey results.

[h3]Avg. user experience rating[/h3]

An avg of 7.6/10 is quite that rating, and we are very grateful to receive so much praise in the many responses everyone left behind.

[h3]Areas of Gameplay to be improved[/h3]

So this area has a few points I would like to give some insight on..

AI improvements (26.4%)
• The Triassic Games team will be focusing on this point going into Dec., so that we can provide a more enjoyable combat experience and mission making potential. We've already started on this by working on aircraft to get those carriers operating, with more to follow improvements to follow in due time!
  
Improved Controls (23.6%)
• Yes, we hear you! We will be looking into improving some controls going forward to help make the game more playable and accessible. We still have some ideas to discuss internally, but as of right now we are looking into the following:
  
• Improved awareness of unit actions (vessels will be getting their status bar updated to show relevant unit action, which we've also tackled the first iterations off, pending localizations for some.)
  
• Discuss topics internally about aircraft controls for users to help reduce micromanagement, weapon toggles for open/free fire defense states, and more.
  
More units of all types (14.2%)
• As of right now, we have plans to add more units of all types, and we are looking at adding units of all types (Land, Air, Sea) on a regular basis. We will be starting in 2025 with this plan, as we are currently focused on addressing bugs.
  
And finally, Saving Loading systems
• We will be moving into a testing phase soon, which the beta team will be helping us test out in the coming weeks. We still want to work on it further to make sure it's stable enough for public use before rolling it out, as we don't want those hour long missions to get messed up because of such an important feature!
  

[h3]Other News..[/h3]

Dec->2025

Once Christmas arrives, the team at Triassic is in desperate need of a big break. After over 4 years of continuous work, the team will be taking the two weeks from Christmas to New Years off (Dec. 23-Jan.3) (Doesn't mean we won't be around, but we will not update the game during this time frame unless it's a hotfix for a urgent issue).

Also we love everyone's memes we've been seeing around and we wish you luck in your operations!

VAMPIRE!VAMPIRE!VAMPIRE!

Hello everyone! Another patch is out. Beside the usual fixes it also should bring some life to the carrier AI. Even though this is still work in progress it should make it more useful. Also this patch adds some value to the status field in the bottom bar for vessels.

Bug Fixes:

• Added missing Chinese translations for Under Cover Of The Rain mission
  
• Typo in description for knm_msc_saud minesweeper (thanks @joemama619)
  
• SARH missiles lost connection to guiding radar when target was at less than 2nm at moment of launch, had some hardcoded debug value left in
  
• Corrected Baltim mission: changed year to 1973, assigned Egypt nation, egyptian PTGs were soviet ones
  
• Latakia: unit nations are uppercase now and actually applied
  
• Added proper Osa variants to Baltim and Latakia missions
  
• Kirov transparent girders holes caps, possible fix for P6 "teared" flag mesh
  
• Disable carrier AI for damaged flightdeck
  
• Cables not rendering underwater
  
• SARH was not accounting for FCR horizons in AI weapon selection
  
• Airstrike target distribution included destroyed units
  
• Another possible fix for aircraft going into space on RTB/landing
  
• T43 missing bonk collider
  
• Null refs
  
• AI Vessels were not launching ASW patrol helicopters
  
• P-3C squadrons had missing name references
  
• Typo in FD/RTB state
  
• Encyclopedia should accept modded weapons
  
• Relative file paths for mods should work properly now
  
• All objects are hard limited to not go over 100k feet
  
• Landing aircraft and helos are hard limited to not go below 0 ft
  
• Fixes to handle problematic states in flight deck
  
• Airfields are also limited to x30 TC when performing AirOps
  
• Description in Charlies mission
  
• Aircraft can derailed between last approach waypoint and touchdown point
  

Improvements/Additions:

• Russian, German and Chinese translations
  
• Updated quality settings - changed shadow settings to be better
  
• Voiceovers
  
• Upgraded HelicopterStates to cleanup bottom bar status
  
• AI carriers (except Tarawa) and airfields are now can do very basic air strikes with bombs
  
• Osa I class variants for Egypt and Syria
  
• Basic vessel status info to bottom bar
  
• Added Algeria and Bulgaria as nations, added Bulgarian, Romanian flags (for ships and UI)
  
• Algerian Nanuchkas and Osa IIs
  
• Engage status in bottom bar tooltip
  
• Ability to block flightDeck AI from mission.ini
  
• Experimental: FFAR require vertical alignment
  
• Button to show/hide colliders for modding help
  

Hello everyone and a happy (belated) start into the new week! A new patch is out and we're currently sorting bugs/feedback to prioritize things next!

Bug Fixes:

• Lots of underwater rendering issues
  
• Wrong squadron on Ranger
  
• Animation error on Slava
  
• Lods were misnamed, A-7E, Yak-38
  
• Missing flagpole on Sturgeon SSN
  
• Lots of null refs
  
• Mast spray foam position was applied incorrectly in code
  
• Mast spray positions was incorrect for several submarines
  
• Rada mast could influence submarine speed
  
• Turya bow polygon fix
  
• Restore loading system names into Language Data
  
• Standard stuck on ascend while attacking surface targets
  
• Weapons could insta-level on altitude at certain conditions
  
• Self destruct timer always reset
  
• Some missiles missing required TerminalDiveDistance
  
• Mi-14 main rotor rotating in the wrong direction
  
• AH-1 J T rotors offset/wobbling fix, max swashplate angle adjusted to prevent clipping into fuselage mesh on tilting
  
• H700 had wrong pilot model
  
• ARM could not attack land units
  
• SA-2 site still not ideal but at least it is killable now
  
• Seasprite tail rotor clipping trough Knox hangar doors
  
• Underwater vegetation had wrong bounding boxes which led to flickering depending on camera angle
  
• Some controls like slow free cam move did not work anymore
  
• Added missing Cuban flag for 3d
  
• Credits should now work after mission exit
  
• Aircraft formation change handling while RTB
  
• SARH missiles self destructed at the start of terminal
  
• EA-6B missing proper fueltanks
  
• SA-6 added missing launch effect for 3m9m4 missile
  
• P6, Turya, Shershen variants flags fixes, added missing P6 variant50 entry
  
• Osa 1 DDR flag fix
  
• Type 205 Danish flags fix for Danish boats
  

Improvements/Additions:

• Russian, Chinese and German translation
  
• Anti-air SARH and RC-only missiles are self destructed when connection is lost
  
• Shootdown effects for C340, H700
  
• Smoothed out APK-8 pod model
  
• Changed name of Air Koryo to correct Korean lettering
  
• Adjusted variants files for Okean, Okean Mod, Zhuk ME, Tarantul RE
  
• Small ship hits fx tweaks
  
• Foxtrot and Kilo variants adjustments