Waves of Steel News

Hello! Another patch release!

Gameplay:

• Hopefully, add support for PS5 controller icons. I don't own one of these gamepads, so please let me know!
  
• Torpedoes are substantially lighter; the first ship designer tutorial now only requires reducing the ship's armor to 4" thick.
  
• Add a new type of system, Torpedo Homing, which adds homing capability to all torpedo weapons.
  
• With Homing II (or Torpedo Homing III+), weapons no longer require target locks to fire.
  
• Add text to the pause screen to provide tech/treasure collection status.
  
• The "PT Boat (Gatling Torpedo)" enemy has a significantly reduced fire rate.
  
• Improve the behavior of homing weapons if the player has no target locked. They will now home in on the "soft locked" target, and will not change targets if the player looks at a different enemy.
  
• Fix an exploit in the ship designer that allows placing large guns (with tall belowdecks requirements) on ships with shallow drafts. Sorry to all the size-mismatch fans out there!
  
• Tweak the stats of the Oerlikon AA guns to better fit in-between the Pom-Poms and Bofors.
  
• The Porter aft bridge gets 1 system slot, not 2; however, tier-4 aft destroyer aft bridges get 2 slots.
  
• The "Decoy Hologram" special now follows the player around instead of being fixed in place.
  
• The "Decoy Hologram" special now recharges 5 seconds faster.
  
• The B97 Vent has better stats.
  
• The miniature ammo displays now also indicate reload status, so you know when to switch back to torpedoes.
  
• "Reward" the player if they act in a particularly unwise fashion in "Eitri's Forge".
  
• In the ship designer, the "part selection mode" button changes color to indicate when it's active.
  
• Slightly tweak appearance of parts in the ship designer.
  

Bugfixes:

• Improve the messaging when unlocking the treasure in "Merlion's Pride". This does mean that the treasure will need to be re-acquired for perfect savefiles. The actual treasure will still be unlocked, but not the dummy part used for the mission.
  
• Fix the "Poking the Tiger" treasure not unlocking properly; fix the Overdrive II part being impossible to find legitimately.
  
• Fix a bug causing guns to be invalid after returning to the ship designer from the test range.
  
• Fix point-defense weapons not shooting at enemy missiles/rockets.
  
• Fix RAM launcher, Railgun, Dual Platform, Plasma Gatling, Plasma Repulsor, most non-VLS missile launchers being unable to go on superstructure.
  
• Fix Nelson vent not being valid superstructure.
  
• Fix bug allowing superstructure to sometimes be able to be moved out from under parts that are built on top of it.
  
• Guide arrows are hidden when in the binoculars view.
  
• Fix playership firing immediately on leaving dialog if the player clicks through dialog using the Fire input.
  
• Fix Kongo vent lacking smoke/flames.
  
• Fix buggy supply delivery in "Ragnarok".
  
• Change flavor text on The World's Biggest Laser to clue the player in a bit.
  
• Fix a bug causing the decoy hologram to never despawn.
  
• Fix a bug causing the game to get stuck in grayscale and slow motion if the player manages to heal and then get damaged again in the middle of a low-health warning.
  
• Fix rolloff torpedoes interacting poorly with homing systems; in general weapons that accelerate to a cruise speed should now do so even when homing in.
  

This is another patch release. Please keep your feedback coming, and thanks for playing Waves of Steel!

Gameplay:

• The Akizuki vent's capacity has been increased from 6 to 10 to reflect its large size.
  
• 8" guns have less expansive underdecks. Some larger guns have larger underdecks.
  
• Large guns have louder firing sounds. The 5" and 6" guns have had their firing sounds swapped.
  
• The "Unlock all techs" assist can be turned off without reloading your save.
  
• Added a note to the description of the Heat Ray weapon to indicate that it multihits.
  
• The Plasma Gatling weapon deals 5x its prior damage.
  
• Changed the guaranteed tech drops from "Poking the Tiger" so that you always get Overdrive II.
  
• The Bun Laser has been added to the drop pool for "Lighting a Candle".
  
• The Super Nagato's armor is a bit lighter.
  
• Guide arrows have been added at the ends of "Running Out the Clock" and "Through Fire and Flames".
  
• "Taking Flight" is now better about moving the game along if you kill everything quickly.
  
• You can use the bottom half of the ship designer to place flag strand endpoints. The endpoint will always be on the centerline of the ship, but does not have to attach to the ship otherwise.
  

Bugfixes:

• Fix a bug causing autofiring ASW to be less accurate than manually-fired ASW; this should resolve issues with hitting the shield emitter in "Satsuma".
  
• Fix the resolution menu falsely claiming that it can change the display refresh rate.
  
• Hopefully fix a rare bug causing missions to unlock out of order.
  
• Fix bonus missions unlocking when other bonus missions are completed.
  
• Fix the game reporting you had not found techs that are in fact impossible to find; you should now be able to get a "perfect" save (all techs found) on the savefile menu.
  
• Tweaked the in-combat weapon config UI slightly, and fixed a text overlap issue.
  
• Fix being unable to zoom out in the ship designer, after zooming in on the Novgorod.
  
• The Tone vent can no longer collide with belowdecks parts.
  
• Fix the player getting stuck in underdeck selection mode after deleting all parts from the ship.
  
• Fix part spam if the Shift key is held down.
  
• Fix a bug causing asymmetric parts when picking up mirrored superstructure.
  
• Fix the racing bonus mission timers running off of clock time rather than mission time (i.e. they respect the "game speed" option).
  
• Fix a bug causing paradropped ships to become stuck if they are killed before they land.
  
• Fix some block superstructures preventing parts from being placed on top of them.
  
• Fix a bug allowing ships to have negative aux space values by placing parts inside of other parts.
  
• Fix the mouse cursor not being visible after cancelling out of photo mode.
  
• Fix flag strands not being rendered in the ship thumbnail.
  
• Fix an issue causing ships to load with invalid parts, if those parts were built underneath overhangs in superstructure.
  
• Fix flavor text claiming that the Bazel hull is a catamaran.
  

This fixes a bug that prevents the player from being able to complete the "make a new ship" ship designer tutorial.

It's been a busy few days! Thank you everyone who has played the game, sent in feedback, and especially those of you that have written reviews! You're really helping out.

This build fixes a bunch of minor but annoying issues that y'all revealed. I apologize if an issue affecting you has not been fixed in this build. I am only one person, and I am very tired.

Changes in this build:

Gameplay:

• All torpedo launchers reload twice as quickly.
  
• The "Time Bubble" special's cooldown has been halved.
  
• All hats have a wider range of motion, to fit on tall structures more easily.
  
• The engines tutorial has been updated to make it clear that your previous ship has not been lost.
  
• Mouse sensitivity can be set even lower, to accommodate players with very twitchy mouse settings. The default mouse sensitivity is now slightly lower.
  
• Added an option to invert the X movement of the camera.
  
• Added a note to the mid-combat weapon config menu to explain how to make changes permanently.
  
• Add a dialog to explain why you can't make a new ship, if you haven't finished the mission "Wolfpack" yet.
  

Bugfixes:

• Fix the 8" 4-barreled main gun not behaving properly.
  
• Fix the "This is a drill" achievement not unlocking.
  
• Fix a hang in the ship designer if you delete your last ship.
  
• The Iowa-class battleship can fit ammo depots.
  
• The Town vent can no longer be stacked inside of itself.
  
• The special camera in the mission "Howl of the Wolf" is better-behaved.
  
• Fix a bug allowing the player to die in the middle of a cinematic in "Howl of the Wolf".
  
• Fix a bugged cinematic in the mission "Vahana".
  
• Fix crates behaving strangely if they spawn during a cutscene.
  
• Photo mode now respects the player's mouse sensitivity settings.
  
• The Laser Shotgun weapon now properly tracks targets.
  
• Shield emitters in the mission "Merlion's Pride" are easier to hit.
  
• The shield emitter in "Satsuma" can be hit by hedgehogs.
  
• Fix the player getting stuck in slow motion if they get a low-hitpoint warning that leads directly into a cinematic.
  
• Fix the combat menu's layout being odd on widescreen displays.
  
• Fix hats blocking weapon firing angles.
  
• Fix hats being unable to be placed on the port side of the ship.
  
• Fix a bug allowing for negative aux space when the player removes superstructure.
  
• Fix the Enterprise CVN-65's deck being partially unusable.
  
• Fix parts sometimes wanting to place on the underside of the Clemson instead of on its deck.
  
• Fix a bug allowing the player to put guns on top of invalid superstructure, then remove the superstructure, to create floating guns.
  
• Fix a rare visual glitch when landing from a kickflip.
  
• Fix the designer softlocking if you unlock all techs and then use the "next tier" buttons to go to tiers above tier 5.
  
• Fix game failing to load ships if any decal failed to load (e.g. due to very long file/path names).
  

After nearly four long years, we're finally here! When I started working on Waves of Steel back in 2019, it was just meant to be a relaxing project for down-time between jobs. Needless to say, things got a little out of control! But the important thing is that the game is complete.



Which isn't to say that I'm done working on it! I'd love to add more game modes, translate the game into Japanese, and add DLC. I know many of you would love to have playable aircraft carriers and submarines, with their own campaigns. Whether I can afford to make all these improvements, though, now depends on you. So please, play the game! Tell your friends! Leave a review! But most importantly, have fun and be kind.

The complete changelist for Waves of Steel 1.0 is at the bottom of this post. But in brief:

The campaign is complete, with seven final missions. Take the battle against Jörmungandr to its triumphant conclusion!

Two more bonus missions have been added.

8 more ship hulls and over 60 more parts can now be unlocked.



Gameplay:

• Add the final campaign missions and two more bonus missions!
  
• Add several new achievements.
  
• Add VLS variants of anti-ship missile weapons.
  
• Add Drifter II special.
  
• Add destroyer-sized variant of the Sawblade weapon.
  
• Update the Sawblade model.
  
• Melee weapons constantly animate.
  
• Add support for Twitch Crowd Control. This is very much in beta!
  
• The ship designer's lighting and colors have been improved.
  
• Main guns have had their damage values rebalanced. Guns below 14" deal more damage, while guns above 14" deal less. This should make the early game a bit easier, and fix the late game being a bit rocket tag-ish.
  
• The supercavitating drive now slightly reduces the ship's drag.
  
• The "orbital laser" and "grapple ships" chaos effects are mutually exclusive.
  
• The Hood-class battleship has a more generous belowdecks.
  
• The Cöln-class cruiser has reduced drag, to compensate for its small size.
  
• The Ballistic Laser is 200 tons lighter.
  
• 21-inch guns have much larger belowdecks areas.
  
• Added a friendly face to the first mission of the game.
  
• Scavenger systems now give a flat bonus to HP instead of a percentage. This should make the Scavenger I more useful to destroyers.
  
• Rocket boosters deal half as much damage in AI hands. They were a little too lethal...
  
• The combat camera's Y sensitivity has been greatly reduced.
  
• Missions "The Cat's Away" and "Paralysis" now have larger maps.
  
• The ship designer remembers the systems you installed, and will attempt to restore them when you add bridges/superstructure.
  
• Made health crate drops massively more likely if your ship is about to sink.
  
• Changed the names of unique specials (e.g. "EMP I" -> "EMP" since there's no EMP II)
  
• Improved autofiring behavior when the player has selected autofiring weapons. They still fire on their own, but you can manually designate targets for them to shoot at.
  
• Custom decals and flags can be added while the game is still running; no need to restart.
  
• Changed the messaging when the player steps outside of the map boundaries.
  
• Added visible walls that indicate the absolute limits of the map.
  
• The torpedo turret in "Quetzalcoatl" has a slightly smaller arc of fire.
  
• Tethered mines follow their parent ship more closely.
  
• Added a few guaranteed health drops to "Scylla and Charibdis".
  

Bugfixes:

• Fix missing name in the credits
  
• Foghorns and train whistles are no longer considered to be valid anti-submarine weapons.
  
• Fix bug in "Storm Descendent" causing certain enemies to fail to spawn.
  
• Fix bug causing shielded ships to be completely immune to damage; in particular, this makes it possible to get the treasure in "Lighting a Candle".
  
• Fix "zombie plane" bug triggered if planes are attached to a ship when it is destroyed.
  
• Fix flag strands being visible in the binoculars view.
  
• Fix flag picker being broken.
  
• Fix bug causing superstructure parts to have a height of 0.
  
• Fix player being able to click on background menu elements while loading mods.
  
• Bow Drill weapons are now properly locked to their ship categories.
  
• Fix paint being applied to the "underwater" materials, preventing ships/parts from rendering their water shadows.
  
• If the player cancels out of the "start next mission" ship selector, they're put on the main menu, not the mission select menu.
  
• Fix freeplay mode unlocking story missions.
  
• Fix a bug causing gameplay to hang if dialog is skipped on the frame it is displayed.
  
• Fix the "invisible ships" chaos effect causing green copies of ship hulls to appear when it ends.
  
• Fix the "inverted controls" chaos effect not ending when it says it does.
  
• Fix excessive lag if "giant ships" chaos effect is triggered in a mission that has both submarines and terrain.
  
• The MLRS turrets in Winter use the correct model.
  
• Fix 3 superstructure parts not being available unless the "Unlock all techs" assist is used.
  
• Fix a bug causing some superstructure parts to not be able to be moved once placed.
  
• The menu name for the Truly Excessive Flamethrower is now better matched to its full name.
  
• The old Depth Charge Rack weapon has been dummied out.
  
• Certain secret ship hulls are no longer displayed in the hulls menu unless you've actually unlocked them.
  
• Many minor dialog tweaks.
  
• Fix a bug causing ships to fail to sink properly, leaving "zombie ship" remnants.
  
• The Bogue is now pointed the right way around.
  
• Fix Captain Quinn pretending to be a lookout in "The Tendency of Power"
  
• Fix a bug preventing dialog from being sped up by the Select button
  
• Change the impact warning color in missions using the "dawn 2" lighting conditions (e.g. "Chrysalis")
  
• Fix bug causing allied ships to have the incorrect flag. They now properly get the same flag the player uses.
  
• Fix a bug causing a certain ship in "Storm Descendent" to be un-targetable by the player.
  
• Fix the ship designer being too aggressive when removing invalid parts, potentially rendering the Denali unusable.
  
• Fix the undo/redo system allowing parts to be actually used when in invalid positions.
  
• Fix the Farragut's belowdecks being oddly-shaped.
  
• Fix being unable to place guns on the Bazel's nacelles.
  
• Fix bug with the 8" gun models causing them to have inconsistent behavior near the edges of the ship's deck.
  
• The top prizes in the Score Attack and racing missions are now flagged as treasures.
  
• Fix some decals not showing up in the decal picker.
  
• The "no flag" and "bgo" flags are not shown as decal options.
  
• Fix the ship name not drawing in the designer when a ship is first loaded.
  
• The intro cinematic in "Vahana" is now quieter.
  
• Fix a bug causing extremely tall ships to get stuck in "Vahana"
  
• Fix the spacebar behaving badly when the player is using the on-screen keyboard but starts typing.
  
• Fix bug causing "Winter" to be failed if the player completes it without performing the first objective.
  
• Fix bug causing the flag picker to be visible when first loading into the ship designer.
  
• Minefields no longer spawn mines inside of terrain.
  
• Fix a bug when loading ships that have no thumbnail.
  
• Fix the designer weapons tutorial giving inaccurate instructions for setting weapon groups/autofire.
  
• Fix the display of certain secret ships in the stats panel.
  
• Fix a certain secret ship not being propely usable.
  
• The game no longer pretends that there are playable submarines when there aren't, actually.
  
• Fix Boss-class ships not having any usable bridges.
  
• Fix the Invisible Pink PT Boat chaos effect's plasma lance not despawning when its owner does.
  
• Fix the chaos effects overlay being active outside of combat.
  
• Fix the "enemy rain" chaos effect continuing to run during photo mode.
  

Modding:

• Parts and ships now list their mod of origin in the stats panel.