Greetings Captain,
It's been a while. The last Developer's Diary was back in August, and Boat Crew has come quite a way since then. Our efforts between that time and now were mostly focused on fixing bugs, adding smaller polishing touches to the game and making the overall experience smoother. While sweeping reworks, new and exciting units for both sides and new playable boats have not happened during this time, the foundation for them has been set, and we can now look forward to the months ahead that should be a lot more content focused. To document this journey and to keep you in the loop, we are rebooting the series a second time, indexed by S#, for second reboot, if you will.
We'll be resuming our cycle of experimental builds, with an Experimental Build scheduled for, well, right now, with all of the changes we talk about here and more. These experimental builds will allow us to push updates a lot more often, and work issues out before they reach the live build. Feel free to join us on the Experimental Branch if you would like to get in an early peek at what's coming, and also if you would like to help us figure problems out. Now, let's get right down to it!
Let's begin with a change that has already been pushed to the live build. It appears that we have erroneously modelled the rear engine exhaust mufflers on the "78 Higgins boat when they only appeared at Elco boats. The exhausts are now correctly placed in three pairs at the sides of the engine room. This was helpfully pointed out to us by Jerry from Save the PT Boat.
Save the PT Boat is a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring and preserving PT-658, the only "78 Higgins PT Boat that can sail under her power today and one of the inspirations for Boat Crew. If you're interested in PT Boats as we know you are,
you should drop by their website, and if you're nearby, perhaps even go visit them.
One thing that has bothered us for a long time, and apparently many of you as well based on the feedback we've been getting, is that boats/ships sit idle at anchor not doing anything but shoot in the middle of combat, or even a full-blown assault! This was rather immersion breaking and also made sinking large ships at port a little too easy. Now, once combat is initiated, boats and ships will slip anchor after some delay.
Having a threat level might cause them to scramble before you even initiate combat, as the enemy will be more alert knowing that you are around. Therefore, the window of opportunity for a port strike will be smaller, alleviating a balance issue and allowing the enemy to put up a better resistance. This also means that your allies will be a lot more proactive when you are helping them defend a base.
We will expand on this system once the threat system is reworked, but we hope you'll agree once you play the Experimental Build that it already makes combat around bases notably more interesting.
Early in a list of several AI behavior related updates to come, we have made it so that squadron mates will avoid piers like the plague. Piers are liable to make them capsize, which is not something anybody wants to see happen to an expensive investment. We understand this has been a source of frustration before, and have taken measures to fix it. Hopefully, crews will be a little less eager to turn their boats upside down because of navigation errors, but there is still nothing stopping you from doing so if you wished.
Enemies will now also sporadically raid allied convoys, and though defending them won't give you any rewards directly, doing so will help you indirectly by allowing base development to grow unimpeded. This is a rather experimental feature that we would like to elaborate on eventually, along with some sort of reward that is more tangible, but for now we didn't want to rock the proverbial boat too much.
Last but not least, we have increased the ambient light on night time based on player feedback. We agree with you that the night sky was too dark previously, making it difficult to enjoy the sights in combat. Increased lighting will hopefully help the vibrant colors of the Solomons stand out more at night, and make night fighting, a staple of PT Boat action, visually more interesting.
Looking back, our earlier waves of Experimental updates lasted for too long, and the Stable Build went un-updated for a prolonged period of time. Although we were still working, and many of our players were already following our progress closely in the Experimental Branch, we're afraid it gave those of you who opted to remain in the Stable Branch too much of a waiting period for an update. That's why we'll be pushing Experimental patches to Stable a lot more often than before, and you'll be able to keep up with Boat Crew even if you don't join the Experimental Branch, with the Stable pushes probably staggered by a few days.
On a closing note, December has been an unprecedented month for Boat Crew, with many new Captains joining the fight for the Solomons. We wanted to take a moment to share our appreciation of you, whether fresh recruit or old salt, for your patience and confidence in both us and in Boat Crew. We've been doing our best to address your valuable feedback, which in many cases has helped us to make design decisions and figure problems out. Thank you, for taking part in our journey to make Boat Crew the best PT Boat game it can be. We wish you happy holidays, and a happy New Year in advance.
Fair winds and following seas,
Captain
T.T.
