Boat Crew News

[h2]v1.5.0.0 Experimental[/h2]

[h3]Highlights[/h3]

★ Carriers and strategic targets added, creating unique, powerful battlegroups that patrol and assist their side in other engagements.
★ Secondary explosions/damage control system added for all ships greater than and including the minesweeper, causing further damage to damaged parts or healing damaged parts, determined randomly with chances based on the state of the hull component. Crippling or catastrophic detonations now possible, with ship health increased across the board to compensate.
★ Boats can now be freely swapped and renamed.

[h3]Additions[/h3]

- Casablanca and Ryuujou carriers added.
- Jingei-Class Submarine Tender added, leading a new midgame supply convoy made of cargo submarines and occasional escorts.
- No.4-Class Subchaser added, a dangerous small ship that is best engaged at a distance.
- Ki-84 Hayate added. Coming in three variants, it is a high performance fighter-bomber operating from enemy airbases.
- P-40 Warhawk added as the main USAAF fighter-bomber, coming with machine guns and bombs. It is also a potential reward for maintaining a high threat level.

[h3]Changes[/h3]

[h4]Torpedo Rework[/h4]
- Bomb and torpedo explosions now knock ships back, visually telegraphing the heavy impact.
- Depth charge damage is doubled, making it more effective against surface targets.
- Mark 8 torpedo drag reduced, giving it a higher top speed.
- Mark 13 torpedo damage increased.
- Mark 21 torpedo renamed to the less historically inaccurate Mark 28 torpedo, given increased damage and top speed.
- Torpedo splash radii tuned to make shot placement more important.
- Acoustic guided torpedoes now have greatly reduced target acquisition range and turn rate, making them behave more like actual WW2 acoustic torpedoes and thus making good aim still relevant in getting hits. They have all been made much cheaper to compensate.
- Mark 14 torpedo added. Combining the acceleration of the Mark 13 with the damage of the Mark 8, it comes with a magnetic detonator that can turn near misses into hits, and a price tag that makes it a mid-range option.
- Mark 15 torpedo added. Large and heavy torpedoes ordinarily meant for destroyer use, they have substantially higher damage, splash radius and top speed compared to the Mark 8, though only two may be carried at a time.

[h4]Aircraft General Balance[/h4]
- Aircraft strafing made to be more organic feeling, making them easier to dodge with unpredictable maneuvers.
- All aircraft are tougher. This is mainly in the benefit of the player as player weapons will still easily kill while allied support aircraft last longer.
- Aircraft bombs and rockets tuned to have substantially higher damage.
- A6M Zero flight parameters nerfed.

[h4]Aircraft Additions[/h4]
- Ki-45 armed with additional MGs and moved to operate from airbases rather than spawning alongside navy planes.
- Ki-45 Elite variant added for use from enemy airbases at higher threat levels, replacing its nose MGs with 20 mm autocannons. It also has a substantial bomb payload to use against US ships, but suffers from inaccuracy due to its shallow dives.
- A6M Zero Heavy re-colored to green to make it visually distinguishable from the basic Zero.
- D3A Dive Bomber Elite variant added, mounting some nose autocannons, additional bombs, and a higher dive angle for better accuracy and target acquisition.
- New aircraft mounted MGs added to the A6M Zero and A6M Zero Elite, as well as a rear facing MG turret on the D3A Dive Bomber.

[h4]Other[/h4]
- No.101 Minesweeper and PC-461 Subchaser now both have increased durability.
- No.101 Minesweeper given additional AA guns.
- M45 Quadmount now fires more damaging .50 cal bullets, with longer tracers to distinguish them from the M2 bullets.

[h3]General[/h3]
- M4 Autocannon and 60mm Mortar can now be rotated further, with crew ducking and moving to leave the line of fire.
- AI controlled Bofors guns tweaked, both visually and gameplay-wise.
- Clouds now cast reflections on the ocean.
- Clouds now cast shadows.
- Japanese sailor model updated to be more aesthetically pleasing.
- Campaign time control now has a pause button and hotkey tooltips.
- In-game Campaign Guide now uses pages to support longer entries.
- Save files migrated to compressed json format from compressed xml, they should auto-convert.


[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]
- Fixed ocean shore wave spatial intensity glitches caused by overlapping generated geometry.
- Fixed the fuel purchase button not having a cooldown.
- Fixed terrain spawn shifting and causing overlaps for squadron formation, such as squadron boats spawning inside the player's boat.
- Fixed a bug that caused the player to teleport when using the call-in menu through the transmitter.
- Fixed a bug that caused planes to be stuck in the air upon death.
- Fixed a bug that caused allied aircraft to occasionally strafe the player and other allied surface units.
- Fixed some glitchy ship prop wash.
- Fixed twitchiness issues in some utility weapons.
- Optimized planar reflections to not redraw every object in the scene.

At ease Captain,

After briefing you about the new threats you will be facing last week, today's Developer's Diary will be about some additions and mechanical changes we will be making to improve your own options and help you, help us bring the war to a close.

Put on your reading glasses as this will be the most text heavy diary in a while.

Now, let's get down to the brass tacks.



First of all, we are doing a balancing pass on the existing torpedoes, greatly increasing the top speed of the Mark 8 torpedo while preserving its acceleration. While it won't be nearly as zippy as the Mark 13, which reaches maximum speed in less than 4 seconds, this does mean that the Mark 8 will be a more viable pick for longer range shots, a cause for jubilation for 81' Experimental enjoyers in particular.

All torpedoes are getting a large reduction to their splash radius. Previously, torpedoes had a large enough splash radius that hitting a ship anywhere would often damage all of its components, making where you hit a ship less relevant. This change can indeed be interpreted as a loss of lethality, but it is actually done to compensate for another change we are making that we will be talking about later in this diary.

Acoustic torpedoes are also getting a work over. Currently, acoustic torpedoes are about as reliable and accurate as modern day guided torpedoes, finding their way to the target with minimal effort on your part. To compensate for this, they are also very expensive. This is not a state of affairs we were happy with, with the Mark 21 being an egregious offender being a very fictionalized version of an experimental torpedo with the same name that never saw service.

We are replacing it with the Mark 28 torpedo, which, while still highly fictionalized, was actually a torpedo that saw service and was noted as being quite effective, even if its operating crews often overestimated how large of a fire control error its guidance could correct. This was our blueprint for what an acoustic torpedo should be like, an effective weapon with the correct use and a disappointment if the expectations are too high.

So the Mark 28's guidance capabilities are severely nerfed, making it behave like a Mark 8 that can turn near misses into hits rather than a Mark 48 that time travelled back to the PTO. To compensate, its damage and top speed are both greatly increased, and its cost is greatly reduced as well, making it more available.

If you want torpedoes that are better at tracking, the Mark 24 and Mark 27 still have excellent tracking and large numbers, which is compensated by their low damage, making them better at sinking the smaller ships or single targets when used in massed attacks.

Last but not least, a knockback effect has been added to torpedoes and bombs, shaking the ships and pushing them with force that is proportional to the strength of the explosion.

Overall we hope these changes will make all existing torpedo options have their own appeal while making torpedoes feel more impactful.



For a game about Patrol Torpedo boats, we have had a suspicious lack of torpedo related updates. In fact, every torpedo that is in the game has been in the game since Early Access started, with only some balance changes happening since. The next Big Update is a good time to be changing that, in which we will be adding two new torpedoes to the game.

The first one is the Mark 14 Torpedo, a somewhat more expensive torpedo that combines the strengths of the two entry level torpedoes we have, marrying the quick acceleration of the Mark 13 to the sheer stopping power of the Mark 8. In addition, it also has a magnetic detonator, meaning it will explode in the proximity of ships, enemy or allied. We expect these features to make it a popular mid-range (cost wise) option, something that has been missing from the torpedo selection as the options available were cheap starter torpedoes or endgame guided torpedoes.

The second addition is the Mark 15 Torpedo, an oversized torpedo meant for destroyer use. So big and heavy that PT boats can only carry two of them at a time, the Mark 15 compensates for this heft by dealing massive damage to any ship it successfully hits, being enough to smash even the toughest ships. That's really all there is to it; a big, hefty torpedo meant to be used against the biggest targets, or when you're absolutely not taking any chances against that one Akizuki.



A mechanic we have been meaning to add for a while is the system of Secondary Explosions/Damage Control. Opposite ends of the same system, the secondary explosions aspect is meant to be an abstract representation of flooding, magazine explosions, ruptured fuel lines and internal fires, with the damage control aspect being the crew's effort to mitigate these.

Meant to create positive feedback, the game will periodically check each damaged (but alive) component and either cause an explosion, or heal that component, with the chance of a positive outcome being proportional to the health of the component. For example, a hull part at 64% of its maximum HP will have a 64% chance to repair itself by a randomized amount and have a 36% chance to take damage, again by a randomized amount. These minor events will happen at high frequency and thus not be visually telegraphed.

Each faction will have a damage control system bias that will eventually be configurable once we add configurable Campaign Settings; by default, the IJN side gets no bonus, while all US ships will get a +20% effective health bonus (e.g. if they are at 36% health, the calculation will assume they are at 56% health meaning they will be more likely to recover than to sink while an IJN ship with 36% health would be more likely to sink) for purposes of these calculations to account for the superior damage control of USN ships.

Breaking this symmetry, every time damage is taken through this system, there's a chance for a large or massive explosion to be triggered, with an appropriate damage and radius. In addition, there is also a larger chance for an explosion to trigger whenever a hull part is completely destroyed. These explosions are strong enough to severely damage if not outright sink the ship, and though they will rarely have enough reach to hurt you unless you are right on top of the ship, you should keep an eye out for the merchant ships full of highly volatile fuel and ammunition! This is something you will need to keep in mind when sinking a ship; a damaged ship will not necessarily have explosions that are potentially lethal to you, but they will happen unpredictably so you should keep a safe distance.



A part that is heavily damaged will be more likely to end up killing itself than not, whereas applying light damage to a part will give the enemy crew a lot more chances to fix it up. We intend this mechanic to delocalize damage a bit further while giving high impact low fire rate weapons like the torpedoes an advantage in sinking ships. Conversely, automatic weapon fire will also be more effective in sinking ships; it will be harder to sink a pristine condition ship with massed Bofors fire, not that that was ever practical, but every shot will count for more damage once you have used a high impact strike such as a torpedo or an artillery barrage to soften the target up. That said, there is still randomness in the system, so a crippled ship can, if rarely, make a miraculous recovery, or an otherwise pristine ship can be sent to the abyss by a lucky shot triggering a massive explosion.

We are very excited to see the community reaction to such a large mechanical change coming this late in the game's development cycle, and we will be actively keeping an eye out for feedback during the Experimental Build so that we can tune the numbers to a sweet spot.



In addition to our mechanical changes, we have made some changes to the current enemy aircraft roster, improving the weaponry on the Zero variants, giving the Heavy variant a new paintjob, and also adding Elite variants to the D3A and the Ki-45. These variants will have better armament, additional bombs (with the basic Ki-45 having no bombs in the first place) while being tougher targets, hopefully giving you an additional challenge in the later stages of the game.

We understand this has been quite the read, Captain, so we appreciate it if you have stuck with us so far. You may be left wondering when you will get to get your hands on these changes, and we're happy to say that the answer is, soon. Sooner than you might have thought, in fact, as the Experimental Build will be released tomorrow, on the August of 16th, with every change and addition we have discussed so far.

There will be additional content that will come throughout this Experimental Build cycle, which we will be talking about next week. Hope to see you enjoying and giving feedback on the experimental build, starting tomorrow!

That will be all for now,
Captain,
T.T.

Greetings Captain,

We are breaking the record for the smallest amount of time between two Developer's Diaries for the second week in a row, as our now weekly diaries will be published on Thursdays instead of Fridays from now on due to a scheduling conflict.

After a grandiose two diaries showcasing the biggest, toughest and meanest ships we have in the game, the third diary of the series will be about the unsung heroes of Boat Crew, the auxiliary units that play a huge role in gameplay, even if they are often swept aside without so much as a second thought. This time around, we'll be introducing three new units entering the fight on the Japanese side that are sure to leave an impression.



The first is the Ki-84 Hayate, a high-performance fighter from slightly outside the game's time period, joining the fight against the PT boat menace that is consuming the Solomons. Coming in three variants, based on the Ko, Otsu and Hei variants respectively, the Ki-84 is a fighter-bomber like the P-40 we have previously shown, packing even heavier bombs with all three variants while also being a beast in dogfights.

The Ki-84, alongside the Ki-45, will form the IJA aviation presence in the region, and you will most commonly run into them around zones of control that extend from enemy Airstrips or Airbases, the distinction between which we will be extending upon in the next diary.

You can expect the normal and Elite Ki-84 variants to give you as much trouble as the Elite and Heavy variants of the Zero respectively, with the Heavy variant being an unprecedented threat packing 2 30 mm cannons not seen on any other unit, on top of the 2 20 mm cannons that are on the nose.

They will all carry bombs and dive at higher speeds, meaning both you and they will get less time to shoot at each other. We hope they will create an immediate threat against allied ships, more so than the slow and fragile D3A, leading to some intense moments.



Also entering the fight is the No.4 Class Subchaser, the Japanese counterpart to the PC-461 class Subchaser. Fulfilling a role that is similar to the existing No.101 Minesweeper, which is also getting some additional AA guns in this update.

Lacking the 3 inch gun of the Minesweeper, the No.4 compensates by packing a pair of Dual Bofors guns. Now that might have caused you to do a double-take, and we get it; the Japanese using Dual Bofors is quite the use of artistic license.

This is indeed what's happening, as the 40mm guns used by the class in real life were copies of the QF 2-pounder gun, which, in effect, would be a less effective version of the Bofors with less coverage. In a word, we thought that would be boring, so we imagined that in the Boat Crew universe, where the IJN is a lot stronger and more competent, they managed to capture multiple shipments of Dual Bofors guns and place them on their Subchasers to act as force multipliers against the PT boat menace.

In short, the No.4 will be a medium range and AA powerhouse that is held back by its low speed, making it wise to engage her at longer ranges. The Bofors positions are quite vulnerable, being open mounts, so de-fanging the boats from a distance using a utility weapon before approaching them is highly recommended.



Last but not least, the Jingei-Class Submarine Tender is joining the fight against, you guessed it, the PT boat menace. She's a rather heavy ship with similar displacement to the Nagara, using fewer of the same guns, some additional lower caliber guns, and a decent number of AAA guns, being the first ship in the game combining the small caliber cannons with the full size ship cannons. Her main weakness will be her meandering speed, and the fact that she will be lightly guarded, if at all, when encountered, due to her special position as the leader of submarine groups.

Currently, Supply Submarines are a favorite snack of the avaricious PT boats, sailing around in groups of 2-3 with no defense when not surfaced, and with no additional support. These groups are a source of easy early game income and they tend to disappear later on, taking the submarine presence with them and making anti-submarine weapons somewhat superfluous in the late game. The Jingei will uniquely appear in mid-to-lategame supply groups carrying a larger number of submarines, the Jingei, and occasionally some additional escorts.

We're hoping these new groups will spice anti-submarine warfare up, with the potential for larger rewards and more dangerous engagements due to the presence of surface escorts. This was our solution to the relative lack of anti-submarine gameplay in the late game, and we hope the additional challenge will be welcome.



Wrapping up, with this diary, we have shown every new unit that will be in the upcoming Big Update, all except one. That's a topic for a later diary as the next one will focus on mechanical changes and improvements.

You have been briefed,
Captain,
T.T.

Greetings Captain,

If you've been with us for a while, you may be surprised to see a Developer's Diary today. So far we have always kept at least two weeks between Developer's Diaries, so why should that change now? What's the occasion?

Well, the occasion is that today is the 2nd of August, the second anniversary of Boat Crew's release on Early Access. Two years ago, when Boat Crew launched, we thought Early Access would last 6 months with the game having a considerably smaller scope than it has now. The overwhelming support we have received since then prompted us to develop the game much further than our original plans entailed.

It's been a wonderful two years and we can't overstate how much we appreciate your support of Boat Crew. She is a labor of love, and with your support, combined with our effort, has come a long way in the last two years.

We're happy to say that we still have quite a bit we'd like to add, and so this upcoming Big Update won't be the last one, but it will certainly be a Big One. So let's get right back into talking about it!



To begin, we have made it so that the carrier Ryūjō will now tilt her masts to horizontal level before starting flight operations, as was done by IJN carriers at the time. This is a detail we initially missed that was brought to our attention by a player in the comments in our previous diary, and it makes for a more visually satisfying aircraft scramble procedure while also giving you a little bit more of extra time during a surprise attack.



We greatly appreciate it when the community points out mistakes or omissions such as these, so please, if you see such details that could be corrected or added, feel free to let us know. Unless it was part of a deliberate gameplay design decision, we will most probably fix it.



We have mentioned in previous diaries that we'll be making a distinction in the future between Army and Navy aircraft. Well, that future has arrived since, with the P-38 being added a while back through the threat system update where they were occasionally given as powerful call-ins.

P-40s will be added to supplement that, being given out in larger amounts than the P-38 but otherwise being similar to the Wildcat in performance, though notable for always carrying a pair of bombs when encountered in the wild. It's still a free support power, so don't look a gift horse in the mouth!

Another role for the P-40s is that they are the bread and butter of the Army Air Corps in the region, and will be joining fights that happen within friendly zones of control produced by airbases, alongside the occasional P-38. This puts them in a mostly defensive role, so you won't be seeing them outside friendly territory all that often unless you are the one calling them in.

All in all, we expect P-40s to be commonly available all-rounders, assuming you are keeping your threat level high. They might not be the best support power to use in any given situation, but will also not be the worst either.



Speaking of allied zones of control, here is the allied counterpart to the Ryūjō, the Casablanca-Class Carrier! The most produced aircraft carrier class of all time, the Casablanca was a little late for the time period of the game, but was our choice for being the most prominent class of escort carriers to serve in the Pacific front, including in the famous Battle off Samar.

Similar to its Japanese counterpart that will be able to operate both fighters and dive bombers, the Casablanca will also be able to operate Wildcats and Dauntless bombers. This may annoy some of you naval enthusiasts who might be tempted to point out that the Casablanca historically did not operate dive bombers. While this may be correct, this is a gameplay decision we had to make because having only the Wildcat (she couldn't operate Corsairs either) would be a little boring, don't you think?

Similar to how the Japanese destroyers get their names written in the side of the hull amidships, the Casablancas often had their hull numbers painted on the flight deck. These numbers will be dynamically generated, meaning you will be able to uniquely identify which specific Casablanca-Class carrier is assisting you today.

Fun fact; despite being an aircraft carrier, she also has the largest number of weapons to be held by any ship in the game, boasting an impressive AAA complement of 22 20mm cannons, 8 dual 40mm Bofors gun positions, and a 5 inch Dual Purpose gun. You may not have to worry about enemy dive bombers all that much after all!



In the previous diary, we teased the concept of a Strategic Target, working name, without delving into what it is supposed to mean. Now is a good time to explain.

Strategic Targets are relatively powerful battlegroups without any baggage; that is, landing crafts or small boats. Each side can only have one such battlegroup on the map at a time, and they won't participate directly in assaults, but try to stay off shore within range of them to provide air cover.

While there is no assault going on, they may occasionally go to a port or be out at sea patrolling. On detection, their presence on the map will be announced, and they will be identified with a special marker. As the player, your goal is to sink enemy Strategic Targets wholesale. In a way, it can be said to be analogous to Fortresses at sea; tough targets that defy you to go and raze them.

Friendly Strategic Targets will need to be defended, as the AI will target them with special assault groups that focus on seeking and killing ships. These assaults will distract them from landing operations of course, and since they will be particularly beefy groups, create large delays for them in invading your bases due to the resources expended. Similarly to hostile Strategic Targets, they will try to assist assaults or be idle otherwise.

Strategic Targets are created by a hidden bar, which will be configurable in Campaign settings eventually, that needs to be filled. The bar is filled over time based on total development, with a time factor as well as Victory Point factor for the Japanese side, meaning both your VP progress and the time elapsed in your Campaign will contribute to how often they get a battlegroup. Strategic Targets will eventually expire and leave the map if they are not destroyed in time, and the cooldown before the next battlegroup will be reduced according to how much of the battlegroup remains intact, giving you further reasons to defend your own strategic targets well.

All in all, we hope this new mechanic will elegantly create setpiece battles for you to both marvel at and join in, and break up the monotony of most major fighting happening around bases, while also directly including naval aviation at the tactical level.

In addition to featuring in these battlegroups, carriers will occasionally be found escorting particularly large, late game supply groups, and will have a similar effect on the strategic map with their aircraft, but won't be proactive with their positioning.



Finally, we are adding boat swapping! A much requested feature, the Big Update will make it so that you can swap boats without losing a boat first. Now you will be able to try a different boat out without having to jump through hoops.

In closing, thank you once again for being with us in our second year anniversary. We love to both develop, talk about, and play our game, and it's through your support that we get to do all of these things! We hope you share our excitement for the upcoming Big Update, and we hope to see you in the next Developer's Diary as well.



That's all for now,
Captain,
T.T.

Hello Captain,

2nd of August will be the second year anniversary of Boat Crew's early access release, so we will be hosting a Developer Q&A and gameplay stream on our Discord channel at 10 PM (GMT+3). If you have any questions to ask, or if you simply want to see the creators of Boat Crew play the game, feel free to join us!

See you there!
T.T.