Boat Crew News

[h2]v1.7.0.9 Experimental[/h2]

- Armament progression tree now available.
- Engine cooling rebalance on all PT boats.
- Doubled engine overheat damage.
- Elco 77' torpedo and resource placement minor fixes.
- Elco 77' minor performance buffs.
- Elco 77' refresh damage mesh.
- Fix engine HP not being set to new maximum after progression unlock.
- Fix Higgins base cost being counted in its loadout preset RP cost display.
- Fix new gun angle clamping causing issues with rear facing positions such as 81' Prototype utility weapons.
- Fixed cooperativeness bonus from gear not factored properly in character screen if crew is never physically spawned.
- Squadron boats that do not match any purchase options, like the ones granted at start, no longer refund 2000 RP.
- Removed titlescreen and challenge victory music.
- Added new campaign map music.

[h3]Campaign Balance[/h3]
- Added progression XP gain rate difficulty setting.
- Atlanta made to be a lot more common.
- Reduced spawn weight of the smallest IJN supply groups.
- Furutaka possibility added to first carrier hunter group.
- Induced Assault Cooldown difficulty setting adjustments.
+ x1 to x1.5 in Normal.
+ x1.5 to x2 in Hard.
+ x2 to x4 in Marathon.
+ x2 to x5 in Realistic.
- Realism factor increased from 0.2 to 0.5 in Hard and Marathon.
- VP gain rate reduced from 1 to 0.5 in Hard.
- VP gain rate reduced from 0.25 to 0.2 in Marathon.

[h2]v1.7.0.8 Experimental[/h2]

- Added Elco 77' player boat.
- Added Campaign difficulty setting selection for new campaigns.
- Progression trees "Survivability" and "Resourcefulness" now available.
- Doubled squadron prices to be recovered by resourcefulness progression discounts.
- Replaced some squadron boats to be Elco 77' instead of 81' prototype boat.
- Character selection screen veterancy sum displays are now show cooperativeness bonuses separately.
- Character selection screen character information panel can now cycle to explanations of stat attributes.
- Reduced supply group spawn rate while increasing per vessel supply capacity.
- Leaving a base under 10 points should now trigger a player raid despite there not being any destruction.

[h3]v1.7.0.7c Experimental[/h3]
- Fixed an issue with utility weapon turn limits causing jitter introduced by v1.7.0.7b.
[h3]v1.7.0.7b Experimental[/h3]
- You can now lock on to targets that are being detected by the rest of your squadron.
- Increased capsize prevention force.
- Fixed squadron ships not showing up in engagement preview clipboard.

[p]Greetings Captain, [/p][p]After a week's break from our regularly scheduled diaries, we are back with you with the 6th and final entry to our current reboot diary series, with the Stable Build now in sight. As we near the end of this Experimental cycle, let's talk about what's left for us to add before we are ready to declare v1.7. Big Update to be complete.[/p][p]Let's get right to it.[/p][p] [/p][p]The first thing on our list is the fifth and final PT Boat that will be added to the game! The Elco 77' boat, also known as the PT-20-Class, was a transitionary design that saw limited frontline service, instead being built in very limited numbers and used for training or patrol back at home, while also seeing some action early in the war.[/p][p]In the game, compared to her larger sister, the Elco 80', she will be nimbler and quicker to accelerate, while being slightly less durable and having slightly less top speed as well. Owing to her lower top speed, her engine will cool down quite quickly as well.[/p][p]Elco 77', like the Elco 80', is meant to be a well-rounded generalist, and an undemanding boat to use you can't really go wrong with. [/p][p][/p][p]Originally planned to be the fourth PT boat in the game, the PT-20 had the unique challenge of a helm that the crew can't walk to, which would require some adjustments in pathfinding logic. [/p][p]This was the main reason she was sidelined and wasn't added until now, with our crew movement changes making it easier for us to implement this smooth entry to the helm without a ladder.[/p][p]Now that we are adding the fourth boat to the starting roster, we finally feel at liberty to make a change we had been wanting to do for some time; to make the 78' Higgins a "premium" boat. [/p][p]Since the 78' Huckins got added, she shared her durability and engine performance stats with the 78' Higgins, making their overall performance pretty much identical aside from some differences in deck item placement and placement compatibility.[/p][p]Our four starting boats cover the basic niches well enough, and the 78' Higgins can be elevated to a higher level than the rest, given its status as the newest and most successful design. The 78' Higgins will now cost RP to use, and will have to be unlocked through in-game progression via the Resourcefulness tree.[/p][p]To compensate for these barriers to entry, she will get improvements on top of her already formidable engine stats, boasting better top speed and improved engine handling. In addition, she will also be considerably tougher, being able to endure more damage like the 80' Elco. [/p][p][/p][p]Speaking of the Resourcefulness tree, it is also being added, unlocking the new pages of the squadron boat options gradually, while also giving you discounts.[/p][p]In playtesting, we noticed that squadron boats are a little too good, shifting the focus from upgrading your own boat completely to rushing a squadron to play the game for you instead.[/p][p]We don't want to remove this playstyle, but we do think your squadron's overall cost effectiveness should increase more gradually, and so, squadron boats will now cost more at first before being made cheaper via upgrades in the Resourcefulness tree.[/p][p]So if you want to rely on your squadron to do the work for you, that will still be possible, but you will have to invest in your Resourcefulness tree.[/p][p]The other tree we are adding soon is the Survivability tree, giving you a variety of bonuses to your craft's survivability and overall performance.[/p][p]Generally boring but dependable passive effects, Survivability upgrades are quite self-descriptive and are good investment for Captains who want a little bit more defensiveness, whether to be able to make some room for error or to be able to press the attack more aggressively.[/p][p]With the addition of these two upgrade trees, that leaves the Armament tree as the last tree to be added, which is the topic for another update that will probably be coming next week.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Finally, we are adding configurable difficulty and difficulty presets! A long time coming and requested almost as often as upgrades, configurable difficulty is now being added, with a certain set of adjustable parameters that will let the Captain modify the Campaign to their liking. Presets will be provided for Captains who'd rather have us worry about the details and get right into the action instead.[/p][p]Notably among the parameters we are adding, we are adding a Realism factor, which will let you scale projectile velocities between their current values to their realistic values. Sometimes, especially for smaller projectiles, this means the velocities will barely change or even go down. [/p][p]However, shells from most big cannons get much faster, allowing you to get a taste of what realistic shell velocities would feel like while you're at the helm of a PT Boat. Remember, the name Destroyer comes from Torpedo Boat Destroyer, after all, and this setting might just help you find out why they are called that![/p][p]
[/p][p][/p][p]That wraps up what we had in store. Everything we have talked about here will feature in the Experimental branch update tomorrow, though it's looking like there will be at least one more update early in the next week before we wrap v1.7. up and move on to Stable.[/p][p]That's all we have for now,[/p][p]Captain,[/p][p]T.T.[/p]

[h2]v1.7.0.7 Experimental[/h2]

- Reduced amount of supply drained by guns from player and squadron.
- Greatly reduced new gunner sway for utility weapons.
- Assault behaviour adjustments to prioritize gaps.
- Fixed dead squadron ships not being processed for removal.
- Fixed an issue causing pileup of IJN assaults with supply units at Tsimba.
- Fixed a rare issue where an assault group can be left pathless after leaving base.
- Fixed an issue preventing carrier groups from spawning.
- Fixed an issue causing carrier hunter groups to have greatly reduced traversal.
- Fixed tender circle remaining active until despawn instead of moment of sinking.

[h2]v1.7.0.6 Experimental[/h2]

- Campaign faction supply distribution behaviour rework.
- Usage of guns, torpedoes, and items (except ammo box) will now tally as player used supply.
- Bases now require positive supply to rearm the player and reset the player used supply counter.
- Map air bases now require a positive supply value to launch sorties and also drain supply for each sortie that isn't targeting the player through the threat system.
- Added distinguished slots for squadron ships, ships now contribute more to the threat gain percentage. Earlier ship purchases will be automatically refunded upon entering the squadron screen.
- Added distance delayed sounds for large explosions.
- Fixed planes long circling behaviour.
- Further dive bomber dive behaviour improvements.
- Renamed Yūgiri to Yuugiri due to font issue causing it to appear named as "Y".
- Fixed sorting issues in Elco 80' and Higgins 78' caused by Main Gun Fore slots invalid indexing.
- Further adjustments to reverse throttle control handling.
- Reduced time it takes for boat control authority to be active at the start of engagements.
- Added on spawn captain to helm teleport pass.
- Removed image contrast and saturation filters in favor of a color curve focused color grading.
- Ocean and sky color adjustments.