Boat Crew News

Hello Captain,

As those of you who have been following us recently will know, we have been having another experimental cycle starting on the 1st of November. After nearly 4 weeks of playtesting, development and making adjustments based on your feedback as well as our own observations, we are happy to say that the update v1.6 Shock and Awe is now ready for Stable release.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

As the name is hinting towards, this update has a central theme of big guns and big explosions, with multiple new units, multiple new playable weapons, a new playable boat, and more. If you haven't been following the Developer's Diaries or our Experimental patches, or if you just want a refresher on what exactly is different since the v1.5. Floating Fortresses update, here is the full changelog below:

[h2]v1.6.0 Full Changelog[/h2]

[h3]Highlights[/h3]

★ 78' Huckins - Playable PT Boat added. High performance design with versatile loadout options that sacrifices durability for agility.
★ 75 mm Pack Howitzer and 107 mm Mortar - New Utility Weapons added, powerful new artillery pieces that require two Gunners to operate. Reworked aiming mode.
★ Added the ability for boats other than the 81' Prototype to equip a second Primary Weapon, now called Heavy Weapon, on the front side of the boat.
★ 3''/50 Dual Purpose Gun - Playable new Heavy Weapon added, unique dual purpose gun with high recoil and three different ammunition types that are automatically picked based on the target.
★ Unit inspection mode "Boatuary" added, giving information about units in the game and putting them on display.

[h3]Additions[/h3]

- John C. Butler-Class Destroyer added, joining US assault forces, supply convoys and Strategic Target group on occasion.
- Mutsuki-Class Destroyer added, joining IJN assault forces, supply convoys and Strategic Target group on occasion.
- IJN hunter groups now added to attack US Strategic Targets. They have a fixed speed and do not get targeted by air wings.
- New artillery call-in variants added; Beach Barrage Rockets, Smoke Shells and Superheavy Shells.
- P-38 metallic variant added, equipped with an improved cannon and lots of rockets instead of bombs.
- P-39 Airacobra added as both call-in and allied support aircraft.
- Added Nisshin-class Seaplane Tender to IJN, joining high end assault forces.
- Added McCawley-class Attack Transport to USN, joining high end assault forces.
- New set of semi-fictional ship names fitting IJN naming conventions to reduce name repetition.
- New Nagara AA variant inspired by historical Isuzu AAA conversion.
- Dual purpose guns added to several ships.
- Dual purpose guns of all calibers can now also attack aircraft with special anti-aircraft shells, including the Fubuki variants with the Type B turret.
- Japanese 12.7 cm and 14 cm guns will now occasionally fire incendiary Beehive Shells at small surface targets, including the player and their squadron boats.
- XP gain tickers for crew added.

[h3]Changes[/h3]

- Added new physics to make boats feel more responsive to waves, changes to camera to help with sense of speed.
- Ryuujou-Class Carrier given an additional explosion node in the front, making it more likely to suffer magazine detonations.
- Smaller vessels will now try to evade incoming shells with trajectories, including the player mortar.
- Larger vessels will try to evade detected torpedoes.
- "Awaiting Fuel Arrival" message now appears under player unit on map rather than corner of UI.
- Map groups push away player according to their size, this should prevent engagements spawns that are too close to enemy carrier groups.
- Reworked assault system to manage multiple assaults at the same time with scaling.
- Proper strategic target spawning system.
- Strategic target / carrier group spawn frequencies are now scaled by victory points and developments of bases.
- Unused charges in call-in cards now contribute to a small reroll discount.
- Reworked starter boat selection screen.
- AT gun model and animation upgrades.
- New group templates added and some existing templates updated with the new units.
- Jingei is now a targetable bounty unit and has additional named variants.
- Separation of air group spawn cooldown time for bases and carriers so that bases spawn them less.
- Buffs to AI anti-air shells.
- M4 Autocannon and M2 Mortar will now have their cameras oriented on transition to wherever the camera was already pointing in other view modes.
- Max speed adjustments to ships.
- Squadron boat camo will now synchronize with player regardless of selected class.
- Radar model color will now synchronize with camo.
- Increased ocean rendering resolution, added graphics option to switch to lower resolution.
- CPU related optimization attempts for mid to large battles.
- Camo color option "Waterline" renamed to "Draft".
- Crew loadout titles should now automatically update, excluding those which have had custom name assignments.
- Restored sub hunting function for acoustic torpedoes.
- Added physics to torpedo deployment to make them nose heavy.
- Added minimum guaranteed damage mechanic to torpedo impact, to counter the splash damage loss due to distance from center of hitboxes.
- Damage buffs to Mk 24 and Mk 27 torpedoes.
- Mk 28 torpedo acoustic ability improved.
- New rocket firing sound.
- New bazooka firing sound.
- New mortar shell falling sound.
- Rockets now start slow and accelerate.
- EQ pass on ocean sounds.
- Reimplemented subtle boat wave crash sounds.
- Ocean horizons will blend better with sky.
- Reworked cloud rendering.
- Cargo net and antenna are now physically animated.
- RP crates respond visually to being picked up.

[h3]Fixes[/h3]
- Fix attempt for player triggered assaults coming from bases that are already engaged.
- Fixed issues with weapons targeting some of the larger vessels.
- Fix attempts for AI aim issues caused by new bumpy ocean wave tuning.
- Fix attempts to prevent squadron boats from getting stuck in piers.
- Fixed having no crew in a boat class swapped back from reserve causing it to be marooned.
- Fixed long time edge case where squadrons and callins can be wiped due to active callins being fully depleted, active and reserve callins would be all reset giving you fresh ones. This happened when a game was loaded and an engagement was immediately entered and left.
- Fix attempts for squadron boats being too easy to flip on collision (a reemerging issue from v1.5).
- Fixed crew failing to point the mortar models towards where the shells should land.
- Fixed bombs falling through merchant ships and exploding in water.
- Fixed planes occasionally disappearing on radar.
- Fixed a case where clash logs spams are caused by post victory conditions.

[h3]v1.6.0.5 Stable[/h3]
- Fixed carrier and catapulted planes not having small UI icons above them.
- Fixed an issue for camo pattern color override not being reset properly into saves. If an already selected camo pattern is clicked on again, the overwritten colors should reset.
- Fubuki Type B Turret can now fire AA shells
- 5''/38 can now target aircraft with an AA shell.
- 5''/38 now has a special HE shell to use against light targets.
- Merchant Ship generic cannon replaced with 2 8 cm Dual Purpose Guns.
- Decorative crew added to Casablanca's open 5''/38 gun.

You can also find all the Developer's Diaries related to this update below:

Spear and Shield - 31st of October - Developer's Diary F1 Securing the Beachhead - 7th of November - Developer's Diary F2 Relentless Cannonade - 14th of November - Developer's Diary F3 Shock and Awe - 21st of November - Developer's Diary F4

[h2]v1.6.0.4 Experimental[/h2]
- Added 107mm M2 Mortar.
- Utility weapon new aiming mode touchups.
- Strategic target / carrier group spawn frequencies are now scaled by victory points and developments of bases.
- Added Nagara variants that use AA heavy loadouts.
- Max speed adjustments to ships.
- 3-inch gun model additions and replacements to some ships.
- Akizuki's 100 mm, the open topped 127 mm turret and the AI dual purpose guns can now fire anti-air shells at air targets.
- Added new ship names for the target ships, using a mixture of cancelled ship names and fictional names that fit IJN naming conventions.
- Squadron dock avoidance should finally work properly this patch.
- Fix for new assault system mechanics causing frozen assault sequences after save/load.
- Crew loadout titles should now automatically update, excluding those which have had custom name assignments.

- Hunter Killer groups now have a fixed, higher speed and won't be targeted by air groups.
- P-39 Airacobra added to certain US ground-based air groups and HE shells call-in card text color changed to be more visible.
- 75 mm Pack Howitzer shell lifetime increased.

- 3"/50 Dual Purpose Gun cost increased to 20000 RP.
- 3"/50 Dual Purpose Gun HE shell against surface targets now deals reduced damage but fires 5 fragments upon explosion.
- 3"/50 Dual Purpose Gun fire rate reduced from 120 RPM to 75 RPM.
- AI 3" gun fire rate reduced from 120 RPM to 75 RPM.
- 3"/50 Dual Purpose Gun AP shell direct damage increased to 1600 from 1200, splash damage reduced to 400 from 600, splash radius increased to 20 from 15.
- 3"/50 Dual Purpose Gun AA shell accuracy multiplier increased to 0.95 from 0.7.

Hello Captain,

We are with you in the final diary of our current series, coming in at the tail end of an experimental cycle. As usual, the upcoming Big Update will now receive a name in anticipation of a Stable release at the 26th of November.

It was another wonderful experimental cycle, and our joint efforts will have soon culminated in the v1.6. Shock and Awe update. We thought the name was fitting considering this update's focus on big guns and ships with big guns, among other things.

The Experimental branch is meant to last another 6 days, with further updates not being unlikely, so stay tuned and don't be shy to reach us either at the community forums or over at our Discord channel if you have feedback to give or suggestions to make.

Without further delay, let's get into the main topics of this week's diary.



The second previously unplanned weapon to be added in this update, the 107 mm M2 Mortar is a direct upgrade to the fan favourite 60 mm M2 Mortar. Originally, the 75mm Pack Howitzer was meant to take on the role of the upgrade to the mortar, but we ended up deciding to give it a different sight for gameplay variety, and gave it much better ammo efficiency to compensate for the difficulty in using it.

This left the mortar without a direct upgrade, and upon realizing the extent of your demand for it, we decided to add in a new weapon to fill this niche. That weapon is the 107mm M2 Mortar, a weapon that works exactly the same way as its smaller cousin.

The differences are that the larger mortar will deal more damage, have a larger smoke cloud, and have more range, at the cost of requiring 2 Gunners to use instead of 1 while also costing you more in RP.

Mechanically, it's just the mortar we already have but bigger. It is said it is hard to improve on perfection, and some of you have let us know that the mortar is already perfect. So here is a bigger one we hope you'll enjoy.



Speaking of the Pack Howitzer, your feedback during the Experimental branch has shown us that it is a bit too hard to aim with for various reasons, to the point it takes away the joy from using the weapon and makes it feel like it's not worth it. We heard you, and came to the same conclusion after playing with it ourselves, and decided to make some improvements to the aiming.

First, the reticle will change color when you're trying to target outside its rather narrow aiming cone. Currently the targeting reticle doesn't really make it obvious that you can't fire there, resulting in wasted shots. We considered removing the reticle instead of having it change color, but that would make it difficult for you to find your mouse again, so we settled on a dimmer gray color to indicate you're not aiming properly at the time.

Second, we added live tracking of the range you're aiming at, which still has some issues accounting for elevation differences but should be good enough for use at open sea and not cause an error bigger than the inaccuracy of the gun.

Third, you no longer need to zoom in for the rangefinder to work, allowing you to maintain better situational awareness and a wider field of view while operating the gun.

These changes will also apply to the other utility weapons, and this will be the final revision of the Utility Weapon targeting for the foreseeable future. Getting hits should be much easier overall, though you still shouldn't expect to hit very long range shots to hit reliably due to the innate imperfectness of weapon accuracies.

After all, that would be a game imbalancing factor, and even a partial hit rate can be devastating with the Pack Howitzer considering its strength as it can already sink a destroyer in 3-4 hits or even in a single lucky one. Still, we hope all of this is sufficient to make it, and the other utility weapons, more fun to use.



The 8 cm gun in the game was rather infamously a tube attached to a cube attached to another tube, as a holdover from Boat Crew's earlier, humbler days. The last of the venerable graphics-economizing shell-casters have been removed, being replaced with the 3"/50 Dual Purpose Gun model you can find on your own boat, although colored differently for the Japanese side.

Aside from one barely produced example, the Japanese didn't really use Dual Purpose Guns of about 3" size, with the main example being an outdated variant from before the war. Now it would make sense to put those on merchant ships, but we decided to go with the crisp 3" model we already have, which exudes a sense of agility and multi-purpose lethality. For gameplay purposes we took another artistic liberty imagining that the IJN found them at the same place they found the Dual Bofors guns they use on the big subchasers from.

Said gun will make an appearance on certain ships, including a new variant of the Nagara inspired by the later anti-aircraft cruiser conversion of the Isuzu. Instead of a much larger complement of 25mms, she will instead get a few additional triple 25 mms, 7 new 3-inch dual purpose guns, and 2 twin 127mm open topped turrets; the same as you find on the Ryuujou and certain variants of the Mutsuki.

Both the 3-inch and the open topped 127 mm are now capable of anti-aircraft fire, resulting in more downed planes and for you, a more impressive light show of intense bursts of flak.

Of course, being dual purpose, these rapid fire, high velocity cannons are a major threat to you as well, so be careful when approaching this new variant of the Nagara as they are considerably more lethal to you!



Last but not least, we’ve tackled an issue that’s been bugging us for a while: the way ships are currently numbered, leading to campaign results like "Akizuki III" or the infamous "Ryuujou VIII." This problem is especially noticeable with unique ships like the Ryuujou, which had no sister ships in real life. We’re excited to announce that we’ve finally settled on a solution.

To address this, we’re adding a list of semi-fictional names. Where possible, we’ll use names from cancelled ships of the class, or otherwise follow historical IJN naming conventions to create fitting fictional names. We felt this approach was better than borrowing names from entirely different classes, especially for carriers with iconic names like Akagi or Zuikaku.

While we get away with some creative license, we wanted to respect the historically inclined among you by avoiding names that might break immersion completely. We think this is a solid compromise and a definite improvement over seeing something like "Ryuujou XII."

The ship you see in the screenshot above is the Kiyotsuki, a historically cancelled would-be sister to the Akizuki who came to life in Boat Crew.

We have a long list of names to be implemented, so don't expect all of them to reach the game in one update, but they should all be gradually implemented by the time of the stable release. This list was sourced via our community, in particular by one of our players who goes by the Discord handle Matsuo_Basho.

He was also responsible for suggesting the Seaplane Tender Nisshin that was featured earlier in this series, so thanks again for your efforts in improving Boat Crew. We truly appreciate that you share our passion for the game, and this also goes out to all of you who take the time to share thoughtful suggestions and feedback.



That about wraps up what we wanted to share for this week, Captain. Any further changes will be noted in the changelogs and eventually a full list for the entire experimental cycle will be available at the time of the v1.6. Stable launch. You can expect everything we've talked about here to reach you in an experimental update before the end of the week.

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

[h2]v1.6.0.3 Experimental[/h2]
- Added 75 mm Pack Howitzer as a utility weapon.
- Added P-39 Airacobra call-in.
- Added "Boatuary".
- Added chance based beehive shells for 127mm and 140mm Japanese guns.
- M4 Autocannon and M2 Mortar will now have their cameras oriented on transition to wherever the camera was already pointing in other view modes.
- Mk 28 torpedo acoustic ability adjustments.
- Minor increase to new 3-inch gun engagement range.
- Fixed issues with weapons engaging on some of the larger vessels.
- Fix attempts for aim issues caused by new bumpy ocean wave tuning.
- Further fix attempts to prevent squadron boats from getting stuck in piers.
- Fixes to 3-inch gun implementations on AI ships.
- Fixed backwards McCawley.
- Fixed having no crew in a boat class swapped back from reserve causing it to be marooned.

Greetings Captain,

We're with you in the third diary of this series, talking about some additional tools to help you on your request to reclaim the Solomons. Let's start this off with a bang.



In the last diary, we had promised that there would be another big gun, and here it is. We are adding the M1 75 mm Pack Howitzer as a usable utility weapon. The larger, bulkier cousin to the fan favorite 60 mm M2 Mortar, the Pack Howitzer is more expensive, bulkier, and slower to fire, while requiring 2 crewmen to operate it to boot.

As a howitzer, a new type of utility weapon, it will also require considerably better aim to use; coming with an artillery sight instead of the top-down view like on the Mortar.

To compensate, it has noticeably increased damage, range, explosion radius and smoke radius compared to the Mortar. In addition, it has dramatically increased damage per ammo box, above that of any other type of utility weapon.

We are aware that the mortar is a very popular weapon enjoyed by many of you, so we can't wait to hear what you think about the Pack Howitzer! It's different in some substantial ways, but should offer its own brand of high explosive fun.



Joining your side is the P-39 Airacobra, a rather underrated low altitude fighter, equipped with a 37 mm cannon nested within the engine block. Not a particularly tough or fast fighter, the powerful autocannon is what turns it into a remarkable support aircraft.

Carrying HE shells by default and joining airfield-based air wings on occasion, P-39 has plenty of ammunition with which to destroy soft skinned targets, assuming it's lucky enough to survive for a while. An alternative variant with AP shells will also be available, costing a bit more in heat and having less splash damage while hitting much harder on direct hits, allowing it to methodically dismantle tougher targets, again assuming it lives long enough to do so.

Overall, the P-39, while not anything groundbreaking, should be an interesting sight on the battlefield and add variety to the already expansive list of support powers. As with all Army aircraft, it will be available through the reward system at higher threat levels.



During your campaign to retake the Solomons, you will encounter a wide array of boats, aircraft, and ships—both friend and foe. As the saying goes, "knowing is half the battle," so to equip you with crucial intel, we're introducing a feature we affectionately call the Boatuary—a contraction of "Boat Bestiary." While it began as an internal nickname, it stuck around and has now become the official title. It might not be formal, but it’s memorable, and we think it captures the spirit perfectly!

The Boatuary is your go-to guide for every boat, ship, and aircraft you’ll face. Each entry provides a detailed description, an assessment of its threat level, and a 3D model you can rotate and zoom in on for closer inspection. It's designed to give you the edge, helping you anticipate what to expect from any unit you encounter.

Eventually, we would like to integrate it into the Campaign, but for now, it remains as a separate mode accessible straight from the main menu.

We should also add that this was a previously requested feature that we thought would be a fine addition to the tools available to you, so thank you for the suggestion!



As you'll have noted with the 3"/50 Dual Purpose Gun, lately we have been experimenting with alternate ammunition types for use against different target types. Entering the enemy's arsenal are the San Shiki or beehive shells, which are, to be brief about it, are special shells that explode just before reaching their target, showering them in an incendiary blast. Meant for and ineffective at anti-aircraft combat, they're nevertheless effective against soft surface targets.

After all, what is made out of plywood and has the crew exposed on the deck? Your boat, Captain!

Certain variants of certain enemy ships, starting from the Fubuki and going heavier, will be firing beehive rounds at small targets such as yourself, to much greater effect than they have been reported to have in real life. Not every shot will be of this variety, but rather there will be a certain chance that whenever you or an other allied small target is fired at by a shell, that said shell will be a beehive shell.



You can expect to see all of these in the next Experimental update, coming before the end of the week.

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