Rule the Waves 3 News

We are happy to announce another update for Rule the Waves 3. Included in the patch are numerous bug fixes and UI improvements. Read the full changelog below.

What’s New in Version 1.00.14

• Fixed a bug with warning when the player has exactly 2 AMC in peacetime, instead of more than 2.
  
• Fixed a bug with unrest sometimes unintentionally increasing when industrial productivity increases.
  
• More variation in first carrier AI design for some nations.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where an enemy ship could get speed 0, which would generate error messages in battle creation.
  
• Fixed a bug with Unit machinery sometimes being applied in battle even though the ship was designed without it.
  
• Fixed a bug with DD and CL division commanders not being auto assigned when they should be.
  
• Damage control training will now not be selectable before the tech is researched.
  
• Fixed a bug in the display of medium and heavy SAM ranges against surface targets.
  
• Fixed a bug where scrapped ships could turn up as coastal patrols in battles.
  
• Added function to multi select air units and make them night capable.
  
• Fixed a bug with industrialists complaining about the Navy buying foreign aircraft even if nation has no aircraft industry (China).
  
• Fixed a bug with magnetic pistols doctrine choice not being saved.
  
• Removed non-functioning auto ammo choice checkbox in doctrine screen.
  
• Made sure the DD request event does not fire before DDs are invented.
  
• You will now no longer be reminded if the museum ship is a carrier and has no aircraft assigned.
  
• The close button in the division editor now keeps alignment to the right edge of the screen.
  
• Fixed a bug with secondary hit modifier from director control sometimes wrongly calculated.
  
• Fixed a bug with small ships detaching/slowing down to quickly from flooding, and large ships being to slow to do it.
  
• User preferences, added option for no popups when divisions lose contact.
  
• Increased starting distance in battles with long radar ranges (this will primarily affect the missile age).
  
• CVL must now have a displacement of at least 6000 tons and a speed of at least 15 knots.
  
• Separated the commander and division submenus in the ships in service popup menu.
  
• In the ships in service popup menu, you can now reassign a ship to another division even if it already is in a division.
  
• Made it possible to assign officers to command destroyer divisions from the officers tab.
  
• Added a check for ship name being used when naming new ship classes.
  
• Added "Independent" in the role selection screen of the division editor (= effectively no specified role).
  
• Division editor: Made it possible to move divisions up or down in the division list.
  
• When creating a division and changing the type of an already autonamed division, a new appropriate name can be autogenerated.
  
• Made sure aircraft maneuverability can never go negative.
  
• Probably fixed a bug that could corrupt savefiles (hard to recreate the bug).
  
• Tweaked the AI to be more sensitive to threats to its home area.
  
• The VP display is now updated immediately after the player or the AI declines battle instead of at the end of turn processing.
  
• The visual equipment list in the design window is now cleared when you press "Clear all values" for the ship design.
  
• Added a button to clear all visuals.
  
• Reduced the chance of AI nations allying if they have incompatible government systems.
  
• Officers are now sorted on rank value and not on rank as text.
  
• Copy and paste air unit will now also copy carrier capable and night capable characteristics.
  
• Added option to center the map on selected possession when selecting possessions after a peace.
  
• Improved the list in the officer selection screen with sortable columns for traits.
  
• Added some Rear Admirals to the officer pool at the start of a new game.
  
• Added query for automatic mirroring of opposite mount when moving tertiary gun mounts.
  
• There is now a chance for officers in the starting pool to have their traits known at start.
  
• The player will now be asked about auto scrapping all AMCs after a war.
  
• Prevented an error when pressing OK on an aircraft prototype request without selecting a role.
  
• Ships transferred as reparations or lend lease are now automatically removed from division organization.
  
• Fixed a misleading description text in research of Wireless Telegraphy.
  

We are happy to announce the first update for Rule the Waves 3. We have fixed several bugs and typos, tweaked templates to improve AI ship designs, and added a button to pick a ships name from a historical list.

What’s New in Version 1.00.008

• Fixed some glitches in torpedo fire arc visualization in the design window.
• Made sure tech sharing agreements are terminated if the nations are at war.
• Fixed a tension reduction bug
• Fixed some typos.
• Made slight adjustments to 1890 engine weight calculations and starting ship speeds.
• Fixed a bug in battle generation when one side has too few ships and only DD present.
• Fixed a bug that could generate error messages in AIDetermineTacticalStance
• Fixed a bug with placement of tertiary gun mounts occasionally not working.
• Tweaked some templates so AI generated legacy ships are not overweight in 1890 and 1900.
• Fixed a bug in blockade strength calculations.
• Removed confusing message "Ships without hangar can not have more aircraft than catapults" when the ship has a helipad.
• Added popup menu items to increase or decrease number of tubes in misssile launchers.
• Fixed an interface bug that allowed setting missile reloads too high.
• Fixed an interface glitch with entering course in numbers in the division status screen.
• Fixed a bug with submerged torpedo tubes contributing to topside load.
• Added a button to pick ship name from the list of historical names.
• Stopped the museum ship from counting as active ship in the almanac.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We are happy to announce the release of Rule the Waves 3, a naval grand strategy game that places you in command of the great fleets of the 19th and 20th century. Engage in national politics, set your research priorities, build your fleet, and fight massive fleet actions from the age of ironclads to missile destroyers. Rule the Waves 3 is available as a digital edition on Steam.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2008100/Rule_the_Waves_3/

After the mid-1940s, jet aircraft enter the scene. Existing aircraft carriers will have to be rebuilt to handle jet aircraft, adding blast barriers and angled flight decks. As carriers will need to be larger to handle heavier jet aircraft, carrier sizes will grow. Eventually, supercarriers of upwards of 60,000 tons will be the norm.

A carrier in the jet era.

The battleship will still have a role to play, but it will be eclipsed as the ultimate expression of naval might by the large aircraft carrier. Jet aircraft will eventually evolve to have allweather and day and night capabilities, but already in the final years of WW2, the missile makes its appearance. At first primitive, with limited range and easy to counter with jamming, guided missiles can still cause grievous harm to surface vessels. This leads to the development of anti-aircraft missiles to give ships longer range air defences against all these threats.

Existing ships can be rebuilt, or completely new missile cruisers constructed. Anti-ship missiles do not consume all that much space, and can be accommodated by most ships. On the other hand, anti-aircraft missile systems and their attendant radar arrays are huge and will take up most of the space on a ship. This will tend to lead to missile cruisers specializing into either anti-aircraft or anti-ship roles.

A fairly typical cruiser in the missile age.

Missiles are initially limited to line of sight, but with improved guidance systems will get longer ranges and even over the horizon capabilities. On the topic of missile combat and missile damage, real world historical experience is limited. A number of ships have been hit by missiles, with a wide variety of results, some being sunk by one missile hit, others taking multiple hits to sink. But there are no examples of large, armoured warships being hit by missiles, so the effectiveness of heavy anti-ship missiles on a dreadnought battleship is really unexplored. That means that the game relies more on informed speculation in the area of missile effectiveness than with, for example, torpedo or shell damage.

Missile damage in game is simulated with more variability than other types of hits. Generally, missile hits are treated as very large HE shells in game with additional incendiary effects (unspent fuel starting fires). They will do more limited damage if they hit the armoured belt, but can do substantial damage to superstructures, and often cause fires.

Incoming missiles

With additional technical development, you will be able to set up strikes from multiple platforms, including land missile batteries and missile submarines.

Setting up a missile strike on enemy ships.

This concludes the Dev Diaries for Rule the Waves 3. We hope these diaries have given you some insight into the breadth of the wargaming experience this game can offer. Over 80 years of naval warfare, starting with ironclads duking it out at 1000 yards and ending with missile shots from over the horizon. No other game covers such a long period of modern naval warfare, or gives such an insight into how technology, ship design and tactics interact and develop over time.

The dreadnought era in the game can be said to cover roughly the years between 1905 and 1945. The completion of the first all big gun battleship, the HMS Dreadnought, was a consequence of technical developments that made long range fire by heavy guns more accurate and effective. Fighting ranges for battleships will be from 10,000 to 20,000 yards in the mid-1910s. The lower bound for combat range will tend to be governed by torpedo ranges. By this time the range and reliability of torpedoes have increased considerably. The speed of battleships will be around 20 knots or slightly above, which is a couple of knots higher than normal pre-dreadnought speeds, and comparable with a cruiser from the 1890s.

German battlecruisers in combat against French battleships

Rule the Waves 3 will show you not only the mechanics of how ships fought, but also why Navies organized as they did and why fleets deployed as they did. In the early dreadnought period, scouting light cruisers advancing in front of the battle fleet are the chief means of situational awareness. Spotting the enemy fleet at an early stage to plan your deployment or decide on whether to engage or withdraw is vital.

The cruiser screen of the German High Seas Fleet

The pace of technical development is still high in the 1920s and 1930s, but not quite at the same breakneck pace as before 1915. Indeed, some battleships that fought in WW1 gave good service in WW2. Battleships will continue to evolve, but the changes are more gradual, like higher speeds and better fire control.

The main development seen in the 1920s and 1930s is the rise of naval aviation. Initially, the main contribution of naval aviation is better scouting. Early aircraft have low ranges, limited weapons loads and doubtful reliability, so their ability to hurt undamaged ships is limited. Soon however, aircraft develop until by the 1930s they can be a serious threat to battleships. This will lead to a flurry of reconstruction, as existing battleships need to be equipped with anti-aircraft guns to be able to protect themselves against air attack.

A battlecruiser from the 1910s being rebuilt with more anti aircraft guns.

The rise of naval aviation will also cause the development of aircraft carriers. Initially, aircraft carriers will be conversions of existing ships, but with time you will be able to build purpose built aircraft carriers.
By the 1940s, airpower will start to play a more and more important role in naval warfare. Battleships will need their own air carrier based air support and think twice before they enter constricted waters in range of enemy airfields. The era of the dreadnought battleship will draw to a close. At the same time, developments in jet aircraft will make many carriers obsolete. But that is the subject of our next Dev Diary.