UBOAT News

Dear captains,

There is a new patch ready for the 2024.1 beta version.

Localization:
- French localization update by FvJ and Placebo.
- German localization update by Ruby.

Periscopes & TDC:
- Fix: Once player enters into manual control mode of any periscope or UZO, the officer that controls it stops to rotate periscope afterwards and keeps it pointed at the same bearing. This behaviour is reset once he leaves the station.
- Fix: It was often not possible to lock a clearly visible target. Please let us know, if this would be still happening in some weathers.
- Fix: Gyro angle dial on C/37 torpedo calculator had numbers arranged counterclockwise / mirrored horizontally.

UI:
- Fix: Since a few versions, there was missing realism setting during setting up a new campaign called "Mission types". This setting allows to select what kinds of missions will be offered by the command.
- Fix: Character role dropdown on character screen wasn't working.
- Fix: Positioning of telegraphs outside the screen is no longer possible. They also won't disappear after changing resolution to a lower one in any case.
- Fix: Lock arrows for distant targets were sometimes appearing below the target rather than above it, while using observation periscope on Type VII.

Uboatopedia:
- Added help links to several screens.
- Updated Uboatopedia in German and Polish.

Missions:
- Fix: It's now possible to use Type II gun to complete the mission at Hopen Island.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to complete mission by talking with the leading officer.

Type II:
- Increased fuel capacity of Type IID to give it historical range.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to upgrade batteries on Type IIA and Type IID. This fix requires starting a new game or changing the boat back and forth with another type.

Crew:
- Fix: Officers were often blocking, when they encountered a sailor on their path that was doing something, for example cleaning, sitting on a bunk etc.
- Fix: If U-boat was returning with wounded sailors from a mission and was welcomed by the orchestra, wounded sailors could appear among the crew that saluted to it. Once the cutscene ended, there were various issues with them.
- Fix: Crew members sometimes weren't going to rest on a bed, even when they were supposed to, for example when given an order.

General:
- When a silent run is ordered, ventilation is now automatically turned off by the crew. If it's enabled later on manually, it's not turned off again.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to enter into U-boat upgrade mode at the warehouse, if gameplay perspective setting was set to "FPP Only".
- Fix: In some cases, after loading a saved game state, saved in FPP, it wasn't possible to rotate the camera with mouse movements and there were some other issues too.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to start electric engines, if fuel tanks were empty.
- Fix: After changing U-boat to another type, the new U-boat's detection wasn't affected by weather factors.
- Fix: Fixes to a few errors spotted in the logs sent by the in-game bug reporting tool.

Yours,
DWS

Dear captains,

There is a new patch ready for 2024.1.

Localization:
- German localization update by Ruby.

Technical:
- Fix: After a saved game state was loaded from the main menu, and later U-boat was changed to another type, there were many issues present, such as not working section view and various storage issues.

Missions:
- Side-mission where enemy becomes aware of player's mission and starts a chase was rewritten from the ground up. From now on, enemies rely only on deduction and don't have any special knowledge. The longer player goes undetected, the larger area they search. Number of enemy ships and aircraft searching for the player is now also lower.

Detection:
- Fix: Certain types of contacts were reported as visual contacts, even when that wasn't the case, for example when U-boat was deep under the water and had no means of visual detection.

Ports:
- Fix: It was possible to ask command for relocation to ports that were belonging to enemy for example to La Rochelle in 1939.

Torpedoes & torpedo solutions:
- Fix: T5 torpedoes were no longer homing on their targets.
- Fix: If player fired at a target without using TDC, it was sometimes possible for infinity to appear in the computations. When that happened, all further torpedo solutions without TDC were incorrect and were always aimed directly at the target.
- Fix: If gyro angle receiver was manually set to "none" after flooding a tube, and later the default torpedo launchers UI was used to fire, the changed setting wasn't automatically fixed.
- Fix: Torpedo salvo preview visible on the map now displays the actual path that torpedoes would take after launch, considering their currently set gyro angle.
- Fix: Small fixes to computations performed by TDC to fix certain discontinuities in edge cases.
- Fix: Torpedo solutions are now also correct, when firing at targets that aren't targeted by any officer. In such case, bearing is set on TDC directly, without setting any bearing transmitter.

Graphics:
- Fix: Decreased volumetric lights intensity from port lamps.
- Fix: Guests waiting to be welcomed on the ship were becoming invisible, once they reached their destination on the deck, where they waited for the captain.

UI:
- Added description for each U-boat on the U-boat selector screen. This text better explains differences between each following type.
- Added tooltip for silent run button to explain all its effects.
- Fix: Compass at the top of the screen was sometimes displaying extra green dots pointing mission objectives, that shouldn't be there.

General:
- Fix: Game was freezing after a sailor was disbanded.
- Fix: After batteries were upgraded, they were no longer charging to 100%.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to rotate knobs on devices when the game was paused.

Yours,
DWS

Dear captains,

There is a new patch ready for 2024.1.

We hope that this patch will resolve all issues with faulty torpedo solutions (details below). Starting from now on, the game no longer minimizes in Fullscreen Borderless mode when loosing focus. There were also some tweaks to voiceover and once again a bunch of fixes to tutorial missions.

Localization:
- English localization update by Steve.
- Russian localization update by Hard.
- Portuguese localization update by AlexShuma.
- Turkish localization update by Narberal Gamma.
- French localization update by FvJ and Placebo.
- German localization update by Ruby.
- Spanish localization update by Miguel Haakon.

Firing solutions:
- When an automatic torpedo solution is ordered, the crew now uses AOB and bearing motors on the TDC. This slightly increases their accuracy.
- Fix: AOB was computed in a wrong way when any of the two periscopes of Type IIs or an observation periscope on Type VIIs were used for the attack.
- Fix: Officers working on an automatic firing solution were sometimes pointing the periscope a bit to the side, instead of the center of a target.
- Fix: A few other fixes that should make the automatic torpedo solutions more accurate.

TDC:
- Fix: Gyro angle pointer was rotated by 90 degrees to the left on C/37 TDC present on Type IIs and Type VIIB.

UI:
- Fix: Torpedo pictures weren't centred inside the torpedo tubes in the UI.
- Fix: When supplies were handed to shipwrecked sailors, text on the screen was claiming that 2x more reputation progress would be received than was later actually received.
- Fix: It's no longer possible to add whitespace at the beginning or at the end of a character's name. It was causing minor issues in the UI. It's also no longer possible to use only whitespaces as the name.

Tutorial missions:
- Fix: In tutorial mission #4, the first two popups were appearing twice in a row.
- Fix: Added red arrow to point "Continue" button in tutorial #3, when crew is about to be sent onto the second merchant ship.
- Fix: It was possible to press "Continue" button in tutorial #3, before the tutorial asked for this and break the mission script.
- Fix: In tutorial #4, it was possible for the officer using flak gun to have serious wounds requiring hospitalization.
- Fix: In some cases during tutorial #2, #3 or #4, officers could be in a loop, where they started to work on a station, stopped and started to work on it again. This was sometimes causing issues.
- Fix: When a tutorial mission is completed and the tutorial starts to explain how to start another one, play as skipper mode is deactivated for that time being.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to activate ladders and hatches in FPP, when tutorial asked to interact with something specific.

Events:
- Increased frequency of the event with smoke coming out of the engines. Note: It should be still relatively rare.

Voiceover:
- Fix: Officers were sometimes incorrectly commenting sinking of ships, like they would be sunk with a torpedo, even though they were sunk by different means.
- Fix: Officers were sometimes repeating many times, when a shallow area was entered.
- Fix: Engineer no longer reports a completion of torpedo maintenance when a time compression higher than 100 is used.

Starting scenarios:
- Changed start date and an emblem for U-616.

Technical:
- If fullscreen windowed (borderless) mode is active, game no longer minimizes after loosing focus.
- Fix: Minor issues and errors in the log, when crew was returning to a Type II U-boat from a vacation.

Graphics:
- Fix: Issues with the graphics on HDR displays.
- Fix: Water and rain were sometimes visible between the conning tower and the control room in a section view of Type IID U-boats.

General:
- Fix: Many dials and clocks on the ship were stopping to update after loading a game state from the main menu.

Yours,
DWS

Dear captains,

There is a new patch ready for the beta version of the game.

Localization:
- French localization update by FvJ and Placebo.
- Czech localization update by Spid3rCZ.
- Portuguese localization update by AlexShuma.
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.

Ports:
- Fix: All ports had too few defence guns in 1939.
- Fix: Norwegian, Canadian, USSR, Netherlands, Irish, Portuguese and Spanish ports didn't had any defence guns.

Missions:
- Fix: Side-mission about counting defence guns in a port now asks to find a lower number of AA guns.

Tutorial missions:
- Fix: It was possible to send crew onto the second merchant ship in tutorial #3 before the tutorial has asked for this and break the mission script.
- Fix: If a tutorial with a custom weather state was completed, and then another such tutorial was started right away, the custom weather from the next tutorial wasn't applied and there was no restrictions about the weather for its duration.
- Fix: Tutorial missions #2 and #3 weren't working when started from Marseille.

UI:
- Toolbar for switching between combat stations is no longer displayed for binoculars.
- A confirmation popup now appears, when player attempts to launch a salvo, before the gyro angle is set on the torpedoes.
- Fix: After clicking on a help button in the echosounder view, a wrong page of the manual was opened.
- Fix: It was possible to break the intro cutscene by pressing the keyboard shortcut for toggling a free cam mode.
- Fix: HQ task requirements were missing in the UI.
- Fix: Play as skipper mode is now correctly marked as experimental. Previously this suffix wasn't visible.
- Fix: Missing translation for the action displayed on the screen when looking at the torpedo launch lever from FPP.

Quality of life:
- Game is now paused when manual is opened.

Map:
- Fix: Circles drawn with a compass tool weren't visible, if motion blur was disabled and either FSR or DLSS were enabled in the graphics settings.

Graphics:
- Fix: Portraits could render completely white at night near ports.

Hydrophone:
- Fix: Keyboard shortcuts for increasing and decreasing volume were having reverse effect. It was possible to set the volume below 0% or above 100% with them. They were also too slow.

Type II:
- Fix: Compressor wasn't being automatically disabled by the crew after filling the compressed air tanks.

Yours,
DWS

Hello,

There is a new version up. It fixes the most apparent issues that we've noticed after publishing the initial release. Changelog:

Localization:
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.

General:
- Fix: Parts of UI could disappear after opening radio view from map, going back to map and then switching to the view orbiting around the U-boat.
- Fix: It was possible to switch to UZO view on IIA, even though it didn't had UZO. There were many problems present after doing it.
- Fix: Hours hand on clocks wasn't moving.
- Fix: The Happy Time cutscene was adjusted for English version of voiceover.

Tutorial:
- Fix: Random events, such as tuberculosis, could happen during tutorial.

AI:
- Fix (regression): Aircraft no longer attack during storms.

Graphics:
- Update to Type II interiors.
- Fix: Corrected antenna position on Type IID and fixed texture on its container.
- Fix: Wrong texture on ventilation in Type II engine room.

Simulation:
- Rudder indicator in Type II conning towers wasn't working.

Launcher:
- Fix: Added text wrapping to version name label.

Yours,
DWS