UBOAT News

Dear skippers,

Update B129 Preview 24 is now complete and ready to download on the public testing branch. Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more!

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Fix: Aircraft stationing on the carrier were having duplicated propellers and windows.
- Fix: Map was blinking with a black colour when player's ship was receiving damage.
- Fix: Newspapers were not aligned correctly to the sailors reading them on the starboard bunks in the bow torpedo room.

[h3]Interactions:[/h3]
- Fix: Taking survivors from a lifeboat was sometimes not working correctly - the character wasn't actually moved to the player's ship and after leaving the area a notification was popping up that he was released.

[h3]Crew:[/h3]
- Fix: It was possible to perform first aid on torpedoes after making a few steps.

[h3]User interface:[/h3]
- Fix: XP bar in the character selection panel wasn't full after reaching the maximum level in the game (5th).
- Fix: Tooltips were incorrect for the time compression buttons, if dynamic travel system was being used.

[h3]Missions:[/h3]
- Fix: Southern Routes campaign objective was often stopping to progress.
- Fix: Supply ships (milk cows) were sometimes selected as a target for the ally calling for help and lost ship missions. It wasn't intended and could cause some issues.

[h3]World simulation:[/h3]
- Fix: Some merchant ships weren't carrying any cargo.

[h3]Localization:[/h3]
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- German localization update by Ruby.
- Portuguese localization update by Roliçonho.

[h3]General:[/h3]
- Fix: After damaging a ship and forcing the crew to evacuate, leaving the area and then coming back, the crew was back on the ship and the buoyancy (HP) bar was full.

Yours,
DWS

Dear skippers,

Update B129 Preview 23 is now complete and ready to download on the public testing branch.

We are planning to release a stable version of B129 soon and continue further work on the stable branch. There may be still some more updates and fixes in the days ahead though!

If you are interested to find out what's new in this version, please take a look at the changelog below.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Modding:[/h3]
- Updated Unity modding template to work with the latest B129 releases. The project in the template now requires Unity 2019.4.29.
- Fix: After opening the Unity modding template, it was possible for the welcome window to be opened in a few copies.

[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Fix: A fog-like effect was appearing on the screen after zooming in the map view to the closest possible zoom level, while being away from the coast.
- Fix: Added ship name on Dale-class and War-class tanker hulls.
- Fix: Turm IV quadruple gun wasn't resetting correctly to a forward looking position.
- Regression fix: Rain was rendered under the water.

[h3]User interface:[/h3]
- Fix: Campaign setup preset buttons were slightly vibrating, if temporal anti-aliasing was enabled in the settings.
- Fix: Portraits could remain on the screen after moving to HQ view in rare circumstances.

[h3]Crew:[/h3]
- Crew returning from an external interaction now appears at varied positions on the deck rather than everyone at the same spot.
- Fix: Returning crew now appears in the control room rather than on the submerged deck, if u-boat dived.
- Fix: Unusual issue with crew members moving at the u-boat's bow and refusing to go anywhere else until La Rochelle was left.

[h3]Missions:[/h3]
- Added missing descriptions for a few remaining campaign missions.
- Fix: Patrols appearing during the campaign assignments could spawn directly near the player's ship, if console was used to skip some time.
- Fix: "Unknown object" and "Empty" objects were reported in a few places in UI during the weather station placement missions.
- Fix: The radio transmission from the weather station was transmitted for only 6 minutes. If player didn't receive it in that time, it wasn't possible to complete the mission.
- Fix: Journal entry after completing the Royal Oak sinking assignment wasn't correct.

[h3]Localization:[/h3]
- French localization update by FvJ and Placebo.
- German localization update by Ruby.

[h3]Optimizations:[/h3]
- Performance improvements for longer playthroughs.

[h3]Map:[/h3]
- Regression fix: If player ordered to plot a route to port, while moving and having enabled a time compression, the path could be plotted to some other location near the port instead.

Yours,
DWS

Dear skippers,

Update B129 Preview 22 is now ready to download on the public testing branch. It brings some important fixes in preparation to a stable release. Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more!

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Fix: Trees were rendered slightly above the terrain, if they were being observed from a large distance.
- Fix: Temporal antialiasing wasn't rendering correctly in the u-boat interiors.
- Fix: Highlight effect that appears after moving the cursor over a ship was sometimes visible through the water in certain views.

[h3]Game launcher:[/h3]
- Fix: Added scroll support for mod descriptions.
- Fix: Fixed slightly overlapping elements when there was more than 6 installed mods.

[h3]Optimizations:[/h3]
- Fix: Performance issue that was getting worse during long playthroughs. The performance should improve in the existing game states, but a new playthrough may be needed for the full effect.

[h3]Ports:[/h3]
- Fix: Alexandria is now better aligned to the coast. This change may cause temporary problems after loading a game state that was saved near Alexandria. Please leave the area and enter it back to avoid them.
- Fix: After docking in a different port than the current flotilla port / home port it wasn't possible to walk through the area that was usually occupied by the leading officer's car.
- Regression fix: Leading officer had his legs partially in the ground in Kiel and La Spezia.

[h3]User interface:[/h3]
- Added a warning that stadimeter cannot be used to measure a distance to the selected ship without identifying it first.
- Added a notification that appears after pressing the bug reporting shortcut on the keyboard that informs that data is being collected before the actual bug reporting UI appears.
- Added a notification on the torpedo launchers UI, if a launcher is broken. It's no longer possible to try to flood such launchers.
- Fix: Incoming radio messages notification was sometimes displaying a wrong number of the incoming transmissions after loading a game state. In certain cases it could display zero, but still remain visible on the screen.
- Fix: After identifying a ship's class, the interface in the periscope view was spoiling a ship's true nationality instead of displaying the nationality visible on the flags.
- Fix: Added a degrees symbol to the numeric value displayed in the course estimation UI.
- Fix: After loading a game state and selecting an officer that was ordered to rest, the rest toggle wasn't displayed as toggled.
- Fix: During ongoing interactions, often a progress bar was displayed on the participating character portraits, even if there was no work being done.
- Fix: After selecting an officer working at the UZO when there was an ongoing interaction, there was sometimes an "Unknown object" visible on the contacts list that shouldn't be there.
- Fix: If a list of incoming transmissions has changed, while the radio interface was already open, the UI could behave erratically after choosing one of them.

[h3]AI:[/h3]
- Fix: Tankers were sometimes searching the area for submarines after being attacked instead of evading a hostile.

[h3]Missions:[/h3]
- If a convoy that is the target of a wolf pack attack is forced to change its course or speed as a result of player's actions or external factors and is no longer going to arrive at the planned attack location, the wolf pack is now being disbanded and a radio message is sent by the high command that explains the reason.
- Fix: Wolf pack attack mission wasn't progressing, if player was the first to arrive at the attack location.
- Fix: The u-boat that appears in the lost u-boat side mission was having a gray / neutral flag displayed in UI.

[h3]World simulation:[/h3]
- Fix: Due to certain optimizations, encounters with NPC groups weren't always working reliably and in rare cases it was possible to, for example, spot behind the u-boat a group of ships that was travelling in an opposite direction.
- Fix: At high time compression, it was sometimes possible to move past an undetected enemy group before it was loaded and appeared in the scene (the end results overlap with the issue above).
- Fix: After encountering a convoy with an aircraft carrier, it was in rare cases possible for the aircraft to spawn first and be spotted by the player's crew before it was placed on the carrier.

[h3]U-boat:[/h3]
- Tweaks to the audio sources intensity when hydrophone is being used from the sea surface.

[h3]Crew:[/h3]
- Fix: Crew members duplicating after saving and reloading a game state.
- Fix: After pressing the button to recruit a random sailor to help the officer, sometimes a captive was being added instead.
- Fix: Random animation issues of the crews on NPC ships (continuation).

[h3]Map:[/h3]
- Improvements to pathfinding on the map.
- Wind speed on the map is now displayed in the units selected by the player.
- Fix: If player pressed shift and clicked on a port icon, the entire route was erased and computed from the scratch rather than appended to the existing route.
- Fix: Contacts on the map for ships that appear during certain campaign assignments were sometimes called "Special" rather than "Ships".

[h3]Localization:[/h3]
- Turkish localization update by tokyo.
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- German localization update by Ruby.

[h3]General:[/h3]
- Fix: Torpedoes launched from the aft launcher by NPC u-boats were usually sinking right after being launched.
- Fix: After placing an order to neutralize the buoyancy by blowing the ballast, then pumping the water out of the compartments and surfacing this way, the crew wasn't automatically flooding the ballast tanks after receiving the next dive order - it was necessary to do it manually.
- Fix: It's no longer possible to save a game on the character customization screen.
- Fix: Weather state could sometimes become stuck after certain missions.
- Fix: It was possible to toggle the flashlight for the selected officer after pressing the keyboard shortcut, even if there was a fullscreen user interface or a development console on the screen.

Yours,
DWS

Dear skippers,

Update B129 Preview 21 is now ready to download on the public testing branch.

This update brings fixes to some of the last commonly reported bugs and issues, as well as adds general improvements. Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Added NPC crew on Dale-class and War-class tankers - these were the last ships without a visible crew.
- Fix: Hatch at the conning tower was blurring in random directions when it was observed from the conning tower's interior at the open sea.
- Fix: Shadows were flickering on the lowest shadow settings in certain scenes appearing during a merchant ship inspection.
- Regression fix: Tracer projectiles were casting striped shadows onto nearby ships, since memory usage optimizations a few versions back.

[h3]Crew management:[/h3]
- Fix: Crew members could in some cases get stuck and don't move to their destinations.
- Fix: Injured characters are automatically treated after moving them from the ship to land.
- Fix: It's no longer possible to move dead characters from the ship to land just before they disappear.
- Regression fix: Captain and the first engineer have stopped to evacuate from the NPC ships since the previous update.

[h3]Interactions:[/h3]
- Fix: If player encountered a group of two or more merchant ships, sent a crew to inspect one of them, ordered an evacuation, followed certain steps and then ordered moving some cargo to the u-boat, the crew sent onto that ship was gone after skipping time.
- Fix: Crew members were duplicating after each save and reload, after sending them to another ship, entering interior scene, sinking the ship that was the target of the interaction and quickly returning back to the u-boat.
- Fix: If player loaded any cargo from the interaction target two times, sailors sent onto a delegation were returning with a wrong initial animation and some of them could become duplicated, if a game state was reloaded.
- Fix: Crew that was returning from an interaction could in some cases don't appear on the player's u-boat, but get stuck somewhere on the open sea instead.

[h3]U-boat:[/h3]
- Fix: One of the telegraphs inside the conning tower wasn't working.

[h3]World simulation:[/h3]
- Fix: If player experienced a major lag, while having enabled a high time compression and entering a port area, it was possible to move a very large distance during that lag and appear inside the land afterwards.
- Fix: Merchant ships are now much less likely to travel in groups, when they don't have any escort.

[h3]User interface:[/h3]
- Fix: Missing icons on decision buttons during evacuated merchant ship inspection story.
- Regression fix: One of the clocks in the UI was having the seconds hand displayed at a wrong position.

[h3]Localization:[/h3]
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- German localization update by Ruby.

[h3]General:[/h3]
- Fix: Ongoing research was sometimes not being completed and it wasn't possible to claim a reward for some additional time despite having the progress at 100%.
- Fix: Path plotting was having various issues after loading a game state where skipper was on the lost u-boat, until he came back to the player's u-boat.
- Fix: Steam rich presence integration was stopping to work after starting the mission to sink Royal Oak.
- Fix: After meeting an aircraft carrier, saving the game state, reloading and shooting down one of the aircraft that started from the aircraft carrier, the carrier would loose the ability to detect the enemy.
- Fix: Officer working at the hydrophone was reporting sonar decoy above the u-boat as ship propellers above the ship.
- Fix: Fixes to some of the most common game errors that we managed to identify in the player logs.

Yours,
DWS

Dear skippers,

We just finished the next update - B129 Preview 20. Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Added "Coming soon" picture to all ports that will be added in the next version.
- Reworked textures on Dale-class, Ol-class, War-class and Wave-class tankers for a better quality and more optimal memory usage.
- Regression fix: Sailors on lifeboats weren't fully aligned to the seats after recent model updates.

[h3]Optimizations:[/h3]
- Memory usage optimizations.

[h3]Crew management:[/h3]
- Fix: After promoting a sailor that was a member of the initial crew to be an officer, he wasn't present in the TAB menu until the game state was reloaded or he was removed from the ship and added back again.
- Fix: After loading a game state with a character saved in a certain animation transition the character was staying freezed in this transition forever.

[h3]General:[/h3]
- Regression fix: Improved compatibility with game states saved before Preview 19. There was one change that was making some game states to not load.
- Fix: Fixes to some of the most common game errors that we managed to identify in the player logs.

Yours,
DWS