Update: B129 Preview 7
Hello skippers,
We finished the next update for B129. Preview 7 overhauls torpedoes in the game by adding various pistol designs and control programs, opens up the possibility to uninstall the deck gun, as well as fixes many issues reported by you during the last week. This version is now ready to download on the public testing branch.
To implement some of the new features, we had to break the game states compatibility. We tried to finalize all changes that required this at once, so that there won't be a need to do this again in the closest future.
[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Torpedo overhaul:[/h3]
- There are now quite realistic and hopefully more interesting pistol designs in the game: Pi1, Pi1 revised, Pi2, Pi3 and Pi4. Certain torpedo types exist in a few variants depending on the installed pistol.
- Torpedoes can be now switched between the impact (AZ) and magnetic (MZ) pistol setting, each with its own advantages and drawbacks.
- Added FAT and LUT torpedo control programs that make the torpedo follow a certain pattern after a potential miss. Such control mechanisms are being installed on T1 and T3 torpedoes once these programs are researched.
- Impact pistol trigger chance now depends on the impact angle rather than being a flat chance.
- Magnetic pistol flaws include detonation on its own before reaching the target or not exploding when reaching the target.
- Added checkboxes in the torpedo UI that allow the player to specify which of the flooded torpedoes he wants to launch.
- T2 torpedoes are now free, while T1 require additional payment. Historically T2 were 2x cheaper in production and balance-wise are often also worse in overall.
[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Added scenes that visualize the story when player meets with another u-boat in the mission where friendly u-boat calls for the help.
- Fix: Terrain often had missing segments inside the sight range that weren't generated.
- Fix: Sight range had graphic artifacts near the border when a map skin different than the paper-like was used.
- Fix: Officers were loosing their hair after performing an inspection, if they had equipped headphones before going out.
- Fix: Corrected crew positions on the pontoons.
- Fix: Light bulbs were constantly flickering for some time, if player reloaded an older game state from the current playthrough.
- Fix: If player disabled lighting inside the compartment, saved the game state, enabled the lighting inside the compartment and reloaded a game state, it was no longer possible to change the lighting state inside that compartment.
- Fix: Some textures were glowing after visiting Aruba.
- Regression fix: Black screen flickering, if the main menu was in the animated mode.
- Regression fix: U-boat in the main menu had a few missing elements.
- Regression fix: During moonless nights and heavy storms very intense reflections were appearing on the sea.
[h3]Equipment:[/h3]
- Added a possibility to uninstall the deck gun for less drag under the water.
[h3]Balance:[/h3]
- Ventilation system and breathable air balance pass.
- Fix: County-class cruisers were too resistant to damage.
[h3]Missions:[/h3]
- Fix: Rewards for completing the campaign objectives weren't assigned.
- Fix: Weather station is now removed from the storage and character backpacks when it's being built on the land.
- Fix: U-boat's wreck in the Enigma recovery mission and merchant ship's wreck in the gold recovery mission were missing, if player entered and then left the area.
- Fix: Weather station mission had a missing objective for testing the weather station's signal.
[h3]World simulation:[/h3]
- Removed all fast travel points from the game.
- Fix: NPC u-boats were often gathering into large fleets near friendly ports.
- Fix: Probable fix for ships spawning below the land in Scapa Flow when there was more ships on the anchor than expected. More testing is required to confirm this.
- Fix: After ordering the milk cow to move to a different square, it was always moving to BB square instead.
- Fix: Milk cows could be moved only once, because the icon was disappearing from the map.
- Fix: Sunk ships are now being cleaned from the world after some time, instead of instantly once the player leaves their direct vincinity.
[h3]User interface:[/h3]
- New loading backgrounds.
- New torpedo icons.
- "Sight" range circle was renamed to "Clear sight" to make the intentions behind it more understandable.
- Added a special icon for the pilot NPCs.
- Ship names in various parts of the interface are now consistent. Lifeboats are no longer being called pontoons.
- Fix: After clicking the right mouse button on a port icon, when the port was loaded in the scene, the click was ignored and path to it wasn't computed.
- Fix: Port icons sometimes had question marks on them.
- Fix: Progress bars below campaign photographies on the map, were not being updated after loading a different game state during an ongoing playthrough.
- Fix: Mission type icon wasn't appearing on the mission objective notifications during campaign missions.
- Fix: Progress bar on the research notification was often missing.
- Fix: Long names in the unit selection panel could expand outside the panel.
- Fix: After loading a game state saved in the zoomed map view at location where a campaign objective photography is usually displayed, clicking anywhere would open the campaign details view.
[h3]Crew management:[/h3]
- Fix: Officer could occassionally enter an infinite loop of rest and work changing every a few seconds.
- Fix: Removed the old way of diving to the wrecks at the bottom of the sea. All features of the old system will be gradually implemented into the new one.
- Fix: Sailors were trying to block leaks in evacuated compartments.
- Fix: If player entered the periscope or UZO manual mode and sent the officer working here somewhere else, using the TAB menu, the view was acting strangely and it wasn't possible to leave it.
- Fix: A possible fix for the officer duplication. More testing is required to confirm this.
- Fix: Special characters like the captain and first engineer were appearing in more than one instance, if player performed specific steps that involved starting an inspection and reloading the game state at specific stages.
- Fix: Propeller recognition skill was causing some issues with the radioman's AI.
- Fix: After player took all survivors from the lifeboat it was still possible to interact with it.
- Fix: It was possible to send a crew onto a delegation when the u-boat was in the decks awash mode and it was causing various issues.
- Fix: "Navigator" skill was missing in the leader's skill tree.
- Fix: After saving a game state during a story scene with more characters sent that can be displayed in the scene and reloading that game state, there were many issues encountered later that included depending on the story: performance degradation, not being able to assign sailors to officers and not being able to end the story sequence.
[h3]Optimization:[/h3]
- Regression fix: Fixed an error that could lead to performance degradation.
[h3]AI:[/h3]
- Ships that use a false flag now don't try to run away when they spot the enemy to make the deception more convincing.
[h3]Localization:[/h3]
- French localization update by FvJ.
- Turkish localization update by tokyo.
- Spanish localization update by Tordo.
[h3]General:[/h3]
- Fix: Various fixes to errors that we spotted in the user reports.
- Fix: Resource amounts are now represented with more bits of precision inside the memory to avoid numeric issues, for example it was possible to travel large distances without loosing fuel, if time compression wasn't used.
- Fix: An issue in the save system that could make certain game states not load, if they were loaded three times in succession.
Yours,
DWS