UBOAT News

Hello skippers,

We prepared a next update for B129 that implements more of your feedback into the game. This version is now ready to download on the public testing branch.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]World simulation:[/h3]
- Merchant ship captains, chief engineers and pilots from the shot down aircraft are now special characters and there are higher rewards for delivering them to the port.

[h3]Optimizations:[/h3]
- Rendering optimizations related to the lighting.
- Fix: Performance problem that was appearing some time after using the radio. This fix requires starting a new game to have an effect, if it already affected the game.

[h3]Crew management:[/h3]
- Increased overwork discipline penalty that is appearing when many sailors are assigned to work.
- Fix: Tasks like torpedo loading and other actions performed on the stored items weren't having a glow that usually indicates direct player orders and the officers were often interrupting these tasks to follow their schedules instead.
- Fix: Crew members could sometimes stop to respond to any orders and were moving in circles. The reproduction steps aren't exactly known, but they involved ordering an evacuation in a compartment.
- Regression fix: The feature of recovering the discipline after a vacation wasn't present in B129 Preview 5 despite being in the changelog.

[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Fix: Fixed an issue in the particle effects shader that was making such effects look very bright during dark nights with no moon. The brightness was also changing depending on the camera's view angle.
- Fix: Lifeboats could disappear when something exploded nearby, while the survivors that occupied the lifeboat were remaining in place in such cases.
- Fix: Sea water is now correctly cut out from the lifeboat's interior.
- Fix: Various graphical fixes & improvements related to newspapers. Newspapers and letters can no longer be rotated backwards.
- Fix: The screenshot tool that by default is assigned to F10 was upgraded. Screenshot resolution may be now specified by editing General.xlsx / Graphics / Screenshot Resolution property in the game's data. The screenshot quality was improved and screenshots are no longer blurry, if motion blur is enabled in the settings.

[h3]Missions:[/h3]
- Regression fix: It wasn't possible to send the crew to land at the weather station deployment area since B129 Preview 4.
- Fix: It's no longer possible to cancel a tutorial mission in progress.
- Fix: Port officer was sometimes offering to start an already completed campaign missions.

[h3]Map:[/h3]
- All ships in enemy convoys now appear red on the map to indicate that they are valid targets.

[h3]User interface:[/h3]
- Removed some small spoilers and made the data that appears in the ship's selection panel be in line with that in the tooltip.
- Removed the "nearby missions" notification since it was duplicating the functionality of the button that appears among mission objectives.
- Changed a few names that describe distant contacts. In English "Chimney smoke" was changed to "Funnel smoke". "Masts over horizon" were changed to simply "Ship masts".
- Fix: Icon on the portrait that indicates that the character is walking was appearing under the yellow glow that appears around direct player orders.
- Fix: The air consumption of the crew wasn't displayed in the air quality tooltip.

[h3]Dynamic travel system:[/h3]
- Fix: Performance was substantially degraded on the highest time compression level that was introduced in B129.
- Fix: Free camera was moving very fast in the direction opposite to the direction of u-boat's movement when u-boat was on the open sea.

[h3]General:[/h3]
- Fix: Camera was moving to the open sea and player's officers were disappearing from the portraits, if player ordered the merchant ship's captain to evacuate the ship, while talking with him in his office or in the deck house.
- Fix: Added support for saving a game state when inspections and other story sequences are running in the background.
- Fix: Penalties were assigned in the mission summary for sinking neutral ships in the armed convoys. It was not intended.
- Fix: Milk cows were waiting for the player only a few minutes or seconds, if he requested resupply at them, while being very close.
- Fix: An issue in the save system that could make certain game states be not loaded correctly.

Yours,
DWS

Hello skippers,

We prepared a next patch for B129 that implements more of your feedback into the game. This version is now ready to download on the public testing branch.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Crew management:[/h3]
- Vacations now completely recover the crew's discipline.
- Fix: Incoming radio message notification was not re-appering when officer replaced a sailor at the radio station.

[h3]Naval simulation:[/h3]
- Regression fix: Depth charges weren't dealing any damage since B129 Preview 1.

[h3]User interface:[/h3]
- Added notification that warns the player about potential anti-submarine measures near enemy ports like mines and nets.
- Regression fix: One of the ladders inside the conning tower had an arrow in a wrong direction on the icon.
- Fix: The battery resource bar wasn't updating in some cases.
- Fix: Tooltips that appear after hovering the mouse cursor over an NPC ship were spoiling the ship's true nationality when the ship was using a false flag.

[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Fix: Many graphical fixes for Aruba port.

[h3]AI:[/h3]
- Fix: Tweaks that further improve NPC u-boats ability to hold the torpedo launches at a target until the firing angle is more favorable.
- Fix: NPC u-boats were knowing upfront which ships are neutral and which just pretend to be neutral and were firing torpedoes at such ships, even if player sent a team to inspect them.

[h3]Missions:[/h3]
- Regression fix: Player was receiving enormous reputation after helping any friendly u-boat.
- Fix: Journal was becoming empty after player collected any intel during some campaign assignments.
- Fix: It was possible to send a diver many times to the u-boat's wreck in Enigma recovery campaign mission and collect the reward many times.
- Fix: U-boat's wreck could become missing in Enigma recovery campaign mission after re-loading a game state that was saved near the destination area.

[h3]Localization:[/h3]
- German localization updates.

[h3]General:[/h3]
- Fix: It wasn't possible to call for a resupply anymore, if player used the "Leave station" button earlier at some point.
- Fix: Time was running in the background for at least a few seconds in the loaded game instead of being paused when there was still a loading screen visible on the monitor.
- Fix: Game was crashing, if player pressed the escape key two times while receiving a message at the radio and then clicked "Cancel" button.
- Fix: Progress of receiving a message was stopping to count further, if player pressed an escape on the keyboard.

Yours,
DWS

Hello skippers,

We prepared a next patch for B129 that tweaks the game's balance and fixes bugs based on your feedback. This version is now online on the public testing branch.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Crew management:[/h3]
- Fatigue from not giving the crew a break now grows more slowly than it used to.
- Discipline changes are slower over time.
- Fix: Game was sometimes disallowing the player to undock, claiming that there is no skipper among the crew, while there was a skipper.
- Fix: When skipper was unconscious, he was still issuing certain verbal orders like the order to fire the torpedoes or raise the alarm. He was also appearing at the decoration cutscene and was reading the newspapers and letters.

[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Fix: When the map view was opened on the open sea, there was sometimes appearing the fog effect that suggests that the land is being loaded when there was none.
- Fix: Diesel exhaust effect was appearing as a very long smoke line behind the u-boat, if dynamic travel system was in use and player was at the open sea.
- Fix: Diesel exhaust smoke could sometimes stop to render until the game was restarted.

[h3]AI:[/h3]
- Fix: NPC u-boats were attempting to dock at disabled ports that weren't yet included in the game like Lorient.

[h3]Localization:[/h3]
- Turkish localization update.
- German localization update.

[h3]General:[/h3]
- Small optimizations.
- Fix: Audio volume settings weren't having effect after restarting the game, until the sliders were moved again.
- Fix: Game was sometimes moving the player's u-boat a few kilometers back near the coasts.
- Fix: Pathfinding improvements that should result in less twisted paths when the destination is near the coast.
- Fix: When player was moving towards the land at a full speed, it was possible, if the framerate was very low, to get below the terrain.
- Fix: Crash to desktop in the FPP view at the end of animation where officer uses the valves to blow the tanks.

Yours,
DWS

Hello skippers,

We prepared a next patch that fixes some of the most often reported issues in B129 as well as progresses other areas of the update. This version is now online on the public testing branch.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Localization:[/h3]
- Turkish localization update by tokyo.
- Portuguese localization update by Roliçonho.

[h3]Missions:[/h3]
- Fix: Green square highlight was often not disappearing after cancelling or completing the patrol.
- Regression fix: Side mission that involved helping an ally and mission about finding the lost u-boat weren't working correctly since B129 Preview 1. They were now rewritten from the ground for the new/moddable story system that was introduced in B129.
- Regression fix: War correspondent now works correctly.
- Regression fix: Spy in Espionage assignments also works correctly now.

[h3]User interface:[/h3]
- Added an icon near the campaign descriptions in the assignment selection UI.
- Added a warning to the video settings that explains that FPS limit cannot be set, when v-sync is enabled.
- A new icon for the engineer's Pyrotechnic skill.

[h3]General:[/h3]
- Regression fix: It wasn't possible to initiate most actions in FPP since B129 Preview 1.
- Regression fix: Right-clicking on a dot that pointed mission target was sometimes plotting a route to some other point, a few kilometers away.
- Regression fix: It wasn't possible to climb down the ladder from the conning tower to the control room in FPP.
- Regression fix: Duplicating officers bug.

Yours,
DWS

Hello skippers,

We prepared a small patch that fixes the issue with the terrain being flat and displayed at the water level on some graphic cards. We are very sorry for the inconvenience to everyone that experienced the issue.

We are very thankful for the feedback we are getting from you. We will now start resolving other reported difficulties and applying your suggestions for the next patches!

Yours,
DWS