Dear captains,
We hope that you had a good start to the New Year 2025! 🎆
We are happy to announce that the next update for UBOAT is now ready to download.
Below is a quick overview of the changes shipped with it.
[h2]Damage simulation[/h2]
Following popular demand, this version reworks the damage model used for enemy ships. While the U-boat's damage model has always been developed quite well, it was simplified for other ships. This version changes that by adding damage simulation to various parts of a ship:
- Engine rooms. They are usually located behind the funnels, towards the stern. Damage here often leads to a major fuel oil or lubricant fire and immobilizes the ship.
- Ammunition storages. Damage may trigger a powerful secondary explosion that often seals the fate of a ship.
- Boilers. They are always located beneath the funnels and may explode with a burst of hot steam when damaged. In addition, disabling all boilers on a steamship, immobilizes it.
- Cargo holds. Hitting cargo holds can have varying effects depending on the cargo. For example, if a ship is carrying coal, there is a chance of starting a fire.
- Armor. The largest ships in the game, such as cruisers and battleships, now have protective steel armor belts that can block most shells. They also provide a limited protection from torpedoes.
- Torpedo belts. These are also present only on the largest warships and provide an additional protection from torpedoes.
With these changes, your attacks will be much more varied in their effects. In addition, identifying your target's weak spots may help you sink it using fewer torpedoes.
[expand]There are also various other upgrades related to the enemy ships:
- There are now two sinking physics simulation presets, "Quick" and "Realistic," available in the realism settings for a new campaign. Both presets provide a more realistic sinking simulation than previous versions of the game but differ in the speed at which wrecks sink and how often partially sunk wrecks remain afloat.
- All ship classes in the game now have their real-world compartments recreated in the data structures used by the simulation, making their sinking behavior more convincing and realistic.
- Each ship has a randomized build quality. Ship classes that were known to be rushed or are older are more likely to deviate from their design specifications than others.
- Enemy crews now perform active damage control, as long as the ship is not evacuated. While they can't repair torpedo damage, they may patch up small breaches caused by shells and use pumps.
- Bulkhead states on enemy ships are now tracked, and enemy crews open and close them depending on the ship's overall alertness or damage level. If you launch a surprise attack, there is a high chance that some bulkheads will be left open, allowing incoming water to quickly flood a substantial portion of the ship, sinking it in a matter of minutes. On the other hand, it's harder to sink a ship that is ready for combat.
- When internal bulkheads break due to water pressure, audible water inflow sound effects can be heard on the hydrophone.
- Fire and smoke effects on ships have been rewritten for improved visuals, performance and consistency.
[/expand]
[h2]Career statistics[/h2]
We've also been working on a detailed career statistics screen that will hopefully increase your satisfaction after a successful career! It tracks stats such as your GRT totals and the longest successful attack distance.
Please note that many of these statistics will only start being counted for pre-existing save files after updating the game, since they weren't tracked in earlier versions.
[h2]Historical leaderboard[/h2]
There is also a historical leaderboard now in the game that allows you to compare your successes with those of historical commanders. This leaderboard is updated dynamically as the war continues, with the GRT totals of historical commanders increasing on the dates of their historical sinkings.
[h2]Realistic periscope views[/h2]
This version improves several aspects of periscope and UZO views.
We've added a new realism setting that lets you choose either a realistic or an extended magnification mode for the periscopes and UZO. The realistic mode ensures that all observation devices use their historical magnification modes, while the extended mode allows for wider magnification ranges for convenience.
Additionally, we've ensured that the graticule scales are correct and can be used to estimate the distance to a target, as long as the target's height or length is known.
If you're interested in exploring how to do this, it was explained very well by Maciek (SnakeDoc) in his article on tvre website:
link.
Lastly, we've improved the light propagation effects inside the lens to make the graticule look more natural and immersive.
[h2]Navigation lights[/h2]
All U-boat types now have functional navigation lights that are automatically used by the crew whenever the boat is near a friendly port or unit and no enemy is in sight.
[h2]Ship summary[/h2]
Another addition is a ship summary screen that displays various technical parameters of the U-boat, as well as all installed upgrades, making this information accessible while at sea for a quick reference.
[h2]Misc changes[/h2]
We've also introduced a bunch of minor tweaks and bug fixes. Here are some of the most notable ones:
- High Command is now more likely to send the player to patrol areas involved in active campaign objectives rather than to squares not part of any current operations.
- Previously used console commands can now be recalled by pressing the up and down arrows on the keyboard.
- We've improved the camera shake effect in response to explosions.
- A long list of fixes and improvements to hull cracking behaviour of all ship classes present in the game.
- Tweaks to sky and clouds based on the feedback that are aimed at improving realism.
- Resolved an issue with NPC ships that continued to slowly move for a prolonged time after stopping their engines.
- Manually positioned tools now retain their position on the screen after adjusting the UI scale.
- We've increased ammunition to historical values on Type 1934 destroyers that protect German convoys.
- A bug fix in tutorials #2 and #4 - if player ordered an officer to switch a device rather than the sailors, tutorial script wasn't detecting that order and wasn't progressing.
- HE shells are now consistently more effective than AP shells at starting fires.
- Sunk warship tonnage is now counted in your boat's tonnage statistics and towards GRT achievements.
- Improved physical behavior of damaged ships and wrecks when a high time compression is used.
[h3]Special thanks[/h3]
We want to extend our special thanks to DECAFBAD and Hard (author of the HARDscope mod) for helping us recreate the correct graticules and determine optical characteristics of the periscopes.
[h3]Progress on Type IX DLC[/h3]
We are continuing to work on Type IX DLC alongside the regular updates.
Since the hull of the ship was completed, as reported in the previous dev log, we've now been focused on the interiors for the last few months. This project takes time to complete, as Type IX U-boats are larger than the other U-boats in the game, but also the devices present on them are often different.
Currently, there is still a lot to be done to complete it fully along with the accompanying content that we've planned for it. We aim to finish it around the middle of the year and will be sharing our progress with you as we reach further milestones!
Yours,
DWS
