UBOAT News

Dear captains,

There is a new patch ready for version 2024.1.

[h3]Localization:[/h3]
- Japanese localization update by かねのもうじゃ.

[h3]Simulation:[/h3]
- Added periscope and UZO graticule illumination in a dark weather.

[h3]Technical:[/h3]
- Fix: Resolved incompatibility with Intel graphic processing units that was leading to various artifacts being displayed near ports.

[h3]Missions:[/h3]
- Multiple patrol assignments with the same destination are no longer offered at the same time.
- Added objective markers that point wolfpack formation spots. Please note, that they will appear only for wolfpacks formed after the update, but the coordinates can be also read from the HQ message saved in the journal.
- Fix: Japanese submarines could sometimes remain permanently at the rendezvous spot after a mission.
- Fix: It's no longer possible to change torpedo run depth during tutorial #3. Instead, their depth is automatically set to 1.5 meters.
- Fix: Dirty interiors modifier may no longer appear during tutorials.
- Fix: Reworked tutorial #4, so that all officers remain selectable during its duration. Previously they were becoming unselectable to prevent assignment to stations that were later explained how to use.

[h3]UI:[/h3]
- Adjusted how cursor highlights work in the main menu settings.
- Added a loading hint that explains that navigator may cease to work in publicly known areas like ports, as it's not possible to get lost near them.
- Fix: Gazala mission was lacking an objective description at the mission selection screen.

[h3]World:[/h3]
- Fix: Resolved issue with Italian fishing boats spawning in German ports and later becoming hostile after Italian surrender, causing entire port to become alert.
- Fix: Brest submarine pen wasn't visible on the world map.
- Fix: After undocking and docking at a different slot of a submarine pen, warehouse worker and a recruitment officer could duplicate.
- Fix: Brest submarine pen wasn't already built in the late starting scenarios that had all other submarine pens built.

[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Fix: NPC U-boats weren't affected by the ambient lighting present inside submarine pens and were looking a bit out of the place, if they docked there.

[h3]Achievements:[/h3]
- Fix: Battleship Hunter achievement change from Patch 12 was rarely working in practice.
- Fix: Researcher and Safe and Sound achievements could be obtained in campaigns that started at a later date than those mentioned in their descriptions.

[h3]General:[/h3]
- Time compression is now limited to x12 during torpedo launching, since higher time compression could decrease salvo accuracy, especially if FPS wasn't high enough.
- Fix: If certain steps involving saving and reloading were performed, it was possible for a single shell or rocket damage to multiply many times and become unreasonably high.
- Fix: If scroll at the screen edges option is enabled, the map is no longer being scrolled when the game's window doesn't have an active focus or the cursor is outside the window.

Yours,
DWS

Dear captains,

There is a new patch ready for version 2024.1.

[h3]Localization:[/h3]
- Ukrainian localization update by vovanvoks.
- Japanese localization update by かねのもうじゃ.
- Russian localization update by Hard.

[h3]UI:[/h3]
- Fix: Inconsistent text alignment was present for save file info when text was long enough to be wrapped.
- Fix: Capacity bar no longer appears when cargo hold contents are viewed on an inspected merchant ship.
- Fix: When a stadimeter wasn't present on the used periscope, the stadimeter button wasn't changing visually and was still looking like it would be active. Also, added a tooltip that explains why it's not available.
- Fix: When an observation periscope was used manually on a Type II, the depth visualization control was displaying an attack periscope instead of the observation periscope.

[h3]World:[/h3]
- Reworked Brest submarine pens to make them compatible with the lowest tides possible in the area. Each bunker now features a water gate with a regulated water level on the inside.

[h3]Ships:[/h3]
- Fix: NPC U-boats had audible propellers, even when they were docked.

[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Fix: Dashed lines on puppet state territories were moving during a high compression travel.
- Fix: When ballast tanks were flooded on Type II U-boats, for a few seconds, there was a moving water surface visible in FPP near the ceiling near the loading hatch.
- Fix: When a scene visible during an external interaction was closed, for a fraction of a second, it could be visible with a wrong lighting.

[h3]Audio:[/h3]
- Increased volume of ambient sound in the hydrophone. Also it now varies depending on the direction, when bearing is adjusted.
- Fix: Music and ambient audio could stop to play, when there were many ships nearby due to hitting a sound effects limit in the engine.

[h3]Achievements:[/h3]
- Battleship Hunter achievement can be now achieved also by sinking battleships travelling in a group with other warships rather than only in a convoy.

[h3]General:[/h3]
- Fix: Aircraft could sometimes end up in the water, if they were loaded during a high compression travel. This could cause issues, especially during tutorial #4.
- Fix: Type II U-boats had a stadimeter present on their observation periscopes. It was removed to be in line with Type VII.

Yours,
DWS

Dear captains,

There is a new patch ready for version 2024.1.

[h3]Localization:[/h3]
- Russian localization update by Hard.
- Japanese localization update by かねのもうじゃ.

[h3]UI:[/h3]
- Added a new gameplay setting to determine, if dates in the game should be displayed in U.S. or British date format. This setting is present only when the game is running in English.
- Fix: Improved formatting of dates in all languages.
- Fix: Mouse wheel no longer zooms in or out the view, when mouse is over any scroll list or outside of game's window.
- Fix: Double clicking a portrait of any officer was entering into FPP mode of that officer in all cases with the exception of a radioman working in the radio room. It was changed to work consistently in his case too.
- Fix: Character role dropdown was scrolled very slowly when a mouse wheel was used for that.
- Fix: When a radioman was asking for resupply, the button for cancelling that request was flickering when hovered with a cursor and was hard to click.
- Fix: Changed the associated sound effect to a better fitting one when a bow decoration or torpedo paint is swapped.
- Fix: Resolution change confirmation popup background wasn't covering the entire screen in case of high resolutions and wasn't capturing clicks.

[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Fix: On Type IID, rain could remain visible on a part of the deck in the side view after U-boat had submerged.
- Fix: Conning tower of the U-boat could sometimes appear too bright and washed out after loading a game state, in which there were NPC U-boats nearby that had the same emblem.
- Fix: Occlusion culling wasn't working correctly in Brest submarine pens. It was affecting performance a bit and there were errors in the game's log.
- Fix: Improved the look of a highlight on a diesel compressor on Type VII U-boats, previously it had an irregular shape that wasn't looking well.
- Fix: Diesel compressor internal elements, visible in the section view, were too bright.
- Fix: Foam spray behind dinghy departing from the U-boat was looking a bit wrong.

[h3]Crew:[/h3]
- From now on, when an officer leaves the U-boat during an external interaction, his helpers are unassigned from him and it's also no longer possible to assign any new helpers when he is not on the ship.
- Fix: After diving below periscope depth, sometimes one of the sailors was moving around the boat, starting various actions and stopping them right away without a clear reason.

[h3]Simulation:[/h3]
- Fix: It was too easy to sink ships with a 20 mm gun.
- Fix: On Type IIA and Type IID, the crew wasn't suffocating when air quality was dropping to zero. Also, water wasn't accumulating in the bilges as it should when realistic bilges were toggled on.

[h3]Missions:[/h3]
- Fix: Quick mission completion button was requiring too much fuel to return to port.
- Fix: Mission with detonating a railway wasn't possible to complete in Czech.

[h3]Achievements:[/h3]
- Fix: "Fresh air..." achievement could be received by loading a saved game state file from another player who completed it at any point in the loaded playthrough.

[h3]Modding:[/h3]
- Fix: Modifiers to a DamageProtection parameter on ships weren't applied when they were defined in the sheets.
- Fix: Changes to equipment and entity modifiers in the data sheets are now updated in the loaded game states (although only to new instances of that equipment / entity).

[h3]World:[/h3]
- Added better defences to Thames.
- Fix: Aesthetical fixes to Kiel.

[h3]General:[/h3]
- Voice language is now set to English by default, when the game is launched for the first time and the game's language is English.
- Fix: When an automatic route was plotted from Kiel to areas north of Britain, the route was entering and leaving Kiel canal without need. It was also indirectly affecting tutorial #4, if it was started in Kiel.
- Fix: Certain hotkeys were accessible on a character customization screen and could cause various issues when used (for example, a hotkey for journal).
- Fix: Side view camera was sometimes positioning itself incorrectly, when it was simultaneously zoomed in or out and switched between the deck view and interior view.
- Fix: Fixes to several errors spotted in logs attached to bug reports.

Yours,
DWS

Dear captains,

There is a new patch ready for version 2024.1.

[h3]Localization:[/h3]
- French localization update by FvJ and Placebo.
- Japanese localization update by かねのもうじゃ.
- German localization update by Ruby.

[h3]Crew:[/h3]
- Sailors promoted to officers now always start with energy at 100%.
- Fix: There was a timeout after ordering a dive, during which it wasn't possible to assign an engineer to manage diving planes station.
- Fix: Sometimes sailors could become stuck in an idle animation, while performing an order on the valves and were blocking other crew members from accessing them.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to order flooding the tanks on valves without selecting any officer first, even though all other orders present there were accessible in such a way.

[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Fix: There was a bright pixelating outline around periscope lenses when any upscaling was in use (DLSS or FSR).
- Fix: Decreased flickering due to aliasing on the gangway between the U-boat and the ports.
- Fix: Volumetric lighting was sometimes much more intense than intended during sunsets and sunrises, for example in Kiel.

[h3]Missions:[/h3]
- Gibraltar crossing assignment now grants the Mediterranean flotillas emblem (a donkey).
- Fix: In tutorial #4, if the game was running in a low enough resolution to not fit all portraits in the map view, it was possible for radioman's portrait to temporarily disappear during the mission.
- Fix: A rare issue in mine planting assignments where mines were not being loaded despite freeing up space for them.
- Fix: Corrected flotilla change assignments initiated on demand. These assignments were previously awarding budget and reputation upon completion, even though that wasn't intended and there were no rewards listed in their description.

[h3]Technical:[/h3]
- Optimizations to rendering on CPU and GPU side.

[h3]Ports:[/h3]
- Added imports and exports to ports that didn't had them defined.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to dock in Copenhagen.
- Fix: Aesthetical fixes to Rotterdam.

[h3]General:[/h3]
- Fix: After unlocking Eagle's Nest, the access to it was lost after reloading a game state.
- Fix: Fixes to several errors spotted in logs attached to bug reports.

Yours,
DWS

Dear captains,

There is a new patch ready for version 2024.1.

[h3]Localization:[/h3]
- Japanese localization update by かねのもうじゃ.
- German localization update by Ruby.

[h3]Missions:[/h3]
- Fix: It wasn't possible to start an escort duty assignment associated with Mediterranean Operations campaign objective, if the game was running in s. chinese, japanese, korean, russian or ukrainian.

[h3]Achievements:[/h3]
- Fix: If saved game states from various playthroughs were loaded in a certain sequence, it was possible to not get The Long Haul or Ace of the Depths achievements after completing a campaign that was eligible to have them.

[h3]UI:[/h3]
- Added a dropdown for switching between the section view and the external view to the upgrade screen.
- Added notifications when major resources become completely depleted. Previously, there were notifications only about them reaching a low level. Additionally, when such notifications appear, time compression is being stopped.
- Fix: When a new assignment was being selected and new choices were requested at a cost of reputation, it was possible that a patrol area of previously selected patrol was becoming stuck on the map. This issue was happening only in some languages.
- Fix: Updated icons of Turm I, Turm II and Turm IV research on the HQ map. They were still using the previous naming convention for T1, T2 and T4.
- Fix: Improved description of improved conning towers research to specify that these conning towers are meant specifically for Type VIIC and Type VIIC/41. Previously, this description mentioned Type VII generally, but that wasn't true for Type VIIB.
- Fix: Improved behaviour of dropdowns that expand automatically when cursor hovers over them. Sometimes they weren't expanding, if they were hovered back quickly after unhovering.
- Fix: If loading of cargo from a wreckage was ordered and then the wait screen was left, then after coming back to it, the wait time was going below zero.

[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Fix: Partial and full submarine pens in La Rochelle had outdated lightmaps and occlusion culling data and had minor artifacts.
- Fix: Resolved artifacts due to a parallax effect on some port surfaces that were appearing when camera was getting close to them.

[h3]Ports:[/h3]
- Fix: Snow was missing during winter on a fragment of Port of Arkhangelsk.

[h3]General:[/h3]
- From now on, realism percentages are computed using only settings that were present in the game at the time the campaign was being started. This means that a game started with realism at 90% or higher will remain eligible for Ace of the Depths achievement despite new realism settings being introduced to the game later on in future versions.
- Time compression is now disabled after reaching the end of a plotted route.
- Fix: Periscope was remaining locked on a target when a chronometer tool was opened, making it impossible to measure target's speed when "Enabled (partial)" option was selected for periscope stabilization when a campaign was being started.
- Fix: Improvements to leaving U-boat in FPP through the gangway on Type VII U-boats.
- Fix: A rare issue where a contact could become "stuck" and be constantly displayed at the same direction despite U-boat moving.

Yours,
DWS