UBOAT News

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

Dear skippers,

We just finished the next update - B129 Preview 19. Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Fix: Crew working at the navigator's station or the depth steers station could become invisible and appear in T-pose after hovering a mouse over them. This problem was happening after following certain steps that involved loading a game state from a specific situation in the game.
- Fix: Highlight effect that appears after hovering ships was much larger than the model in the periscope and UZO views.
- Fix: A problem in character batching algorithm that could result in wrong textures being displayed on a character when he was observed from a certain distance.
- Regression fix: After loading certain game states, the screen was black for a few seconds.
- Regression fix: The Blitz wasn't disappearing from the map since a few versions back.

[h3]User interface:[/h3]
- Fix: Port defences notification was persisting on the screen after loading another game state.
- Fix: Journal was sometimes empty or with some messages missing after opening it and having selected a language that had a formatting error in any of the messages.
- Fix: Blank portraits were appearing for the sailors recruited in the port after instantly entering the crew list.

[h3]Crew management:[/h3]
- Fix: After promoting a crewman to become an officer or skipper, he was equpping a new cap matching his rank, but in the UI "None" was displayed as the cap.
- Fix: Chests that are used by the crew to perform repairs at higher elevation could continue to block movement after disappearing, if a game state was saved when they were disappearing and loaded back again.

[h3]Localization:[/h3]
- Turkish localization update by tokyo.
- Chinese localization update by SparrowSHEN (Q:173678441).

[h3]General:[/h3]
- Fix: Crash issue that occurred randomly in the main menu.
- Fix: If officer became tired, when he was on his way to flood or blow the ballast tanks, he could sometimes enter a permanent idle state.
- Fix: Error that was causing performance problems near merchant ships, if game was deployed with mods that had an outdated Crew.xlsx / Generation data sheet structure.
- Fix: Auto-save on leaving was saving the game also at forbidden times.
- Fix: Steam rich presence integration was stopping to work after performing a merchant ship inspection.
- Fix: Repaired problem in the save system that could make certain game states to be not loadable.
- Fix: Random animation issues of crews on NPC ships (continuation).
- Fix: Fixes to the 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 18. Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more.

Also, we need your help.

We are looking for players affected by crashes that happen a few minutes after starting a new game or loading a game state. We are hunting for this specific crash issue for a few weeks and need a helpful hand from somebody to test a few repair attempts for us. Since it happens only on 3-4% of computers, we hadn't much success at reproducing this in our studio.

Please contact Ruby, if you have this problem and would like to volunteer. Thank you!

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Ships:[/h3]
- Added Bogue-class aircraft carriers used by U.S. Navy and Royal Navy.

[h3]Simulation:[/h3]
- LUT torpedo pattern improvements.

[h3]User interface:[/h3]
- Campaign setup UI improvements.
- Count of survivors taken on board is now updating in realtime, while making a selection.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to plot a course to target in some cases, by clicking with a right mouse button on the green mission dot.
- Regression fix: Sometimes white squares were appearing instead of icons during a mission selection.

[h3]Missions:[/h3]
- Fix: Portraits of some officers were temporarily disappearing during tutorial missions #3 and #4.
- Fix: Weather station placement mission could break and stop progressing after building the station.

[h3]Interactions:[/h3]
- Fix: Diver sent to a wreck was sometimes taking a break to read a newspaper with the recent events.

[h3]Graphics:[/h3]
- Improvements to the highlight/outline effect that appears after moving a cursor over objects.
- Fix: Characters wearing Jacket 04 variants had missing body geometry after equipping at least once a rain coat.
- Fix: Echosounder wasn't being highlighted after looking at it or hovering a cursor over it.
- Fix: After moving a cursor over a generic merchant ship, only the hull was highlighted, superstructure wasn't included.

[h3]Crew management:[/h3]
- Fix: Sailors were sometimes not working at important stations like the diving station after sending some of them onto an external mission.

[h3]Optimizations:[/h3]
- Further disk and memory usage optimizations.

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

[h3]General:[/h3]
- Pontoon with the departing crew is now always visible, even if there is nobody at the conning tower to observe it (since there is player's crew on it).
- Fix: Convoy names appearing in Steam Rich Presence statuses were unintentionally localized in the player's local language, while the rest of the text was in English.
- Fix: Map couldn't be moved after loading certain game states.
- Fix: A very distant visual contacts (40+ km) were sometimes being detected with no apparent reason, if high time compression was in use. This issue was also sometimes leading to sub-optimal target selection for side missions.
- Fix: If the limit of officers that may stay on board was exceeded and player increased this limit through a reputation purchase, it was still not possible to leave the port until any officer was removed from the ship and added back.
- Fix: Neutral merchant ships from Sweden weren't having cargo upon inspection.
- Regression fix: Random animation issues of crews on NPC ships.

Yours,
DWS