Forum > Games Discussion
Rule the Waves III
Asid:
Rule the Waves 3 - Update 1.00.14
Fri, 16 June 2023
We are happy to announce another update for Rule the Waves 3. Included are numerous bug fixes and UI improvements.
Read the full changelog below and download the update here or via Steam.
What’s New in Version 1.00.14
Fixed a bug with warning when the player has exactly 2 AMC in peacetime, instead of more than 2.Fixed a bug with unrest sometimes unintentionally increasing when industrial productivity increases.More variation in first carrier AI design for some nations.Fixed a rare bug where an enemy ship could get speed 0, which would generate error messages in battle creation.Fixed a bug with Unit machinery sometimes being applied in battle even though the ship was designed without it.Fixed a bug with DD and CL division commanders not being auto assigned when they should be.Damage control training will now not be selectable before the tech is researched.Fixed a bug in the display of medium and heavy SAM ranges against surface targets.Fixed a bug where scrapped ships could turn up as coastal patrols in battles.Added function to multi select air units and make them night capable.Fixed a bug with industrialists complaining about the Navy buying foreign aircraft even if nation has no aircraft industry (China).Fixed a bug with magnetic pistols doctrine choice not being saved.Removed non-functioning auto ammo choice checkbox in doctrine screen.Made sure the DD request event does not fire before DDs are invented.You will now no longer be reminded if the museum ship is a carrier and has no aircraft assigned.The close button in the division editor now keeps alignment to the right edge of the screen.Fixed a bug with secondary hit modifier from director control sometimes wrongly calculated.Fixed a bug with small ships detaching/slowing down to quickly from flooding, and large ships being to slow to do it.User preferences, added option for no popups when divisions lose contact.Increased starting distance in battles with long radar ranges (this will primarily affect the missile age).CVL must now have a displacement of at least 6000 tons and a speed of at least 15 knots.Separated the commander and division submenus in the ships in service popup menu.In the ships in service popup menu, you can now reassign a ship to another division even if it already is in a division.Made it possible to assign officers to command destroyer divisions from the officers tab.Added a check for ship name being used when naming new ship classes.Added "Independent" in the role selection screen of the division editor (= effectively no specified role).Division editor: Made it possible to move divisions up or down in the division list.When creating a division and changing the type of an already autonamed division, a new appropriate name can be autogenerated.Made sure aircraft maneuverability can never go negative.Probably fixed a bug that could corrupt savefiles (hard to recreate the bug).Tweaked the AI to be more sensitive to threats to its home area.The VP display is now updated immediately after the player or the AI declines battle instead of at the end of turn processing.The visual equipment list in the design window is now cleared when you press "Clear all values" for the ship design.Added a button to clear all visuals.Reduced the chance of AI nations allying if they have incompatible government systems.Officers are now sorted on rank value and not on rank as text.Copy and paste air unit will now also copy carrier capable and night capable characteristics.Added option to center the map on selected possession when selecting possessions after a peace.Improved the list in the officer selection screen with sortable columns for traits.Added some Rear Admirals to the officer pool at the start of a new game.Added query for automatic mirroring of opposite mount when moving tertiary gun mounts.There is now a chance for officers in the starting pool to have their traits known at start.The player will now be asked about auto scrapping all AMCs after a war.Prevented an error when pressing OK on an aircraft prototype request without selecting a role.Ships transferred as reparations or lend lease are now automatically removed from division organization.Fixed a misleading description text in research of Wireless Telegraphy.
Asid:
Rule the Waves 3 - Dev Blogs: The Battle Generator in RTW3
Tue, 4 July 2023
Why Cruisers and Escorts Matter
The battle generator is an aspect of the game that has generated some discussion I will take the opportunity to explain some of the decisions behind it.
The aims of the battle generator is to generate:
* Battles that are realistic compared to actual historical encounters.
* Different types and sizes of battles.
* Battles with a variation of ship types, rewarding a balanced fleet with ships for all missions.
* Variations in battle conditions, mostly day and night, but also general weather conditions.
* Reasonably equal and playable battles. (Few players want to fight to fight a lot of lopsided battles
where they easily crush the AI.)
The battle generator can generate some frustration for players, but remember that real admirals were often frustrated by things not turning out as intended. Navies desired the decisive battle for years, and often it never occurred.
Real naval battles in history were few and far between. Historically, there were really only two full fleet battles in the period covered by RTW3, Tsushima and Jutland. Most sea battles were minor actions, and battles were often broken off after a few salvoes. RTW will actually generate far more battles than historical naval campaigns. Having it deliver battles at a rate that closely follows history would have led to a more uninteresting game, so the chance of battles happening has been increased over what would have been historical to increase playability and fun factor.
Real navies could not expect to fight battles with their ideal ships where they wanted under the
conditions and force levels they wanted. Battles were often fought by second line ships in unexpected
locations and circumstances. RTW tries to recreate this. Some players seem to expect that if they have a superiority of ships in an area, any battles fought should reflect the overall force balance. That however, is not how real naval battles worked. Actions were often fought between forces that happened to encounter each other, and the defeat of the enemy fleet often had the character of a gradual attritional wearing down of the enemy fleet, with the larger fleet often eventually winning the naval war.
RTW also tries to simulate that navies needed to be balanced, and contain ships for different missions.
You cannot just build battleships, you need cruisers for scouting and cruiser warfare, you need
destroyers to escort your major units, and to protect your merchant shipping from submarines. If you are deficient in one ship type, it can lead to imbalanced forces or an inability to field a force in some battles in RTW3.
The battle generator in RTW3 will start out with a type of battle, and a ship type suitable for that type of battle. Cruiser battles for example will try to generate a force centred on CA or CL (or possibly BC). If there are no ships available of the desired type, it will sometimes try with similar ship types present in the area. The number of ships in the force will be randomised, but is modified by the number of ships
of the type available in the area. Thus, there is a chance, but not a certainty, that the larger fleet will get more ships of the type. Tonnage is also taken into account, so a navy building very large ships of a type may get fewer ships than a navy with smaller ships.
The only battles in RTW3 that will put your entire fleet in action are fleet battles. A fleet battle will
generate a force with most battleships present in the area with their supporting forces, perhaps with
some ships missing due to technical and operational reasons. Note, however, that the AI also has a
chance to decline battles. If it feels it does not have enough forces in the area to contest the battle, it will stay in port. One thing that was added in RTW3 compared to earlier versions of RTW is the permanent division organisation. This was added due to player feedback. In previous versions of RTW, ships were automatically grouped in divisions when battle occurred, based on speed and characteristics. However, players understandably wanted more control over which ships would fight together. The division editor gives the player the possibility to build a permanent organisation for their fleet. The ships in the same division will be grouped together in battle, supported by the ships defined as supporting them, provided they are deployed in the same sea area of course. Some randomness is still applied as ships might be absent due to technical or operational reasons.
Another thing that has been requested by players is a more detailed operational setting for the battles,
with the player selecting the force for a particular mission or task, similar to how it worked in the
campaign game of our earlier game Steel and Iron. However, that required a system where the player
pays to activate a number of ships for a mission (otherwise the player would obviously sortie the entire
fleet for every operation). It also required simulating the base infrastructure available and a detailed set
of AI plans and courses of action for all possible mission sets. All of these had to be worked out and play tested. That was feasible for a limited and relatively stable theatre, like the North Sea, the Adriatic or the Baltic, but it would have required an unrealistic amount of work and data to create and playtest similarly detailed operational prerequisites for hundreds of potential battle sites over the whole world. Add to that the fact that in RTW possessions will change owners, which can dramatically change the conditions for any operational courses of action. That is why the battle generation system in RTW3 is considerably more streamlined.
Asid:
Rule the Waves 3 - Update 1.00.19
Fri, 4 August 2023
Hello everyone,
We are happy to announce another update for Rule the Waves 3. Along with multiple bug fixes and tweaks to the campaign and battle generator, a new feature added with this update increases the number of large fleet battles you will have in a campaign. You can toggle this option on or off with the in-game preferences menu.
What’s New in Version 1.00.19
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a minor bug that led to some hits being without hit location explanation.
- All nations will now get numbered DD names if names run out.
- Fixed a bug that could delay gun research if playing with bigger fleet sizes.
- Fixed a bug with triple turrets in A or Y positions on high speed ships connected with the wrong tech.
- Fixed a bug with the ammo for secondary and tertiary guns in combat not corresponding to the designed amount.
- Fixed a bug where good quality heavy guns could be developed before longer gun barrels tech was researched.
- Magazine explosion sound will now not play if no sound is selected.
New Game Options
- Added option for more frequent large battles and fleet battles in the in-game preferences.
Battle Generation
- Made some adjustments in battle generation to reduce the risk of divisions assigned to support carriers being used for other duties.
- Adjusted pre battle placement to increase variability and give opportunity for more pre-battle maneuvering, especially in the missile age. Note, this might increase the number of no-contact battles.
- Fixed a bug with the battle generator ignoring the designated fleet flag division if the flagship was a B.
- Tweaked the battle generator to adhere more closely to division organisation in some cases.
Battle Resolution
- Tactical AI: Made cruisers and BC on AI control more careful about staying in range of enemy battleships.
- Fixed a bug with formation line abreast not really working. Note, as a consequence of this, ships in line abreast formation can now collide with friendly ships in the same division, to discourage unrealistic wild turning maneuvers while in line abreast.
- Ships maneuvering to avoid air attack will now tend to turn away from nearby enemy ships.
- Reduced the chance of friendly bombing of ships close to the originating carrier.
Ship Design
- Raised maximum ROF for autoloaded light guns.
- Allowed DD with Unit machinery to be rebuilt to KE.
- Fixed a bug with battlecruiser building allowed too early (now requires four levels of ship design research).
- Corvette AI ship templates updated.
- DD ship type will be correctly classed when DD up to 3800 tons is researched early.
- Autodesigned ships will not have incresed elevation if not researched.
- Made sure the autodesigner does not include inclined belt if not developed.
- Made sure the autodesigner does not include mines on AMC if not developed.
- Ship design: Fixed some quirks when entering numbers with the keyboard when editing rest angles for guns.
- Ship design: Funnel positions are now rescaled when ship displacement is changed.
- Ship design: When setting rest angle for tertiary mounts, opposite mount, if any, will automatically get corresponding rest angle.
- Ship design: Removed lingering red circles after editing secondary and tertiary gun positions.
- Improved AI design templates for early pre-dreadnoughts.
- Tweaked the AI ship designer so it will not mangle lozenge design old battleships.
Officers
- Made sure officers can never be so stupid that they get invalid ability ratings.
Divisions
- Made sure the division editor display of subordinate divisions is updated after dissolving a division.
Balance Changes
- Increased the treaty build limit by 20%.
- Adjusted some aspects of research when playing at less than 100% research speed.
- Changed the starting dock size for USA in 1890 to 10000 tons.
- Adjusted gun research on less than 100% research speed (now easier to develop guns).
Asid:
Rule the Waves 3 - The Admiral Update
Wed, 29 November 2023
Hello Admirals,
We are happy to release the largest update RTW3 has gotten since launch. The Admiral Update includes a completely reworked battle generator, adding an entire new level of command to Rule the Waves 3.
A Steam installation of the game will update automatically, while a manual update of the game is available here.
Admirals can now be promoted and assigned to command forces in a particular area. These admirals have command skills that can be used to re-arrange your divisions before contact with the enemy.
Rearranging your forces can lead to misunderstood signals before battle however, so it is a risky option. With an intelligence coup you can even decline battle without the normal victory point penalty.
There are also numerous other features included with this update. The tactical AI has been tweaked, a slew of bugs have been fixed, and improvements have been made to the UI to improve functionality (the N key will advance time on the strategic map, the ESC button now closes the division editor etc).
The full changelog is posted below, there is a lot going on with this update and we hope you enjoy it.
What’s New in Version 1.00.27
Battle Generation
Fixed missing objective in a convoy attack battle Germany vs France.Completely new pre battle procedure that lets the player edit the force before battle, depending on a command roll for the commanding admiral.On an intelligence coup, you can decline the battle with no penalty.Fixed a bug in battle generation that could lead to error messages, primarily in carrier battles.
Battle Resolution
Some tweaks to the tactical AI.Made the check for airstrikes in the air preventing scenario end more restrictive. An air formation must now have more than 3 aircraft and be within 100 nm of enemy ships to stop a scenario from ending.Improved the notification when a friendly ship suffers a magazine explosion from a torpedo hit.Limited flooding from collisions in some extreme cases.
Ship Design
Fixed illegal AI build templates that combine protected cruiser and narrow belt.Prevented replacement of -2 quality main guns if ship has more than 2 centerline turrets.Stopped the auto-designer from using triple wing turrets.Improved Japanese ship names list (thanks to @Burningapple3 and helpers!).
Officers
Admirals can now command forces in areas. Their ability will be used in the pre-battle stage.Admirals will not be eligible to send as Naval Attache.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug with KE being allowed to have submerged torpedo tubes.Fixed a bug with battlecruisers not being included in the losses history statistic.Made sure the the lukewarm wartime support event does not fire if the player nation has been at war with the enemy of the ally.Suppressed a debug message with "Too many rounds" that could appear very occasionally.Fixed a bug that made detached damaged ships occasionally go towards their original division instead of to nearest friendly base.Removed double message in turn reports about base expansion.
UI Improvements
On events, pressing the 1,2,3 key will now select the respective answer and close the event dialog.Escape button now closes the division editor.Current submarine reliability is now visible when building a new submarine.Added a button in the design screen for upgrading guns in a refit (instead of changing the caliber back and forth).The N key will now advance the turn in strategic mode.Added a help button on the main screen to show keyboard shortcuts.
Divisions
Added warning when assigning more than one core division to follow the same lead division.Fixed oversensitive core divisions check.Fixed a bug that could cause an error message when the division screen was closed.
Balance Changes
The Japanese surprise attack can no longer be declined by the defender.
We hope you enjoy this new update, and hope to deliver more exciting news and updates next year.
Asid:
Rule the Waves 3 History Series Episode 1 - Steam and Steel: 1890-1905
Mon, January 15, 2024
While technology has always played a role in shaping the military, naval warfare in the early 20th century was defined by rapid innovation that saw whole generations of ships made obsolete only a few years after they were completed. The Ironclad gave way to the Battleship, and the Battleship to the Dreadnought. Here we are covering the big innovations that drove the changing face of naval warfare in the 20th century in our new historical video series.
Special thanks to Drachinifel for lending his voice to this project.
You can expect Episode 2 out February, next month.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page