Dogs Of War Vu

Sim/Strategy/War => Games Discussion => Topic started by: Asid on May 16, 2016, 09:48:14 PM

Title: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on May 16, 2016, 09:48:14 PM
UBOOT - Kickstarter Trailer

https://youtu.be/6HdO2raBwCE

Published on May 9, 2016

Support us on Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1752350052/uboot-a-ww2-survival-sandbox

...and Steam Greenlight:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=669556621

UBOOT is a simulator of a submarine from World War II era, yet different than all you have seen so far. Our game is a survival sandbox whose theme is the life of German soldiers. The boat is their home but can become their grave at any time.

To survive you will have to learn how the boat is built and how it works. You will also need to find out strengths and weaknesses of the crew. The boat will suffer damage during the battles but also break down because of fatigue. We have designed realistic failures that will influence the functioning of the boat from broken gaskets through battery leaks to propulsion break downs. You will have to choose properly skilled sailors so that the repairs will not take ages.

In our game you will find:
•   History based missions
•   Cross-sectioned detailed ship with animated devices and tanks
•   Dedicated advanced water system and fluid behaviour
•   Advanced physics for ship movement, diving and buoyancy
•   Open world
•   Ship customization and upgrades

We want to create for you and for us an innovative submarine simulator. Quality is our top priority and we don’t want to compromise on it. So, if you want this great UBOOT game to be created as much we do, support us on KIckstarter Kickstarter

(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/277345873845374965/2C2251F89C7E730C0F3C127EF063F71A09B42870/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside|637:358&composite-to=*,*|637:358&background-color=black)

(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/277345238398356195/B3EB3B034C4137E2EBCB0D73C42E157B82000C40/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside|637:358&composite-to=*,*|637:358&background-color=black)

(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/277345238417813476/2A49AE345D9AAA4CD01924492F866BEF710FA1C1/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside|637:358&composite-to=*,*|637:358&background-color=black)
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Frankie on May 16, 2016, 11:48:09 PM
A new twist to the U-Boat genre! Graphical and animated overviews of all crew members. Like the thought bubbles above the crewman's head. Erm...Theme Hospital meets Silent Hunter V? Superb graphics and water effects. Wow.
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on May 17, 2016, 02:12:41 PM
It seems interesting. The price is not bad if you get it now.
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on July 11, 2017, 04:00:36 PM
Uboot - developer diary 3.2017
https://youtu.be/OqSzcEYVx9I


Uboot - new features (12.2016)
https://youtu.be/VtFG62poExU


UBOOT - new gameplay
https://youtu.be/eLMQ8_BG51I
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Frankie on July 12, 2017, 06:04:14 AM
Very nice graphics and looks pretty immersive. I hope it has the maths and physics right. One of the biggest kick of playing a submarine game is to play at the highest realism level and to do the calculations yourself, resulting in a torpedo strike at the calculated moment of time.

I remember reading a blog about a Maths teacher who used Silent Hunter III to teach geometry. SH3 was his favourite game as he would emulate the Uboat captains in manually plotting a perfect firing solution by using mathematics, rulers, slide rules, stopwatch and protractors. It would be great if UBOOT would also include such mathematics and engineering realism.

(http://www.moodurian.com/tornado/images/maths-uboat-blue.jpg)

Diagram by AATyler (Subsim): How to Calculate the Angle to Intercept
(warning! Read only if you're into really scary Submarine mathematics and engineering)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4Ok7JuDLSBpRHFwQzFCdExDYjg/edit

See also:
How to manually plot an intercept course (tutorial)
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=214637

Computing a Ship's Course from Four Bearings
http://mathscinotes.com/2015/04/computing-a-ships-course-from-four-bearings/

U-Boat Torpedo Firing Solution Problem
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/u-boat-torpedo-firing-solution-problem.72987/

The math behind a perfect firing solution at any angle. Range not required.
http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/601207-The-math-behind-a-perfect-firing-solution-at-any-angle-RANGE-NOT-REQUIRED-Forums



Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on September 18, 2017, 09:30:31 PM
September Update
12 September - nihilcat   

Hello friends!

We hope that you had a great holiday.

The day has come when we can share the news about our development again. We did not disappear, we worked as usual. UBOOT is an integrated part of our existence lately ;)

The game is getting more and more full of shape. As usual, we changed some old things that seemed to be good before, but in time with our experience increasing they had to evolve into better form. We have also added quite new things that we hope will appeal to you.

You must be impatient, so let's get to the point.

 Read full large list here (http://steamcommunity.com/games/494840/announcements/detail/1450578697244774346)




Uboot - developer diary 9.2017
https://youtu.be/UNmswsNumNc
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Frankie on September 19, 2017, 01:00:25 AM
Now that's what I call an update report! An amazing amount of work. And it's not finished yet. Realism in one area is a double edged sword. All other areas of the game have to racked up to the same realism standards otherwise the game will be deemed unfinished. So tons more features, voices and animations to go. If I remember correctly the sound files from even Silent Hunter 2 numbered in the hundreds. Much more for a sim as realistic and immersive as this. Kudos to the developers. Hopefully we can get it on Steam before next Christmas (2018!).
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Frankie on May 06, 2018, 02:15:23 PM
Release date is Q2, 2018.

https://youtu.be/eitOFS_m2cs

https://store.steampowered.com/app/494840/UBOAT/
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Frankie on November 11, 2018, 11:25:51 AM
UBOAT - New Gameplay Development - WW2 Submarine Simulation Game 2018
Video published on 14th September 2018

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB4Otj64O8I

This U-Boat simulation is unlike any you have ever seen.

(http://www.moodurian.com/tornado/images/wateruboat00.png)

(http://www.moodurian.com/tornado/images/wateruboat01.png)

(http://www.moodurian.com/tornado/images/wateruboat02.png)

For example, when was the first or last time you saw a cross-section of the U-Boat filled with flood water?

(http://www.moodurian.com/tornado/images/wateruboat.png)

Never! Until now. Simply...amazing.

(http://www.moodurian.com/tornado/images/wateruboat03.png)

(http://www.moodurian.com/tornado/images/wateruboat04.png)

(http://www.moodurian.com/tornado/images/wateruboat05.png)

Game is currently in beta testing phase and will be released as early access on Steam soon ... later.

(http://www.moodurian.com/tornado/images/wateruboat06.png)

(http://www.moodurian.com/tornado/images/wateruboat07.png)

(http://www.moodurian.com/tornado/images/wateruboat08.png)

Whatever...."just take my money".


And finally, since we are on the subject of U-Boats, check this out:

Start Up of a WW2 Submarine Diesel Engine of a German U-Boat
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLfa43_1WH8
Published on 24 June 2018.

Start up of a 6-cylinder diesel engine. The submarine engine RS 34 S was used in the Type XXIII submarines. Originally, it was designed by MWM as a diesel generator for the battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz. The engine has 108 liters cylinder capacity (18 liters for each cylinder) and 576 hp at 850 revolutions per minute.

The engine has been lovingly restored and maintained. Kept in a warehouse.

(http://www.moodurian.com/tornado/images/wateruboat09.png)

If Johan, the Ghost were there, he would be attentively adjusting and fiddling with the engine in its crammed confines of a U-boat. It must have been nothing short of hell aboard a U-Boat for the crew. The non-stop noise and heat alone would have been unbelievable.


Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on March 10, 2019, 01:05:15 PM
UBOAT - Official Trailer

https://youtu.be/hEvdvgV7ILY


Published on Mar 8, 2019
UBOAT has a brand new trailer! Hop on board with us!

Early Access available soon.
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Reds on March 10, 2019, 02:33:45 PM
Looks like a definate buy . Used  to love SH 3 hope  its as good
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on March 14, 2019, 10:31:19 AM
New Minimum and Recommended requirements
13 MAR - MATT_PLAYWAY

Hi!

We recently benchmarked the game on a range of hardware and set the final requirements on the Steam page.

While performance will definitely be changing during further Early Access development, we will always be trying to keep the game playable with decent FPS on these specs below.

We also did some clever engineering here and there to improve the performance on low specs for the upcoming version B101. It will land in the hands of the beta testers soon!

Take care!
Deep Water Studio

Minimum:

OS: Windows 7 64 Bit / Windows 8 64 Bit / Windows 10 64 Bit
Processor: Core i3 3.1 GHz or AMD Phenom II X3 2.8 GHz
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce GTX 560 1GB (720p Low), GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB (1080p Low) or AMD equivalents
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 20 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX compatible

Recommended:

OS: Windows 7 64 Bit / Windows 8 64 Bit / Windows 10 64 Bit
Processor: Intel Quad Core i7 3770K or AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB (1080p High), GeForce GTX 1070 8GB (1080p Extreme) or AMD equivalents
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 20 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX compatible
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on March 15, 2019, 12:08:24 AM
Voiceover News
14 MAR - NIHILCAT


Hello!

We have some news for you today.

1.
A full English voiceover (in addition to German) will be present in the first Early Access release.

Side note: this will also open up possibility to add playable Allied subs to the game in the future either by us or modders.. but still - German subs will definitely be our only priority for many months to come during Early Access.

2.
We will finish recordings of at least one more German voice type for the Early Access release.

3.
We are going to submit our game to Valve for the final review very soon, so temporarily we will remove additional languages and voices from the store front to match the current game builds. We will bring them back soon, when we receive all files from the translators and add them to the game. For your convenience and to avoid misunderstanding during this blackout, this is the confirmed list of languages that will be present in the game:

English   ✔
German   ✔
French   ✔
Italian   ✔
Spanish   ✔
Polish   ✔
Russian   ✔
Korean   ✔
Simplified Chinese   ✔
Turkish   ✔

4.
In the meantime, next update for the beta testers is shaping up. It will introduce - among other things - randomly generated merchant ship designs, sonar decoys and most of all - dozens of bug fixes. We are getting there.

Thank you for the support,
Deep Water Studio
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on March 21, 2019, 11:20:36 AM
Release Date
19 MAR - NIHILCAT


Dear Players,

This day has finally come! We just received a green light to release our game at a concrete date.

UBOAT will be released at... 30th April 2019!

Roadmap

While we don't want to make too detailed plans ahead to stay flexible for implementing your feedback, there are some things that we can declare right now.

March   :   Officer promotion system will be added to the backer version.

3-10 April 2019   :   NDA for backers will be lifted.

April   :   Manual hydrophone mode will be added to the backer version.

30 April 2019   :   UBOAT enters Early Access.

Summer   :   Modding SDK.

Why not Q1?

We still need to improve a few areas of the game. Our backer community gives us a stellar feedback and we don't feel confident enough to release the game until we implement the most important suggestions. We don't consider Early Access as a chance to publish a buggy game, but rather a solid foundation that we promise to develop further on the feedback we get.

We did our best to make it in the narrow window we had during March, but it's now clear that we won't make it with some matters like translations, that currently are the most obvious thing that needs some more time.

Now we have a solid date that's rooted very deep and is as sure as one can get.

Thank you for the attention and patience for all these years.

Yours,
Deep Water Studio
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on April 03, 2019, 12:47:35 AM
Last days of NDA
2 Apr @ 10:27pm - nihilcat   

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/d46fa3a8325432fa4617807278d33ed3e145f2e0.png)


Hello,

Today, some quick information that may interest you.

We will upload the first non-NDA build for backers at 8th April (Monday). We invite all backers to publish their videos.

Game will cost 29.99 USD at a launch day. Please note that the price may differ slightly by region.

This week we uploaded a large update to backer version of the game. You can read the changelog  here (https://steamcommunity.com/app/494840/discussions/1/3335371283882812266/) Release version will contain all features from the current backer versions and a bit more.

Keep your fingers crossed for us, the premiere is getting closer, we are very excited.


Yours,
Deep Water Studio
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on April 27, 2019, 11:49:37 AM
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/header.jpg?t=1556274724)

UBOAT is a simulator of a submarine from WWII era. It is a survival sandbox with crew management mechanics while its primary theme is life of German sailors. The boat is their home, but it can become their grave at any time


Steam  (https://store.steampowered.com/app/494840/UBOAT/)
Official forum  (https://steamcommunity.com/app/494840/discussions/)
Youtube  (https://www.youtube.com/user/ThePlayWay/search?query=uboat)


Single-player


UBOAT - Early Access Trailer

https://youtu.be/Ki8l3Ut07rU


About

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/extras/Manual_Mode_Animated_1.gif?t=1556274724)

UBOAT
UBOAT is a simulator of a submarine from WWII era, yet different than all you have seen so far. It is a survival sandbox with crew management mechanics while its primary theme is life of German sailors. The boat is their home, but it can become their grave at any time.

In UBOAT you control the crew in order to control the boat. You look after their physical and mental health, because if the sailors are hungry, tired and their spirit is low, there’s no chance of winning even a skirmish.

Survival
The extensive damage system is a foundation of the game's survival elements. Unprecedented situations are bound to happen as the effect of received damage, testing player's creativity and ability to stay calm. You can try to save the whole crew or leave someone behind, to save the others.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/extras/Damage_System_1.gif?t=1556274724)

While your ship travels through the open seas, you will often find yourself being on your own. Use your management skills to spend resources taken on the trip optimally and in special cases try to recover them on the sea, by asking your allies for the help... or by looting wreckages of enemy ships.

•   Disable unnecessary devices, to keep your accumulators running for longer.
•   Tell your crew to stay in their bunks to preserve oxygen.
•   If crew's morale is low - play with them a session of Skat or play music from nearby radio stations, to fortify their hearts.

Kriegsmarine career
During the playthrough you will receive assignments from the Kriegsmarine headquarters. They are never linear and you may receive additional orders during them or face unexpected problems.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/extras/Upgrades_Animated_5.gif?t=1556274724)

Brave completion of assignments from the headquarters is rewarded with additional budget for the unit under your command and with acceptance of your growing reputation as an u-boat's skipper. You will need that, to upgrade your ship and keep up with enemy's technological advances.

•   Upgrade your boat for the rewarded funds.
•   Receive additional permissions for the reputation points.
•   Buy new equipment - new torpedo types, sonar decoys, CO2 absorbers and much more.
•   Send your officers on special tasks in the headquarters to, among other things, speed up a research of new technologies.

Accurate simulation
Game's simulation elements are very realistic, but that never comes at a cost of gameplay quality. Despite extensive simulation elements, UBOAT can be played like a regular game and complex matters can be learned later to become a better skipper for the commanded unit.

Even small things like the influence of ballast in each compartment on the ship's trim (tilt) or Earth's curvature are faithfully reproduced in the game.

Perfection can be achieved in many ways. Prove your management skills and swiftly assign work to your officers to speed things up. If, on the other hand, you think that if something needs to be done, it's better to do that on your own - sit behind the periscope, hydrophone or 88 mm deck gun and take matters in your own hands!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/extras/Simulation_Animated_Original_2.gif?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_5ebdcd9cdb807d5afa35c7ca94aa81aa453c5129.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_854a76279d92b1204757c387cf7c1600f2e2a902.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_360784de4516980d58a559a8e56b5fa6218c64ae.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_e0839c548794d440506978cad46ac24f75abf534.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_95808293a93f991968f818e5adddbc022b135c9e.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_8341d367b15b43aee577a4d552c2ada37c7962d1.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_9df06bb663bcb98869846a7b24e10f2ebc820f3d.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_3adce7b2d03f5f11a5e11a14c02effed2cd6e5c3.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_45015484bd28c96fcf97bf0118b13a87a3cdd86f.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_fd1f7c4e18739d336440ad8770ebcc7d9ed8f1d9.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_175073d00dcabdcc37ee2ace39f34ea6547fb272.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_584f7b324f46662425df50a16dbf4f76e3eadf6b.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_1481c8a76e835116816d64dd75abb2e972b4aecc.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_69076c3a5f67fddd791a963150d008cb523be6dc.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_5ce3b78d658195d19d795e07d00334d996ef4e72.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_136877bcc501ee04185b3139ca57054e2b68efd8.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_3394eea915d8499034ff856af4a635c60cdcbf9c.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_df290f0acb177b055d5143d83c78d8dab89e4554.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_6c324a6abb058c340e06c8bcf3442c412eda5bc7.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_ec27799e934bc1daca2ebe01c9ddc808d34148c6.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_e10667b07c1f76722a59b6bf190f3cf25dfc2440.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_26db383cfb116a3f708a358285d0c8dda0c9ff25.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_4186391b945f21acb72af5a228a4b9a907b45494.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_709e9c9ab8517ad0435c202d79e20cf11e4ebfca.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_e3e70957ffdff57eeeb170fb6bf0a079ef3fd83a.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_f532a2d1996c93db5b87bfadaf4dad28c9335b0d.1920x1080.jpg?t=1556274724)

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on April 30, 2019, 02:20:56 PM
UBOAT is almost here – release day recap
30 Apr @ 12:19pm - U_Korvettenkapitaen

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/62651655f2d853df7ff929222eef675da44141b3.jpg)

Full steam ahead!

We won't lie – we are quite excited that you will be able to finally get your hands on UBOAT. Even though it is an Early Access version, we're sure it will offer you hours and hours of submarine fun.

Exact launch time is 4 PM CET.

We've been working hard for the last few months, taking valuable feedback from our Kickstarter backers with beta access and making sure that everything is ready for today's release.

We would like to remind you about the most important changes and improvements we've implemented recently to make sure you can enjoy UBOAT to the fullest:

•   FPP mode is now easier to use thanks to control hints
•   French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Korean and Turkish languages added
•   More content: new ports, convoys and assignments
•   Hydrophone manual mode for better immersion
•   Lighting changes for a bit more realistic look
•   Improved optimization
•   Hundreds of various fixes

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on April 30, 2019, 04:24:20 PM
Released

-15%    £23.79    £20.22
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Frankie on April 30, 2019, 05:52:05 PM
Sweet!
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on May 01, 2019, 12:43:14 PM
Upcoming fixes announcement
30 Apr @ 10:17pm - U_Korvettenkapitaen

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/abc61b4efa159833d9e3891de2bcee792b691edd.png)

Hi Kriegsmarine Crewmembers,

First of all, we wanted to thank you for such active commenting on the Steam forums and in the reviews. Any feedback is more than welcome, and we listen to the voice of every single one of you. We are doing our best to address all the issues that you raise.

We are planning to release a patch in the next 24 hours. Currently, we are focusing on:

•   Fixing crashes,
•   Performance issues,
•   Save issues,
•   Upgrade screen issue.

We can’t promise how much we will be able to squeeze in for tomorrow, please look out for patch notes. Talk to you soon!

Yours,
Deep Water Studio

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on July 13, 2019, 12:51:13 PM
The deepest update has arrived. Take your crew to go below the sea level with B121!
27 Jun @ 11:13am - U_Korvettenkapitaen

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/938f4ea840ff6919b9ad2773dd256d219ef06c87.png)

Hello Sailors,

Thank you for your patience. We know it's been a while since we posted B121 at the unstable branch. Now, properly tested, we are giving it to all the players waiting. This is the biggest update so far. Lots of changes, plenty of fixes. We went to extremely deep waters with it for you. Without further ado, please take a look at the changes.

Travel system overhaul
•   Fast travel mode was removed from the game and replaced with a stronger time compression mode which functionally is pretty similar, but without forcing perspective, unnecessary cheating and added the possibility to use it at all times.
•   Travel system was streamlined and no longer speeds up units depending on the current sea size etc. The time needed to pass X km on the world map should be just as expected. Please note though that time will still pass faster than normal even without time compression when the game is in the travel mode. We will probably add an alternative, realistic travel system at some point, but the current one will always be the default one in the game. With this update, it should be much closer to what simulation games community wants, while still being user-friendly.
•   Officers gain and loss fatigue much more slowly.
•   Fixed very numerous physics problems that were appearing at newly added high time compression level.
•   Script optimizations for smoother performance when time compression is being used.
•   Electricity consumption in travel mode was reworked.
•   U-boat's range on diesel engines now matches the real values.

New off duty system
•   Moving large quantities of goods from port and refitting u-boat is no longer instant and requires some off duty period.
•   Crew gets weary over time when being very long on the sea and gains discipline penalties.
•   Crew can be sent on a vacation to reset their mood, while u-boat is undergoing maintenance work.
•   Added game mechanic for quickly skipping long periods of time while u-boat is off duty.
•   U-boat upgrades now also require off duty time to be installed.

Storages overhaul
•   It's now possible to open storages and torpedo storages to view their contents and issue transport/loading orders without having any officer selected. Such orders are later completed by officers with certain roles and their helpers.
•   Added progress bars and labels to the storage UI that indicates, which items are currently being moved somewhere else.
•   Transported items are now always dropped in a storage slot chosen by the player instead of the first free slot.
•   Characters will carry items in both ways to save time if there are orders to transport goods in two directions between storages.
•   It's now possible to buy shells directly into ammunition storages.

General improvements
•   Assignments are now completed after talking with the leading officer. They cannot be completed on the sea like before. This change, among other things, allows the player to report all events normally after completing the main objective of the assignment.
•   Orbit view camera was improved to better present ship's bobbing/elevation changes while moving through the waves.
•   Added new action icons on portraits: blowing ballast tanks, flooding ballast tanks, wounded, treatment.
•   Fixes and improvements to many port textures.
•   Reworked navigation table. It's no longer possible to get lost soon after navigator had worked for a substantial time at it.
•   Added research for sonar decoys. Removed sonar decoys from the starting equipment.
•   UI sound effects are now stereo panned and most of them are quieter by default.

Performance improvements
•   Crew's RAM and VRAM usage was considerably decreased.
•   Generation of character meshes was rewritten to be as asynchronous as possible on the current version of the engine. It should fix the most common hiccups in the game occurring during weather changes, boarding crew, etc.
•   Texture compression tasks are now asynchronous.
•   Physics should run more smoothly near ports.

Fixes
•   Sun lens flare could be visible under water during sunsets. It could also be visible in some fogs.
•   Fixed clearly visible boundary on the sea at some distance from the ports.
•   Injured characters could get some automated orders.
•   Font fixes.
•   Camera could orbit target that was no longer visible.
•   Buoyancy force is additionally stabilized when physics precision is decreased. It fixes exaggerated bounce of a few ship types on time compression.
•   Rudders sway much less to the left and right when traveling forward with enabled time compression.
•   Ambient occlusion was incorrect on lower levels of detail for characters, making the transition clearly visible.
•   Sandbox could start with loading popup still on the screen.
•   Characters were flickering after transitioning between the port and the deck.
•   Diesel engines range estimation was off and didn't consider the engineer's skills.
•   Time compression is becoming disabled after entering or leaving the travel mode.
•   Player could enter land areas without seeing any notification aside from the paused time.
•   Reflections on the sea were too foggy.
•   Transfer count slider in the storage UI now takes into consideration remaining capacity of the target slot. It's no longer possible to declare transfer larger than possible.
•   Leo Loris wasn't working on the actions queued in the global queue.
•   Various fixes to torpedo storages bugs.
•   Fixed exploit that was making instant torpedo loading possible.
•   Torpedo loading tasks in the global order queue are now performed only by engineers following the torpedo mechanic role.
•   Global order queue could hold only one non-ending action. It's no longer a case.
•   Electric engines battery drain was lowered.
•   Certain transport tasks could become stuck at 100%.
•   Time compression now correctly stabilizes torque changes from buoyancy to make watching it more comfortable.
•   Purchasing torpedoes into stern torpedo storage wasn't working.
•   Carry item orders assigned to officer with helpers were sometimes ended prematurely with a few items left in the source storage.
•   Quartermaster role wasn't working since 121 Preview 1.
•   Quartermaster could transport a fractional number of shells to the ammunition storage. He was also never resupplying the storage completely and wasn't re-using slots in the storage.
•   Displayed item count was often wrong when the slot was a target of a transport task.
•   Code related to now deprecated skipping calendar dates feature was removed from the game. It had a minor impact on performance.
•   Time skipping of the resupply at the port was often ended prematurely.
•   Storage weight limits weren't respected if all items were queued to be moved at once between storages.
•   Fixed multiple problems resulting from moving one shop item to a few u-boat's storage slots.
•   Some crew members could start working with a briefcase or a backpack after vacation.
•   Improved performance during time skipping in port.
•   Headquarters task duration is now expressed in days, if appropriate, instead of hours to improve readability.
•   Hydrophone can be now correctly downgraded to GHG at ports.
•   Localization fixes.
•   Selling items to the warehouse no longer resets their count.
•   Items that aren't produced by a given country or are at a low stock are no longer restocked in the warehouses.
•   Number keys no longer initiate dialogue options when various UIs opened through dialogue are open.
•   Keyboard shortcuts could stop to work if a player left to the menu during a dialogue.
•   Torpedo arm distances were adjusted for faster torpedo types (they were noticeably higher than for the slow ones).
•   It's no longer possible to detect groups hidden behind land by any means.
•   Various fixes to conning tower observation animations.
•   One part of the conning tower wasn't being visually damaged by the explosions.
•   Attempt at fixing Unity's background thread crash after entering HQ.
•   Map grid could have a gap at the bottom part of the screen after entering the land area.
•   Lens flare quality improvements. Fixed lens flare flickering every 10 minutes of in-game time.
•   Ammunition Production I task wasn't doing anything due to a bug.
•   Failed missions weren't handled properly and the player could get rewards for them.
•   Espionage assignment fixes.
•   Fixed Unity's background thread crash after entering HQ.
•   Console wasn't properly displaying some messages after optimizations from B120.
•   ON convoys could travel through the land on the way to Halifax.
•   Physics of the items hanging on the hooks in the stern torpedo room could become permanently corrupted, especially when large time compressions were used.
•   Torpedo mechanic could get stuck outside of the pressure hull after loading or warming torpedoes. Also, the end of the loading animation was erratic.
•   Selection of portraits could stop working after performing certain steps.
•   One part of VIIC u-boats was remaining visible even after losing them from the sight.
•   Possible fix for duplicated/ghost units which couldn't be reported after sinking.
•   Diver could become not selectable under certain circumstances.
•   Leaving tutorial by clicking the button at the end was causing minor issues.
•   Caps were sometimes visible in FPP.
•   Minor storage UI fixes.
•   Minor render pipeline fixes.
•   Localization fixes.
•   Underwater effect wasn't working inside flooded compartments since at least a few versions.
•   Torpedo and hatch animations now respect current time scale. They were moving too fast on a pause and too slowly on a time compression.
•   Activator banners react more consistently to being occluded by the scene elements (labels were previously unaffected).
•   Loading screen music now respects current audio settings.
•   Various fixes to first aid.
•   Fixes to various path-finding related warnings that probably didn't have any impact.
•   Multiple fixes to having two torpedo mechanics at the same time.
•   Propeller audio effects were audible above the surface of the water for up to a few minutes after loading a game state. This problem could affect a few other audio effects too.
•   Inactive characters that were on a vacation or investigating other ship were coming back to the scene after loading a game state.
•   Reworked internal compartments of smaller units to make them more easily sinkable.
•   Added balancing factor to the torpedo damage formula.
•   Ships evacuated by the crew receive more damage and floodings are more likely to spread to simulate the fact that they lack any kind of direct damage control at such point.
•   HQ now requires more definite sinkings for a reward.
•   Font fixes.

You must admit, that looks impressive, but let's face it. We would never do it without you and your feedback. Once again, massive thank you for each conversation, each report, each review. You're the best!

Sailors! Dismissed!


Yours,
Deep Water Studio

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on July 13, 2019, 12:54:04 PM
Patch B121 up and ready at "Unstable" branch
7 Jun @ 11:55pm - U_Korvettenkapitaen

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/c659d52f0ffd2b7237a82741b7385a408fbffc97.png)

Hello Sailors!

After silent running with blue lights on for two weeks and working on the next update, we are finally ready to share this version publicly. We try to be as open as possible about the production, but during major work, there is often not that much point in sharing what we have even on the unstable branch as that would be just a pure frustration for you and us :)

Let's move on and talk about the update B121 which is now being released on the "Unstable" branch. If you like to test it, change to it in the game properties from the Steam Library, but keep in mind that this is still a work in progress.

Travel system overhaul
With this version, we overhauled the travel system in the game. The most visible change is that the fast travel mode is gone. We didn't like it, you didn't like it, nobody liked it seems, so we finally got rid of it.

Instead, there is a new time compression available that is 5x as strong as the base one. It allows you to leave areas in a decent time, similarly to the old "fast travel" mode, but it works in a much more cleaner fashion. It can be used at any point in the game without restrictions, while no cheating is involved and all laws of physics are respected. It was a major technical challenge, as physics tend to break easily on such fast time scales and we had to perform many optimizations, fixes and ensure proper handling of edge cases.

Another major change is that long distance travels on the map work differently than they used to. There were many technical changes which translate more or less to such end effects:

•   Movement on the map is much slower without time compression. There is much more time to plan an attack on the nearby groups, if you prefer to play real-time without using the active pause.
•   On the other hand, travel on the map is much faster than before, if the new time compression is used, so this change may satisfy both the patient and impatient players.
•   All small cheats here and there were removed that translate to more realistic navigation.
•   U-boat's range is set to real-life values.
Those changes address some of the suggestions we were getting from the community since the release. We hope you will like them.

Time progression
Before this update, there wasn't any decent mechanism that would make it possible to play through the whole war in a reasonable time. We had one solution during the Kickstarter backer beta, namely skipping calendar dates, but it was a confusing solution. We removed it and planned a new system. Finally, we had time to implement that new system. Let's talk about the details.

•   Resupplying your u-boat at the port is no longer instant and takes some time to be done. Your u-boat will be moved off-duty until all ordered equipment is loaded inside. You can skip the wait with a click of the button and continue normally. We didn't add any animations for the port workers so far, but we have such plans.
•   Crew gets fatigued over time and needs a vacation from time to time. We found historical sources about places where u-boat crews were resting and added them into the game. You can send your guys to simply rest in the port city you are currently in or spend some budget and let them relax in a French Chateau or Eagle's Nest.
•   New travel system ensures that patrols last much longer when it comes to passing in-game hours and days (it's also closer to real-life historical data).

These changes ensure that time will progress much faster and potentially allow the player to play through the whole World War II which was always our intention for UBOAT.

We balanced the game accordingly to match these changes. All HQ tasks take much more time to be researched and officers get fatigued much more slowly, which was also a commonly requested change.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/2b2d79ea725a4e488d82502a81300a885fbe0114.png)

Storages overhaul
To implement the delayed resupply of the ship at ports we had to improve the user interface for storages to make such information readable. It was an unexpected work that lead us to a major change how the storages are used and delayed this update by a week.

Starting with this version it's possible to open storages and plan all logistics without having any officer selected. All transport tasks are later completed by officers with certain roles and sailors under their command.

It's also possible to plan ahead the torpedo loadout and don't let your officer choose it automatically.

All ongoing transport tasks are clearly presented in the storage's user interface.

Another change, is that it's now possible to purchase ammunition directly into a gun's storage.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/4938d9ce2a7845e18bfd5992fb2bd6c9e4c5d3a1.png)

Technical improvements
With this version, we worked on some tougher technical matters that needed some time to be done. The game should generally run more smoothly, with better performance and lower RAM / VRAM usage.

Have you ever noticed lags appearing before and after each rain in the game or after adding new sailors to the crew? They were caused by rebuilding geometry for the characters. Considering that the u-boat is pretty densely packed with unique characters we are displaying them in a very optimized way which has this downside that some CPU work is needed to get it going after each change of the clothing like equipping a raincoat. Starting with this version, it's a fully asynchronous process and those lags won't bother you anymore.

Other changes
Starting with this version rewards for assignments are received only after talking with the leading officer in the port rather than clicking a button on the open sea. This change keeps the mission open until that point. It allows you to report all sunk ships and other events normally after completing the main objective of your assignment. It was a small oversight in the design that we didn't manage to fix for the initial Early Access version.

Thanks a lot for all your feedback
You're truly amazing. Thank you for all the conversations we have. We listen to each and every one of you. Your voice is heard and we take it all into consideration. Please play the new patch and let us know what you think.

Yours,
Deep Water Studio



Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on July 13, 2019, 12:55:15 PM
No rest for the wicked! Patch B122 ready at the branch Unstable
29 Jun @ 4:33pm - U_Korvettenkapitaen

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/1be29790e34de3307c0971f7978dcda8aaa90ee9.png)

Hello Kriegsmarine,

We just release the biggest patch so far with lots of changes and already have a new one for you to test. We hope you'll enjoy it and leave some feedback!

Improvements
•   It's now possible to add custom music to the game. Please read README file in "(GAME_FOLDER)\UBOAT_Data\StreamingAssets\Packages\custom-music" to learn where to place your music files.
•   Various modding improvements for summer's modding SDK introduction. Added support for raw audio and texture files and support for data sheet overrides in mods.

Fixes
•   Pausing or disabling time compression on the map was causing random camera movement.
•   Sink ship objectives were sometimes duplicated.
•   Increased fuel usage to achieve historical range only with some bonuses from an engineer working at the engines and/or leader at the navigator's station. It was very hard to run out of fuel on B121.
•   Vacation could be bought without sufficient funds and cause the budget to dive below zero.
•   Faster completion bonus of HQ tasks from a vacation (like Eagle's Nest) wasn't applied to tasks that were started before a vacation.
•   Vacation notification had missing localizations.
•   Reputation points count label in reputation purchases screen was often displaying a wrong value.
•   Added sound effect for reputation purchases.

Talk to you soon!

Yours,
Deep Water Studio

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on July 13, 2019, 12:56:52 PM
Game translation help needed
30 Jun @ 12:26pm - U_Korvettenkapitaen

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/c366dbe796b6f236f7855833a72cc2094e85b31d.png)

To all International Sailors,

We need your help! We are adding new content to the game, and with that comes new text. Since you are experts in submarines, we thought you could help us out. Here's the list of languages we need assistance with.

•   French
•   Italian
•   German
•   Spanish - Spain
•   Russian
•   Korean
•   Simplified Chinese
•   Turkish

If you are interested in working with us on better translations, please send me a private message. You can also add me to friends. I'll provide some more details then.

https://steamcommunity.com/id/Korvettenkapitaen/

Let's be in touch!

Take care,
Korvettenkapitδn

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on July 16, 2019, 01:53:36 AM
Update B122 coming to speakers in submarines near you!
14 Jul @ 6:05pm - U_Korvettenkapitaen

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/3e37c3ac1760ff3835e4897b344d06421c63c8a7.png)

Hello Sailors!

It's our pleasure to announce that update B122, the one we posted at the unstable branch couple of weeks ago, is finally going live for everyone! This is very exciting because we understand that there are only a handful of things more important on long voyages than atmospheric music. You now have the possibility to use your very own tracks while playing the game whether you wanted to listen to Das Boot soundtrack or you decided that Billie Eilish somehow fits the cold, steely insides of your underwater vehicle (we're not judging).

There are also plenty of other fixes and changes, all of which are listed below:

Improvements:
•   It's now possible to add custom music to the game. Please read README file in "(GAME_FOLDER)\UBOAT_Data\StreamingAssets\Packages\custom-music" to learn where to place your music files.
•   Various modding improvements for summer's modding SDK introduction. Added support for raw audio and texture files and support for datasheet overrides in mods.
•   U-boat fuel capacity is now set to a historical value and usage is expressed in UI as liters per km and per minute. Diesel compressor and engines have historical consumption rates.
•   Item's mass and stack limit are now displayed in the storage UI.

Fixes:
•   Pausing or disabling time compression on the map was causing random camera movement.
•   Sink ship objectives were sometimes duplicated.
•   Increased fuel usage to achieve historical range only with some bonuses from an engineer working at the engines and/or leader at the navigator's station. It was very hard to run out of fuel on B121.
•   A vacation could be bought without sufficient funds and cause the budget to dive below zero.
•   Faster completion bonus of HQ tasks from a vacation (like Eagle's Nest) wasn't applied to tasks that were started before a vacation.
•   Vacation notification had missing localizations.
•   Reputation points count label in reputation purchases screen was often displaying a wrong value.
•   Added sound effect for reputation purchases.
•   Fixes for the most common errors automatically reported to us. They could have an impact on performance and cause random issues in the gameplay.
•   Amount of water inside the compartment was always displayed as infinity during the transport.
•   If any problem occurs during time skipping, associated UI would remain indefinitely on the screen.
•   There was a random bug due to which saving of game states was failing.
•   It was possible to do two research tasks with the same officer. It was also possible to work on the same task two times.
•   Fixed bug that could prevent from loading certain game states.
•   Officers were sometimes not returning from a vacation.
•   NPC groups were moving faster than it would result from their actual velocity.
•   Batteries weren't recharging inside areas and fuel wasn't consumed.
•   Batteries are now recharging considerably longer for better balance and historical accuracy.
•   Canceling torpedo loading was often moving torpedo that was being loaded into a completely wrong place.
•   Time compression was intensifying hull creaking above the normal level.
•   Resource depletion estimations are now always estimated in real-time instead of in-game time as it's usually closer to what user wants to know.
•   Resource tooltips are now refreshed each second to make countdowns look more natural.
•   Getting out of upper bed in FPP was causing that all caps and other objects that shouldn't appear in FPP were visible.
•   It was possible to duplicate items by moving them onto a slot that was during transport.
•   Characters were taking more items into a backpack than ordered if certain steps were followed.
•   Fixed changelog margins in the main menu.
•   Fixed a few minor game state issues and one looping error that could affect performance.
•   It's now possible to skip dialogues by clicking.
•   Improved hitbox for some map markers.
•   Officer alone couldn't provide reliable operation for the engines.
•   Changed font style on activators to a sharper one.
•   Various fixes to vacations. Undocking before the whole crew returns from vacation no longer places all remaining characters at one spot on the deck.
•   Officers no longer think that long between automatic actions when time compression is enabled.
•   Torpedo being warmed up by an engineer was occasionally invisible.
•   Mission list was occasionally not appearing in Kiel.
•   If the player ordered carrying items to opened storage instead from it, it would lead to erroneous behavior of characters carrying out this order.
•   Carry progress label in the storage UI was often off.
•   Cancellation of torpedo loading or warming order wasn't properly handled if the compartment became flooded. That was causing some aesthetic problems later.
•   Fixed minor issues, if a player left to the menu during time skipping animation.
•   Leaving to the menu by clicking the exit button on the defeat screen was causing various serious issues later in the game.
•   German and polish localization fixes.
•   Leaving to the menu after launching torpedoes could cause performance problems for some time.
•   N-A1 freighters are now flammable.
•   Balanced a bit of damage applied to NPC ships. N-A1 freighters are much easier to sink.
•   Saving a game state immediately after vacation ended, would produce a game state in which some officers would be permanently gone.
•   Improved loading times from the main menu by a few seconds.
•   Fixed a few issues with certain actions staying on the order list despite that they were overridden by another order.
•   Pressing SHIFT key while moving the camera in the section, orbit or map view speeds up the camera movement.
•   Access to the items placed on the deck was hard in the section view.
•   Actions whose target was despawned were causing occasional issues.
•   Activator hover effect is now animated instantly.
•   Vacation discipline gain modifiers were far greater than declared in the description.
•   Russian localization fixes.
•   Probably all cases of the crew moving out of the moveable area are now fixed.
•   Fixed problem with torpedo mechanic instantly appearing on the upper deck during warming up of the torpedo, if the most intense time compression was used.
•   Character smoking on the conning tower could get stuck and stay there after submerging.
•   Aircraft are now usually spotted from a greater distance (up to 8 km for the default observators and up to 16 km for the officer with maxed out crew). Radar detectors are still considerably more reliable and less labor-intensive though.
•   The officer assigned to the targeting sight is able to spot groups from a bit greater distance than before.
•   Increased "Naxos" radar detector detection range.
•   The crew could occasionally get stuck behind the stern and bow torpedo room bulkheads.
•   Research progress bars weren't reliably updated in all cases.
•   Sink ship missions should now have their targets chosen more wisely.
•   It's no longer possible to order drinking a coffee without having any officer selected.
•   Torpedo warm up order now works correctly when ordered without having any officer selected.
•   Starting a vacation could instantly complete current HQ tasks.
•   Arrows that represent resource changes over time could be pointed in the wrong direction in case of electricity when the ship was on the open sea.
•   Various fixes to transport orders.

We've also wanted to thank you all for an astonishing amount of support in translating the game! We're still looking for those who are willing to help us in this endeavor!

Sailors! Dismissed!

Yours,
Deep Water Studio

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on August 06, 2019, 11:45:57 PM
Massive B123 patch is ready!
6 Aug @ 7:30pm - nihilcat   

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/6f47dd4176496ac1ca14598447c1175e72ff9afd.png)

Hello Sailors!

After two weeks of intense work with our beta community we are now ready to publish the next version. It fixes a great deal of issues in the game, improves balance and adds keyboard settings to the game!

At the same time we prepared the next version (B124) that just went on the testing branch. That new version focuses on overhauling the AI, so if that's something that you are after and look for more challenge during convoy hunt then look no more. We already did our best to test it, but its balance may be not final.

After a period of total focus on bugs, we feel that now is a good time to make some humble plans ahead for the Early Access. We will post a roadmap of remaining work very soon.

Let's move on to changes introduced by the new patch.

Changelog for version B123:

Improvements:
- Added keyboard settings to the main menu.

Balance and AI:
- Aircraft are now considerably less accurate at dropping bombs, especially in bad weather conditions. It's globally configurable in "General.xlsx / Settings / AI / Aircraft Inaccuracy", while each aircraft type can be calibrated in Entities.xlsx.
- Depth charges deal a considerably increased damage at greater depths. Their base damage was lowered a bit.

Fixes:
- Fixes to multiple memory leaks related to loading game states. Added memory diagnostic tool to the in-game console in case of further problems.
- Hotkey changes: F6 now opens rudder tool, F7 opens the journal and F10 takes a screenshot without UI to be consistent with the order of buttons in the toolbar.
- Automatically computed paths to contacts that became lost are now no longer updated.
- Fixed issue with u-boat's electric engine damage after hitting an NPC ship with a torpedo.
- Fixed static character highlights/shadows after crew returned from a vacation or from an external mission.
- Fixed reported land patch on the middle of Atlantic (49N, 8.95W).
- Fixed issue with not being able to add sailors to officer. It usually affected the skipper.
- Game states saved with open dev console would load paused until console would be opened and closed back again.
- Alarm would sometimes not stop even after leaving group where enemy was spotted.
- Varied dishes discipline bonus was exagerrated.
- Goods can now be transferred instantly between storage and kitchen without having officer selected.
- Fixes to various problems with loading goods from crates placed on the deck.
- Characters involved in transport tasks were doing one turn between storages without reason after everything was transported.
- Interaction wheels were remaining on the screen indefinitely and couldn't be closed, if certain steps were followed.
- After diver reached a wreck, game would ask in a loop which crates to pull up, sometimes also returning wasn't possible. It's no longer the case.
- All unfinished side missions from an assignment are now being cancelled when the assignment is being finished.
- "Back" button wasn't working for some categories in the customization screen.
- MTBs now behave properly on a high time compression.
- Fixes to some of the auto reported code errors all around.
- Physics stability fixes for dynamic objects in u-boat's interior on a very high time compression.
- Procrastinating sailor event wasn't checking, if any spot was free before activation, sometimes leading to issues.
- Sick characters during turbeculosis event were missing status icon on their portraits and sometimes were taking automated actions like flooding the tanks, which they couldn't complete and block the station.
- Turbeculosis event no longer can be skipped by closing the window.
- Fixed old problem due to which many ships weren't getting unique names, making it hard to deduce which ship to sink in the sink ship side missions.
- N-A1 ships now have their names written on the hull just like the other freighters.
- Balanced rewards for sinking ships.
- Increased save system immunity for game updates in a few ways. Data from the spreadsheets now overrides data stored in the game states in most cases.
- Realistic food weight and consumption proportional to the current crew count. Increased main storage mass capacity. Changed food types available at the start of the game. Further decrease of varied dishes bonus.
- Having selected character while transferring goods between the storages was ignoring instant transfer links like between the main storage and kitchen.
- Fixed issue with infinite loading while entering certain areas.
- Added choice between regular fullscreen and fullscreen windowed modes to video settings.
- Reloaded game states were loosing some of the unique names assigned to the ships.
- Duplication of side missions types during assignment is now disallowed.
- Vacation in Bavarian Village was stopping officers energy regeneration and loss (this issue will resolve itself in a few in-game days in existing game states).
- Torpedo loading is now much more fatiguing for the officer.
- Warehouse worker in Wilhelmshaven could become duplicated after loading a game state.
- Map drawing tools fixes: 1. It was possible to add not removable points by performing a few steps. 2. Right mouse button now correctly cancels current placement and disables the tool. 3. Buttons in the toolbar are now always in the correct state.
- Turm I had a few problems in its navigation meshes. Crew could get stuck in a few places.
- Restarting a game would carry on remaining off duty time to the new game.
- Storage/warehouse interface could sometimes close without apparent reason.
- KDB hydrophones and all radar detectors can be now damaged and are repairable by engineers. Previously it was partially working only for Tunis radar detectors.
- After deselecting officer assigned to a gun contacts list would remain on the screen.
- It was often necessary to click twice on a launcher to flood it.
- Seagull and port ambient sound effects were muted after loading a game state.
- Increased character carry weight limit from 20kg to 30kg.
- Allies that demand food now ask for 6 units of food instead of 10 units as it wasn't possible for officer to carry such amount after recent changes.
- Added latest translations from the community.
- Injured or ill officers had a missing status icon on the portrait after loading a game state.
- Illness no longer spreads in ports. All characters are completely healed after u-boat docks in a port.
- Officer could get stuck behind the cook in the kitchen and not be able to get out.
- Aircraft propellers could be detected by the hydrophone due to a mistake in the data sheet. This problem may be carried in previously saved game states, but will disappear after around 24 in-game hours.
- Game states saved with enabled time compression were loaded with a wrong state of TC buttons.
- Beard growth is now updated live on the portraits. Characters that return from a vacation have their beards shaved to a level that was set on the customization screen. Beards grow much more slowly than before.
- "Tab" key is no longer bound by default to showing hidden activators.
- Lipsync could cause small, temporary performance drop, if character would start speaking directly after dressing or undressing a raincoat.
- Game states loading is a bit faster.
- HQ screen is now always cached before entering gameplay and never opens preceeded by a loading screen.
- Bell sound effect played after changing course is a bit more quiet by default and was moved to the data sheets, if player would prefer to adjust or replace it.
- Fixed land patches on the North Sea (55.87N, 2.12E).
- Fixed issue with invisible character + performance drop.
- Message about failing espionage assignment could appear in a few copies.
- Game could freeze during loading of a game state, if terrain wasn't generated in time. Further optimizations to loading time.
- Automated periscope depth should be better at keeping the periscope above the water in bad weather. Occasional loss of sight is still going to happen though, it's intended.
- Navigation mesh fixes. Character could get stuck outside u-boat in probably the last one place.
- Selection circle wasn't appearing for some characters.
- Lost u-boat mission could be restarted near completion after following certain steps.
- Damaged propellers were still able to propel ships. It was most apparent in the side mission with lost u-boat.
- Fixed one issue that was causing infinite loading of an area.
- It was possible to get rewards for an assignment without completing it.
- Sunk tonnage was reported as zero in assignment summary for most assignment types. Changed unit from "tons" to "GRT".
- Personality notifications could remain on the screen after loading a new game state.
- It wasn't possible to buy the ammunition directly to the guns in a few ports.
- Smoke was coming out from the snorkel after switching to electric motors or after stopping the engines until the mast was lowered and raised again.
- Various fixes to errors in the code reported automatically to us. They probably didn't had obvious symptoms.
- It's no longer possible to interact with the game while u-boat enters a land area.
- It wasn't possible to click a save game button with some user interfaces open due to a wrong display order.
- Fixed "Lorem ipsum" placeholder messages appearing sometimes in the journal.
- Multiple food types placed in the kitchen are now eaten uniformly.
- It's no longer possible to open floating containers that are at a distance of 350 meters or more.
- Officers were loosing their combat helmets after reloading a game state.
- Rain coats, combat helmets, diving suits and a few other items are now dynamically rendered on the portraits.

Warm thank you for sending us bug reports and posting your suggestions. That truly helps us to improve the game.

Yours,
Deep Water Studio   

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on September 01, 2019, 03:32:29 PM
Summer Update B124 available now!
1 Sep @ 12:04pm - U_Korvettenkapitaen

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/fdf363fe82cb858ee0c1e89c18873602e942a4c0.png)

Hello Sailors!

We're proud to announce that patch B124 is now live for the main branch. And it's a big boy! For the whole summer we were gatherig your feedback and fixing all you reported. That’s why we call this the Summer Update.

This massive update comes with changes to almost every aspect of the game, including your targets and their escorts who'll now display much greater cohesion in their actions against you.

The full changelog can be found below:

Balance and AI:

•   Warships now use a much better algorithm to more consistently aim depth charges at the u-boat.
•   At least a half of warships present in a convoy always get assigned to searching u-boats instead of getting assigned to that job randomly.
•   Warships now share some information between themselves about the suspected location of enemy submarines.
•   Warships have improved AI to be better at tracking down the u-boat if they don't know its current location.
•   Mark VII depth charges used at the beginning of the war now have realistic maximum detonation depth (152.4 meters). Added Mark VII Heavy depth charges (215 meters) that slowly start to replace them starting with 1942. Added Upgraded Mark VII that enters service in 1943 with max detonation depth of 274 meters. We still need to confirm some of these numbers.
•   F-class destroyers have their depth charges capacity doubled in 1942-1943.
•   Majority of merchant ships now doesn't have radio equipment at the start of the war. It's installed later with passing years.
•   Merchant ships without escort that have radio equipment send SOS and SSS messages when they spot a submarine or get hit by a torpedo.
•   Torpedo detonations are audible and visible to nearby groups including the aircraft (up to 32 km). Smoke columns can also be detected if they get high enough (up to 80 km). NPCs report them by radio and consider this event in their further behavior.
•   Warships send messages about detecting enemy submarines to their allies. These messages cannot be decoded by the player, but are trackable to the direction finder.
•   Default crew at the conning tower is now a bit better at detecting incoming aircraft. Aircraft are also generally a bit easier to spot now.
•   Depth charges now blind hydrophones and sonars much more intensively and in a more user-friendly way.
•   Torpedoes deal noticeably more damage. Damage reports after torpedo hits were reworked a bit.
•   Ship health bars were improved and display current flooding as well as projected flooding over time.
•   Scoring a hit with torpedo provides instant discipline growth. Sinking a ship increases it even more. Explosions of depth charges close to the hull lower discipline.

Emergency and crew management changes:

•   Officers can freely move and perform simple and emergency tasks in evacuated compartments.
•   Evacuation works more reliably than before.
•   It's now possible to manually place orders of carrying wounded crewmen to safety. Fixed multiple problems related to this action. Added icon for this action.
•   It wasn't possible to evacuate Battery Room no. 2 (this problem may be carried in the game states).
•   Most repair jobs are now more tolerant of water before rebreather is required.
•   "Medic" automated officer role wasn't working after recent changes to the injury system. Medic and his helpers are now also actively carrying the wounded crew.
•   Wounded and sick characters can now be treated only in beds. If beds become flooded, treatment will be canceled and they will ragdoll.
•   Fixed cases of characters moving back and forth through the hatch during the evacuation of middle compartments.
•   Move orders are now treated as a normal task that appears in the officer's action queue.
•   It's no longer possible to load torpedoes when beds are occupied by wounded crew.
•   Officers are now usually carried to their own compartment if they become wounded. Regular sailors can also be carried there if there is no space in other compartments.
•   It's no longer necessary to carry crewmen anywhere if they got injured in the bunk.
•   Added FPP-only "stop evacuation" action on the hatches.

Graphics:

•   Added night lights in ports and cities. Lighthouses are now functional.
•   Fixed sharp spotlight rendering on water.
•   Fix for lighting problems after visiting a character screen.
•   Probable fix for terrain cracks, holes and intense slopes that were appearing at certain spots in the world.
•   Visual improvements to the effect of water leaking out from the holes in the hull of the u-boat. It's now played even when small amounts of water accumulate in the hull. Added sound effect. This change may have a negative impact on performance.
•   Added bubbles effect to the quick diving tank.
•   y, terrain and other ships are no longer displayed when the camera is placed at the boundary of the ship's hull. It didn't look good and could be used to cheat when visibility was low.
•   Probable fix for pink water during explosions at specific view angles.
•   Shadows were missing in the periscope view.
•   Grid intersections on the map are cleaner without visible overlapping. The grid has a constant pixel width. Larger grid cells now have exactly 10 km dimensions, smaller grid cells have 1 km dimensions.

Performance:

•   Major performance and quality improvements to spray effect coming from the breaking waves.
•   Performance improvements to hull wetting effect and fish emitter.
•   Camera view distance is being adjusted during foggy weather to not render scene parts that are fully covered by the fog. This change noticeably increases FPS during storms.
•   Ship interior is more aggressively culled when the camera looks inside the ship through the external hatch to increase FPS on the conning tower.
•   Major optimizations to Unity's shadow atlasing code (10x faster - from 2 ms per frame to 0.2 ms per frame).
•   Probable fix for binoculars/periscope performance drop. There is a problem in the graphics engine that occasionally causes performance drop after any appearance of blend shape animations like talking, blinking or squinting the eye to look through the periscope lens. We gated this kind of animations behind aggressive LOD system to minimize occurrences of this problem. Characters will also stop to blink starting with this update until this problem gets fixed in the future engine versions. While it is a definitely confirmed thing, it could also not be the main cause of performance drop after using periscopes on affected systems - further testing is needed. It was causing numerous thread locks in the engine code and it could also be a reason behind some of the reported crashes.
•   Interior scenes are much more occlusion culled for better performance, but the section view no longer uses occlusion culling. Gains from it were negligible and using it there was limiting potential precision for other views.
•   Section view uses custom culling to avoid rendering of unnecessary geometry at the sides.
•   Other performance improvements.
•   Screen space reflections effect optimizations targeted mostly at high-resolution screens.

User interface:

•   Added detailed hints about station state that appear after hovering it with a mouse pointer. These hints contain various practical information that was often inaccessible before this update.
•   New activator icons for the most often used equipment.
•   Some of the activators like maps and galley could be hovered only by their icon, while their models weren't triggering any action.
•   Activator names are no longer displayed in the scene until they become hovered or ALT is pressed.
•   Ballast and fuel tanks now can be hovered after pressing ALT to check their state (with the exception of ballast tanks no. 1 and 5 that can be always hovered, they are comfortably far from the playing area).
•   Torpedo warming icon now contains a launcher index.
•   Light bulbs now have dedicated icons.
•   Added dedicated icon for NPC ship investigation action.

Fixes:

•   Ships now slow down a bit before turning to better follow their route. It helps a bit to navigate in ports.
•   Salvage replacement parts action wasn't correctly stopped in case of encountering problems in the process.
•   Officers assigned to duty through management screen started with a single health point.
•   Portraits of newly added officers appear on the leftmost position instead of taking the place of a skipper.
•   Isles-class trawlers weren't treated as military ships and they didn't behave fully correctly.
•   Gibraltar is now a bit less densely populated.
•   Russian localization fixes.
•   Diver's portrait was blank after returning back to the ship. The root cause could occasionally cause other graphical glitches too.
•   Diver could become permanently stuck, if something wouldn't allow him to get to the place from which he jumps like placing an order to submerge.
•   Characters could in very specific conditions not react to any move orders until they were deselected and selected back again.
•   Unloading a torpedo from a launcher into the torpedo storages above the pressure hull could cause invisible wall problem.
•   Fixes to pathfinding problems.
•   Large calibre ammo wasn't resupplied at some ports, if all units were bought out in a single day (this problem is carried on in the game states).
•   Salvaging scrap to replacement parts wasn't working well with manual item delivery setting.
•   Remaining battery running time in the tooltip could be displayed as a negative number, if player installed improved batteries on the u-boat.
•   It was possible in extremely rare cases for a port to be permanently removed from the game after unspawning.
•   Characters could become stuck at their stations.
•   Welder mask is no longer rendered on the portraits.
•   Torpedo explosions exert less force on hit ships to make situations where other torpedoes from the series slip under the ship less likely.
•   Exterior hatch could be displayed open despite being closed.
•   U-boats were sometimes ignoring skirmishes with the aircraft and would continue to hunt ships.
•   Fix for u-boats getting stuck in land areas after time skipping in ports.
•   OG and ON convoys were crossing land at some point on their path.
•   Fixes to encounters between NPC groups on the map.
•   Fix for a problem where officer's helper would appear on the portrait in the targeting UI instead of the officer.
•   Newly added officers appear on the leftmost position also in the TAB menu.
•   Officer limit on board was preserved from the previous session after restarting sandbox.
•   Completed assignment summary was sometimes displaying incorrect objectives.
•   Fix for one looped error that could have some effect on the performance, if certain steps were followed.
•   Headquarter task progress notification on the right could appear completely white.
•   Fix to propellers rotation direction.
•   Officer that returned from an external mission to u-boat's stern could get stuck there and not be able to move, if he appeared at a certain spot.
•   Ship group AI was sometimes becoming locked up when ships belonging to it approached land too close.
•   Line of sight checking code had mistake that could sometimes make enemy units disappear from the sight without reason near lands.
•   MTB physics should be now much less "jumpy" on a high time compression.
•   Enemy units should no longer get beached in normal gameplay situations.
•   Radio transmissions notification and a number below radioman portrait could display a wrong number of available transmissions nearby.
•   Added a bunch of ship names for Flower-class corvettes and MTBs.
•   Size of an enemy group detected by a direction finder is now unknown.
•   Cut off power in a compartment was stopping water propagation in it.
•   Fix for "Death Decrease" notifications.
•   Minor fixes to automatically reported errors in the code. They didn't had any gameplay side effects, but could contribute to certain graphical glitches.
•   UI that is normally visible when camera orbits NPC unit could get stuck on the screen, if certain steps were performed.
•   Lost radio transmission notification is now informing which transmission was lost.
•   Another fix for a problem that could lead to an infinite loading of a game state.
•   It wasn't possible to spot AA guns in a port after reloading a game state in that port.
•   Periscope sight range was very low after reloading a game state where it was extended until its elevation was adjusted at least a bit.
•   Hydrophone ship targetting performance is now lower.
•   Headquarters task progress notification was blank, if associated task was already completed in a loaded game state.
•   Small performance improvements.
•   Torpedo mechanic was sometimes trying to warm up torpedoes that were ordered to be unloaded. That was causing some problems.
•   It's no longer possible to change selection after opening torpedo launchers UI to prevent mistakes.
•   Item's stack limit could become doubled after reloading a game state.
•   Headquarters were transmitting some of their messages in a very short timeframe, often not giving player enough time to receive them in case of bad weather etc.
•   Fix for entering and leaving group areas in an infinite loop (it's an unrelated issue to the infinite loading of area).
•   Damaged propellers could still make sounds as if they were working.
•   Fixed placement for docked NPC ships. They were often placed too deep, far from their normal waterlines.
•   U-boat from the lost ship mission could sometimes move around on the map before being met by the player.
•   Improved game startup time.
•   Cursor was disappearing for a while during transition from the menu to a loading screen.
•   Torpedo launchers UI is now automatically closed, if target becomes invalid to avoid firing torpedoes in an unexpected direction.
•   Fire button in torpedo launchers UI is blocked, if fire solution data becomes insufficient.
•   It wasn't possible to get a reward for the assignment, if player would reload a game state in the destination port before taking the reward.
•   Memory usage and stutter optimizations.
•   Small calibre AP ammo is now correctly resupplied since the beginning of the game.
•   It's no longer possible to aim guns during a pause.
•   Section view camera could become permanently zoomed out from the ship.
•   Physics performance optimizations. Distant minor objects are being disabled from the simulation.
•   Engineer could sometimes get stuck at the diesel engines after ship submerged. He could also don't move to the electric engines, if he had no selected role.
•   Contacts list items could intersect with each other.
•   Targeted ships had noticeably larger hitbox than their icons. They could occlude other ships.
•   Periscope could affect ship visibility deep under water, if certain steps were followed.
•   It's no longer possible to play cards with the crew after u-boat dives below periscope depth.
•   Beds in the bow torpedo room were often staying visible when they should be hidden in the section view.
•   Underwater effect could sometimes be seen without reason in Battery Room no. 2 at the closest zoom of the section view.
•   Improvements and fixes to the way how instant resource changes are presented at the resources bar.
•   Radioman had duplicated hydrophone listening action.
•   Mission objective marker wasn't clickable for map course plotting in ally help mission.
•   Officer could get stuck on the bow or stern of the target ship while travelling on a dinghy.
•   Game states saved during depth charge attacks weren't loading.
•   Characters evacuating from the compartment now take the wounded with them, if there are still free beds somewhere.
•   Rescuing and wounded character have now better matching poses while they wait for their turn near the hatches.
•   Diseases spread much more slowly. This change doesn't affect hunger-induced conditions.
•   Hunger phases are progressing much more slowly.
•   Crew could celebrate sinking of their allies.
•   After player sinks any German ship crew no longer gets discipline rewards for sinking any ships.
•   Use of data collected by an officer to fire torpedo at a stationary target was resulting in torpedoes being fired in a random direction.
•   Food variety in the kitchen increases food consumption (not linearly).
•   Added icon for evacuation action.
•   Characters that became injured at least once in their lifetimes were stopping to be reliably aware in which compartment they are currently in. That could cause unexpected behaviour. Their physics performance impact was also becoming unnecessary high.
•   Animations of picking up and placing a wounded character on the bed were simplified to avoid occlusion with geometry in cramped spaces. Synchronization between the characters was improved.
•   Particle effects are not played on distant ships to increase performance.
•   Small performance improvements that eliminate some types of occasional stutter.
•   Fix for occasional "clicks" happening without actually clicking.
•   Ammunition storages can now be opened without having a selected character.
•   Pressurized air is now much less likely to escape from the tanks and compartments through holes in the lower parts of the ship. It helps the ship to stay buoyant in a rough weather.
•   Character destination marker wasn't visible in the view that orbits ship or if the destination was in port.
•   It's now possible to issue "go to" orders from the section view and orbiting view at ports.
•   Crew energy levels are restored after crew returns from a vacation.
•   Map camera no longer follows u-boat after zooming it out to a world scale. This movement was sometimes making it hard to plot a course.
•   Routes set to a mission marker were sometimes staying outdated and would not follow target group.
•   Some devices on board were still functional after batteries became depleted or power distribution boards would be damaged.
•   Stationary targets from ignored or failed missions are cleaned up from the map.
•   Side missions are now much more rare during a free roam.
•   Navigator is less likely to stay at the station, if there is other work to do and he already determined ship's position well enough.
•   Allied u-boats could pass their observations to the player. That could produce unwanted contacts when player's ship was submerged.
•   Medic role was stopping to work correctly after reloading a game state.
•   Medic was automatically helping only the wounded crew and ignored ill characters.
•   Evacuation wasn't affecting officers after reloading a game state.
•   After power distribution board becomes damaged, all switch icons are hidden for a cleaner view.
•   Lost on the sea notification was displaying a different icon during an initial blinking animation.
•   Different icon was displayed after hovering a notification that warns the player about a dangerous depth.
•   Wheel menu with actions was often closing itself, if it was opened in FPP on the open sea and ship was moving.
•   Camera is better at determining when it enters u-boat's hull to avoid displaying empty geometry in a free camera mode.
•   Underwater audio effect wasn't being enabled under water in compartments.
•   Bugged highlight could be displayed at (0, 0) world coordinates.
•   Valves above the hatch between Control Room and Battery Room no. 2 were gone for at least a few versions.
•   Characters were sometimes taking one step ahead before starting an animation (like torpedo unloading) making that animation unaligned with other objects that participate in that animation.
•   Hull breach damage decals were often incorrectly rendering on top of the leak particles.
•   Warning on torpedo launchers was sometimes suggesting that loading torpedoes with rebreather on is possible.
•   From now on, if character dies, is removed from duty or starts to bail water, his belongings are moved to the ship storage instead of being lost.
•   Characters that were being rescued were loading incorrectly from a saved game state.
•   Characters that fight with each other now have better aligned animations.
•   Some lights could remain active in compartments with cut off electricity after reloading a game state.
•   Crew members working at stations could sometimes be invisible after loading a saved game state until they were given any order.
•   Sailors assigned to an officer could occasionally leave their stations and go to bed, even though they were still figuring as they would be working.
•   Crash fix related to newspaper pooling.
•   Added wrench model to engineer's hand during matching repair animations.
•   Right-clicking on an activator that doesn't have any actions available no longer does anything.
•   Crew members could start to behave oddly, if galley became flooded.
•   Bleeding countdown was overlapping with character's health points.
•   Wounded crew is now carried to moderately flooded compartments, if there are no dry ones available. They are also carried between compartments, if there are safer places available.
•   Sick crew wasn't carried out from flooded compartments (only wounded were carried).
•   If timing was very precise, characters would sometimes try to carry to safety their crewmates that just got cured.
•   Fix for crashes to desktop after buying large quantities of small calibre ammunition.
•   Target is now synchronized between manual periscope/UZO mode and the order for the officer.
•   Officer now doesn't move the periscope for 10 seconds after player leaves the manual mode.
•   Officer correctly aims the periscope at the target that he is currently tracking.
•   Right mouse clicks on ships seen through the periscope were plotting course to them. It's no longer the case.
•   Automated fire solution isn't improved in the background anymore, while player uses periscope manually.
•   Fix to a problem that could make random character models become missing.
•   Collection of fixes to automatically reported errors in the code.
•   Time compression could stop working, if player submerged while being bombed by an aircraft.
•   Characters that are hidden for any reason now cannot be hovered.
•   It wasn't possible to enter open sea after loading some game states.
•   Freighter names are now written on port and starboard.
•   Ship name and crew weren't visible through periscope on a ship unless player approached very close.
•   Ships that were quickly sunk with their crews on board could continue to transmit radio messages.
•   Portrait copies could become stuck near the "idle" task in the action queue.
•   43U gun on Turm IV was sometimes not repairable by the engineers. This issue may be carried on from the previous saves.
•   "Ghost" character no longer appears after hovering manned 43U flak gun.
•   Crew enters u-boat faster by ladders.
•   Heart attacks are less lethal. Added notification that informs player what happened.
•   User measurements on map use 10 meter precision instead of 50 meters.
•   Both u-boat turning radius and turning time should now match values from Type VIIC manual.
•   Navigation factors were adjusted in a way that ensures that there is no risk of getting lost in the time that navigator needs to rest after he fixes ship position in 100%.
•   Player ship could sometimes stop following any routes after reloading a game state.
•   Added warning about 416.02 and 416.15 NVidia drivers to the main menu, if player has NVidia card.
•   Fixes to issues with 43U flak gun not being aimed correctly by the crew.
•   Added simple animation for 43U flak gun user.
•   Small stability fixes.
•   Depth preset buttons weren't working correctly after skipper died.
•   Latest community translations.
•   Time skipping sometimes didn't work properly in ports after loading a game state that was saved on a previous version of the game and during off duty time.
•   Targeting UI wasn't fully functional after reloading a game state.
•   It's no longer possible to set aircraft as a target for the periscope operator by right clicking it on the map.
•   Various improvements to cracked hull physics. Added sound effect for hull cracking.
•   Generic freighter deck contents could disappear after its hull has cracked.
•   Some work slots could keep being marked as being flooded after air inside compartment stopped to be toxic.
•   Automated repairs were stopping to work, if player had Turm IV installed.
•   Observation periscope was not repairable.
•   Green mission markers weren't always fully consistent with the current observation data and they could spoil target's position.
•   Player's ship radar detectability wasn't affected by fog and rain due to a mistake in the code.
•   5th engine gear was sometimes reverting back to 4th.
•   Minor fixes to animations used by the crew at the diesel engines.
•   Target group could disappear from the map view during certain missions, leaving only an objective marker.
•   Camera could freeze after zooming it at the character occupying a station, if certain steps were followed.
•   User interface was gone, if device manual mode was left in a certain way.
•   Accessory items were restocked in ports in a way that could make certain item types to be consistently unavailable.
•   Two accessory item slots at ports were left unused and weren't restocked.
•   Diving suits are now correctly produced by Reich and restocked at ports. They are no longer a part of the standard loadout after starting a sandbox.
•   Latest community translations.
•   Large calibre ammunition would sometimes stop to be restocked at ports.
•   Guns could become unuseable, if certain steps were followed that involved loading game states in a specific order.
•   Camera's near and far clip plane could be wrong, if game states with different view modes were loaded in a specific order.
•   Character assigned to the attack periscope was becoming automatically assigned to UZO after u-boat submerged below periscope depth. He couldn't get there and was then doing nothing.
•   Fix to food disappearing from the kitchen after following certain steps.
•   Previously wounded crew couldn't be healed after reloading a game state.
•   Character's personal perks could be reset after re-adding him to the crew.

Thank you for sending us bug reports and posting your suggestions. That truly helps us to improve the game.

Yours,
Deep Water Studio

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on September 07, 2019, 12:23:49 AM
Early Access Roadmap

Hello Sailors!


As promised, here comes our roadmap and our plans overview for the Early Access period. We will be updating the graphic below each quarter or so and we'll try our best to keep you up to date.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/6f4bef4a1329d767c79ab3b4c2ea039dfccbcb36.png)

Please note that the feature list visible on the roadmap is not exhaustive and focuses on large tasks that may affect gameplay in impactful ways.

Let's discuss planned work in detail.

Missions

We see our current sandbox and mission system as a good base for new content. Unexpected events tend to happen, and each assignment, despite similar goals, can turn out differently each time. Having said that, we're going to make some changes soon.

First, we want to start with some groundwork and rework assignment briefing. We want to add more flair to it and make all objectives visible on the map during selection. In the current version, it's often hard to tell, for example, where is the sector that needs to be visited without closing the interface first and checking that on the map manually.

To battle the repetitiveness we want to add more variation to existing missions, by providing additional, clearly described conditions to them. Your ship may be fitted with experimental gear for the mission, storms might be expected in the target area or maybe a journalist will join your crew. These are some examples of things that may be enriching assignments soon.

We also feel that assignments need to be a bit more rewarding and offer additional challenges. We modeled 17 historical medals from various sources. We are going to use them soon by awarding them to the player and officers for completing multiple challenges during the assignment.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/758524c87f911b8523f5f41e6cbba2e5df0b7c35.png)

After the groundwork is done, we will start adding more content to existing missions and add completely new ones. We will also resume work on a campaign that will span through the whole World War II.

Sandbox

We plan to add a configuration screen soon. There, each player will have the possibility to choose the starting year, exact U-Boat to be roleplayed and the starting crew.

We are already taking steps to add new units to the game. You can expect to see completely new ships types like oil tankers, enemy submarines and German surface ships along with more variety among the existing unit types.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/bc4460b4a2f2469b260ef50c3deb931352e5d95a.jpg)

We're also working on replacing our current tutorial with contextual hints, explanations and adding training missions in the game world.

And last, but not least, we'll add submarine pens to the game world that will be buildable in HQ. They will look like the one in the main menu.

Enhanced crew management

Crew management is going to see some changes. There is going to be a new screen where the player will be able to define various rules for the crew.

It's going to be possible to start rationing the food, order a sailor to be always ready to flood the tanks or define if the idle crew should run to the bow compartment during a crash dive.

These rules will require spending management points that will be provided to you by experienced officers who will be overseeing their implementation in life. It will simulate the effect of your crew gaining experience and working well with each other as time goes on. It will also add some automation but in a balanced way.

At the later stages of Early Access, we will be adding more crew events on board, as well as more interactions with objects in the world. It's going to be possible to take aircraft crew as captives on board or rescue survivors from a sunk ship, although that will be banned in 1942 after Laconia incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconia_Order

Modding tools

With each update, we did some small steps to add full modding capabilities to the game. We consider them now to be in pretty good shape and we'll start releasing our modding tools and guides soon. They will come with Steam Workshop support.

Although we declared this in Q4, it may start slowly rolling this month.

Remaining technical issues

Technical issues will remain our top priority.

We already solved a great deal of them by version B124, but we will continue our commitment to solve them in the future.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/689408f68d0faadaaa366677d06a80ae03005815.jpg)

Communication & bug reporting

The most effective way to report bugs to us is to use the in-game bug reporting tool that, by default, is assigned to the F11 key. This tool sends us useful diagnostic data that helps to prepare proper fixes.

For general suggestion and discussion about further development, we invite everybody to visit the latest pinned topic about unstable version testing. We make a new topic with each version.

Today we are going to mark our old forum for bug reporting as deprecated. We removed the link to it from the main menu of the game a few versions back and posting on that forum will be disabled.

Yours,
Deep Water Studio

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on November 21, 2019, 01:23:39 PM
Version B125 is now available
Wed, 20 November 2019


Hello!

We are back with a major update to UBOAT. It just hit the "unstable" branch for testing. You can switch to this branch by going to "beta" tab in the properties of the game on Steam.

MODDING

Main feature of this version is a full modding support. Pretty much anything should be possible to change and your imagination will hopefully be the only limit.

We will soon start to post guides on how to start modding UBOAT on the fandom wiki and in Steam articles section. Please post your feedback and if there is anything missing we will be happy to improve.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/70f28bbde1fe75e5eb62d86ab354932e0722a0ae.png)

Along with that we release the first two official mods:
•   UBOAT Inspector (Steam | subsim | Nexus Mods) - which is a useful tool for modders.
•   Saint-Nazaire Port in France (Steam | subsim | Nexus Mods).

Our mods are meant as modding examples and resources and some of them may eventually be integrated into the main game.

Note: While this version remains on the testing branch, Steam Workshop is going to be hidden. Please join this group on Steam to gain access to it.

IMMERSIVE START

Immersive start feature from the roadmap is now complete. When starting a new game you can select a starting scenario for the campaign, which influences many things in the game, especially starting u-boat, crew and date.

If you would like to say goodbye to the old crew, they will be sticking in the tutorial scenario until its removal next quarter.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/03252bf9f05e9fbd6d0f74258394da94992fb5b7.png)

NEW SHIPS

This version introduces two new ships.

Kirov-class cruisers
Russian fleet enters UBOAT without compromises.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/c279a84ed9f2dbb7f77496072d9d3fef4424edfe.png)

C3 freighters
These are one of the largest American-made freighters.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/f43030e405888281a231e33279a92a186d88bb90.png)

GAME LAUNCHER

Since this version UBOAT has a launcher application. It features a built-in mod manager and a news section that will let us communicate certain things better.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/42a656e52f0c16d888f1c269ab26f0ddbdd18107.png)

IN-GAME SETTINGS

It's a common request that is now in the game. It's no longer necessary to adjust them in the main menu.

GRAPHICS UPGRADES

There were many visual upgrades both small and large to the u-boat interior and exterior and the main menu. We encourage you to take a look around and see, if you can notice the changes.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/39f4012c284f0bb9a402fb003ac76d32e73b521f.png)

IRON SIGHTS AND RECOIL REWORK

Iron sights were an often requested feature and we managed to implement it in this version for all guns in the game. There are also major recoil and animation upgrades related to guns. Please check that out in the game and let us know what you think.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/f31fe6eb13011e80c4b25e3e479e0891ae17559e.gif)

METERS

We continued to work on improving FPP experience by programming useful meters and devices on board:

- Papenberg gauge and inclinometer are now functional and add a few points to the immersion.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/51948f7c38000b807420732c3c39f0931a52ca9f.png)

- Echosounder texture was created from the scratch with a much better resolution to make the results readable directly in the scene.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/ceeff350b70a3cfd55bffd64f0fe7a61588a7071.png)

- Missing engine RPM meters on the starboard were added.
- All other meters on board had their display resolution increased for a better look and readability. There were also a few corrections on their scales.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/8776487a89a4082bfb421be65ef79e8e5b8d483a.png)

BUG FIXES AND OTHER CHANGES

While this version just hit the testing branch and may introduce a few bugs related to the new features, there are many fixes to the existing game base. Most notable fixes include:

- Sailors assigned to an officer would sometimes ignore orders while manning AA guns on the upgraded conning towers.
- Fixes to clipping of certain cloth combinations.
- Indicated depth under cursor on the map is much more precise and consistent. It should be much easier to navigate near Bergen with this upgrade.
- Characters no longer levitate above beds during certain animations.
- Recruitment officer no longer ignores your officers and doesn't instantly look away.
- Important AI fixes for coastal areas.

WHAT'S NEXT

For the rest of this quarter we will be focusing on the remaining work from the roadmap, bug fixes and supporting the modders. We probably won't be adding extra things like in this update.

Just to remind you, mission overhaul and evacuation from the roadmap are planned for this quarter. We think we will finish them in time, but in case of a delay we will keep you updated.

Yours,
Deep Water Studio

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on December 24, 2019, 11:46:32 PM
Merry Christmas!
Tue, 24 December 2019

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/4317dd791b182c1a14747b808f1917792ead7b25.png)

Good evening everyone!

It's Christimas time! We would like to use this opportunity to wish the UBOAT community Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

We also take a short break from working on UBOAT. We will be back after Christmas to continue work and push B125 on the stable branch.

Thank you for your continued support and for your everyday contact.

Yours,
Deep Water Studio

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on December 28, 2019, 03:22:24 PM
B125 released!
Sat, 28 December 2019

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/00034ef94939ff8a487bea6105e615a96f50e115.png)

Dear Skippers,

We are back with the next major update to UBOAT. This one is probably the largest update to the game so far. If you haven't tried it by now on the testing branch, then hopefully it will surprise you in a good way!

We already described the first features of this update when it hit the testing branch for insiders:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/494840/announcements/detail/1612779851182114038

During the testing it became even bigger though, so let's discuss the new features one by one.

BRIEFING

Assignments are now selected in a new way that gives you a much cleaner overview of the objectives and area of operation.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/69fac99116f8141f943545020323568942023d2d.png)

MISSION CONTENT

You can expect new challenges like a battleship presence in the area of operation as well as some twist to existing missions. Sometimes a war correspondent will join your crew, while in other times you may be given a task to test experimental torpedoes.

Some of the objectives and rewards for existing assignments were also reworked.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/b6b2fae8efdb1dcf05babe604bb75d74a6d7c477.png)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/4b6509f344343f61de6141cc3e0a72645c0726b3.png)

DECORATIONS

All your officers will collect points toward decorations of various types. They are awarded for notable bravery in combat or veterancy.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/dd574cf9fbeb7250a5b7be81294b0af99c132d46.png)

MISSION SUMMARY

New mission summary presents a much more cleaner overview of completed objectives, collected rewards as well as a log from the patrol.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/89a7b6473de11b2d12e190ccd790e6a422453f88.png)

MODDING

Talented modders from the community already created mods that draw attention. Since this version is now going public, Steam Workshop now also becomes publicly available.

If you would like to start modding for yourself, check our guide on the game's wiki:

https://uboat.fandom.com/wiki/Modding

OTHER CHANGES

Aside from that, there was a few other notable additions:
•   Sea near Bergen is now much more deeper and much closer to the real world bathymetry maps.
•   It's now possible to move in FPP on the step at the front of the conning tower like the crew does, to clearly see what's in the front of the u-boat.
•   Collision damage and sounds.
•   German localization was updated (warm thanks to Ruby for providing it).

TROUBLESHOOTING

This update adds a considerable amount of new content and thus memory usage had to go up a bit. We implemented new optimizations to the game to offset that, but it's still going to be 10% - 15% higher than before. It probably won't affect most systems.

If your system is low on memory though or you use a software that consumes a large part of RAM you can increase the page file in Windows like described in this article to avoid problems (12 GB should be more than enough):

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/how-to-manage-virtual-memory-pagefile-windows-10,36929.html

Also, if you would experience any sort of crashes, please verify game files integrity in Steam by entering game properties, going to "Local Files" tab and clicking appropriate button there.

Yours,
Deep Water Studio


Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on February 15, 2020, 12:35:59 AM
Version B126 is released!
Fri, 14 February 2020

Stability & fixes update.

Hello skippers!

We are back with the next major release - B126. This version is focused mostly on quality of life improvements, fixes and stability. It comes with multiple technical improvements in the game that should push it one step forward from Early Access title towards a full release!

While it's not mandatory, we strongly recommend to start a new campaign on this version to enjoy it fully as some of the improvements require a fresh start to have effect.

We are now going to move back to the work declared in our roadmap. We are excited about some of the next features ahead and hope that you are too!

https://youtu.be/8QF1YaKYmAo



Changelog

Gameplay improvements:

- It's now possible to disband crew members to clean up the list.
- AI now tries to avoid joining battles that have too many participants already to avoid performance drops. This behaviour is moddable in the data sheets.
- Lost contacts are now using a special icon with the question mark before disappearing to let the player know that this group is no longer being actively detected.
- There is now a floating warning above nearby contacts with high radius that explains that these contacts may be inaccurate.
- Aircraft now usually won't be starting from the bases shortly before sunset until sunrise. They will also try to get back home during day. They may still occasionally stay around at night, if they already found enemy u-boat, until their fuel will start to run out. Aircraft spawn rates were increased to compensate for these changes.
- Added "Harcore aiming mode" to the gameplay settings.
- Setting torpedo speed, depth and salvo spread is now possible in the torpedo launcher screen.
- It's now possible to hide the detection hint in the gameplay settings.

Technical improvements:

- Added mouse rotation sensitivity slider to the control settings panel.
- Added additional warning that tutorial is considered obsolete.
- Bug reporting system gives a very clear warning that mods are enabled before allowing to send a report. Mod list is now also uploaded along with the bug reports.
- Game now checks integrity of the most important files before starting and informs the player, if something is wrong. We noticed a major rise in problems caused by missing files in the installed game (500+ affected users). It affects only some players updating from B124 on Steam, fresh installations seem to be safe from this kind of problems.
- It's now possible to disable vignette effect and to invert mouse for the periscope view in the game's settings.
- Optimizations to saved game states size and loading speed.

Graphics:

- Small tweaks to water normals for a better look.
- Decreased noise post-processing effect intensity.
- Disk space and memory usage optimizations.
- Added night lamp lighting to all base game ports.
- Large random freighter hulls weren't receiving all damage effects used in the game.
- Improvements to maps texture in the control room.

Localization:

- New German translations by Ruby.
- New French translations by Sword.
- Added a few new Spanish translations suggested by anonymous player through the reporting tool (thank you).
- Polish localization fixes.

Fixes:

- Too many neutral freighters could spawn at certain periods.
- U-boat propellers had wrongly assigned meshes, they both had linked meshes from the other side.
- Game window would flicker after selecting regular fullscreen mode in the settings and then adjusting gamma slider.
- Game states saved near minefields and anti-submarine nets had some problems related to them after loading.
- Fixes to many automatically reported problems.
- Infinite loading when entering land areas.
- Fixes to a few problems related to diving to wrecks.
- Fixes to saving and loading game states.
- Aircraft moving very slowly on the map.
- Characters could sometimes end being incorrectly rotated, for example leading officer after vacation ended.
- Group and ship AI fixes and performance optimizations.
- Gamma settings weren't applied in menu since B125.
- There were two memory leaks per each NPC ship that were increasing memory usage with each game state save and reload.
- Objective to sink a lost u-boat couldn't be completed, if player saved a game state after receiving it and reloaded the game state before proceeding.
- Ally asking for resources was continuing to wander around, even if its enemies were shot down or they left the area.
- Aircraft that ran out of bombs could occasionally search for submarines despite that.
- War correspondent could sit on seats occupied by other characters after 2.5 hours of in-game time.
- Steers UI was overlapping with mission summary after performing certain steps.
- After zooming camera out of binoculars/periscope/hydrophone manual mode geometry of character head would be visible from the inside for a fraction of the second.
- 4th and 5th engine gears were reverting back to 3rd after submerging, surfacing or swapping the engines manually.
- Characters that had equipped a rebreather, combat helmet or any other accessory were refusing to transport cargo between cargo storage.
- Foam trail on the sea could appear in a different place than the ship after meeting NPC group or sometimes after entering land areas after experiencing a lag.
- Medical aid with a medkit wasn't working properly.
- Target group in the lost ship mission, ally help mission and sink ship mission could in rare occasions move with u-boat on the map for some time.
- Minor leak in the toilet wasn't selectable and only AI could initiate the repair.
- Game states saved while looking through the periscope weren't loading correctly.
- Increased compartment flooding tolerance for the officer working at the navigation table.
- Better physics stabilization at high time compression. It improves dinghy behavior on the max compression with enabled map and paves the way for the new travel mode that we have in the plans.
- Recruits in ports are periodically disappearing from the list, making place for the new ones.
- Sailors promoted to officers could become cloned after reloading the game state, if officer count on board was already at the limit.
- Port of Alexandria didn't had any AA guns and mission with finding their positions was being instantly completed.
- War correspondent was loosing his camera after re-loading a game state.
- Crew list is now sorted by rank, level, class and name.
- Discovered AA guns count wasn't properly restored from the saved game states.
- If player would enter and then leave a character screen of any sailor during dialogue with recruitment officer, unwanted UI elements would appear on the screen.
- Character could sometimes drop a very unusual shadow, after player entered FPP view, that was blocking a large part of the light from the flashlight.
- Level of detail on some parts of Flower-class corvettes and Illustrious carriers was fading too fast, leading to weird graphic artifacts.
- Conning towers could turn invisible after installing them, if certain steps were performed.
- Rarely, enemy NPC groups wouldn't correctly unspawn from the scene and remain permanently spawned even hundreds of kilometers away.
- NPC groups could sometimes have problems with decisively resolving encounters between themselves. That could lead in the long run to formation of many hot points on the ocean, where multiple groups would jump into battle and stay there for a long time. This was increasing game state size and affecting performance.
- It's no longer possible to add sold items to wrong warehouse tab and have them restocked there.
- Setting spawner activity to zero in the data sheets was causing problems in the game.
- Accessories equipped by the officer couldn't be removed without reloading a game state.
- Coastal patrols spawn probability decreases with each group already spawned.
- Mines in ports no longer explode when friendly ships pass above them. Historically they were being switched off by a port crew at such time.
- Spawned mines sometimes weren't fully cleaned up from the memory.
- Land passage that appears after docking in port wasn't recognized by crew pathfinding, if player installed Turm II (possibly also Turm IV) and reloaded a game state while being docked.
- War correspondent article progress was being severely set back, if player spent reputation points on any purpose when he was on board.
- Icons for detection on map could be wrong, if a few types of detection happened in a specific order and remained valid together for some time.
- Torpedo launching now cannot be performed at a depth greater than 20 meters.
- Notifications that saving a game state is not possible should be much more rare.
- Multiple fixes to saving game states during short events like character transitions, torpedo loading animations and camera transitions.
- Fix for a permanently looped audio at a spot after loading a game state saved during certain animation transitions.
- Improved animation alignment on the navigator's station, also navigator's helper now joins the officer on the station.
- Possible fix for occasional black screen after clicking "continue" on the assignment summary screen.
- Snorkel was affecting ship's visibility even, if it was hidden under the deck.
- XP bars weren't displaying correct progress, if character had a high level of experience. XP bars can be now hovered to see exact number of experience points.
- If player encountered a coastal patrol that sailed very close to the coast during encounter and then player left the area, this patrol could in rare cases travel through the land to the next patrol target.
- Potential fix for portrait rendering problems on some systems.
- Alignment fixes for skipper animations on bed.
- Occasionally contact marker could disappear, but the pulsating circle around it would still remain on the screen for some time.
- Collision sound was continuously played after laying submarine on the seabed with enabled collision damage in the settings.
- Tooltip on the valves wasn't changing from "Flooding..." to "Flooded" after ballast tanks became full.
- Character destination pointer on the floor could become rotated a bit in relation to the ground.
- Skipper no longer comments switching between diesel and electric engines, if they are switched only temporarily because of snorkel being flooded by a wave.
- Fix for the problem with unexpected tilting of the periscope that was usually happening when the periscope was locked on a quickly sinking target.
- Assignment summary panel could clip with the screen edges on low resolutions.
- NPC u-boats that are targets of player missions attract less enemies from now on.
- Rudder rotation is now reset after docking.
- Small model changes in Battery Room no. 2 to give more space to sleep for the skipper.
- Radioman could become stuck at his station.
- Fixes to automatically reported problems.
- Snorkel compartment in the deck was disappearing after reloading a game state.
- Radio range wasn't displayed correctly in various descriptions.
- Better alignment for tooltip action descriptions and support for longer parameter names.
- Subtitles for hydrophone operator warnings are displayed, even if his voiceover doesn't contain such recordings (such as skipper voice).
- Echosounder ping actions are now temporarily disabled, when the latest operation still wasn't finished.
- Action state in the wheel menu is now regularly refreshed.
- Sea was beginning to stutter, if high time compression was used for a long time (this problem was linearly growing in intensity with passing time).
- Target ship velocity sometimes couldn't be determined by the officer.
- Update to NVidia Texture Compression library.
- Fixes to automatically reported problems.
- Officers were trying to punish themselves, if they burned eggs in the kitchen.
- Removing currently controlled officer in FPP from the crew was resulting in an error.
- Fix to one more problem that could lead to endless loading of a game state.
- Periscope locking/unlocking tip was always stating "Unlock". Provided various improvements to how this tip works.
- Periscope couldn't be locked on the randomized freighters using keyboard, only mouse was working in their case.
- Ships stationing in a port that changed owner are now escaping from the port.
- Fixes to automatically reported errors.
- Turm I, II and IV had a small part of U-96 badge visible on them, even if played with a different u-boat.
- Knocked out sailors that panicked were appearing at crew quarters and permanently stopping to work on the ship. They are now being actually knocked out and need to lie in the bed for some time before returning to duty.
- Officers could sometimes advance above max level, causing some small errors.
- Fuel/energy savings from having additional sailors with the officer at the engines weren't applied after switching engines until engineer was reassigned to the new engine.
- Errors appearing, if player started vacation when one of the crew members was smoking on the conning tower and then player upgraded conning tower during a vacation.
- Countries added by mods are now added to the world for loaded game states.
- Fixes to automatically reported errors.
- Crew was sometimes carrying to safety sailors that were already in a bed without any danger nearby, soon after they were taken there by somebody else.
- Sailors who are unconscious now cannot be promoted to officers until their recovery.
- Reworked add/remove sailor buttons tooltip.
- Assigned sailors count in the action tooltip wasn't correctly highlighted, if player added more sailors than could work at the current station.
- Added tooltips to actions listed in the action queue.
- It's now possible to open map using a keyboard shortcut when looking through the periscope in a fullscreen mode. Also going back by pressing a keyboard shortcut again opens directly manual mode.
- Fix for "coordinates spotted" intel being added to the journal.
- Control room collider improvements that should decrease cases of character ragdolls being stuck there in unusual poses.
- Port weren't alarmed by exploding torpedo after reloading a game state with that port nearby.
- Changing target wasn't possible in manual periscope mode when torpedo launchers UI was open.
- Torpedoes are now much less detectable to sonars.
- Escort ships AI could sometimes chase torpedoes for a bit.
- Skill tree is no longer accessible for regular sailors on the character screen.
- Hydrophone volume could be adjusted above 100%.
- Decreased memory allocations.
- Improvements to water physics performance for large convoys.
- U-boat could be moved a large distance on the world map without reason after meeting certain groups.
- Officer could have accomplishments with 0 point value in the summary for decoration.
- In the recruitment list, next character is automatically selected after recruiting to allow for bulk recruitment.
- Nelson-class battleships should be a bit easier to sink.
- Added new audio setting: "Play music in FPP". It's now enabled by default, which is a different behavior than before.
- Bug reports sent by F11 tool should now be always sent successfully, as long as Unity servers are online.
- Button for resetting periscope orientation now zeroes on the target, if periscope is locked on something.
- State tooltip on the galley was wrong, if it was checked right after starting a new game.
- Added draught to the ship identification book.
- Position estimation quality by navigator is now displayed on the map view at the upper right corner of the screen.
- Radio stations were stopping to work, if they belonged to a group that changed ownership.
- Added new animations to the navigator's station. Second sailor can now join the officer at the station.
- Food in the control room is now hanged a bit higher to clear up some space in a busy area.
- Chief boatswain is now more likely to work at the navigation table instead of socializing with the crew.
- Probable fix: boxes hanging on the hooks at the stern torpedo room were behaving odd after reloading a game state.
- Improved tooltip for the navigation quality in the upper right part of the screen in map view.
- Anti-aircraft guns in ports didn't had a checked flag to actually attack aircraft and were targeting only surface vessels.
- Ship's hull could duplicate during cracking, if game states with that ship nearby were saved and reloaded a few times.
- Fix to a very old bug in Screen Space Reflections effect that was causing ghosting in the interior of the u-boat. It was most intensively visible on meters and labels.
- Ports could not load, if there was more than 20 enemy groups nearby.
- Changed camera position for the navigator's station, because officer was often wandering out of frame due to the new animations.
- Gun rotations are being reset upon docking.
- Gauges on a diesel compressor were black due to a shadow cast by the railing.
- Drawn map markers were carried over between loaded game states.
- It's no longer possible to travel to a checkpoint when u-boat's position isn't known.
- Improved collider for Kirov and Nelson stern.
- Sea could disappear completely, if wind speed was extremely low, below 1 knots.
- Fuel cost in the warehouse was displayed as "500" until slider was moved for the first time.
- Using mouse wheel or panning in the journal no longer affects camera in the background.
- Unescorted transports (but not escorted convoys) that were attacked by NPC u-boat were slowing down to 1-2 km/h instead of following their path with full speed.
- After clicking with a right mouse button on a mission ship with selected officer on the map view to open actions list, course was changing to that ship.
- Switching devices on/off is now always possible, even if the compartment has a toxic air or is flooded (doing so may damage the device in the second case).
- Officer could be wrongly positioned in a dinghy, if his travel was initiated from a crowded area in the interior.
- Officer could be sent to other ships, even if u-boat was submerged.
- Ship upgrades were appearing in the budget summary with both signs together e.g. "+-4000".
- Camera can be now zoomed in closer on the torpedoes in the orbiting view.
- Slightly decreased probability for investigating a lost ship mission.
- Some operations in the budget tooltip didn't had a specified cost.
- Newly promoted skipper was counting double towards the officer limit on board.
- Skipper promotion description was wrong on the character screen.
- Textual warnings weren't presented for the action that involved officer leaving u-boat to other unit.
- Launched torpedoes and dinghies were disappearing from the scene, if player used "Teleport" command in the development console.
- Leaving area before enemy ship sunk completely would disallow cleaning its individual group from the world.
- Engineer was staying at the diving planes station even after ship surfaced, until player manually ordered him to stop.
- Multiple memory leak fixes that were increasing game states size for long campaigns.
- Added text wrapping to the decoration screen.
- Hydrophone targeting action didn't had a progress bar on the portrait.
- Patrol distance wasn't expressed with units selected in the settings, but kilometers.
- Added bearing display in the hydrophone manual mode view.
- "Next" button on the decoration screen didn't had a sound feedback.
- T5 torpedoes homing improvements.
- Nearby groups can now continue their journey when time is skipped during crew vacation and ship maintenance to avoid occasional "traffic jam" in a port after staying there for a few days.
- Game wasn't allowing to fire a gun with incompatible ammunition type, but it still would be displayed in the gun UI as available.
- Fixes to automatically reported errors.
- Order labels in the TAB menu had a second line cut off, if the first line ended with ellipsis ("...").
- Torpedo maintenance action had a missing indication of the launcher number in the TAB menu.

Modding notices:

- It's now possible to add parameter "Unlimited=1" to ship production task in Sandbox.xlsx/Tasks. It ensures that a count of ships in reserve for this class will never fall below 1, so they still may become rare, but they will never run out completely. It can be used to ensure that, for example, a country will never run out of freighters and other baseline units.
- New parameter: "General.xlsx / Settings / World / Max Groups Per Battle". There is a note in the sheet that explains the usage.
- "Sandbox.xlsx / Settings" sheet should now follow normal modding rules.
- Exposed officer decoration textures.
- Additional fixes to modding "Sandbox.xlsx / Settings" data sheet. It should be completely functional now.
- Improved error reporting for encountered data sheet problems.
- Data sheet loading logging can be enabled in "General.xlsx / Settings / Logging / Data Sheet Logging". Having this setting enabled impacts loading time and log file disk usage.
- Locales.xlsx sheet should now follow normal modding rules.
- Vacation image is now resized to the size of the provided bitmap.
- Improved logging for spawner coordinate parsing errors.
- Fixes to Locales.xlsx modding. It wasn't completely functional.

Yours,
Deep Water Studio

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on April 30, 2020, 12:58:37 PM
New version: B127 lands on the testing branch!
Wed, 29 April 2020

Dear skippers,

We are back with a new major update to UBOAT. We hope that it will bring you some quality recreation in this hard time.

Let's move straight to overview of the changes, but beware - it's going to be a long post.

This version is currently available only on the testing branch. If you haven't played on it before, but would like to, please follow the steps described in this post: https://steamcommunity.com/app/494840/discussions/0/2265817650391733793/


Realistic travel system

This version introduces a brand new travel system to the game. It doesn't simplify long distance travel, but instead adds new time compression tools that make long distance travel possible.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/abc6df70f28284d150c8c38389bdbbc1da6c89f3.png)

Wolfpack attacks

Headquarters now organize wolfpack attacks on convoys. You can join them during free roam and patrol assignments. Friendly u-boats now have a dedicated AI that works well in such scenarios. It's also possible to pass to them direct orders.

(https://i.imgur.com/Go4jmf5.png)

Configurable shifts

Configurable shifts is a new feature meant for the players that always wanted to set schedules for the crew and setup work priorities. It becomes especially useful when combined with the realistic travel system.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/64b0586a21bd9d0a3522fb876fb5eeff34083acd.png)

It also indirectly adds new features such as having a crew member at the valves at all times or delegating power switch jobs to regular sailors instead of the officers. Please keep in mind, that it's advanced feature that doesn't have to be used to enjoy the game. Default schedules are set reasonably well.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/a49fe199a031095c45272a990d2be4a57567baea.png)


Read on (https://steamcommunity.com/games/494840/announcements/detail/2210647921908127689)


Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on June 13, 2020, 01:14:56 AM
B127 complete!
Fri, 12 June 2020

Hello,

After a month of work on the latest major update, it's now ready for a stable release. Many thanks to everybody who participated in the testing and helped this update to shape.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/62c79c501dbfd62690396e624d0dd335f562fb41.png)

We prepared a quick rundown of the changes in the movie:

https://youtu.be/Wg0Q4olv0so


As always we did some more improvements during the time this version was residing on the unstable branch. Some of the most requested ones include:

•   Drag & drop support in portraits.
•   New campaign realism settings.
•   Forbid button on the observation periscope.
•   Crash & save system fixes.
•   Sailors assigned to sleeping officers no longer count to the discipline penalty.
•   Localization updates.
•   Automatic detection of unsupported graphic card drivers.
•   Animation alignment fixes.
•   Improved u-boat turning circle to match the real VIIC data closely on all engine gears.

Full changelog of the B127 version can be read here in the first post: link.

We will now move on and work on the next major version - B128. You will hear from us as soon as this version will shape up!

Notice: This version is too large to maintain a well-tested saved game states compatibility with the previous versions of the game. If you would like to finish your ongoing B126 campaign first before updating to B127, right click on the game, click Properties, enter BETA tab and switch back to B126.

Steam Workshop
TDC mod
We are proud and humbled by the work of modding community on Steam Workshop. We recommend to take a look at it to all players.

Especially, we would like to point out TDC mod by Freekoly, ZNC and Ruby, which was long awaited by many. If you are into realism and simulation, you are going to absolutely love it.

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1020571969327109676/7AD6EA244C776EDA5A733EC0F38B57AE8688784C/)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2071624443

Yours,
Deep Water Studio



Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on October 06, 2020, 03:26:08 AM
B128: Major update hits the testing branch
Mon, 5 October 2020

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_fb709561cdf373eae0deece2694bf678b6e043b4.1920x1080.jpg?t=1601917183)

Hello skippers!

We are back with the next major update to UBOAT. We feel that this update is an important milestone towards the full release and we put a lot of effort to make it happen.

We secured additional funding from the publisher to put additional work into the game. For this reason, we decided to deviate for a moment from the original roadmap and put work into the areas of the game that are important, but were somewhat left behind before, like the in-game map. These changes were often requested by you on the game forum.

Considering the above, we now expect to release the full version of the game in January, rather than a fourth quarter of this year. We hope for your patience and understanding as it's for the greater good in the end!

Without further introductions, let's move on and explain what can you expect from this new update!

Map
This is probably the most exciting change in this version. The new map contains dynamic country borders that reflect most historical events of World War II. There are also major battles marked in on the map. We hope that you will enjoy this change as much as we do!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/1416f2a0a43a6d8d3f267937990ea1778176fa59.png)

Tutorial
In this version we added 7 tutorial missions into the game. They explain most topics needed to successfully proceed with your career through the game. These missions can be started at any time from any port in the game.

Aside from that, each in-game interface now has a dedicated help system that can be toggled by pressing the question mark icon in the upper right part of the screen.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/4b0582cb5a65da6b3d656326a2c8e7c742711322.gif)

Technical improvements
Realism settings
There are two new realism settings: AI difficulty and economic difficulty.

AI difficulty affects how good enemy crews are at detecting your u-boat, which directly affects the combat difficulty of the game.

Economic difficulty on the other hand, affects the cost and availability of various goods in the ports. In this version, we introduced resource shortages in Germany at the last stages of the war and high economic difficulties make them quite dramatic and more realistic. Besieged ports like La Rochelle may often lack most of the goods needed to sustain your ship.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/f508e035249ba8e346f92c16b63eaa98284424d0.png)

Pathfinding improvements
It's no longer necessary to plot paths in ports manually as they are computed automatically around the port structures. Aside from that, there were numerous other improvements in this area, for example NPC ships can now effectively avoid collisions with each other even in tight formations and it's much easier to avoid entering coastal areas by accident as the new paths avoid them automatically whenever possible.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/f16ab9f2e5f0f64c65640da63e64a2f2dd8f368b.png)

Hunt-class destroyers
These destroyers along with River-class frigates, which also started to appear in this version, are used by Royal Navy and many new navies introduced in this update:

•  Polish Navy
•  Free French Navy
•  Royal Norwegian Navy
•  Royal Netherlands Navy
•  Free Belgian Navy
•  Royal Hellenic Navy

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/3a8389084205252964b70352bc8ff42048b47670.png)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/9aeec5a6c375ab342a1b84c091de4ff5f3675b33.png)

Body shape variations
Each sailor now has a different body shape. It may be adjusted at the customization screen.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/9de91044247c16efffb3207d5b8941597b14fa82.gif)

Patrol changes
Patrols are now performed on smaller Kriegsmarine grid squares, which were implemented in this version. We always felt that previously patrol areas were too undefined and large.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/1724d607a401d13a3c51af91bd6a7c392a6f493d.png)

Simulation improvements
Most of the Royal Navy escort ships are now equipped with ASDIC devices since the beginning of the war, which are later upgraded to newer, historically correct types. By the end of war, many of the enemy escort ships are also equipped with radars.

Enemy hydrophone operators are much better at detecting u-boats. We felt that they were lacking a lot since B127, as the enemy convoys started to be much more spread out since then, while escort ships balance wasn't adjusted for that change. It's now going to be again, much harder to stay undetected while sneaking into convoys.

Graphics
Contact shadows
UBOAT is an open world game with vast open scenes. Such conditions are not ideal for the common shadowing techniques that were producing blurry results at times. We decided to implement raycasted contact shadowing technique for that reason. It's commonly used in the games from this year and now UBOAT also joins that party.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/6a3b289b362a49eb0bfa9ef599f740ff4c0d15d2.gif)

Screen-space reflections
Previous implementation of the screen space reflections (SSR) effect in the game was quite outdated and was affecting performance on the high screen resolutions. We updated it using the latest Unity implementation as a reference and optimized for the specific use case of our game (mostly water).

This new version is both faster and more precise, producing reflections where previous implementation was failing to do so.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/4291df7acdc12e89dba89f556d2a4b50fb8dbaa2.gif)

8K interior textures
Most u-boat interior textures are now present in the highest resolution and use better BC7 compression that fixes various colouring artifacts that were previously visible especially on gray surfaces. This shouldn't affect overall VRAM usage as textures are loaded to fit a set limit, but please let us know in case of problems.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/cc423fae14cd946b45bb7404ae91f388e123ba15.png)

Optimizations
We are optimizing the game at each occasion and this time we optimized it quite a lot! While the game may run a bit slower than before after you run it, if you disable the newly added graphic effects, it should almost certainly run faster than before and use less memory.

We also updated the engine UBOAT is built on to the latest version: from Unity 2018.3.4 to 2019.4.11. Despite the numeration pointing to a one year, it's actually two years of progress from the engine developer as the newer version was released just two weeks ago.

Save system
Saved game state files should be at least 30% smaller since this version, while both saving and loading should be faster.

We fixed the infinite loading screen issue that was still there in B127 despite our earlier effort. If this would happen again, please remember to drop us a save and a log file and it will be our top priority.

Warning
This version is currently present on the unstable branches on Steam and GOG. It may still need some polish and there may be leftover issues from the work done.

Mods may need an update to work well with this update as most aspects of the game were modified. We will do our best to help mod authors. Please come by to the B128 discussion thread on the forum, if your mod was affected.

With your help, we are hoping to release this version on the stable branch as soon as possible.

Yours,
Deep Water Studio

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on November 19, 2020, 12:46:12 AM
Major update: B128 stable
Wed, 18 November 2020

Dear skippers,

After a few weeks of intensive work on version B128, we feel that it's now shaped up and is ready for a stable release. With the help of the community we managed to squash hundreds of bugs and improve on all the newly added features.

Full changelog of version B128:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/494840/discussions/0/2935742047979357314

Notice: This version is not compatible in terms of saved game states with the older releases. If your intention is to continue an ongoing campaign, please enter the game properties on Steam, click the BETA tab and switch to version B127.

Main features
Let's remind the two main features of this release:

Map
This is probably the most exciting change in this version. The new map contains dynamic country borders that reflect most historical events of World War II. There are also major battles marked in on the map. We hope that you will enjoy this change as much as we do!

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/1416f2a0a43a6d8d3f267937990ea1778176fa59.png)

Tutorial
In this version we added 7 tutorial missions into the game. They explain most topics needed to successfully proceed with your career through the game. These missions can be started at any time from any port in the game.

Aside from that, each in-game interface now has a dedicated help system that can be toggled by pressing the question mark icon in the upper right part of the screen.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/4b0582cb5a65da6b3d656326a2c8e7c742711322.gif)

Recent additions
Aside from the initially announced features, we added much more smaller improvements during the unstable version testing. The most important changes are:

Sandbox
- Unescorted trade ships are becoming less common over the course of war and by the end of the war most of them travel in convoys.
- Convoy escort composition is now more varied and some more historically accurate. More countries will participate in the escort duties.
- Escort carriers, battleships and cruisers are now always hidden inside the formation and don't act as an anti-submarine escort.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/4b0582cb5a65da6b3d656326a2c8e7c742711322.gif)

Crew management
- New action: Emergency ballast tank blowing, that helps to surface the ship at any cost.
- New action: Ballast adjustment, to compensate negative buoyancy from the leaks, by blowing some ballast from the tanks.
- New action: Preheat and load torpedo task was added to the crew schedules UI.
- Officers now become tired when their energy reaches zero and they start to rest. They won't take orders until they recover at least 40% of the energy or there is any emergency on board (alarm, leaks, wounded crew or panicking characters).
- Added many new backstories for the recruits written by the community.
- Crew now makes noise detectable to the enemy. Switch light to red or blue to let them know to be quiet.
- Torpedo loading and preheating now also makes noise.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/aaf03937d9cf71807dc293e5af7fb4b5a7ab4484.png)

AI & naval simulation
- Added Huff-Duff devices on the enemy surface vessels. They are installed starting with 1941 and allow enemies to locate radio transmissions at a range of up to 24 km. Early Huff-Duffs don't allow to pinpoint position, but instead only tell that the radio transmission is originating dangerously close. If enemies detect your radio transmission with an early Huff-Duff, they won't know your position, but only know that you are nearby. Better Huff-Duffs will direct enemies directly at your ship.
- NPC ships are now much better at avoiding the coast and port structures.
- Enemy escorts are much better at deducing possible u-boat position after a torpedo hit, especially at high AI difficulties.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/15d822013595ec46807fe37c03b0045cbebdfe26.png)

Economy overhaul
- Basic T1 torpedoes, bread and potatoes are now free to ensure that the u-boat will always be able to continue the duty. Only one free type of food is allowed in the warehouse at a time, to disallow gaining discipline bonuses for free.
- Decreased prices of other types of torpedoes to match the new approach. All rewards for assignments and sinking ships were considerably decreased.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/19db5e491a4bf88d6f78d7336522f55e9f22e959.png)

-------

We will now focus on the next major update - B129. Feel free to post your requests and suggestions to participate in the further development.

Please take a look at the initial announcement to read more about all the major features introduced this release:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/494840/announcements/detail/2877195252819396742


Yours,
Deep Water Studio


Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on November 27, 2020, 02:56:54 AM
B128 Hotfix 4
Thu, 26 November 2020

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/494840/ss_fb709561cdf373eae0deece2694bf678b6e043b4.1920x1080.jpg?t=1606309189)

Dear skippers,

A fourth hotfix to version B128 is now complete. It again fixes some of the most often reported issues.

Warm thank you as always for the sent bug reports and for posting your feedback.

This update is fully compatible in regards of saved game states with the previous version.

Changelog

User interface:
- Fix: Radio notification was remaining on the screen, if transmission stopped.
- Fix: After adding sailor to one of the teams in the management menu, some buttons there were previously on the bottom would appear on top of the UI.
- Fix: Decreased work performance notification was often stacking without need and was appearing when leaving to the menu.

Sandbox:
- Further improvements that should prevent NPC groups from spawning too close. This could still occassionally happen, if enemy group was encountered when player was near NPC u-boats.
- Fix: Radio transmissions coming directly from the headquarters were never disappearing, while it was intended for them to last usually around 10 minutes. This was causing some issues, because side-mission message could be received days after it was intended to happen and the target could be already hundreds of kilometers away.
- Fix: Radio transmission could be transmitted for many hours, rather than as intended for around 10 minutes, if a high time compression was used.

Crew management:
- Fix: After compensating the ballast in the compartments by blowing some ballast, another officer was automatically flooding the tanks back again.

General:
- Background stories for recruits are now randomized in such a way to avoid repetitions.
- Sonar ping is audible more often.
- Time compression is now always disabled whenever something on the u-boat becomes damaged or any dialogue is started.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on January 24, 2021, 01:05:42 AM
Road to B129
Sat, 23 January 2021

Dear skippers,

We are back with news about the upcoming update B129 and the future of UBOAT Early Access.


Next update
Update B129 is shaping up to be the most important update to the game thus far. It will introduce the remaining features from the initial roadmap as well as will move forward beyond it.

We will publish small teasers every two weeks to keep you updated and give you a general idea what to expect from that update. Stay tuned!

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/865242d9977bcd3250c5a8f44bc83af9f4e1242c.png)

Early Access
After consultation with the publisher, we decided to extend the Early Access for a few months more to polish the game as well as we can for the upcoming final release. Keeping the game in Early Access allows us to move at a higher pace than will be possible later on. We hope that you will agree with us on this decision and that a few months more won't hurt.

This means that after B129 you can still expect at least one more major update to UBOAT before we leave Early Access for good.

Team changes
We are pleased to declare that Ruby joins our team as the community manager. Ruby now has the inside look into the latest news and work, so you can count on getting the latest information through him from now on. We hope that with his help our team will be doing a better job at communicating the progress.

Aside from that, another member is joining our ranks soon as a scene designer. He will help us build new port scenes, as well as prepare content for the new game mechanics that will be shipped in B129. This way our team will grow to five people.

You will hear more from us in the future. We also sincerely hope that you are well in these hard times.

Warm regards,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on February 08, 2021, 01:54:27 AM
B129 Dev Diary #1: Campaign & reworked narration
Sun, 7 February 2021

Hello skippers!

We prepared a first video in a series that will introduce to you the features upcoming in B129. We will keep posting videos like this one every two weeks to keep you up to date with our progress. There is much more exciting news ahead.

https://youtu.be/LwIx2MOnOrE


Video transcript

Map improvements
We continued to work on the in-game map as we felt that it still needs some polish for the upcoming release. All map skins were upgraded and a new skin was added that maximizes the paper look.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/3b831c080fb33df2eb96069bd95c5a2aa5cac713.png)

Campaign
This update will introduce a complete campaign consisting of various kinds of missions. It will span through the whole war and will take place all over the Atlantic. You won't be forced to complete the campaign missions, but they will offer useful rewards that won't be possible to obtain otherwise.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/6914b3ebd667668f3f30d5a38a5bef662beb804d.png)

Narration
We reworked how the narration happening outside the ship is presented in the game. It's now both more attractive and easier to interact with. What you see right now is a weather station placement mission that is part of the campaign. It also uses this new system to narrate the story.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/bc24e2dad8e5e5df9c8814daa0e2710e8bb0f3df.png)

There are dozens of other, big changes upcoming in this update. Stay safe and see you in the two weeks for more info!

UBOAT VR

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1455390/header.jpg?t=1610954330)

A friendly studio from our country, GameFormatic S.A. decided to port UBOAT to VR platforms! It's a promising project that will allow the game to be played in a completely new way. If you enjoy playing games in VR, consider showing some support to the team behind it and giving hints about your preferences and expectations.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1455390/UBOAT_VR/


Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on February 22, 2021, 02:12:02 AM
B129 Dev Diary #2: Milk cows & radio rework
Sun, 21 February 2021

Hello skippers,

We prepared a second dev log video for B129. Enjoy!


https://youtu.be/4-NWqlrtLx8


You will hear more from us soon as there is still a considerable amount of work to be done.

Transcription

Radio rework
We reworked how the radio station is used in the game. From now on, it's possible to send a request to resupply your ship on the sea. Communication through the radio is now more natural as you can reply to some messages. Another small improvement is that radioman doesn't have to be present at the station to continue playing music over the radio.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/eab2754a35a8a677dd81edfa2206d376c6cd071c.png)

Milk cows
This update will add a new Type XIV u-boats to the game that used to be called "milk cows". They are supply ships loaded with fuel, replacement parts and torpedoes. They even have a bakery on board. With their help your ship will be able to operate for extended periods of time in remote areas like the coast of North America or South-West Africa.

Each supply ship operates at the specific area of the map. You will be able to choose that area by assigning HQ officer to coordinate movement operation.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/c77540b8bfd182f0f44f6c48c236372ef6e0956d.png)

That's all for now. Thanks for watching and see you soon in the next dev log video!

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on March 08, 2021, 01:53:36 AM
B129 Dev Diary #3: Hydrophone upgrade & seamless area transitions
Sun, 7 March 2021

Dear skippers,

We prepared a third dev diary on the way to B129. This time we focused on technical improvements that come with this update. Take a look!

https://youtu.be/h8hSGKI2vHo


Transcription
Seamless area transitions
Paused loading of areas is now completely gone. Loading happens in the background and it's possible to continue playing normally during that time.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/ed17f0287484344a577b212ec84c4cb6db7a818a.png)

Hydrophone upgrade
Hydrophone has seen major upgrades. It's now possible to hear convoys tens of kilometers away with it, as well as torpedo propellers and air bubbles coming out of sinking ships. We also fixed audio clipping issues that were unpleasant for the ears and worked on various technical improvements that enhance the immersion.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/a23358595d409910e939494d32d8db5b52f9d2d6.png)

Smoke on the horizon
Since this update, it's sometimes going to be possible to spot smoke over distant groups of ships. It's not always clearly visible and the larger the group the bigger is the chance for the smoke to be noticeable.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/667871c762057296ecc2dcb21fe6841ea12080e9.png)

That's all for now. Thanks for watching and see you soon in the next dev log video!

Kind regards,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on April 05, 2021, 11:31:37 PM
B129 Dev Diary #5: Prize rules and inspections
Sun, 4 April 2021

Dear skippers,

We prepared a fifth dev diary during the work on B129. This time we describe prize rules, merchant ship inspections, ship scuttling and new types of goods. Take a look!

https://youtu.be/YamFu5BOrjE


Transcription
Welcome to the fifth UBOAT dev log video for the upcoming update 129. This time we will discuss upgrades related to the enemy shipping.

Prize rules
Since this update, neutral ships that are headed at the blockaded enemy ports now become a valid prize for your u-boat. Also, enemy merchant ships without escort may occasionally use a neutral flag as a disguise.

If you will manage to sink such less obvious targets, you will be well rewarded by the high command, but beware, because if the ship turns out to be involved in a neutral trade, your actions may lead to a humanitarian crisis or at the very least a diplomatic incident.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/5bf7b94630648411ec3cf586ff26527fae7c126c.png)

Inspections
To find out if a ship is a valid target, you will be able to send your team to inspect it. Once there, your officers may talk with the captain and search the cargo hold. Keep your eyes open because if unexpected danger appears during the inspection your crew may become stranded.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/faa6d84a650b560b770fd8281a3822fdd78aa0a5.png)

It's also going to be possible to send a team to abandoned ships. Your crew can then search the compartments and if you have an skilled engineer, you can save torpedoes by sinking it with explosives.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/6b99a507aae6405926c5ab290ea62f98d7450baf.png)

New goods
Lastly, since this update, enemy vessels will transport a much more varied cargo like iron ore, lumber, rubber and in rare cases even gold. The routes on which these goods will be shipped are historically accurate.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/b9a5239349938e804f657f0b9064a8e35d70a15c.png)

That's all that what we wanted to share in today's video. You will hear more from us next week about this update's estimated release date as well as upgrades in our team. Stay safe and see you soon!

Happy Easter!

Yours,
DWS
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on June 08, 2021, 11:47:43 PM
Patch: B129 Preview 5
8 June 2021

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.

Changelog
Crew management:
- 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.

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

User interface:
- 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.

Graphics:
- Fix: Many graphical fixes for Aruba port.

AI:
- 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.

Missions:
- 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.

Localization:
- German localization updates.

General:
- 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

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on July 03, 2021, 12:00:22 AM
Update: B129 Preview 11
Thu, 1 July 2021

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_fb709561cdf373eae0deece2694bf678b6e043b4.1920x1080.jpg)

Dear skippers,

Update B129 Preview 11 is now ready to download on the public testing branch.

This update brings fixes to the most frequently reported bugs and issues, as well as adds some general improvements. Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more.

Changelog
Periscope:
- Update of the ship measurements presented in the identification book to better match the actual dimensions of the ships.

Crew management:
- Food stored on the u-boat is no longer consumed when the u-boat is stationing at a port.
- Improvements to crew pathfinding, that should result in less traffic jams on the u-boat, for example when a sailor sits on the bunk and blocks the passage.
- Fix: Crew members were becoming stuck in the toilet, if they tried to block a leak inside.
- Fix: It was possible to move in FPP to the u-boat's deck, order a dive and stay there.
- Fix: After loading certain game states, there was a permanent alarm enabled on the u-boat.

Graphics:
- Improved lighting in the skipper customization scene.
- Fix: After initiating an interaction with a lifeboat, camera was sometimes appearing inside a nearby ship's hull.
- Regression fix: One of the haircuts was having gaps when viewed from a distance.
- Regression fix: NPC crew on C3 ships was moving outside the ship.

Optimizations:
- Optimizations to crew pathfinding, that should slightly improve the performance, when a high time compression is being used.
- Removed a per-frame memory allocation, that was affecting performance.
- During loading, there is now an increased time budget for various background tasks, that should result in a slightly faster loading time and a decreased need to continue some of these tasks after the loading is complete, which usually affects the performance.
- Increased the memory buffer used for uploading textures to the graphics card. It should slightly decrease the time it takes to load the game from the main menu, decrease framerate drops caused by background loading and possibly fix a related crash to desktop issue. This change costed an additional 40 MB of VRAM.
- Various other optimizations.

User interface:
- Improvements to how survivors are released. A list of survivors present on the ship is now opened along with specified rewards, to claim the rewards from there.
- There is now a warning on the screen that suggests to dive deeper, when player tries to use the hydrophone from the surface.
- It's now possible to manually enter a number of items to move between the storages instead of using a slider.
- Fix: Gun UI was sometimes displaying a fractional ammunition count.
- Fix: Survivors could be moved off the ship in a port without actually releasing them for a reward.
- Fix: After a milk cow was sunk by the enemy, it was still being displayed in the HQ. Note: We are going to add a notification that will inform about supply ships sunk by the enemy soon.
- Fix: Pulsating glow around mission markers was behaving erratically, if a high time compression was being used and there was an active mission with a time limit.
- Fix: There is now a scroll present near the officer portraits when a torpedo launchers UI is open and it takes some of the portraits space.
- Fix: It was possible to select survivors from sunk ships for various interactions and for HQ tasks.
- Fix: Improved positioning of various tooltips to make them appear near the hovered UI controls, instead of appearing on top of them.
- Fix: Auto-save settings were changing after loading another game state.
- Fix: Recently added button for changing the depth steers mode was sometimes not present in the TAB menu.

World simulation:
- Fix: During the patrol summary, penalties were assigned for sinking neutral ships in the enemy convoys - it wasn't intended.
- Fix: Swiss rubber transports had empty cargo holds.
- Regression fix: Path to the docking point at Bergen couldn't be plotted.
- Regression fix: Wrecks of ships were not spawning, if they were sunk at deep water.

Balance:
- Decreased ventilation capacity from 50 kg to 40 kg to match the weight of a full stack of potassium absorbers.
- Potassium absorbers are now consumed more slowly, but they are also less efficient at refreshing the air inside the u-boat.
- Fix: Decreased oxygen consumption on the dynamic travel system.

Localization:
- Complete Russian localization provided by Hard, based on his Workshop mod "RU advanced".
- French localization update by FvJ.
- Turkish localization update by tokyo.
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.

Map:
- Fix: After performing an air reconnaissance and reloading the game state, one of the icons that mark each of the port defences would reappear in a slightly different location.

Interactions:
- There is now a different description displayed after searching the cargo hold, if the ship carries a military cargo.
- Fix: Items selected for the team after initiating an interaction were disappearing later, if they were manually equipped before starting the interaction.
- Fix: It was possible to start an interaction with a shot down aircraft for only one time. The button was stopping to respond later on.
- Fix: If a ship turns out to carry tea, but documents stated something else, there is now a different flow of the story that doesn't ignore this fact.
- Fix: After searching an abandoned ship, there was a mention of a sailor from the crew being present during the search.

AI:
- Warships behaviour is now improved when they attack non-submarine targets.

Physics:
- Fix: Probable fix for the issue where damage was inflicted to the conning tower, while the u-boat was travelling at the periscope depth in a shallow area and 140x time compression was being used. More testing is needed to confirm this fix.

Modding notices:
- There is now a logging added during story sequences / interactions, that should make potential modding of them easier to debug.

General:
- It's no longer possible to undock from a port with survivors on board.
- Added a new auto-save setting for saving the game state before leaving the game.
- Fix: Depth displayed on the map was sometimes positive for the sea, if it was beyond the sight range.
- Fix: Various fixes to errors that we spotted in the log files from the user reports.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on July 08, 2021, 11:18:47 PM
Update: B129 Preview 12
Thu, 8 July 2021

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_fb709561cdf373eae0deece2694bf678b6e043b4.1920x1080.jpg)

Dear skippers,

Update B129 Preview 12 is now complete and ready to download on the public testing branch. Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more. We hope that you will find the changes useful.


Changelog

Crew management:
- It's no longer possible to leave the port with more officers than the allowed limit. It was possible to go above this limit, after receiving a new officer during Enigma recovery mission.
- Fix: Sailors were working at the radio, even if it was damaged or there was no electricity in the compartment.
- Fix: In some cases, only a captain and the first engineer were on a lifeboat from a sunk ship, the rest of the crew was missing.

User interface:
- Added a notification that informs about a milk cow being sunk by the enemy.
- Clicking on a new radio transmission notification now opens the radio view instead of selecting a radioman.
- Fix: Campaign photographs were missing on the map after the mission summary animation until player opened the assignment selection view.
- Fix: Reward icons were missing near the buttons for freeing the survivors in a port.
- Fix: Torpedo UI and unit selection panel are now closed when an interaction is triggered.
- Fix: Campaign photographs were permanently disappearing from the map after closing them, without leaving an icon behind, if that was done on a loaded game state.

Missions:
- Decreased a number of AA guns needed to find in the espionage assignments from 5 to 4.
- Fix: Friendly u-boats no longer call for supplies when they are in very dangerous areas, for example near the British coast.
- Fix: There was no milk cow being assigned as a reward for completing the bronze stage of multi-stage campaign objectives.
- Fix: The wreck in the gold recovery campaign mission wasn't appearing at the marked spot until terrain generation was triggered.
- Fix: Wind speed stated in the weather station message wasn't correct.

Graphics:
- New, more detailed UZO model and textures.
- Reworked deck textures, increased variety and fixed minor model issues of the generic merchant ships (ones that are being referred to as "Similar to..."). This work will be continued in the next update.
- Flag rendering improvements. There was an issue with incorrectly rendered lighting on one side of the flag. Added subsurface scattering effect to all flags.
- Improvements to the quality of sun light shadows. Technically, the shadow cascades are now usually being fit better to the specific camera demands.
- Fix: Flat areas were appearing on the sea, if the seabed below was at around 400 - 600 meters.
- Fix: Crew on NPC ships is better aligned to the deck during walking.
- Fix: Fixed issues with a wrong specular being rendered by shaders used to render some of the large objects, like certain ports and merchant ships.
- Fix: After a game state saved near a generic merchant ship was re-loaded, some of the textures on that merchant ship could change after each re-load.
- Fix: Dynamically spawned waves at the ship bows and after torpedo explosions were noticeably lacking vertices, if they were observed from a large distance.
- Fix: Shadow-like lines were appearing on objects when they were viewed from a very close distance in exterior areas and ambient occlusion was enabled in the settings.
- Fix: Lifeboats were disappearing too fast when camera was moved away from them.
- Fix: If camera moved close to a warship, some of the crews of the other ships viewed later would stand in an unusual position.

Interactions:
- Regression fix: Interaction was stopping right after the welcome, if the merchant ship was carrying tea in the cargo hold.

Damage system:
- Fix: One of the possible leaks in the engine room was adding water to the control room instead of the engine room.

Physics:
- Regression fix: Implemented frequency-dependent wave fading in coastal areas for the physics engine. This feature was implemented only on the side of graphics in the initial B129 releases, which was causing the physics to be sometimes out of sync in the coastal areas.

Localization:
- Russian localization update by Hard.
- German localization update by Ruby.
- Turkish localization update by tokyo.
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- French localization update by FvJ and Placebo.

Optimizations:
- Improved physics performance of Dale-class, Ol-class War-class and Wave-class tankers.
- Memory usage optimizations related to the merchant ships and tankers.

General:
- It's no longer possible to permanently move under the terrain, for example by diving deeply using a high time compression before the terrain is generated and appears in the scene.
- Fatigue penalty starts to count after undocking from the port rather than right after the vacation ends. It prevents the crew from becoming fatigued by waiting for the ongoing resupply operations after the vacation.
- Having pressed left CTRL in the free camera mode, makes the camera move more slowly than usual.
- Ship groups are split into smaller ones more aggressively to avoid various practical issues from having too spread out groups.
- Regression fix: It wasn't possible to leave the port after taking the survivors on board in certain cases.
- Regression fix: It was possible for the u-boat to permanently stop detecting any ships, even if they were very close. This issue should be corrected also in the existing game states.
- Regression fix: Some ship classes were docking at a wrong elevation since Preview 11.
- Regression fix: Sound of rotating periscope could be heard for a while after the rotation stopped.
- Fix: Sunk ships were detectable from afar as masts over the horizon.
- Fix: Various fixes to errors that we spotted in the log files from the user reports.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on July 13, 2021, 11:30:51 PM
Update: B129 Preview 13
Tue, 13 July 2021

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_fb709561cdf373eae0deece2694bf678b6e043b4.1920x1080.jpg)

Dear skippers,

We just finished the next update - B129 Preview 13. It's ready to download on the public testing branch. Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more. We hope that you will find the changes useful.

Changelog

Torpedo pistols:
- Added "torpedo flaws" realism setting to the campaign setup. It has three presets:
•   Realistic: Torpedo pistols have flaws that match the historic records.
•   Semi-realistic: Optimal impact angle is rewarded with an almost guaranteed detonation of a torpedo, although sub-optimal hits usually end up in a detonation too - especially if a torpedo is properly maintained by an engineer.
•   Basic: Torpedo impact angle is ignored and torpedo duds are determined using a flat chance. This chance is very close to zero, if torpedo is properly maintained by a trained officer.
- When playing with the Realistic or Semi-realistic torpedo pistol realism setting, there is now a small chance of torpedo being faulty, even if the impact angle is in a sweet spot.
- If playing with the Basic torpedo pistol realism setting, the duds are no longer predetermined as in the earlier versions, to allow for reloading the game state for another result.

User interface:
- Distance measurements are now displayed with 1 decimal place when kilometers are used up to a distance of 10 km.
- Fix: It's no longer possible to open a character customization screen for guests on board.
- Fix: There was a wrong officer role displayed on the character screen, if it was an unsaved role. In some cases, the role would revert to "Unassigned" after opening the character screen.
- Fix: Auto-save settings were applied correctly only from the in-game menu, but not from the main menu.
- Fix: After launching a torpedo, it was appearing for one instant in a wrong spot on the map and was displayed as neutral.
- Fix: After opening the promotion view, the initial description was missing in some cases or could refer to a not pickable option.
- Fix: Pressing an escape twice on a screen where a progress towards a decoration is presented was resulting in a white square being displayed on the screen.
- Fix: Ship selection panel was appearing over the periscope UI, if a periscope view was started when torpedo launchers UI was also open.
Crew management:
- Regression fix: Navigator was never leaving his station to do other work, even after the position was fixed in 100%.
- Fix: "Navigator" skill was considerably increasing a performance of fixing the position at the navigator's station (it was not intended).

Animation:
- Fix: Officers could freeze in an animation of pointing something with a finger.
- Fix: Map zooming animations weren't smooth and were sometimes ending at a slightly incorrect position.
- Fix: Crew that was manning guns on NPC ships was sometimes not rotating with the gun.

Graphics:
- Improved shadow settings during the decoration cutscene.
- Improved texture quality of certain F-class destroyer variants.
- Regression fix: Some of the oil tanks in Aruba were missing.
- Regression fix: Corrected wrong textures on the trucks that are sometimes carried by the merchant ships.
- Regression fix: Ports weren't affecting the nearby sea state since the graphics engine update and the waves were sometimes appearing above the port.
- Regression fix: There was a large blob of smoke visible, if player paused the game, enabled the free camera mode and moved the camera to a direct vicinity of a ship that was at a distance of at least few kilometers from the initial camera position.
- Regression fix: There was a lighting artifact visible on the main menu u-boat since B129 Preview 12.
- Regression fix: An intense specular was visible at the bottom of the u-boat's hull in the section view. It was introduced by mistake in B129 Preview 12.
- Regression fix: Missing textures on the merchant ship figurines that appear during Battle of the Atlantic map cutscene.

Missions:
- Fix: If player uninstalled the deck gun before departing in the third tutorial mission, it wasn't possible to continue at a certain stage of the mission.
- Fix: Changed the first merchant ship's course in the third tutorial for a more convenient attack.
- Fix: Ship that needs to be attacked with the torpedoes during the third tutorial is now selected back automatically, in case of unselecting it by mistake.
- Fix: Mission wasn't counted towards a medal progress in some cases, if a game state was loaded with this mission already started.
- Regression fix: Crew was having a very hard time to spot the lost u-boat in the side-mission with a lost ship.

AI:
- Fix: Ships in a convoy were sometimes stopping to move forward.

Optimizations:
- Provided compatibility of all major shaders in the game with an engine feature called SRP Batcher. We noticed that it stopped to work after one of the recent updates of the engine. It should give a substantial boost to the performance.
- Removed a few redundant memory allocations in the code.
Localization:
- Removed all references to "pre-heating" and "warming" torpedoes and changed them to "performing a maintenance".
- Russian localization update by Hard.
- German localization update by Ruby.
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- French localization update by FvJ and Placebo.

General:
- Improvements to the capture course computations.
- Improved the way in which names are picked for the NPC ships to better avoid repetitions during long playthroughs, if all historic names from the pool run out.
- Fix: It's no longer possible to meet another u-boat with the same name as the player's u-boat.
- Fix: Periscope's field of view was sometimes inconsistent with the stadimeter measurements after reloading a game state and opening the periscope view, until the right mouse button was clicked at least once.
- Fix: It was possible to encounter a situation when there wasn't enough water in the compartment to remove it by using a bucket, but it was still enough to cause the splashing sound, while moving inside that compartment.
- Fix: Added a notification that explains the situation when saving a game state couldn't be completed, because there was no free disk space.
- Fix: If player attempted to save a game state, when there wasn't enough space on the disk, in some cases the "Saving..." label would remain on the screen.
- Fix: Ships were starting their engines from zero after spawning in the scene, which was enough for the hydrophone operator to loose contact for a moment.
- Fix: Wreck sites could still appear as a far visual contact in one remaining case, that involved spotting the sinking ship upclose and quickly moving away from it to a distance of a few kilometers.

Yours,
DWS



Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on July 14, 2021, 11:28:22 PM
Update: B129 Preview 14
Wed, July 14, 2021

Dear skippers,

We just released a small update to fix an important regression in Preview 13. Aside from it, there are also other improvements. Please take a look at the changelog below for details.

Changelog

Graphics:
- Fix: After loading a game state, map was usually becoming slightly darker than intended on the maximum view distance.

Missions:
- There is now a mission objective to get back to the port at the end of the third tutorial.
- Fix: Officer which is supposed to create a target solution is now selected automatically during the third tutorial mission, if he was deselected by a mistake.

Localization:
- Spanish localization update by Tordo.

General:
- Time compression blockade is no longer being set after pausing the game.
- Fix: After sending the crew to certain generic merchant ship variants, sent sailors could appear in the air near the u-boat's bow.
- Fix: After starting certain story sequences with more than 3 characters, saving the game, loading the game and leaving the nearby area completely, sailors would stop to work on their automated schedules and there would be performance issues.
- Fix: Infinite vacation issue.
- Fix: Ammunition transports were usually empty.
- Regression fix: Deck gun could become duplicated after loading a game state.
- Regression fix: Food management was being disabled in the existing game states.

Yours,
DWS


Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on July 28, 2021, 11:33:06 PM
Update: B129 Preview 15

Dear skippers,

The update B129 Preview 15 is now complete and may be downloaded on the public testing branch.

Since there were quite many changes in this update, we prepared a short summary. We hope that you will enjoy the new additions!

Summary of the changes

Optimization
The main goal for this update was to perform certain technical maintenance tasks that we wanted to implement for quite a long time. We touched every file present in the game and restructured the game in a more optimal way.

Thanks to this, UBOAT occupies 6 GB less space on the disk, as well as uses up less RAM than before.

Campaign setup
Since there are quite many realism settings to deal with during the campaign setup, we felt that we should make this experience easier to go through for the new players, which are not yet familiar with the meaning of everything present at this screen.

For this reason we added an animated selection of realism and crew management complexity.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/619865e4739344e0bcd98044e871b3e2c3edf79c.png)


Volumetric lighting
There is now a volumetric lighting support in UBOAT. It's a fog-like effect that is most intense near the light sources as they light up particulate matter in the air. It's a quite mood building addition in our opinion.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/3b2f80642cbb16679caab7afdf3d7696cd390b15.gif)


Food management
As UBOAT developed, it became capable of fitting more play-styles. For players, that are not enjoying complexities of the crew management, we added a new realism setting to disable food management in the game.

When this setting is disabled, everything food-related is removed from the game. Food may still appear inside the cargo holds of NPC ships, but it won't play any useful role aside from that.

 
Stable release
We intend to release update B129 on the stable branch soon. We are still hunting for one crash issue and also want to ensure that everything is in place after technical changes in Preview 15. We ask for just a bit more patience.


Changelog

Graphics:
- Added volumetric lighting support for point lights. This effect is most noticeable inside the u-boat.
- Improvements to the water shader & calibration pass for the overall water look.
- Further improvements to the generic merchant ships models and textures.
- Small improvements to u-boat interior models and textures.
- New hair shader that is faster and works more consistently with post-processing effects like the ambient occlusion and contact shadows (known issue: due to this change, the NPC ship captain's beard is sometimes blurring during merchant ship inspections - we are investigating this issue).
- Added outlines for the crewmen after hovering them with a mouse.
- Improvements to the fog effect, especially near the horizon.
- Fix: Fixed a very old bug related to the texture streaming feature, that was making certain textures to appear very blurry and never be loaded in a better quality, even if the camera was very close.
- Fix: If contact shadows were enabled for all lights in the settings, there were various shadow artifacts present around light bulbs.
- Fix: Main menu lighting was different (subjetively: worse) after leaving an ongoing game to menu when compared to the state of it after visiting the menu for the first time.
- Fix: Water wasn't being lit by some components of the ambient lighting.
- Fix: Map skins weren't correctly loaded in some cases, if the skin was changed during a gameplay. It was loaded correctly after reseting the game.
- Fix: Improved lens flares occlusion by geometry in the scene.
- Fix: Generic merchant ships no longer appear completely white for a short time after spawning in the scene.
- Regression fix: Flashing lights in the weather station reconnaissance scene.

Optimizations:
- Optimized game files structure for smaller disk space, less memory usage and faster loading times. Game is now smaller by 6 GB on the disk after installation. Memory usage and loading time decreases due to this change depend on the used quality settings.

- Main shader performance optimizations.

- Major memory usage optimizations. Some of the most substantial changes:
•   Shadowmaps now occupy 2x less space in the graphics card memory.
•   24k world map texture is loaded only, if the texture quality setting is set to maximum - otherwise a 12k texture is used.
•   Optimized quality of certain less important sound effects.

Campaign setup:
- The campaign setup in the main menu was reworked with animated preset buttons for the realism and crew management. The old slider for selecting one dimensional complexity was removed and replaced with a static realism bar.
- Added a possibility to disable food management from the game during the campaign setup.

User interface:
- Changed "Paper-like" map skin name to "Paper-like (Default)" and changed the old "Default" skin to "Colourful".
- Added explanation what happened after enabling a free camera mode with the instruction on how to disable it.
- Added an alternative sound effect that is played in the main menu after clicking various UI elements.
- Added a warning when player is trying to load a game state that was saved with a different mod setup than the current one.
- Added a dedicated icon for the third time compression button in the dynamic travel system. Tweaked the tooltips for all time compression buttons in the dynamic travel system.
- Fix: After researching T5 torpedoes the summary text in the HQ was missing.
- Fix: UI issues after opening HQ screen from the device manual use mode.
- Fix: Sea name in the upper left part of the UI was often not updating after entering a different sea.
- Fix: The scenario selection screen was empty for a short period of time after clicking the "New game" button in the main menu. There is now "Loading..." notification instead.
- Fix: Scene sound effects were played at their normal volume levels instead of being quiet after entering the "Management" view and switching to any tab aside from the "Crew".
- Fix: It's no longer possible to have "Any" fields in the schedule of sailor shifts. It's allowed only for the officers.
- Fix: After finishing a phase of multi-phase campaign objective (like "Battle of the Atlantic") the progress bar was disappearing under the campaign objective's photography on the map.
- Fix: Hardcore aiming mode wasn't counted into the final realism value.

Simulation:
- Fix: Improvements to FAT and LUT torpedo programs.

AI:
- Fix: NPC ships were remaining in the alarmed state, if they were having any enemy wreck site in the sight range.
Missions:
- Collision damage is now disabled during tutorial missions.
- There is now a dedicated notification for events that make the current mission impossible to complete, for example if a friendly u-boat that called for help was sunk by the enemy.
- Fix: There was a missing arrow during tutorial mission #2 that should point the map button.
- Fix: Errors appearing in the log in large numbers after loading a game state saved during certain tutorial missions.
- Fix: Gold recovery campaign assignment wasn't available for taking at La Spezia, but at quite distant ports like Bergen and Wilhelmshaven.

Localization:
- Major Chinese localization update by SparrowSHEN.
- Russian localization update by Hard.
- Spanish localization update by Tordo.
- German localization update by Ruby.
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- Turkish localization update by tokyo.
- French localization update by FvJ and Placebo.
- Fix: Improvements to the Chinese font.

Crew management:
- Fix: After preparing an extensive crew schedule that had most sailors assigned by name to shifts or to the officers, the shift changes were sometimes not working.
- Fix: Officers could become duplicated in some cases involving story sequences. One reproduction was to send them on an inspection, leave the area without closing the story view and select an option to go back to the u-boat.

General:
- Added integration with the rich presence feature in Steam.
- Fix: The port officers were not returning to their old spots after a port was attacked by the planes, if they hidden inside the warehouse.
- Fix: It's no longer possible to send a diver to a ship that is still sinking.
- Fix: Music was becoming quieter by 50% after each load of a game state saved on a map.
- Fix: Errors appearing in the log and slightly affecting performance, after leaving the game to the main menu, when there was an active story sequence (for example a merchant ship inspection).
- Fix: Undetected units weren't receiving damage from most damage sources.
- Fix: It's no longer possible for the auto-save to be made during the mission summary sequence or when a free camera is enabled.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on July 29, 2021, 11:37:37 PM
Update: B129 Preview 16
Thu, 29 July 2021

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_fb709561cdf373eae0deece2694bf678b6e043b4.1920x1080.jpg)

Dear skippers,

We just released a new hotfix that fixes the regressions introduced with the technical changes in Preview 15.

Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more.

Changelog

Graphics:
- Regression fix: Search light shadows were looking worse than before.
- Regression fix: Certain elements in Aruba were looking off.
- Regression fix: Cook didn't had an apron.
- Regression fix: Character body was disappearing after trying to change his complexion on the customization screen.

Localization:
- Chinese localization update by SparrowSHEN (Q:173678441).

General:
- Fix: Steam rich presence text was worded incorrectly in the case of weather station placement mission.
- Regression fix: Keyboard settings weren't having any effect since Preview 15.
- Regression fix: NPC crews were levitating above the decks of NPC ships.
- Regression fix: Music volume settings weren't applied in all cases.
- Regression fix: Attempt at fixing random crash issue in the main menu when any of the animated buttons appears.
- Regression fix: "Explosives" command in the console has stopped to work.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on August 04, 2021, 11:36:43 PM
Update: B129 Preview 17
Wed, August 4, 2021


Dear skippers,

We just finished the next update - B129 Preview 17. The main goal of this release was to update Unity engine to the latest LTS version to fix a few long lasting technical issues.

Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more.

Changelog

Technical & optimizations:
- Unity engine updated from 2019.4.20f1 to 2019.4.29f1.
- Continued work from Preview 15 that further decreases the size of the game on disk and results in a smaller memory usage.
- Faster startup time, counting from launching the game to seeing the first logo.

Graphics:
- Fix: A missing texture on rudders and propellers of some generic merchant ship variants.
- Fix: After moving a mouse over a crew member that was panicking, there was a square outline displayed around the pulsating circle below him.

Simulation:
- Improvements to LUT torpedo behaviour.

User interface:
- Further work on the campaign setup user interface.
- Fix: Telegraph and other tools in the user interface could be wrongly positioned after loading a game state saved on the map and leaving the map mode.
- Fix: Number of contacts detected by an officer could be duplicated on his portrait for some time, after he participated in a story sequence like a merchant ship inspection.
- Fix: After changing sailor's name, the banner above his head wasn't immediately resized to fit it and there could be an overflow.
- Fix: Map interface was remaining on the screen and in some cases was overlapping with other UI elements, after initiating an interaction with shot down aircraft, while having an open map.
- Fix: Blank portraits could sometimes appear in various views after continuing certain game states. The most common reproduction was to send a full team (3 officers + sailors) to a neutral merchant ship, save the game state, load it back and open the crew list.
- Regression fix: After visiting the skipper customization screen during the new campaign setup, then going back and going forward again, the customization was no longer opening at this point until buttons were clicked a few times.

Crew management:
- Fix: After promoting an sailor to be an officer, he was still occupying the station on which he was working before the promotion. He could also make the station inaccessible for the rest of the crew in some cases.
- Fix: It was possible to initiate climbing the ladder down from the bottom (and climbing up, from the top), in the case of a ladder at the side of the conning tower.
- Fix: Only one crew member of shot down aircraft was marked as an airman, the rest was displayed as sailors.
- Regression fix: NPC crews were duplicating in some cases after loading a game state with their ship being present in the scene.
- Regression fix: NPC crews weren't initially visible after loading a game state saved very close to their ship.
- Regression fix: It wasn't possible to transport ammunition from the main storage to any of the ammunition storages at the deck since Preview 15.

AI:
- MTBs and other ships lighter than the u-boat will no longer try to ram it, but instead they will circle around the submarine and fire at it as long as it's surfaced.
- Fix: Convoys were stopping after sinking an aircraft carrier inside them.
- Fix: NPC ships now compute a more accurate course for the torpedoes.

Interactions:
- Fix: After ordering an evacuation of a merchant ship, leaving it and initiating an interaction with it again, there were many problems after that point.

Missions:
- Fix: It's no longer possible to send crew to land again after building the weather station.
- Fix: It was possible to move through destination in tutorial #4, if a high time compression was used and FPS was low enough.

Localization:
- French localization update by FvJ and Placebo.
- German localization update by Ruby.
- Turkish localization update by tokyo.
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- Chinese localization update by SparrowSHEN.
- Portuguese localization update by Roliηonho.
- Czech localization update.

General:
- Fixes to the most common errors appearing in the logs. Most of them were harmless, but it will still make the logs cleaner.

Yours,
DWS
 
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on August 10, 2021, 11:10:36 PM
Update: B129 Preview 18
Tue, 10 August 2021

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!

Changelog

Ships:
- Added Bogue-class aircraft carriers used by U.S. Navy and Royal Navy.

Simulation:
- LUT torpedo pattern improvements.

User interface:
- 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.

Missions:
- 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.

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

Graphics:
- 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.

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

Optimizations:
- Further disk and memory usage optimizations.

Localization:
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- Portuguese localization update by Roliηonho.

General:
- 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


Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on August 13, 2021, 11:43:19 PM
Update: B129 Preview 19
Fri, August 13, 2021

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.

Changelog

Graphics:
- 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.

User interface:
- 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.

Crew management:
- 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.

Localization:
- Turkish localization update by tokyo.
- Chinese localization update by SparrowSHEN (Q:173678441).

General:
- 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

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on August 14, 2021, 11:44:37 PM
Update: B129 Preview 20
Sat, August 14, 2021


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.

Changelog

Graphics:
- 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.

Optimizations:
- Memory usage optimizations.

Crew management:
- 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.

General:
- 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


Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on August 19, 2021, 11:49:30 PM
Update: B129 Preview 21
Thu, August 19, 2021


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.

Changelog

Graphics:
- 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.

Crew management:
- 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.

Interactions:
- 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.

U-boat:
- Fix: One of the telegraphs inside the conning tower wasn't working.

World simulation:
- 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.

User interface:
- 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.

Localization:
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- German localization update by Ruby.

General:
- 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
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on August 24, 2021, 11:37:43 PM
Update: B129 Preview 22
Tue, August 24, 2021


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!

Changelog

Graphics:
- 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.

Game launcher:
- Fix: Added scroll support for mod descriptions.
- Fix: Fixed slightly overlapping elements when there was more than 6 installed mods.

Optimizations:
- 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.

Ports:
- 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.

User interface:
- 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.

AI:
- Fix: Tankers were sometimes searching the area for submarines after being attacked instead of evading a hostile.

Missions:
- 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.

World simulation:
- 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.

U-boat:
- Tweaks to the audio sources intensity when hydrophone is being used from the sea surface.

Crew:
- 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).

Map:
- 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".

Localization:
- Turkish localization update by tokyo.
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- German localization update by Ruby.

General:
- 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

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on August 25, 2021, 11:11:18 PM
Update: B129 Preview 23
Wed, August 25, 2021


Dear skippers,

Update B129 Preview 23 is now complete and ready to download on the public testing branch.


We are planning to release a stable version of B129 soon and continue further work on the stable branch. There may be still some more updates and fixes in the days ahead though!

If you are interested to find out what's new in this version, please take a look at the changelog below.

Changelog

Modding:
- Updated Unity modding template to work with the latest B129 releases. The project in the template now requires Unity 2019.4.29.
- Fix: After opening the Unity modding template, it was possible for the welcome window to be opened in a few copies.

Graphics:
- Fix: A fog-like effect was appearing on the screen after zooming in the map view to the closest possible zoom level, while being away from the coast.
- Fix: Added ship name on Dale-class and War-class tanker hulls.
- Fix: Turm IV quadruple gun wasn't resetting correctly to a forward looking position.
- Regression fix: Rain was rendered under the water.

User interface:
- Fix: Campaign setup preset buttons were slightly vibrating, if temporal anti-aliasing was enabled in the settings.
- Fix: Portraits could remain on the screen after moving to HQ view in rare circumstances.

Crew:
- Crew returning from an external interaction now appears at varied positions on the deck rather than everyone at the same spot.
- Fix: Returning crew now appears in the control room rather than on the submerged deck, if u-boat dived.
- Fix: Unusual issue with crew members moving at the u-boat's bow and refusing to go anywhere else until La Rochelle was left.

Missions:
- Added missing descriptions for a few remaining campaign missions.
- Fix: Patrols appearing during the campaign assignments could spawn directly near the player's ship, if console was used to skip some time.
- Fix: "Unknown object" and "Empty" objects were reported in a few places in UI during the weather station placement missions.
- Fix: The radio transmission from the weather station was transmitted for only 6 minutes. If player didn't receive it in that time, it wasn't possible to complete the mission.
- Fix: Journal entry after completing the Royal Oak sinking assignment wasn't correct.

Localization:
- French localization update by FvJ and Placebo.
- German localization update by Ruby.

Optimizations:
- Performance improvements for longer playthroughs.

Map:
- Regression fix: If player ordered to plot a route to port, while moving and having enabled a time compression, the path could be plotted to some other location near the port instead.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on August 26, 2021, 11:49:52 PM
Update: B129 Preview 24
Thu, August 26, 2021


Dear skippers,

Update B129 Preview 24 is now complete and ready to download on the public testing branch. Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more!

Changelog

Graphics:
- Fix: Aircraft stationing on the carrier were having duplicated propellers and windows.
- Fix: Map was blinking with a black colour when player's ship was receiving damage.
- Fix: Newspapers were not aligned correctly to the sailors reading them on the starboard bunks in the bow torpedo room.

Interactions:
- Fix: Taking survivors from a lifeboat was sometimes not working correctly - the character wasn't actually moved to the player's ship and after leaving the area a notification was popping up that he was released.

Crew:
- Fix: It was possible to perform first aid on torpedoes after making a few steps.

User interface:
- Fix: XP bar in the character selection panel wasn't full after reaching the maximum level in the game (5th).
- Fix: Tooltips were incorrect for the time compression buttons, if dynamic travel system was being used.

Missions:
- Fix: Southern Routes campaign objective was often stopping to progress.
- Fix: Supply ships (milk cows) were sometimes selected as a target for the ally calling for help and lost ship missions. It wasn't intended and could cause some issues.

World simulation:
- Fix: Some merchant ships weren't carrying any cargo.

Localization:
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- German localization update by Ruby.
- Portuguese localization update by Roliηonho.

General:
- Fix: After damaging a ship and forcing the crew to evacuate, leaving the area and then coming back, the crew was back on the ship and the buoyancy (HP) bar was full.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on August 27, 2021, 11:16:55 PM
Update: B129 Preview 25
Fri, August 27, 2021


Dear skippers,

Update B129 Preview 25 is now complete and ready to download on the public testing branch. Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more!

Changelog

Graphics:
- Fix: Improvements to alignment of sailor animations on bunks.
- Fix: Torpedo could be displayed at a wrong position (outside the launcher), if torpedo was being loaded or maintenance was performed on it at a high time compression and the order was aborted for any reason.

Optimizations:
- Improved performance when a high time compression is in use.

Interactions:
- Fix: Aircraft crews were having duplicated names.
- Fix: Sailors sent on external interactions were sometimes selected for a new shift on the ship, but since they weren't there, vital stations could be unmanned.

Localization:
- English localization fixes by Steve.

User interface:
- It's now possible to leave a dialogue by pressing escape.
- Fix: The outer pointer on the UI telegraph wasn't moving when keyboard shortcuts were used to set a gear.

General:
- Added a suggestion in the main menu to contact us, if game previously crashed due to the issue that we are trying to fix.

Yours,
DWS
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on August 29, 2021, 11:39:45 PM
Update: B129 Preview 26
Sun, August 29, 2021


Dear skippers,

Update B129 Preview 26 is now complete and ready to download on the public testing branch. Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more!

Changelog

Graphics:
- Fix: Bunks in the bow torpedo room were sometimes rendered in both states, open and closed, at the same time.
- Fix: Indirect lighting in the u-boat's interior was wrong for the duration of certain interactions.

Crew:
- Fix: Order to keep the bulkheads closed was sometimes stopping to work reliably after reloading a game state.
- Fix: Sometimes the countdown above injured characters was missing and it wasn't possible to treat them.
- Fix: Random animation issues of the crews on NPC ships and lifeboats (continuation).

User interface:
- All UI views can be now closed by pressing an escape key.
- Fix: Lines drawn on the map during the assignment summary were sometimes out of sync with the actually presented events in the UI.
- Fix: Progress bar below the campaign objective photography on the map was disappearing after reaching 100%.
- Fix: It was possible to attempt selecting a target square for the milk cow moving operation that was already pending.

Localization:
- German localization update by Ruby.
- Turkish localization update by tokyo.

General:
- Fix: Rewards and penalties assigned for events that were described in a newspaper were assigned twice.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on September 01, 2021, 11:45:15 PM
Update: B129 Preview 29
Wed, September 1, 2021

Dear skippers,

Update B129 Preview 29 is now complete and ready to download on the public testing branch. Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more!

Changelog

Graphics:
- Fix: Officers were clipping through the antenna on Turm I during the award ceremonies.
- Fix: Warehouse worker in Wilhelmshaven was slightly clipping through an ashtray on the table.
- Regression fix: Captives were not rendered completely after moving the camera at a certain distance from them since Preview 28.

Localization:
- Spanish localization update by Tordo.
- Chinese localization update by SparrowSHEN (Q:173678441).
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- Russian localization update by Hard.

Yours,
DWS


Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on September 02, 2021, 11:40:44 PM
Update: B129 Preview 30
Thu, September 2, 2021


Dear skippers,

Update B129 Preview 30 is now complete and ready to download on the public testing branch. Please take a look at the changelog below, if you would like to find out more!

Changelog

Graphics:
- Map skin now defaults to paper-like after updating from an older version of the game.
- Fix: Some map elements were slightly blurring in the direction of movement when the camera was in motion and the temporal anti-aliasing was enabled in the settings.
- Fix: Objects that fade out under various conditions, including certain bunks and chests placed by sailors to access damage located at a high elevation, were sometimes loaded in a wrong visibility state from the game state.

Missions:
- Fix: In tutorial #4 the sailor that panicked was sometimes calming down on his own without requiring player's intervention (continuation).

Localization:
- German localization update by Ruby.
- Turkish localization update by tokyo.

General:
- Regression fix: Dialogue with the leading officer was sometimes becoming stuck since the previous preview version.
- Fixes to the most common errors appearing in the logs.

Yours,
DWS


Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on September 03, 2021, 11:55:35 PM
Update: B129 Preview 31
Fri, September 3, 2021


Dear skippers,

Update B129 Preview 31 is now complete and ready to download on the public testing branch.

This version brings a few important memory usage optimizations and with it we are now almost ready to publish B129 as the new stable version. Keep your fingers crossed!

Changelog

Graphics:
- Major optimizations to the memory usage of the game.
- Fix: If game was running at the lowest settings, shadows were missing on the skipper customization screen.
- Fix: Tweaks to camera placement for a dialogue with the recruitment officer at La Spezia, Kiel and Bergen.
- Fix: Improved alignment of the enemy ports to match the new terrain in B129.
- Fix: Brightness mismatch between segments of certain large ports like Bergen.

Modding:
- Fix: Modding tools were exporting mod manifests in a deprecated format.

Localization:
- Spanish localization update by Tordo.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on September 05, 2021, 11:30:17 PM
A large update: B129 is ready!

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/1d0f119c46e3f0a9d9f964a8e6d8d1a234788471.png)
Dear skippers,

Version B129 is now the new stable version of UBOAT. It's the largest update to the game that we made thus far and hope that you will enjoy it!

The list of changes is very long. We prepared a quick summary below and invite you to take a look. It's not a complete list, but some of the top highlights.

Campaign
The largest addition in this update is a campaign that adds a much needed variety to the usual u-boat's service of performing patrols.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/d245276b64745d0537a8c04927922d0f38f63d69.png)

During the campaign, your u-boat will have to travel all around the world and engage in special activities.

 Read on.... (https://steamcommunity.com/games/494840/announcements/detail/2962794086566130800)



Most of the missions in the campaign are based on well documented operations that actually happened during World War II, some are based on stories and rumors that we found intriguing and one is a result of artistic liberty although it's also strictly rooted in history.



Prize rules and newspaper stories
From now on, your u-boat may sink all shipping that is headed towards the blockaded enemy ports. Also, some enemy ships are now flying a false flag as a deception. If you suspect that either of these things may be true, you can send your team to inspect a neutral ship and find out the truth.



Such less obvious targets are more likely to carry a very valuable cargo. If you manage to sink them, you may get an additional reward and maybe even appear in a newspaper.



Languages
This update brings a Portuguese and Czech translations into the game. They are a result of dedication and work done by Roliηonho (Portuguese) and Spid3rCZ (Czech) from the community.



There also were major updates to all of the existing languages:

    Russian by Hard.
    Spanish by Tordo.
    Chinese by SparrowSHEN (Q:173678441).
    Turkish by tokyo.
    Italian by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
    French by FvJ and Placebo.
    ...and of course German by Ruby.


Warm thanks guys!

Supply ships
Submersible supply ships of Type XIV also called "milk cows" are now part of the game. You can receive them as a reward for various campaign missions. They are an invaluable help, while performing missions near the American coast!



Bogue-class aircraft carriers
These carriers are used by U.S. Navy and Royal Navy and complement the existing Illustrious-class already present in the game.



New navies
This update adds Spanish, Portuguese, Argentine and Swiss navies with hundreds of historically correct ships.

We also added hundreds more ships to existing U.S. and British navies.

Quality of life improvements
Removed loading splash screens
The paused loading screens whenever u-boat enters a coastal area are now gone. Everything happens in the background instead.



Reworked radio
Radio was reworked from the previous list interface into a separate screen that is much more immersive and feels more appropriate.



New time compression level
Newly added 140x time compression level dramatically improves the flow of gameplay. You will be unable to live without this one once you get used to it.

Reworked campaign setup
Each update so far was adding new realism settings to the campaign setup. We felt that this screen needed an update to make it more pleasant and easier to use for the new players.



Optimizations
Despite adding a lot of new content, this version due to added optimizations is most likely going to have higher FPS and less stutter than any previous release. Enjoy!

Crew management
Immersive damage control
Sailors now autonomously react to leaks on board and try to block them on their own before an engineer arrives to make the final repairs. Everyone involved in the damage control now places various utilities around and stacks boxes to access a highly elevated damage.

These changes together make the damage control much more immersive and life-like in our opinion!



Discipline rework
Discipline was reworked in this update into a new system. From now on, discipline usually changes over long periods of time, while newly added stress may rise and fall much more quickly during the combat and spread panic on the ship.

These two mechanics are interlinked together, so if the discipline is high on your ship, you will likely not have to deal with stress effects in most battles.



Sailors working at the radio
Since this update, regular sailors work at the radio station when there is no officer present. This way, you will get notified whenever an incoming radio transmission appears and don't have to keep your radiomans at work 24/7.

Skill system overhaul
The skill system was completely overhauled. Many existing skills were reworked and there are numerous new ones added.

New leader skills:
Navigator, Gunner, Personal skills, Supporter.
New engineer skills:
Pyrotechnic, Engine specialist, Handyman, Torpedo Mechanic.
New radioman skills:
Propeller recognition, Radio usage practice.
New language skills:
English speaker, French speaker, Spanish speaker, Portuguese speaker and Linguist.
New personal skills:
Merchant, Thrifty, Runner, Thorough, Tough.



Simulation
Long-range hydrophone detection
Previously, due to technical limitations, only nearby propellers in the range of up to 15 km could be heard when hydrophone was used manually. This update has reworked many underlying systems to allow you to hear them from any distance from which hydrophone was historically able to pick them up.



Funnel smoke above horizon
Funnel smoke is now visible from a much higher distance than before, even when the ship emitting it is hidden behind the horizon.



Hydrophones dead zone
Previously, dead zone was present only when player was using hydrophone manually on the u-boat. This update ensured that AI is affected by it in the same manner.

Balance pass for device noise levels
Noise levels of all devices on board were reworked to make them more realistic and provide a more balanced gameplay.



Food management
Food management in the game is now optional. You can disable this module, while preparing a new campaign.



Graphical improvements
Crews on NPC ships
This update adds NPC crews on all ships and aircraft. They are looking much better than before, walk around the decks and do various work.



Volumetric lighting effect
Volumetric lighting is a fog-like effect that is most intense near the light sources as they light up particulate matter in the air. It's a quite mood building addition in our opinion.



Subsurface scattering effect
Subsurface scattering is a subtle effect that makes people appear more life-like by propagating the light through skin.

We first added this effect a long time ago, but certain rendering upgrades made it incompatible and we had to remove it before the first release of the game. This time we added a new, lightweight implementation that shouldn't have a noticeable effect on the performance.



Diesel exhaust effect



Torpedo overhaul
Animated torpedo launches
Torpedoes no longer appear in front of the launcher, but instead the torpedo launch sequence is now fully animated



FAT and LUT torpedo programs
Torpedoes now exist in FAT and LUT variants that have a built in program which in case of a miss start to steer the torpedo into a special zig-zagging pattern that increases a chance to hit another random target inside the convoy.



Magnetic and impact detonators
Before launching a torpedo, you will now have a possibility to determine, if you want to use an impact or magnetic detonator. They both have their strong and weak points, so choose wisely!



Reworked torpedo detonation effect
Torpedo detonations were completely reworked and are much more satisfying than before!







Map improvements
Paper-like skin
A new map skin was added that looks more paper-like than the others. It's now the default look of the map.



Spoiler-less markings
We removed all spoilers from the map markings and from other parts of UI. You will no longer know ahead what you are dealing with and experience that thrill of meeting the unknown vessels in the middle of ocean.



Miscellaneous
New items
This update introduces various new items for the purpose of simulating a more realistic shipping in the game. These items include:
- Iron ore.
- Coal.
- Tea.
- Tobacco.
- Grains.
- Rubber.
- Tire.
- Gold.
- Valuables.
- Lumber.
- Money.
- Karabiner 98k.



Prisoners of war
It's now possible to rescue survivors from sunk ships and shot down aircraft and carry them back to port for a reward. You will be especially rewarded for bringing back captains, first engineers and pilots.



Full changelog
If you would like to read the whole changelog, please follow this link: Full changelog.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on November 21, 2021, 03:57:21 PM
Update: B130 arrives!
Sun, 21 November 2021

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/30c19c26e2428c8222495b3b9621ac6919b0cdd3.png)


Dear skippers,

Today we are ready to release the next major update to UBOAT - B130. This time there won't be unstable version testing and the update shouldn't affect your existing saved game states. Our intention is to keep things this way moving forward as we get closer to leaving the Early Access.


To keep your expectations on a correct level, while this update adds a respectable amount of new content, it doesn't add new ports and submarine pens - we are working on them for quite a long time and plan to publish them in version B131.

Having that said, let's move on and discuss the additions of this update!

The war is over
We completely overhauled how the end of war looks like in the game. With this update, you will encounter historically-based messages from the high command during that time like the Rainbow Order (Regenbogen-Befehl
) and surrender instructions on 8th May 1945.

Since you will receive conflicting orders, you will have a choice, if you want to scuttle and leave your u-boat or surrender to the enemy. Technically, nothing will stop you from ending things Rambo-style though.

When you leave your ship, you will now see a nice summary of your u-boat's entire service.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/eedebacdcb240376182c373d613825cb313ba7a4.png)

Fast mission completion
We decided to cut some travel time from the game and from now on, you will be able to finish your mission right after completing the main objective. The return trip will happen automatically with an immersive return cutscene.

If you prefer to live through everything in the game, you can disable this option in the settings, but we encourage you to give it a try. It makes the gameplay much more dynamic.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/fbcfe73ef823b360754297ab972734c4a543fa9e.gif)

AOB tool
This update introduces AOB tool to the game. It's possible to switch between the regular course tool and AOB at any time and the angles will be converted accordingly! Both tools are now also updated in realtime to reflect bearing changes of your current target.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/25674884b66f4fe3e0883b84a5ecea6b6cca1243.png)

Reporting changes
We felt that there wasn't enough benefit from taking the risk and sending your reports on the sea. We wanted to fix that problem in this update. Right now your reports will loose some of their original value as the time goes on, since they become less relevant to the command with the passage of time.

There were also other related changes:
- When you dock in a port, all reports are handed in automatically without use of the radio.
- Regular sailors no longer can send radio messages. Radioman officer is required for such a task.

Damage model improvements
We reworked the damage model used for NPC ships to on average make torpedoes with magnetic setting (MZ) more effective than with the impact setting (AZ).

We listened to your feedback and did detailed testing, which confirmed that torpedoes with MZ setting were less effective than AZ ones, while it should be the other way around.

Our testing on medium GRT merchant ships indicated that MZ torpedo had a 65% chance to completely disable a ship, while AZ torpedoes had a 85% chance to achieve that. After this rework MZ torpedoes have a 95% chance to completely disable a medium GRT merchant ship, while AZ torpedoes have 70% chance, which should be much closer to reality.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/729b8a3a41c4f2a129a65a93e60acc04833d53b6.png)

Polishing
Since we are getting closer to the stable release of the game, our main focus was to polish the existing content and repair problems. Some of such changes include:

- There is now an intro movie played before a new campaign is started.
- New loading hints and backgrounds.
- Crewman's hair now appears under a cap in a fitting way instead of disappearing. There is a model adjustment prepared for each cap-hair pair.
- Many changes to the content added into the journal to improve its readability and organization.
- Balance pass of experience points and Iron Cross points gained for various tasks.
- Added an integration with rich presence feature in Discord.
- Fixed a problem that the music played through the radio wasn't detectable to the enemy hydrophones.
- And much more!

Full changelog

Localization:
- English localization update by Steve.
- Turkish localization update by tokyo.
- Chinese localization update by SparrowSHEN (Q:173678441).
- Spanish localization update by Tordo.
- Russian localization update by Hard.
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- French localization update by FvJ and Placebo.
- German localization update by Ruby.

Major changes:
- Added content for the end of war: messages from BdU, cease of hostilities, territory changes and possibility to either scuttle or surrender the ship after which a summary of an entire career is presented.
- Mission reports now loose value over time to incentivize sending them on the sea, when they are still relevant for the command. All reports are now turned in automatically after docking in any port.
- New campaign setting: Automatic mission completion. It's a new mechanic that speeds up the gameplay by allowing for a quick return back to the port after completing the main objectives of an assignment. It's enabled by default in pre-existing game states, it's also possible to adjust it during playthrough in the old game states without starting a new game.
- Rework of the damage model used for NPC ship hulls to on average make torpedoes with magnetic setting (MZ) more powerful than with the impact setting (AZ). Motivation: our testing on medium GRT merchant ships indicated that MZ torpedo had a 65% chance to completely disable a ship, while AZ torpedoes had a 85% chance to achieve that. Counter-intuitively they had the highest chance to achieve this when hitting the waterline as that increased a chance for fire on the target ship's deck. After this rework MZ torpedoes have a 95% chance to completely disable a medium GRT merchant ship, while AZ torpedoes have 70% chance, which should be much closer to reality.
- The course tool in the periscope now supports two modes: relative course and angle on bow (AOB). It's possible to switch between them at any time and angles will be converted accordingly! They are also updated in realtime to reflect bearing changes of a current target.
- Observation data (distance, speed, course) is now preserved, if player manages to observe the ship again in 5 minutes after loosing the contact.
- New campaign difficulty setting: Morale management difficulty. The easiest setting is how it worked in B129. Higher levels are harder and may require roster adjustments like in the previous versions of the game to compose a crew of veterans.
- New campaign difficulty setting: Damage difficulty. The hard setting corresponds to the difficulty from B129 and earlier versions. This setting determines how hard to manage are potential leaks on your ship. The lower this difficulty level is set, the smaller the simulated hull breaches will be on average after receiving damage.
- Added an intro movie that is played when a new campaign is started.


Graphics:
- Each character's hair now appears under a cap in a fitting way instead of disappearing. There is a model adjustment prepared for each cap-hair pair.
- Upgrades to Type VIIC 3D models: new elements in the bow torpedo room, while diesel engines and 88mm gun models are more high poly than they used to be.
- The bearing display in the periscope is now smoothed out and looks better.
- Improvements to borders of Poland, Soviet Union, Romania, Yugoslavia and Germany at the late stages of the war. Added more detailed information about major late-war battles and campaigns on the map.
- Fix: If enough time has passed in-game, diesel engine's animation was becoming increasingly jittery and eventually it was stopping altogether. This problem was affecting the starboard engine more quickly than the port engine.
- Fix: Improved transitions between view modes, for example from the map to the interior section view. There were redundant brightness changes or slight directional blurring for one frame during some of them.
- Fix: Purple barrel in one of the wreck scenes.
- Fix: NPC Type VIIC u-boats had missing torpedo doors.
- Fix: Some map labels were pulsating, if they were intersecting with a coast near a port.
- Fix: Smoke from a cigarette after loading a saved game state, could appear purple for about 2 seconds.
- Fix: A green outline around a patrol area was incorrect in case of some patrol areas, for example AB8 - AF2.
- Fix: Officer's car and various other objects weren't casting shadows near port lights used at night.
- Fix: Improved a look of the last displayed frame before exiting to menu or quitting the game.
- Fix: Map elements are now included in the vignette effect, they were too bright at the screen edges.
- Regression fix: Beards were sometimes having a motion blur-like effect on them.
- Regression fix: Squares and rectangles on the terrain in the weather station scenes.
- Regression fix: Breda guns on Turm I weren't being hidden into the containers after use until a game state was reloaded.
- Regression fix: Beards weren't correctly animated during speaking.


User interface:
- Added a notification about running low on spare parts.
- New loading hints and backgrounds.
- Game is now asking, if player is sure about disabling tutorial on the campaign setup screen.
- Added a button for completing the mission back in the port.
- Increased a size of a new campaign setup window as long as the current screen resolution allows for it.
- Campaign objectives list now mentions ports that need to be visited to start the unavailable campaign objectives.
- Improved readability of many journal subjects by adjusting used icons and titles for them.
- Added a red version of the notification that informs about low compressed air reserves that appears when compressed air is below 5%.
- Added a sound effect for swapping identification book pages.
- A new typewriter font.
- Fix: Parts of the hydrophone manual mode UI were remaining on the screen after moving to HQ screen.
- Fix: If player entered HQ screen through a dialogue with the leading officer, returning back from that screen goes back to the dialogue instead of leaving it.
- Fix: "Buy" button is now greyed out, if player selects a ship upgrade that costs more than the actual budget.
- Fix: "+0 XP" notifications now don't appear in any case above the officers after completing a mission.
- Fix: Notifications about mission progress at the top part of the screen were missing, after a game state was loaded in which the mission was already in progress.
- Fix: If player quickly clicked through all cutscenes that present new campaign objectives, camera was initially centered at wrong spot when a mission selection was opened.
- Fix: If player recruited one of the sailors in the recruitment UI, the next sailor on the list was automatically highlighted, but no details about him were appearing.
- Fix: After completing a free roam assignment, notifications about a new mission were appearing under the panels present in HQ user interface.
- Fix: Tutorial popup could appear behind other UI elements on some screen resolutions during tutorial #7.
- Fix: If a popup for selection of number of items to transfer was opened in the storage UI, escape was pressed and the storage UI was opened back again, the popup was remaining on the screen.
- Fix: There was always a price of buying displayed in the popup used to determine a number of items to transfer in the warehouse, even if player was trying to sell.
- Fix: In the mission summary, a total distance passed by the u-boat in its service was displayed instead of the distance passed during the latest assignment.
- Fix: Shot down aircraft were described as being sunk in the journal.
- Fix: Suggested names for new game states weren't localized in many cases and were appearing in English.
- Fix: Order icon above the character's head was missing right after loading a saved game state until that character has started performing another order than the initial one.
- Fix: Keyboard shortcuts were still working during the mission summary animation and it was possible to slightly break it, by changing the view mode or enabling a time compression, while it was running.
- Fix: Sight range displayed in the tooltip of UZO and periscopes didn't had weather factors accounted in and was usually larger than the actual values.
- Fix: Tutorial popup was appearing below the HQ task description on some screen resolutions in tutorial #7.
- Fix: Interaction for sunk merchant ship wrecks was duplicated (there were two entries for them in the dropdown).
- Fix: Radio messages in the radioman UI weren't appearing on the list, if they entered the range when this UI was already open.
- Fix: Crew portraits could be empty, if any kind of crew list was opened when periscope or UZO manual mode was active.
- Fix: A count of captives on board wasn't being updated in realtime, when player was selecting survivors from a shot down aircraft.
- Fix: Pressing escape during time skipping procedure was causing some issues with the UI.
- Fix: If escape was pressed, while player initiated a keyboard shortcut configuration in-game, it would close the whole UI instead of cancelling the setup as pointed by the tip.
- Fix: It was possible to select wounded characters for participation in the external interactions (for example: inspections).
- Fix: A tooltip of notification about a resupply ship being sunk now includes coordinates of the event.
- Fix: Pulsating glow around a dot that indicates a mission objective was sometimes appearing somewhere near instead of directly on it.
- Regression fix: Notification about resupply ship being sunk by the enemy was appearing each time after another game state was loaded from an ongoing game, where player had at least one active resupply ship.


Missions:
- It's no longer possible to click on activators other than the highlighted one during tutorials.
- Tutorial introduction now asks the player to start the first tutorial mission (with a button to opt-out from this).
- Added a summary message to the journal for each completed tutorial mission to avoid gaps in mission numbers.
- Added an intro message to the journal for each campaign mission (for the same reason as above).
- The tutorial dialogue option when talking with the leading officer now disappears after completing all tutorials.
- Officers now receive additional XP as well as Iron Cross points, if they played a vital part in some of the campaign missions.
- Report about reaching a patrol area is now worth 350 instead of 500, while a report about completing a patrol is now worth 250 instead of 0.
- Fix: In tutorial #4, in very rare cases, it was possible for the cook to burn the eggs and later be selected as the panicking sailor for crisis management practice. The punishment for burning the eggs was having a priority and it wasn't possible to perform steps asked by the tutorial.
- Fix: If player saved a game state after docking in La Spezia during Gibraltar crossing assignment and reloaded the game state, it wasn't possible to complete the mission by talking with the officer until player undocked and docked back again.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to order an officer to attack an empty u-boat with the deck gun in the side-mission.
- Fix: Officer that welcomes a spy or war correspondent was sometimes missing. He was also appearing a bit too close to the spy.
- Fix: It was possible to pass through the destination in tutorial #3.
- Fix: A wrong warehouse tab was highlighted during tutorial #1, if food management was disabled in the campaign settings.
- Fix: Skipper was often not receiving decorations, which he should receive, during the decoration cutscene.
- Fix: In tutorial #2, when camera was tracking movements of a sailor that was going to turn on the ventilation, camera movements were slightly jittery and were reacting to user inputs.
- Fix: It's no longer possible to leave storage UI during tutorial #1 until all objectives are completed.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to complete tutorial #4, if player interrupted treatment of the leader by a medic. The tutorial was later asking the player to order him to calm down a panicking sailor, but he was lying wounded in a bed.
- Fix: Some of the tanks in Aruba were indestructible.
- Fix: Camera could switch to another view mode after answering a war correspondent's question.
- Fix: It's no longer possible to leave dialogues that are part of the tutorial by pressing an escape.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to complete tutorial #4, if player didn't had any replacement parts before starting the mission.
- Fix: In the weather station placement assignments, a dot on the map that points where a team may be sent to land, no longer disappears after the initial stage in case if player would have to recall the team and send it again later.
- Fix: Campaign objective that asks to perform merchant ship inspections was counting inspections towards the progress even if they were cancelled in progress.
- Regression fix: It was possible to run out of fuel during tutorial in B129.


Crew:
- Regular sailors no longer can send radio messages. Radioman officer is required for such a task.
- Balance pass of experience points gained for various tasks. Leaders now progress slightly slower than they used to, while radiomans and engineers received a slight boost to make their pace closer to the leaders.
- Fix: Ordering switching light colour in TAB menu now cancels all previous orders of this type.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to simultaneously order blocking and repairing a leak from the hatch in the stern torpedo room and from one of the pipes in the control room, despite that there was enough space to do that in both cases. This fix requires starting a new game to function.
- Fix: Wounded characters on some beds were lying with legs on the pillow.
- Fix: Improved animation of standing up from the bed of treated characters.
- Fix: It's no longer possible to dive to wrecks that are deeper than 150 meters. Previously, it was unintentionally set to 700 meters.
- Fix: If a wounded character was being carried to safety and then player docked in a port and the whole crew was automatically treated, the carried character would become bugged in many ways.
- Fix: It was possible to send the same characters onto two inspections (and other types of interactions).
- Fix: Officers now never go to work on their own to the periscope, if there is another officer at the UZO.
- Fix: Sometimes there was no effect (like panic etc.), once a stress among the crew peaked.
- Fix: Button on the portrait that is used to enter a manual mode was appearing before the officer arrived to the gun.
- Fix: It's now possible to send crew onto enemy merchant ships, if they were abandoned by the crew. Previously that was allowed only for neutral ships.
- Fix: Officers that had ammunition resupply task highly in their schedule were sometimes stopping to perform player's orders to instead resupply ammunition.


General:
- Added an integration with Discord.
- Optimisations, fixes to a few small memory leaks and technical changes that decrease the save file size for long campaigns.
- Added a pool of historically correct ship names for Illustrious-class and Bogue-class aircraft carriers and for County-class cruisers.
- Captains and first engineers now spawn on tankers, just like on the regular merchant ships.
- Off duty time skipping in a port is now stopped right away, if player receives a letter.
- Fix: Once the contact is lost, it stops to be marked as a target for the officers on the map with a crosshair.
- Fix: Music played through the radio wasn't detectable to the enemy hydrophones.
- Fix: It was possible to detonate torpedoes with magnetic detonator by moving camera near them, if it was in a certain mode.
- Fix: After loading a game state, in which a music was played on a radio, the background music and the radio music would play simultaneously.
- Fix: Torpedoes with a magnetic detonator could be detonated by a nearby lifeboat.
- Fix: LST ships didn't had specified GRT ("0 GRT" was displayed after selecting them).
- Fix: Sailors rescued from NPC ships were speaking German while eating.
- Fix: Time compression was sometimes stopping without apparent reason.
- Fix: Errors in the log after toggling the binoculars view.
- Fix: If an auto-save was made, while saving or loading UI was open and then that auto-save was loaded, the game would run in slow motion.
- Fix: Music played through radio is now stopped when u-boat submerges at a depth that makes it impossible to receive it anymore.
- Regression fix: Music defined by mods for specific ports was no longer being played since a few versions back.


Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on February 08, 2022, 11:02:20 PM
Roadmap for 2022
Tue, 8 February 2022


Dear skippers,

We are back with a roadmap for the year 2022! Please have a look at it to get a general idea where UBOAT is heading and what to expect soon.

We plan to leave the Early Access this year after two more updates. Initially, we wanted to make a one large update, but this way you will have a possibility to enjoy fresh content without a long break along the way.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/89efa3d4820f458e9d9238e2dbd49de268eccd27.png)

Starting with this year, we are also going to change the naming convention for the future updates. We will now categorize them by the year they were released in.

That means that the next updates will be named 2022.1 and 2022.2 instead of B132 and B133. We feel that this is going to be much more clear and easier to memorize as compared to a one long sequence.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/f0f367407aa3d6121c723f13b5fc0af315b30631.png)

The next update still needs some love, but we are working hard to complete is as soon as possible. We hope that you will enjoy it!

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on April 21, 2022, 11:14:46 PM
Update 2022.1: Development Log
Thu, 21 April 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/ac39c5ab2185d2972b5dacd37caaf8abde92a69c.png)

Dear Skippers,

We wanted to share with you the progress that we made for update 2022.1. We plan this update as a major milestone towards the full release later this year, therefore it's growing to be one of the largest updates to UBOAT that we made thus far.

Seasons
2022.1 will bring realistic seasons to the game, along with related effects like a dynamic snow cover and a vegetation changing colour.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/f9c77f06f110e828650d9ae9de16e27d960167f7.gif)

Climate zones
Another addition are going to be climate zones. That means that you will no longer find potato fields on Sahara. This feature will hopefully make your assignments more memorable and immersive.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/afb795e3357b82277bcfcf1cfb6b762be80bfc91.png)

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/769795359afbb5170122aa260064cc7c29d2a6f1.png)


New ports
Work on the new ports is progressing very well, but please keep in mind that most ports will be shipped in update 2022.2. Our goal for 2022.1 was to create a few very good ports to prepare a technical groundwork and figure out optimal workflows in the process.

These new ports will be nothing like the old ones, bringing in some flashy features as well as historic layouts. The port on the screenshot below is Helgoland early in the war, before building a Nordsee III submarine pen in it.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/ec724343b9946030848f591d9bba6cecfd3e8304.png)


Greater challenge
We noticed that some veteran subsim players voiced that they need more challenge from the game. For this reason, we put work into ensuring just that, by improving combat AI as well as improving various simulation aspects.

We compensated many of these changes on the easier difficulty settings, so that mostly experienced players will be exposed to them.

Release
It's still too early to give you an estimate when this update is going to land, but we are getting there. While it's mostly feature complete now, the exact time it will take depends on how well the further testing will go.

Please note, that the features mentioned in this dev log are not a complete list. Actually, it's just a tip of the iceberg, so please stay tuned for more news!

Aircraft Carrier Survival

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1021100/header.jpg)

We would also like to use this opportunity to notify you about a release of Aircraft Carrier Survival. It's a game from another studio belonging just like us to PlayWay group.

The game has many parallels to UBOAT and you may potentially find it interesting. Please have a look.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021100/Aircraft_Carrier_Survival/

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1021100/ss_e5d1f4d508863ed169b7802bf9c0f4a960bd8989.1920x1080.jpg)

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on June 27, 2022, 12:05:38 PM
UBOAT Submarine Simulator  Update 2022 1 Trailer
26 June 2022

https://youtu.be/htcXsVSCimc

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on August 31, 2022, 11:02:33 AM
Update 2022.1: Coming in October
Tue, 30 August 2022

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/ac39c5ab2185d2972b5dacd37caaf8abde92a69c.png)

Dear Skippers,

We know that you can't wait for the update 2022.1 to be finally released.

We have to inform you though that we have to move the release until mid October from the previous estimate of the late summer.

We will inform you about the exact release date by the end of September. We will also have many other big announcements (good ones) to share at the release day of the update.

To get a better impression and why this update is so long in coming, below is an overview of the features and content that will land in your hands soon. It's the largest update we've published for UBOAT thus far!

Please note that this overview is not a comprehensive list, since we want to leave you some nice surprises for the release day. There are some exciting things about this update that we haven't shared yet!

We will publish a complete list of changes made by the update 2022.1 at the day of its release.


Ports
The ports have undergone a total overhaul. The new ones are more detailed and historically correct. The ports reworked in 2022.1 include La Rochelle, La Spezia, Bergen and many more. There are also new ports added in.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/b2fccaf48bb04195f02c5d6e073a848c6e554eff.gif)

We had to pass many technical challenges to ensure that these ports will work with an optimal performance and at the same time look well, since UBOAT is designed for playing on very vast areas represented in 1:1 scale. To put that into perspective, on average three ports collectively cover an area of 30 - 40 square kilometers that often equals to the entire world in many top RPG games.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/ec724343b9946030848f591d9bba6cecfd3e8304.png)

The update 2022.1 will allow you to build submarine pens in ports that historically had them to protect the stationing u-boats.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/c2af7f3b4bca36f49c101ccaddb1394286b9f183.png)

The new ports feature functional locks that keep the water level inside the port at a stable level, independent from the tides on the sea.

Once you return to the port after a successful mission, you may be greeted by the welcoming committee.


Allies
Hedgehog launchers are now installed on Allied ships starting with late 1942. It is a new major threat that may lead your u-boat to a demise. The comforting part is that Hedgehog attacks look quite cool and you may find some enjoyment in the process.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/cb62a8a8340e46cb6545f86957fa301bf1e5cf59.gif)

Allies now sometimes start massive air raids at ports in which you are stationing. This is a new threat in this update, but along with it comes a way to permanently protect from it, namely the submarine pens mentioned previously. Once you build them, you can put your sunglasses on and relax in the pen.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/ae07ce0558aa36b75d92f23fa226f747e4702a49.png)

Starting with 1944, CHANT tankers and by extension Empire F type coasters now appear in the coastal convoys. There will also be new destroyers added, but it's a top secret for now. Please burn the message once you read it.


Steam Deck compatibility
This release improves compatibility with Steam Deck in many ways. The issues with disappearing cursor in the launcher were fixed and various quality of life improvements were added to make the game easier to use on this console.


Environment
There are now seasons in 2022.1 with snow in the winter and plant life reddening at the autumn.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/f9c77f06f110e828650d9ae9de16e27d960167f7.gif)

Climate zones are now also part of the simulation with plant life variation depending on the region.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/afb795e3357b82277bcfcf1cfb6b762be80bfc91.png)

Tides are now simulated within the game. Their intensity varies from region to region. Most of the mainland European ports don't experience strong tides. The highest among them are in La Rochelle with up to 5 meter variation of the sea level. On the other hand, British islands have some of the highest in the world with Cardiff seeing even a 10 meter variation, which is more than enough to impact gameplay in a subsim game.

Sun now appears at a correct position for the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/b9b099d7f242a2213d3884c6f787c44ac349b1a2.png)

It's common in UBOAT to see mainly the sea and the sky for most of the time. For this reason, we put work into that second part, by implementing volumetric cloud simulation, which makes the clouds much more pleasant to look at.

Civilian fishing boats now populate the seas close to the shores.


Crew management
We've seen your feedback that it doesn't feel right that some officers had to remain in a bed during battle, because all stations were occupied. To improve that, officers can now command the ship and coordinate damage control from the control room just like in the movies about submarines. By doing so, they can support others and provide various ship-wide benefits that correlate with their skills.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/4b452455a74a625a8021bfa01a03d5692a21ae1d.png)

Alarm can be now controlled manually. Toggled alarm provides various bonuses, although also has some small drawbacks that make it unsustainable for long periods of time. It will allow you to keep your officers at work as long as it's active, even when their energy drops to zero, but keeping them in such a state for a long time may be dangerous for their health.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/5d726615b4cf48536727c1578b357cc50130b180.png)

Crew now uses toilets. It's a small addition that adds to the overall immersion.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/b2526b36c57953010fdc7b081ac1182ac6793862.png)


User interface
We've put a lot of work to make the user interface more user friendly, practical and better looking.

Torpedo solutions are now visualized on the map to help you decide, if the moment is right for launching a salvo. The game is also estimating an impact angle at the target and warns you, if it's too high for the impact detonators.

Also, the identification book used with the manual mode of the periscope and UZO is now organized into categories. This is a tremendous improvement for practicality.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/1ed787cc8587adb866e68b7b0a47a52fbaba4011.gif)

We've improved TAB menu usability. Orders are now more organized and sorted in a practical way. The screen has also received some structure that makes it more pleasant to work with it.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/eeaa86b4f5190eccf4c0f066fdeb4c8d8aada44a.png)

Map drawings are now stored in the saved game states and restored after loading them back. This was a commonly requested feature that we managed to include in this release.


Bug fixes
The largest chunk of work are definitely bug fixes and small incremental improvements. If you are a long term player, you will quickly notice that practically everything in the game has received some small touches and many bugs have disappeared from existence.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on October 08, 2022, 12:54:26 AM
Update 2022.1: New 1939 campaign
Fri, 7 October 2022

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_3394eea915d8499034ff856af4a635c60cdcbf9c.jpg)

Dear skippers,

We've decided to prepare a series of posts for you about new features introduced in the upcoming update 2022.1 of which we haven't mentioned before.


We weren't sure earlier, which of them will make it into the update, but we can tell you all about them now since they are done. We will publish these posts over the next few days

1939 campaign
We are most pleased to inform you that a full 1939 campaign is now a thing in UBOAT. It will let you experience the entirety of the war from its beginning to the end. Along with the campaign come many new activities and campaign objectives that suit this part of the war. There are also many historic messages from the command added in.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/7712a13fd9f41cad7124403c9650cd25ab4cb1ed.png)

Starting in 1939, you will operate very close to British Isles, mostly on the North Sea and Western Approaches. We ensured that these areas are much more interesting and developed than they used to be before.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/0a62c2537816663dcfb4c8360032a36fe2f1bd8f.png)

In 1940 you will have an opportunity to play through the Norwegian Campaign and after that you will be able to move either to the newly formed French flotilla or join Battle of Arctic.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/b4599418d8d8592603b486da07704e539d80d082.png)

Arctic is another area that received many improvements to ensure that you will stay occupied there, if you choose to operate from this area.

Streams
Using the opportunity, we also wanted to give you a heads up, that many streamers will receive an early access to the update 2022.1 on October 12th. If you would be interested to see it for yourself before it gets released, we invite you to watch the streams from streamers that agreed to join.

If you are a streamer and would like to participate, you will be most welcome. Please contact PlayWay, our publisher.

Daily deal
There is also going to be a Daily Deal for UBOAT on Steam at the day of release of the update (October 15th). If you are new to our community, it's going to be a good moment to join in for a good price.

We will still have more news about the update soon, stay tuned!

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on October 11, 2022, 01:58:48 AM
Update 2022.1: Minelaying & map improvements
Mon, 10 October 2022

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/25728714/8aa1b61ef498924b8247ec7b0c6d75bcfde79616.png)

Dear skippers,

We are back with more news about update 2022.1 once again.


This time, we wanted to let you know, that TMB mines have also made it into the game. These mines were designed to be launched from the torpedo tubes and were commonly used by the u-boats during World War II.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/bf8562d9dcc7ade8d6878496e46004c886417e72.png)

There is a new type of assignment from the command that asks you to plant a minefield near the enemy coast. The target areas are usually frequently patrolled, so this type of mission is all about sneaking into the area and escaping unnoticed.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/7c8ed6e79949619150e49e6663ce90a26c7aed7b.png)

We've also improved the in-game map graphically in many ways in this update. Especially, the HQ map was improved and many new tasks were added, including a possibility to send officers to a navy academy to gain additional experience, new construction projects and new aerial reconnaissance tasks.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/e1061b614025c9c3c482ab89cfbb383f6b03e635.png)


Save compatibility
We also need to inform you, that the new version is not going to be compatible with the game states saved on the previous versions of the game. We were maintaining compatibility for a long time and at some point we had to abandon it, because we decided to overhaul the save system. The saves are now 30-35% smaller than they used to be and the save system should be now much more stable in long campaigns.

We will still have more news about the update soon, stay tuned!

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on October 12, 2022, 02:33:31 AM
Update 2022.1: Reward overhaul and new skill icons
Tue, 11 October 2022

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_3394eea915d8499034ff856af4a635c60cdcbf9c.jpg)

Dear skippers,

We are back with another news about update 2022.1.


This time, we wanted to tell you about upcoming changes to the rewards granted for completing the campaign objectives. Previously, it was mostly budget, reputation and milk cow submarines. We always felt that this wasn't motivating enough to complete them and reworked that aspect completely for this release. Most campaign objectives now grant completely unique rewards that aren't possible to receive otherwise.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/0f02cdc446d444ec73475d468a8166fbfec5ec87.png)

Some of these rewards are special perks for your crew that simulate the unique experience granted by completing the mission. Imagine being on a German u-boat sneaking under the sea at Gibraltar Strait, hearing propellers of enemy destroyers above your head. This is a life-changing experience and we wanted to give it such meaning for your crew in the game too.

Other missions will unlock new tasks on the HQ map or grant unique fame to your u-boat. We won't spoil anything here, to let you discover all of that for yourself soon!

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/a0cc6d40582371a9f488a07bc5a47242d245cdfc.png)

We've also created brand new icons for all skills in the game. The new icons are much prettier and make the skills much more satisfying to unlock.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/972d74dae4ab4eda647612c9b0c67dbcb2db7f66.png)

We also wanted to give you a friendly reminder that tomorrow (12th October) around 16:00 CET streamers will receive an access to update 2022.1.

If you are interested, please take a look tomorrow for Twitch streams using the link below:

https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/UBOAT

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on October 18, 2022, 12:06:42 AM
Update 2022.1: Patch 5
Mon, 17 October 2022


(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_175073d00dcabdcc37ee2ace39f34ea6547fb272.jpg)

Dear skippers,

There is a new patch available for 2022.1. It fixes some of the most common issues reported so far.

Changelog:

Localisation:
- Italian localisation update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- Ukrainian localisation update by vovanvoks.
- Spanish localisation update by Tordo.
- Russian localistion update by Hard.
- Czech localisation update by Spid3rCZ.

Technical:
- Fix: Errors in the log and decreased performance, if the game was launched with "Level of Detail" graphic setting set to "Low" or "High".

Crew:
- Fix: Automatically toggled alarm sometimes wasn't disabling itself.
- Fix: Stress accumulated during an alarm was sometimes not decaying afterwards.

Graphics:
- Fix: Aviator glasses were clipping with a few face types.
- Fix: Certain rarely used types of explosion effects were having a pink shader.

UI:
- One new loading screen.
- Fix (regression): "Berlin" was appearing as the message sender in the journal for messages sent by BdU / FdU.
- Fix: Some skill icons were slightly shifted to the side.
- Fix: After clicking on the notification about new messages, the journal was opened with messages sorted in an inverted order.

Ports:
- Various aesthetical fixes to Wilhelmshaven and Bergen.
- Fix: Recruits running around in Bergen's submarine pen were often moving in front of the camera during a dialogue with the warehouse worker, which was somewhat unpleasant.
- Fix: Added fence in Bergen around the walkable area.
- Fix: When starting the game in Kiel, player's u-boat now appears in the most accessible dock spot.
- Fix: Improved intro cutscenes at the start of the campaign in Bergen, La Spezia, La Rochelle and Helgoland.

General:
- Dynamic travel system is now removed from the game. It may come back with a rework in one of the future updates, if that will be requested.
- Radio messages from NPC u-boats are faster to receive.
- Adjustment to the weight of various items.
- Fix: It was possible that a side-mission about sinking a ship would appear with Lend Lease back story before 1941.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on October 23, 2022, 05:35:50 PM
Update 2022.1: Patch 6
Thu, 20 October 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_45015484bd28c96fcf97bf0118b13a87a3cdd86f.jpg)

Dear skippers,

There is a new patch available for 2022.1. It fixes some of the most common issues reported so far. Changelog:


Localisation:
- Portuguese localisation update by AlexShuma.
- Italian localisation update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- Ukrainian localisation update by vovanvoks.
- Spanish localisation update by Tordo.
- Russian localistion update by Hard.
- Czech localisation update by Spid3rCZ.
- German localisation update by Ruby.
- Polish localisation update.

Simulation:
- It now matters how the u-boat is rotated in relation to the enemy sonar. U-boat is harder to detect when it faces the sonar with the front or back and easier to detect when rotated from the profile.

Missions:
- Patrol assignments now have an additional objective at the beginning that asks the player to first reach the target area. The objective about travelling a certain distance inside the patrol area now appears after this objective is completed.
- Fix: On rare occasion, it was possible that the aircraft in tutorial nr 4 has missed the player while dropping the depth charges and the tutorial wasn't progressing.
- Fix: Performance during tutorial missions could be slightly decreased due to intense writing to the log.
- Fix: Tutorial nr 2 now requires from the player to reach only 120 meters during a dive training, since in one of the possible training areas it was sometimes impossible to reach 150 meters.
- Fix: Mission selection screen could be sometimes empty with no missions available, if certain mods were in use that had small errors in one of the data sheets.
- Fix (regression of 2022.1): It's no longer necessary to wait some time after reaching the target area in tutorial nr 2 for the mission to continue.

Crew:
- "Connections" and "Specialist" skills are now never randomly assigned to the skipper, because he has no way to use them.
- It's no longer possible to select a new assignment, tutorial or ask for favors, when there is no skipper on the ship. It's now required to promote a new skipper first.

UI:
- If an attempt is made to delete a save file, there is now a confirmation popup that asks the player to confirm the intention.
- Added a new notification type about sailors falling off board.
- The game is now asking player for confirmation, if he tries to leave the port on a new mission, while being low on fuel.
- Added tooltips to the sailor personality icons on the crew list.
- Improved readability of the countdowns appearing on the officer portraits when they are wounded.
- Added two new hints on the loading screen.
- Added an explanation to the tooltip of notification about a required inspection, that the command station is available only when there is an active alarm on the ship along with an explanation how to toggle the alarm.
- Fix: Missing information about item loading time and other issues in the storage UI, if the game was launched in Portuguese.
- Fix: Green dots that point mission targets no longer appear in the periscope, UZO and deck gun sight views.
- Fix: When player had a route plotted for the U-boat and then pressed a mouse button to plot a new path, all segments from the previous path were disappearing aside from the first one.
- Fix: Issues with Cyrillic fonts on a new campaign setup screen.
- Fix: The photograph of the associated campaign objective was disappearing when player has selected a minelying assignment.
- Fix: Changed description of La Rochelle and Rotterdam in their respective tooltips to make it more universal for the entire duration of war.
- Fix: Small aesthetical improvement to the follower bars near the portraits. Their highlighted states were slightly inconsistent.
- Fix: Follower bars in the TAB menu were less responsive than those on the portraits appearing at the bottom of the screen and were sometimes visible in an incorrect state.

Graphics:
- Fix: Improved positioning of officers in the intro cutscene in all ports to avoid issues with them having feet slightly inside the ground.
- Fix: Footbridge connecting the U-boat and the port was slightly clipping with the port geometry in Wilhelmshaven.

Physics:
- Fix (regression of 2022.1): U-boat was making instant, jittery movements when there was an engineer assigned to the diving steers station and the ship has dived to the periscope depth. The camera was also slightly bobbing along with the ship in regular time intervals.

Ports:
- Changed automatic undock route in Wilhelmshaven to a path that is more comfortable to use, allowing to get faster onto the open sea without interruptions.
- Aesthetical fixes to La Rochelle, Bergen and Helgoland.
- Fix: In Bergen, after building a submarine pen, NPC u-boats could try to dock at the same spot, in which player has already docked.
- Fix: After undocking from Helgoland, an incorrect undock route was being automatically plotted.
- Fix: After reloading a game state in Helgoland, the dialogue with a warehouse worker was stopping to work correctly. Also, if there were ongoing cargo loading tasks, it wasn't possible to skip them.

Technical:
- Errors appearing in the log, after clicking on the follower bars, if the sailor limit was reached.
- Fixes to various errors spotted in the log files shared with us.
- Fix: Triangular land segments could appear in the middle of the North Sea.
- Fix: Time compression may be now temporarily locked out, if player is approaching a friendly u-boat that is a target of the current mission and is still being loaded (to avoid collision and other issues).
- Fix (regression of 2022.1 Patch 5): Travel system was being changed to Realistic in existing game states with Dynamic travel system after visiting gameplay settings screen. It wasn't intended.

General:
- Fix: After sending officers on an external interaction (for example, a merchant ship inspection) and then performing certain steps that involved saving and reloading multiple times, the performance of the game was degrading and the sent officers could be seen levitating in the sky.
- Fix: It was possible for the torpedo loading noise modifiers to stay permenently in a game state. If your game was affected by this problem, these modifiers should be gone after loading the save file on this version.
- Fix (regression of 2022.1): It wasn't possible to manually move water from the character's bucket to the bilges.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on October 23, 2022, 05:38:26 PM
Update 2022.1: Patch 7
Fri, 21 October 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_5ce3b78d658195d19d795e07d00334d996ef4e72.jpg)

Dear skippers,

There is a new patch available for 2022.1. It fixes some of the most common issues reported so far. Changelog:


UI:
- Fix (regression of 2022.1 Patch 6): Various issues with the confirmation popup for deleting save files.

Ports:
- Aesthetical fixes to Wilhelmshaven, La Rochelle and Bergen.
- Fix: Sailors couldn't find path back to the u-boat when returning from vacation in Bergen (without submarine pen).
- Fix: Missing recruitment officer in Bergen (without submarine pen).

Graphics:
- Fix: Pilot was sometimes missing on Bristol Beaufort.

World:
- Fix: U-boats departing from Wilhelmshaven were sometimes moving into Thames to perform a patrol.

Technical:
- Fix: Pathfinding wasn't working correctly after reloading a saved game state near the port until the area was left.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on October 24, 2022, 12:32:44 AM
Update 2022.1: Patch 8
Sat, 22 October 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_5ce3b78d658195d19d795e07d00334d996ef4e72.jpg)


Dear skippers,

There is a new patch available for 2022.1. It fixes some of the most common issues reported so far. Changelog:


Graphics:
- Fix: Leading officer's hair was clipping through his cap.

UI:
- Added tooltips to light color change actions available in the scene and in TAB menu.
- Added a button to the TAB menu for toggling alarm on and off.
- Added description to the adjust ballast action on the valves.
- Fix: Item's parameters weren't disappearing along with its description after moving cursor away in the storage UI.
- Fix: Torpedo solution making progress is no longer displayed next to the target on the contacts list, if it's targeted by a gun, rather than periscope, UZO or hydrophone.

Ports:
- Aesthetical improvements to Wilhelmshaven.
- Small fixes to Bergen.

Interactions:
- Fix: Interaction with a crashed aircraft now disappears after taking its entire crew on board.
- Fix: It's no longer possible to press buttons during a story sequence (for example merchant ship inspection), when a new scene is still being loaded in the background.

Crew:
- Red lighting no longer decreases crew noise. It was an accidental change in 2022.1.
- Fix: Emergency tanks blowing order was missing on the valves after ballast was adjusted at least once.

Simulation:
- Distant contacts now disappear instantly from the map without a timeout, when the device with which they were observed is no longer in use.

Technical:
- Fix: If player entered a port area and quickly left it just before the port has been loaded, the port would still load and would never disappear from the scene afterwards.
- Fix: Camera was shaking excessively when u-boat was being hit by small projectiles.

Yours,
DWS
 
Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on October 27, 2022, 12:28:57 AM
Update 2022.1: Patch 9
Wed, 26 October 2022

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_5ce3b78d658195d19d795e07d00334d996ef4e72.jpg)

Dear skippers,

There is a new patch available for 2022.1. It fixes some of the most common issues reported so far. Changelog:


Localisation:
- French localisation update by FvJ and Placebo.
- Ukrainian localisation update by vovanvoks.
- Japanese localisation update by Surumeika1987, Largo, [JP]AWPsan, 泥遊戯.
- Portuguese localisation update by AlexShuma.
- German localisation update by Ruby.
- Polish localisation update.

Crew:
- Radiomans are now receiving incoming radio transmissions automatically, if they are in the radio room or have an assigned role with specified radio use and don't do anything else at the moment. The notification about a new incoming transmission doesn't appear, if there is a radioman that starts to receive it.
- "Supporter" skill now works only once per assignment rather than once per alarm. Since alarm can be now controlled manually by the player in 2022.1 this was allowing for an easy exploit.
- Crew members that leave for a vacation now have a "vacation" order displayed on their portraits and in other places in the UI. This helps to understand what they are currently doing.
- Fix: It was possible to receive multiple penalties for dirty interiors, if a saved game state was reloaded after obtaining the penalty. The duplicated penalties weren't going away even after cleaning. This fix also applies to existing game states that already contain multiple penalties.
- Fix: Sailors could still try to block leaks in evacuated compartments, if they haven't yet arrived at the destination when the evacuation was ordered.
- Fix: Survivors from sunk ships no longer speak in German about leaks.
- Fix: Officers were sometimes becoming tired, even though they were on an automated schedule, which should ensure that they would switch to rest before becoming tired.
- Fix: U-boat's interiors are automatically cleaned and all dirt modifiers to discipline are removed after using quick mission completion. U-boat's interiors also don't accumulate dirt during long stays at port.

Simulation:
- Compressed air tanks are now filled automatically during long stays in a port.
- Fix: NPC ships could quickly submerge below water, if time compression was repeatedly switching between x140 and x48.

User interface:
- Expanded discipline tooltip with information that fatigue modifier may be removed by sending crew on a vacation.
- Owned reputation points are now displayed in the HQ in the task view for quick reference.
- Fix: Photographs of campaign objectives that ask the player to move to another flotilla (like Gibraltar Passage) could disappear from the map after completion.
- Fix: Keyboard shortcut settings screen was having duplicated entries, if it was opened and closed multiple times.
- Fix: There is now a different status on the selection panel for aircraft to indicate that they were shot down. They no longer use the same status as sinking ships, because the icon and tooltip weren't fitting.
- Fix: Notification about compressed air could for a short time display values above 100%.
- Fix: Subtitles could appear behind torpedo launchers UI.
- Fix: "Free camera enabled" label wasn't horizontally centred on the screen.
- Fix: Fuel cost now disappears after completely filling the fuel tanks.
- Fix: Engineer follower bars were sometimes having gear icons on them without reason.
- Fix: "Daredevil" skill wasn't visible in the skill tree of the skipper after completing The Happy Time (the skill was granted correctly though, just not visible).
- Fix (regression of 2022.1): It wasn't possible to load star shell ammunition into ammunition storages.

Ships:
- Fix: CHANT ships were very hard to sink.

World:
- Fix (regression of 2022.1): Scapa Flow was sometimes empty. The underlying issue could have similar effect on some other ports that should be more populated.

Ports:
- Aesthetical improvements to Wilhelmshaven, added more people along the undock route.
- Various fixes to La Spezia and La Rochelle.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to mark AA guns in some of the ports from certain positions.

HQ:
- Fix: It was possible to start any HQ task, while having only one reputation point, even if the cost was higher due to an early research penalty. The reputation was becoming negative after that.

Graphics:
- Vacations are now selected with a physical map in the background, without borders and historical events for a better feeling.
- Fix: Customisation screen was brighter than normal, if red lighting was enabled on the ship and the weather was dark.
- Fix: HQ camera now doesn't rotate as much upwards while zooming in, because it was causing issues on some graphic cards.
- Fix: When map skins were switched in the settings, some elements of the map weren't updated from the new skin until the game was restarted. In some cases it was also possible for the map grid to disappear in the process.
- Fix: Various issues with damage decals on NPC ships.
- Fix: Circular shadows could appear in the map view after zooming out the view at a certain distance near lands during a sunset or sunrise.
- Fix: After pressing a keyboard shortcut to adjust an user interface scale, while being on HQ map, map skin was reverting back to the default one.

Missions:
- Leading officer now offers different assignments after vacation ends rather than offering the same choices as before the vacation.
- Assignment about planting mines now requires to move away a bit further from the destination after completing the objective.
- Ships sunk outside of the patrol area now still count towards campaign objectives asking to sink a certain tonnage, if it's in a matching area for example anywhere in North Sea or Western Approaches in Tonnage War.
- Decreased a required number of merchant ship inspections to perform for the Southern Routes campaign objective.
- Fix: Mine planting assignment could become stuck at the "Leave area" objective.
- Fix: After completing all stages of a campaign objective asking to sink a specific tonnage of merchant ships, there were still new patrols appearing associated with it.
- Fix (regression of 2022.1): After obtaining Daredevil skill for the skipper, it was possible to receive an assignment about attacking La Rochelle, while being in La Rochelle.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on October 28, 2022, 12:54:22 AM
Update 2022.1: Patch 10
Thu, 27 October 2022

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_45015484bd28c96fcf97bf0118b13a87a3cdd86f.jpg)

Dear skippers,

There is a new patch available for 2022.1. It fixes some of the most common issues reported so far. Changelog:

Localisation:
- Italian localisation update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- German localisation update by Ruby.
- Polish localisation update.

Crew:
- Fix: Crew stops to speak any queued statements after a quick mission completion is used.
- Fix: It's no longer possible to store non-food items in the galley.
- Fix (regression of 2022.1 Patch 5): Decreased diving suit weight from 40kg to 20kg to make it possible to manually equip the suit from a cabinet.

Ports:
- Aesthetical improvements and fixes to Helgoland.
- Added docking spots for trade ships in Wilhelmshaven.

Modding:
- Fix: If "2022.1" was specified as the supported version of the game in the mod manifest, patch releases were considered incompatible with it by the launcher.

Interactions:
- Fix (regression of 2022.1 Patch 8): After shooting down a plane and approaching it, interactions with other units were stopping to work until the game was restarted.

Missions:
- Added a docked British merchant ship in the assignment about rescuing a Kriegsmarine official from Vigo. Enemy patrols on the way back are now less intense, if player remains undetected on the approach to the port.
- Fix: Objective about staying undetected in the assignment about rescuing a Kriegsmarine official from Vigo was always marked as completed in the mission summary after completion.

Technical:
- Fix: In rare cases, the port wasn't unloading correctly from the scene when its area was left by the player and instead was loading back again and wasn't going away afterwards.

Yours,
DWS


Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on November 23, 2022, 11:41:21 PM
Update 2022.1: Patch 16
Wed, 23 November 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_e3e70957ffdff57eeeb170fb6bf0a079ef3fd83a.jpg)

Dear skippers,

There is a new patch available for 2022.1. It's here to fix one issue introduced by the previous patch released earlier today. Changelog:


Localisation:
- Portuguese localisation update by AlexShuma.
- Ukrainian localisation update by vovanvoks.
- Spanish localisation update by Tordo.
- German localisation update by Ruby.

General:
- Fix (regression of 2022.1 Patch 15): It wasn't possible to turn off the radio music.

Yours,
DWS


Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on December 11, 2022, 05:24:18 PM
Update 2022.1: Patch 17
Wed, 30 November 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_6c324a6abb058c340e06c8bcf3442c412eda5bc7.jpg)

Dear skippers,

There is a new patch available for 2022.1. Changelog:



Localisation:
- Japanese localisation update by Surumeika1987, Largo, [JP]AWPsan, 泥遊戯, Mononok Kori.
- Portuguese localisation update by AlexShuma.
- Czech localisation update by Spid3rCZ.
- Turkish localisation update by Narberal Gamma.
- Spanish localisation update by Tordo.
- Ukrainian localisation update by vovanvoks.
- Italian localisation update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.
- German localisation update by Ruby.
- Polish localisation update.

User interface:
- Improvements to new decoration and campaign progress screens.
- Added a separate notification type for less important messages, like communications from the other u-boats. This notification is less intrusive and helps to quickly distinguish important messages from the common communications from the other ships.
- Crew fatigue modifier to discipline is now displayed in the discipline tooltip, even when the ship is docked in the port. There is an information added, that the modifier is currently inactive.
- Added a dedicated icon for the equipment upgrade action.
- Fix: Radio message about completing the Scapa Flow assignment was displayed in its full form, rather than shorter form, on the button used for sending the messages.
- Fix: Notification about interrupted radio transmission was sometimes appearing during quick return to port or while skipping time in port.

Crew:
- Free vacations now last for 14 days instead of 21 days. As a drawback, the fatigue is growing slightly faster than after a longer break.
- Fix: Character controlled in FPP could start to move on his own after moving through the hatch from the control room to battery room no. 2.
- Fix: It's no longer possible to leave the port, when there is more sailors on board than allowed by the current limit (it was possible to achieve by completing Enigma recovery assignment).
- Fix: Officers were continuing to wear items that they were given on the group selection screen for external interaction after cancelling it (for example, a diving suit).
- Fix: Sailors could sometimes not return to their duties defined in the schedule after vacation for the duration of the first shift. The limit of sailors possible to assign to officers could also increase for the duration of the first shift.

Simulation:
- Sight detection range at which groups of ships are spotted (funnel smoke, masts etc.) is now much more affected by bad weather than the direct sight range at which individual units are told apart. This fixes situations, where for example, it was possible to spot smoke over horizon in a heavy fog at a few hundred meters.

Graphics:
- Fix: Map camera was often slightly vibrating during movements, especially if temporal anti-aliasing was enabled in the settings.
- Fix: Labels on the ships weren't appearing at distances from which it should be technically possible to read them through a periscope.
- Fix: View through UZO and periscopes was very bright in dark fog, much brighter than the other views.
- Fix: After returning from the map to a view close to the u-boat after at least a few hours of travel, the reflections on the sea and other objects could look wrong and don't match the current weather.
- Fix (regression of B129): The dynamic wetness effect on the u-boat's hull wasn't working since a few major versions back. This fix may have a small impact on the performance.

Ports:
- Aesthetical fixes and improvements to Wilhelmshaven.
- Fix: Cars try to avoid turning into blind roads to avoid turning 180 degrees back.

Missions:
- Fix: Green dot that points mission targets, wasn't always centred on the u-boat's wreck in the Enigma recovery assignment.

Audio:
- Sound effect for course change is now quieter.

Modding:
- Vacation data from the data sheets is now updated after loading a saved game state. There is no need to start a new campaign for changes to show up.

Technical:
- Fix (regression of 2022.1 Patch 15): Random issue with loading saved game states.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on December 11, 2022, 05:27:25 PM
Update 2022.1: Patch 18
Sat, 10 December 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_9df06bb663bcb98869846a7b24e10f2ebc820f3d.jpg)

Dear skippers,

There is a new patch available for 2022.1. Changelog:


Localisation:
- Chinese localisation update by Alex Zheng, JM-LeiDao, 36 D, Xenon_Tennessee.
- French localisation update by FvJ and Placebo.
- Czech localisation update by Spid3rCZ.
- Japanese localisation update by Surumeika1987, Largo, [JP]AWPsan, 泥遊戯, Mononok Kori.
- Spanish localisation update by Miguel Haakon.
- Turkish localisation update by Narberal Gamma.
- Portuguese localisation update by AlexShuma.
- Russian localisation update by Hard.
- Ukrainian localisation update by vovanvoks.
- German localisation update by Ruby.
- Polish localisation update.
- Fix: Improved fonts used by Spanish localisation.

Simulation:
- It's now possible to make your boat harder to detect for the enemy asdic/hydrophone operators by moving close to another ship with working propellers or by moving inside a convoy with many ships nearby.
- Non-alarmed warships are now less effective at detecting u-boats using hydrophones and asdics.
- The damage inflicted on the u-boat by high water pressure at great depths (as indicated by the red section of the depth meter) was slightly reduced, to make it more viable to hide under the thermocline.
- Sight range in moonless nights was considerably reduced.
- Thermocline depth is now a bit more varied and is now often slightly higher than it used to be.

User interface:
- Added a short congratulatory message from the command on the screen that appears when a campaign objective is completed.
- Added icons to the tooltip of notification about survivors to help with distinguishing between different survivor types, such as a captain and chief engineer.
- Added a label to the shop window that indicates when the fuel tanks are full.
- Clicking with a right mouse button on the notification about less important incoming messages is now marking all of them as read.
- Added an information about speed and range of each torpedo type in their respective descriptions.
- Added a confirmation popup when an attempt is made to overwrite an existing game state.
- Changed icons for torpedoes with a revised Pi1 pistol to have them labeled as Pi1+ instead of having a star in the corner.
- User interface scale set in the settings is now applied also to the loading screen contents.
- Added notifications about completing certain optional objectives during assignments like sinking a certain tonnage during a patrol.
- There is now a lunar phase shown on the weather state icon that appears in the map view.
- Added a label with the ending date of the campaign objective on its details screen.
- Torpedo icons now have color-coded detonator types.
- Fix: The notification about background loading wasn't appearing in some situations where something important was being loaded.
- Fix: The notifications about new messages were often appearing again some time later after dismissing them with a right mouse button.
- Fix: If a character customisation option was highlighted and previewed on the character, and then player left the character screen entirely, the previously highlighted item would be worn by the character, even though it wasn't confirmed.
- Fix: Group contact markers from the map could remain visible in HQ scene.
- Fix: There was a redundant scroll visible, if cursor was moved over an item with a long description in the storage user interface and then moved over a blank slot.

Settings:
- Added a new gameplay setting that allows to specify, if time compression should be stopped after receiving a low priority message (for example, from another u-boat). The default behaviour is now not to stop the time compression in such cases.
- Added a new realism setting for disabling torpedo solution previews, as well as additional information that comes with it, like the estimated salvo hit angle.

Interactions:
- Fix: When neutral ship trading with an Allied port was inspected, the documents could clearly state that the ship is headed towards the Allied port (making it a valid target), but the story was ignoring that fact.

Crew:
- Fix: Blue light and leader's iron fist skill weren't decreasing noise made by an engineer loading or performing maintenance tasks on the torpedoes, while it was explicitly mentioned in the iron fist skill description that it has an effect on it.
- Fix: Crew was reporting flames on deck on enemy ship, even if the ship wasn't seen at the moment.

AI:
- Various improvements to NPC u-boats behaviour during wolfpack attacks.
- Fix: If player ordered a neutral vessel's crew to evacuate and then attacked that vessel, the alarm bells would activate on the ship, even though there was nobody left on the ship.

Audio:
- Reworked the sonar ping sounds on the u-boat's hull. They are more frequent, consistent and their volume depends on many factors.
- Fix: The ticking sound audible during the use of a chronometer was improved and is now looped correctly.
- Fix: Background music could become permanently muted after watching cutscene with orchestra, on return to port.

Missions:
- The mechanism that selects side missions during patrols was reworked in a way that should provide more variety and a break from repeating the same mission types frequently.

Ports:
- Fix: Cars no longer spawn on roads that don't connect with any other roads.

Graphics:
- New models for the civilian official suits.
- Civilians no longer stand near war maps in HQ and appear only near Enigma machines.
- Changed the texture of a newspaper that lies on one of the tables inside the u-boat.
- Fix: Moon light intensity wasn't affected by the current lunar phase.
- Fix: Lighting on conning towers other than Turm 0 was wrong inside the submarine pens. The affected conning towers had a blue tint on them like they would be out in the open rather than inside a building.
- Fix: Various shadow artifacts on the light casted by Flower-class spotlights.
- Fix: Corrected a typo on one of the electric engine labels.
- Fix: Some types of ships weren't having damage decals displayed on their hulls after being hit.
- Fix: Turm I and Turm II conning towers were having some artifacts on them in rainy weather.

Modding:
- Fix: Mods referring to assembly "com.unity.standardassets.Runtime" couldn't be compiled by the game.

General:
- Lifeboats with a crew evacuated from a ship are now numbered.
- U-boat upgrades now have a minimum installation time of 5 hours. None of the upgrades are installed instantly.
- Fix: Potassium absorbers were present in a warehouse in La Rochelle even before completing the associated HQ task that unlocks them.
- Fix: The warehouse icon inside submarine pens is now correctly centred on the warehouse worker.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on December 11, 2022, 05:29:42 PM
Full release of UBOAT
Wed, November 30, 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_4186391b945f21acb72af5a228a4b9a907b45494.jpg)

Dear Skippers,

We are happy to let you know that UBOAT is going to leave the Early Access formula next year with the next major update. We are already working on this update for some time. We build it to be a quite large update that will improve some of the remaining weak spots of the game that we could identify, as well as complete the content.

We are also going to implement the remaining features from our previous roadmap into this update, aside from those that we already implemented in 2022.1.

Further along the way, we will be revealing what to expect from this Full Release update. Follow our announcements, if you are interested in an early peek.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//25728714/4bec2ee2fb8fc357da3ccdf78e19d2f3bc4d6f37.png)

On a side note, apart from the next major update, we are still going to release at least two smaller patches for 2022.1.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the people who are with us and help us, you - players for your suggestions and support, the translators for their hard work, and our contributors and testers.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on January 26, 2023, 12:11:20 AM
Update 2022.1: Patch 21
Wed, 25 January 2023

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_95808293a93f991968f818e5adddbc022b135c9e.jpg)


Dear skippers,

There is a new patch available for 2022.1. Changelog:


Localisation:
- Czech localisation update by Spid3rCZ.
- Russian localisation update by Hard.
- German localisation update by Ruby.

User interface:
- Fix (Regression of Patch 20): Issues with the user interface for selecting upgrades of electric and diesel engines.

General:
- Fix: Player was blamed for hitting friendly units, when they were hit by a torpedo launched by an NPC u-boat.

Yours,
DWS

Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on October 13, 2023, 12:07:18 AM
Full Release Dev Log #1: Voiceover, DLSS and other improvements
Fri, 9 June 2023

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/494840/ss_45015484bd28c96fcf97bf0118b13a87a3cdd86f.jpg)

Dear skippers,

We are back to share with you what we are working on now and what is happening in the world of UBOAT.


https://youtu.be/FF3eUOL8OeU


New voiceover
We're excited to announce that UBOAT is receiving a major audio update that will take your submarine simulation experience to the next level! The new voices will add more to the realism and depth to the game, bringing the characters and their stories to life.

We've hired additional actors for each language (English and German). We've incorporated a wealth of new dialogue, reactions to situations, private conversations, sailors' reflections, and commands into the script. Generally, the crew will be much more talkative. We have improved the areas that received the most player complaints, bugs, and simplifications. For instance, the famous "Schneller! Schneller!" will no longer exist ;) We've added specific speed change commands for each gear. The conversation with the officer in the port will also undergo changes, offering more variants depending on the specific situation and the stage of the campaign the player is on. Cutscenes from Headquarters have also received a voiceover - an officer commenting on the situation at the front.

We hope that you'll like the new voices and that they will enhance your engagement and immersion in the game. For us, the game has gained a richer and more enjoyable atmosphere.

You can listen to the new voiceover in the attached video, although please note that this is still a work in progress. For instance, in the final version, there will be even more actors and the sailors will lower their voice to a whisper during a silent run.

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//25728714/01b84220d2ff18676ebbbf493714f8798675a1d2.jpg)


Other content
The game is continuously evolving on the technical front. We regularly update the engine to the latest versions and incorporate advanced technologies, such as NVIDIA DLSS, to make UBOAT a modern game at the time of release.

We have made a significant number of improvements to the gameplay and interface. We have added references to historical material in the mission descriptions for those who are particularly interested in a specific event, or who want to verify whether it actually took place in history.

Furthermore, we have included an easily accessible manual for certain devices on the boat. We have refined the campaign and side missions to enhance their technical quality and interest level, with the additional dialogues mentioned earlier playing a significant role in this process.

We are constantly adding new ports to ensure you never again encounter the 'Coming Soon' sign or an isolated bunker instead of a port. You'll be surprised at how much these locations have transformed.

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//25728714/3c32ed0da8c6e55b13175a91196b3c2e6789b586.png)


Full release
We are highly motivated to leave Early Access this year. Since the last patch, we have been working tirelessly on UBOAT. We actively listen to suggestions from players, read forums, and gather tips from people around us. We are constantly adding new content. Although we still have some ideas that we want to implement and a few areas for improvement, we can already see the finish line. We are looking forward to meet you there with the finished game.

Now, we invite you to watch a new video which may make the wait more enjoyable.

Daily Deal
Today, there is also going to be a Daily Deal for UBOAT on Steam. If you are new to our community, it's going to be a good moment to join in for a good price. Don't miss out!

Yours,
DWS


Title: Re: UBOAT submarine simulator UBOOT
Post by: Asid on October 13, 2023, 12:13:38 AM
Full Release Dev Log #2: New Playable U-boat Types, FSR 2.0
Thu, 12 October 2023

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/25728714/fb3a4e9013a8774c12bef8f6dedbcc0efd30b990.png)

Steam Achievements, Polishing

Dear skippers,

We are back with another dev log. Without further ado, let's dive right in!

More U-boat Types
We are proud to announce that the final release update will bring one of the most anticipated features to UBOAT - taking command of other U-boat types, in addition to Type VIIC. At the release day, we plan to include the following U-boats in the game:

-    Type IIA
-    Type IID
-    Type VIIB
-    Type VIIC
-    Type VIIC/41

If you start the game in 1939, you will get a satisfying opportunity to progress through all these U-boats in a single playthrough, unlocking them one by one. Each next type is usually slightly larger and brings various improvements over a predecessor.

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//25728714/ddfd343c12267ffa8dbe0f50273e06423463f3c7.png)

We worked the entire summer on this feature. We tell you about it just now, because we wanted to be sure first that we can pull it off. It was a great challenge, since we had to backtrack on a lot of earlier work. Most of the game code had to be adjusted, which also means, that most scripting mods will probably require considerable updates after this release. Sadly that's the cost of progress here.

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//25728714/de47f0fc5f70b268e51f30c5472fac7637d2f1f9.png)

After the full release, aside from the U-boat types mentioned above, we hope to work on Type IX and possibly also fully electric Type XXI. Type IX is large, while Type XXI is complex, so we plan to release them as separate DLCs. Aside from that, there will be of course free updates to the game, as always.

AMD FSR 2

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//25728714/357b0c34b51a1fefe9c2fcc502285d624da3755c.jpg)

We are happy to announce that AMD FSR 2 is also going to be an option in addition to NVIDIA DLSS, as you requested in the comments section to our previous dev log. For various reasons, it took more work to integrate it. We develop our own render pipeline for the game, while AMD FSR 2 is not natively built into Unity and we had to work this out by ourselves. It was well worth it though, in our testing it works very well in the case of UBOAT, on par with NVIDIA DLSS.

If you are not familiar with the term, AMD FSR means a AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution. It's a technology that serves two purposes:

-    It's an AI upscaling technology that dramatically improves the performance. It's especially the case in UBOAT, since it improves rendering performance. UBOAT was always optimized to avoid CPU bottlenecks and performance usually depends on rendering the effects that you choose to enable, like the water effects.
-   At the same time, it also fixes sharp edges and replaces classic anti-aliasing effects, making them no longer necessary.

You can read more about it on AMD's website https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/fidelityfx-super-resolution


Steam achievements
Next update will also bring Steam achievements to UBOAT. Your efforts, most impressive accomplishments will be rewarded in a pleasant way. Some of these achievements are going to be a great challenge to obtain, achievable only for the best skippers out there.

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//25728714/944cb9d03101a3aa7551b5e8e2a7a976c282e07f.png)


Polishing
There are also various minor improvements in the pipeline, and sometimes it's the minor things that matter the most. Many of these things are done upon direct requests posted on the game forum.

-    Helmsman now works in the control room for most of the time, rather than in the conning tower.
-    We overhauled the bow waves effect for the player's U-boat to make it more realistic.
-    There is now a dedicated silent running mode, separately from blue lighting. When it's toggled, officers won't maintain torpedoes and all devices that make noise will be automatically disabled by your crew.
-    Sailors no longer clean the boat during alarms or silent runs.
-    It's now possible to destroy propellers and rudders of enemy ships.

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//25728714/a17e9d94fec548db20de094b371196844a3d7a47.png)


But wait, there is more!
We have much more to share and will soon. For example, there are simulation upgrades, mission changes, world enhancements and more, which we will share with you in the upcoming dev logs soon as these features get into their final shape.

We still don't know how much time it will take us to complete this update. For example, we are still finishing models for the interiors of new u-boats. We also gather feedback on the forum, so if you have something you always wanted added or changed, feel free to post. It's important to us, to make you satisfied with the upcoming release.

Yours,
DWS