Dogs Of War Vu
Sim/Strategy/War => Games Discussion => Topic started by: Asid on August 30, 2022, 02:05:31 AM
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Rule the Waves III is a simulation of naval ship design and construction, fleet management and naval warfare from 1890 to 1970. and will place you in the role of 'Grand Admiral' of a navy from the time when steam and iron dominated warship design up to the missile age.
Product page (https://www.matrixgames.com/game/rule-the-waves-3)
Single-Player
Manual: PDF
Editor: No
Theatre: World
Turn Scale: Monthly
Unit Scale: Individual (a person, a plane, a tank, etc.)
AI: Yes
Multiplayer: No
Difficulty: Expert
About
Build Your Navy, from pre-Dreadnoughts to Aircraft Carriers and Missile Cruisers!
Rule the Waves III is a simulation of naval ship design and construction, fleet management and naval warfare from 1890 to 1970 and will place you in the role of 'Grand Admiral' of a navy from the time when steam and iron dominated warship design up to the missile age. Rule the Waves III will let you design and build the ships of your navy, and lead them into battle when war erupts.
You will guide your navy's deployment, construction and operations during a period of great technological innovation and political tensions. While the game derives much of its technology and events from 'actual' history, you will find that you forge your own new history each and every time you play!
Main features
• Campaigns start in either 1890, 1900,1920 or 1935 and can run through 1970.
• Monthly strategic turns with Battles resolved in a realistic tactical naval battle resolution system.
• Manage your naval budget, and deal with interfering Kaisers, presidents or navy ministers as well as a variety of historical events including naval treaties.
• Realistic design of ships ranging from corvettes to battleships and aircraft carriers.
• Research and technical development will determine ship design and tactics.
• Espionage will keep you up to date on the progress of competing navies
• Submarines, airships, aircraft and missiles will all appear and change the naval balance of power.
• Build, train, maintain and fight with your own 'ideal' navy.
• Construct coastal fortifications, airbases and other defenses
• Play as USA, Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Japan, Spain, Austria-Hungary, or China.
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NWS and Matrix Games join forces to launch Rule the Waves III
August 29th, 2022
The naval sim will hit stores in Q1 2023
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Epsom, UK, August 29th, 2022
Matrix Games and Naval Warfare Simulations are partnering to release the upcoming grand fleet management, design and battle simulation Rule the Waves III. This new cooperation between two of the most renowned brands in the wargaming community will bring new life to a franchise recognized as the best-in-genre by thousands of players worldwide.
“We are thrilled to start a new collaboration with NWS,” said Erik Rutins of Matrix Games.“ We strive to give more visibility to key wargaming franchises and make them available to a broader public, and Rule the Waves has always been one of our favorite series in naval wargaming. We look forward to working with NWS to expand its audience and allow more players worldwide to enjoy this title’s depth of gameplay and accuracy”.
NWS is a US-based developer and publisher of both digital and physical naval simulations. The release of Rule the Waves 3 is the first collaboration between Matrix Games and NWS. The game will release on the Matrix Games store, Steam, and other third-party stores by the end of the first quarter of 2023.
The beta testing phase is starting today and interested players can sign up https://www.matrixgames.com/beta/rule-the-waves-3 (https://www.matrixgames.com/beta/rule-the-waves-3)
Rule the Waves III is a simulation of naval ship design and construction, fleet management and naval warfare from 1890 to 1970. and will place you in the role of 'Grand Admiral' of a navy from the time when steam and iron dominated warship design up to the missile age.
Rule the Waves III will let you design and build the ships of your navy, and lead them into battle
when war erupts. You will guide your navy's deployment, construction and operations during a period of great technological innovation and political tensions. While the game derives much of its technology and events from 'actual' history, you will find that you forge your own new history each and every time you play!
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Rule the Waves 3 - Dev Diary #1 - "What is Rule the Waves?"
Fri Apr 21, 2023
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Rule the Waves III is a simulation of ship design, fleet management and naval combat that depicts the period from 1890 to 1970, covering eighty years of naval history with changing technology and tactics.
Rule the Waves III places you in the role of 'Grand Admiral' of one of the leading navies of the time. Playable nations are USA, Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, Austria Hungary, Russia, Spain and China. The game will let you design and build the ships of your navy, and lead them into battle when war erupts. You will guide your navy's deployment, construction and operations during a period of great technological innovation and political tensions.
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Playing as Italy, tensions are heating up with Austria-Hungary. Best to take a look at what we know about their ships.
The player will have to deal with interfering Navy ministers, Kaisers and Presidents, as well as other aspects of politics and economics. You can influence but not decide foreign policy, so to some extent you and your navy can be subject to the turns and twists of changing politics. While there will be periods of higher or lower tensions, you can never know for sure when your navy will have to stand the test of battle.
Rule the Waves is not a simple game. Ship design, battles and the limits of command and control of the time are portrayed realistically. Some grasp of 20th century naval warfare and warships is not necessary, but certainly will be helpful for players of the game. The game focuses on realistic ship design, technical development and naval combat and tactics. If you are genuinely interested in naval history, warship construction and the way navies fought and manoeuvred in the first half of the 20th century, this is a game that will keep you engaged for many hours. If you want quick action packed battles with ships exploding in 3D graphics and no complications, this game might not be for you. Be aware that graphics in RTW are adequate for the purposes of the simulation, but not cutting edge.
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There is an in game naval almanac to keep an eye on the opposition. Here we take a look at the British fleet.
You will design and build the ships of your Navy. The game includes a detailed and comprehensive ship designer where you can design your own ideal ship, from dreadnought battleships down to the lowly antisubmarine corvette or minesweeper. However, if you do not want to design ships from the keel up, there is an autodesigner that can design the ship for you, and you can just change any details you might want to alter.
Once designed you need to build your ships. A battleship can take several years to build, and as technical development in the period covered move quickly, this means that ships can be obsolete by the time they are commissioned. As a player, this might be frustrating, but it affects the opposing nations as well. You will have to learn to live with it and learn how to plan ahead.
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Designing a battlecruiser for the US Navy in the ship designer
There is a temptation to delay the design of that battleship you are planning, to take advantage of the latest technology. But you must keep in mind that as construction times of major warships are several years, you may find yourself in a situation where you have to fight with the navy you have, and not the one you are planning that will be ready in two years' time.
At your disposition you will have a naval budget. The budget will vary with political decisions, in times of high tension it will tend to rise, while in times of low tension, the politicians will tend to want to cut down on naval expenditures. You will often be consulted on foreign policy matters by the Kaiser, Prime Minister or President. Hawkish answers will tend to drive up tension and increase the navy budget, while more measured responses will keep tensions manageable.
When war erupts, you will coordinate the operations of your fleet and lead it on the seas of battle to further the ambitions of your nation. You can deploy your navy in sea zones across the globe. Battles are generated semi randomly depending on where your ships are deployed and depending on amphibious operations or other activities.
When tactical battles occur, they will be played out on the tactical map where your ships will deploy and fight according to the doctrine and technology of the time, which will change gradually over the ages of the game.
Battles are simulated with realistic tactics, formations and limited by weather and visibility. You can select varying levels of realism in command and control. On admiral’s mode you will only control your flagship, while other formations will be given roles in relation to the flagship. On lower levels of realism, you can control all divisions of ships in your fleet and even the gunnery of individual ships.
Gunnery, torpedoes and later bombs and missiles and their effects will all be simulated in realistic detail. Armour penetration is of course covered, modified by current shell and armour technology. Damage to ships is realistically applied, including progressive flooding, fires and critical hits.
Later battles will include aircraft, both carrier-based and land-based, as well as missiles.
It is in war the ships that you have designed will have to stand their test in battle. Was that new battleship design such a great idea? And that cruiser that sacrificed armour for speed, how did that work out? Only the crucible of real naval combat will give the answer.
There are options to start the game in 1890, 1900, 1920 or 1935. When the game starts, you will have an existing legacy fleet at game start. The legacy fleet is normally generated automatically, but can optionally be built manually in the 1900 start. The game ends in 1970, but there is an option to continue the game until 1980, though technological progress will trail off after the regular game ends.
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Starting a game as France
Note that Rule the Waves centres around the campaign game where you design, build and fight with your own Navy. There are no historical scenarios and the starting fleets do not recreate historical orders of battle. The starting fleets for the various start dates are realistic ships for that time period and the various navies, but are not the exact ships that composed those navies at that time.
Rule that Waves is single player only, but with a competent AI that will design ships and fight naval battles in a realistic manner.
In the upcoming developer diaries we will take a look at how Rule the Waves III differs from RTWI and II, ship design and also tactics and battles in the different time periods Rule the Waves III covers from 1890-1970.
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Rule the Waves 3 - Dev Diary #2 - What is new in RTW3?
Fri Apr 28, 2023
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Rule the waves 3 has a number of improvements over its predecessors. The most obvious one is the extension of the time period covered to allow for a truly epic scale. RTW3 starts in 1890, which means that the early game includes some really weird ironclad designs. The game mechanics have also been adapted to cover technology and tactics in that period, mainly shorter combat ranges and armor being stronger relative to gun penetration.
In the other end of the game in the post-WWII period up to 1970, the missile age has been incorporated. Where RTW2 had only the most modest beginnings of the missile age, in RTW3 you can design fully fledged missile cruisers with a wide choice of missile armament and missile defences. Various types of Anti-ship missiles and Anti-aircraft missiles are included, as are more modern light and medium AA guns. The technology of AA defences changes dramatically as the massive WW2 arrays of light and medium AA guns that are so distinctive of late WW2 battleships and aircraft carriers are replaced by fewer but more accurate radar directed weapons.
Jet aircraft are also now handled in more detail, and carriers have to be rebuilt to handle larger jet aircraft. Two new aircraft roles have been added, Heavy Jet Fighters and Jet Attack aircraft.
No other naval wargame allows for such a wide range, starting in the pre-Dreadnought era, progressing through the advent of naval airpower and continuing well into the missile age. Guiding your fleet through these major strategic and tactical revolutions makes for a lot of interesting and fun decisions.
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But RTW3 is not only about increasing the time span. There have been many other improvements and additions.
For example, you can now group your ships into permanent divisions, and assign them roles relative to other divisions. In effect, you can set up the structure of your entire fleet. This will translate to battle, obviously with some modifications depending on the size of battle and the circumstances.
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In RTW3 you can also now assign officers to command your ships. The officers will vary in quality and are differentiated by traits that can influence their behaviour, in battle and ashore. These traits are initially unknown but will show themselves gradually as officers progress through their careers.
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Ship graphics have been improved in RTW3. Turrets have a national style, and it is now possible to make more detailed ship designs with visual adornments like ship’s boats, gratings and light AA guns being added. These will not affect the combat performance of the ship, but if you like creating beautful little ships, you will enjoy them in combat so much more.
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Apart from these major changes there have been lots of smaller improvements:
* 8 nations are now in play.
* There can be AI vs AI wars without the player nation being involved.
* There is a new Baltic region.
* Treaties now have tonnage restrictions, and the player can affect treaty negotiations.
* Submarines are less abstracted and can now be moved on the strategic map.
We have also included a host of other improvements to the damage model, hit chances, air attacks, air combat and other aspects of the simulation. There have also been a number of UI improvements, many suggested by players of previous editions of Rule the Waves.
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Rule the Waves 3 - Dev Diary #3 - Ship Design
Thu, May 4, 2023
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As Rule the Waves 3 is a game with a large focus on the evolution of naval ship design, the ship designer is at the heart of the game. RTW3 lets you design any ship from a small corvette up to the mightiest super-battleship. And not only does it cover a large range of ship sizes, it handles over 80 years of technological development in naval history, from 1890 to 1970. The technologies used to build ironclads powered by reciprocating steam engines in the 1890s were of course vastly different from the gas turbine powered missile cruisers of the 1970s. Technological development is realistically covered in the game and will set the limits for your ship designs.
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Designing a French ironclad in the 1890s
When you design a ship, you should try to think of its role within the context of your navy. Take cruisers for example. If you have a nation with widespread colonies and interests around the world, you might consider a colonial cruiser. This would be equipped for colonial service, it would probably be best to optimize engines for reliability, and you would want it to have long range. That will cost weight, so it probably won’t be very fast, but you will get a sturdy workhorse that can show the flag in the colonies and still be useful when war comes.
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A scout cruiser for the Imperial German Navy
On the other hand, there might be a need for dedicated fleet cruiser as a scout for the battle fleet. High speed is desirable, of course, but we can live with cramped accommodation and short range, as it will only be operating in home waters. We can even be bold and optimise engines for performance, accepting the risk of the occasional breakdown. This is the opposite of the workhorse above. Here we have the temperamental racehorse, optimised for one mission, but sensitive and picky.
Yet another cruiser type might be the raider. We would want reliable engines to be able to operate for long periods away from friendly bases, and long range is desirable. Speed should be enough to avoid heavy enemy patrolling ships, but we could build her strong enough to defeat what she cannot run from.
These considerations are similar for larger ships. If you are playing Austria-Hungary for example, you have no colonies and no interests outside the Mediterranean. You can go for smaller battleships with low range, cramped accommodation and low freeboard, thus saving weight to make them compact but capable. Keeping down the displacement keeps down costs, so you can build more of them, and you will hopefully be able to fight nations with far larger resources who have worldwide obligations that require them to equip ships for service anywhere in the world.
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A British G3 type battlecruiser in the 1920s
There are some specialist ships that you should not neglect. The lowly 400-ton corvette is actually an essential unit in any navy. It can patrol the coasts against submarines and its presence in an area will reduce the risks of mine strikes for larger ships. Having a decent number of small corvettes avoids having to use destroyers as ASW patrols, which could denude the battle fleet of destroyers.
Another ship to consider for nations with large colonial interests is the colonial gunboat. This will be a corvette with 1500 tons displacement or so, equipped for colonial service. This makes it good for fulfilling obligations to have tonnage on foreign stations, freeing up cruisers. If equipped with a couple of 5 or 6 inch guns, it can even put up a fight against an enemy raiding light cruiser.
The Light and heavy cruiser types will morph into missile cruisers from the 1950s as missiles will start to dominate naval combat. Missile cruisers usually specialize in either the anti-aircraft role or the anti-surface role.
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A missile cruiser for the US Navy
But new construction is not all that the ship designer can do. Old ships might need modernization to be able to extend their service life in your Navy, and the designer lets you rebuild ships, within realistic limits of course. You can modernize fire control, change the secondary battery to dual purpose guns, add light and medium AA guns, floatplanes and other similar equipment.
Ship design might seem complicated looking at the screenshots above, but do not worry, you need not design ships from scratch. The ship designer has a powerful auto-designer that will design any ship type for you. A usual method is to press the auto-design button until you see something that you like, and then modify that ship design to your taste. Another way is to start with an existing ship design and modify that to take advantage of new technology or adapt it to new threats.
Ship design in RTW3 sees you continuously develop your ships to give your Navy the tools it needs to prevail on the high seas. Naval combat will be the ultimate test of your designs.
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Rule the Waves 3 - Dev Diary #4 - The Ironclad and Pre-dreadnought era
Tue, May 9, 2023
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The Ironclad age (the 1890 start in RTW3) has some marked differences from the time of the First World War, and brings its own interesting tactical challenges.
Combat ranges tend to be short. Gun sights and fire control are relatively primitive. The heavy guns that are in existence might sem impressive, some of them at 13 inches of calibre. However, these guns have short barrels with low ranges and are very slow to reload. This is denoted in game by a gun quality -2 or -3. They fire at less than one round per minute, and have poor accuracy to boot. Armor penetration is low, so even if they do manage to hit something, it is uncertain if they will cause much damage. This means that medium guns are relatively more important. They have better rate of fire compared to the heavy guns of the era, and even if they do not penetrate armor, they can wreck superstructure and cause fires. This is the reason ships from this time only have a few heavy guns, but comparatively large secondary and tertiary batteries.
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French and Italian Ironclads in combat
Poor accuracy and low armor penetration tend to make battles of this era somewhat indecisive. There can be a lot of firing , but not very much serious damage. Torpedoes are in their infancy, and have short range and slow speed. It is hard to hit anything with them, but when they do hit, they can cause crippling damage. Damage control is primitive and torpedo defence systems are not developed, which means that a single torpedo hit can be fatal to an ironclad battleship.
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An after battle look at the French Battleship Carnot. One torpedo is bad news for a pre-dreadnought battleship, and two means a guaranteed rapid sinking. As you can see from the ranges in the log, combat in this era tends to be at short ranges.
Poor damage control coupled with a weakness to fire of ships of this time means that fires often spread and get out of control. It can be a viable tactic to try to cause fires on enemy ships instead of penetrating their armour. Hits by high explosive shells (HE) are more likely to cause fires to break out than hits from armour piercing rounds (AP). In the doctrine screen, you can set the ammunition used by your ships against variuos targets. Try experimenting with using more HE, especially for medium guns and at longer ranges where AP shells will likely not penetrate anyway. If you do try that, remeber to adjust the ammunition loadout of your ships to carry a larger proportion of HE.
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The doctrine screen with options for ammunition type used against different targets depending on range
The steam engines of the era are reciprocating engines that can only keep up high speed for limited time. This means that full speed is something to be saved for when it is really needed. If you zip around at full speed before closing with the enemy, you may find that your ships cannot reach their full speed when you need it most.
However, tecnical development is fast, and already in the first years of the 20th century, gun design, fire control and loading mechanization have progressed to the point where long range fire by heavy guns becomes more practical. Also, with better guns and evolutions in armor piercing shells, armour penetration will start to catch up with armour quality, and big guns can score penetrating hits at longer ranges. Explosives have advanced too, and shell hits will cause more damage. It is not a coincidence that the dreadnought battleship is developed around 1905, as technological developments have by that time made the all big gun battleship a logical next step. This leads us to the dreadnought era, which will be covered in the next Dev Diary.
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Rule the Waves 3 - Dev Diary #5 - The Dreadnought era
Tue May 16, 2023
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The dreadnought era in the game can be said to cover roughly the years between 1905 and 1945. The completion of the first all big gun battleship, the HMS Dreadnought, was a consequence of technical developments that made long range fire by heavy guns more accurate and effective.
Fighting ranges for battleships will be from 10,000 to 20,000 yards in the mid-1910s. The lower bound for combat range will tend to be governed by torpedo ranges. By this time the range and reliability of torpedoes have increased considerably. The speed of battleships will be around 20 knots or slightly above, which is a couple of knots higher than normal pre-dreadnought speeds, and comparable with a cruiser from the 1890s.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//44009852/11c311608a9de4160f2234758aa3b4853fcc94f7.jpg)German battlecruisers in combat against French battleships
Rule the Waves 3 will show you not only the mechanics of how ships fought, but also why Navies organized as they did and why fleets deployed as they did. In the early dreadnought period, scouting light cruisers advancing in front of the battle fleet are the chief means of situational awareness. Spotting the enemy fleet at an early stage to plan your deployment or decide on whether to engage or withdraw is vital.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//44009852/65a26f2a96a1a546be0ab7831d2c2272e6a8d0e1.jpg)The cruiser screen of the German High Seas Fleet
The pace of technical development is still high in the 1920s and 1930s, but not quite at the same breakneck pace as before 1915. Indeed, some battleships that fought in WW1 gave good service in WW2. Battleships will continue to evolve, but the changes are more gradual, like higher speeds and better fire control.
The main development seen in the 1920s and 1930s is the rise of naval aviation. Initially, the main contribution of naval aviation is better scouting. Early aircraft have low ranges, limited weapons loads and doubtful reliability, so their ability to hurt undamaged ships is limited. Soon however, aircraft develop until by the 1930s they can be a serious threat to battleships. This will lead to a flurry of reconstruction, as existing battleships need to be equipped with anti-aircraft guns to be able to protect themselves against air attack.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//44009852/23b8979e9af833391312c31c7fc005fdfc162ab1.jpg)A battlecruiser from the 1910s being rebuilt with more anti aircraft guns.
The rise of naval aviation will also cause the development of aircraft carriers. Initially, aircraft carriers will be conversions of existing ships, but with time you will be able to build purpose built aircraft carriers.
By the 1940s, airpower will start to play a more and more important role in naval warfare. Battleships will need their own air carrier based air support and think twice before they enter constricted waters in range of enemy airfields. The era of the dreadnought battleship will draw to a close. At the same time, developments in jet aircraft will make many carriers obsolete. But that is the subject of our next Dev Diary.
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Rule the Waves 3 - Dev Diary #6 - Jets and the Missile Age
Wed, May 17, 2023
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After the mid-1940s, jet aircraft enter the scene. Existing aircraft carriers will have to be rebuilt to handle jet aircraft, adding blast barriers and angled flight decks. As carriers will need to be larger to handle heavier jet aircraft, carrier sizes will grow. Eventually, supercarriers of upwards of 60,000 tons will be the norm.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//44009852/07f3ba00bcbb5b0f9b8b652c329c123bd1a46202.png)A carrier in the jet era.
The battleship will still have a role to play, but it will be eclipsed as the ultimate expression of naval might by the large aircraft carrier. Jet aircraft will eventually evolve to have allweather and day and night capabilities, but already in the final years of WW2, the missile makes its appearance. At first primitive, with limited range and easy to counter with jamming, guided missiles can still cause grievous harm to surface vessels. This leads to the development of anti-aircraft missiles to give ships longer range air defences against all these threats.
Existing ships can be rebuilt, or completely new missile cruisers constructed. Anti-ship missiles do not consume all that much space, and can be accommodated by most ships. On the other hand, anti-aircraft missile systems and their attendant radar arrays are huge and will take up most of the space on a ship. This will tend to lead to missile cruisers specializing into either anti-aircraft or anti-ship roles.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//44009852/fecace171992169c355131057a6232265d68a06f.png)A fairly typical cruiser in the missile age.
Missiles are initially limited to line of sight, but with improved guidance systems will get longer ranges and even over the horizon capabilities. On the topic of missile combat and missile damage, real world historical experience is limited. A number of ships have been hit by missiles, with a wide variety of results, some being sunk by one missile hit, others taking multiple hits to sink. But there are no examples of large, armoured warships being hit by missiles, so the effectiveness of heavy anti-ship missiles on a dreadnought battleship is really unexplored. That means that the game relies more on informed speculation in the area of missile effectiveness than with, for example, torpedo or shell damage.
Missile damage in game is simulated with more variability than other types of hits. Generally, missile hits are treated as very large HE shells in game with additional incendiary effects (unspent fuel starting fires). They will do more limited damage if they hit the armoured belt, but can do substantial damage to superstructures, and often cause fires.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//44009852/e99df2ec297af5037ec538e67f4799f3134d3dae.png)Incoming missiles
With additional technical development, you will be able to set up strikes from multiple platforms, including land missile batteries and missile submarines.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//44009852/2952e27619cafe1f8ee32a10d29249b6dedeca44.png)Setting up a missile strike on enemy ships.
This concludes the Dev Diaries for Rule the Waves 3. We hope these diaries have given you some insight into the breadth of the wargaming experience this game can offer. Over 80 years of naval warfare, starting with ironclads duking it out at 1000 yards and ending with missile shots from over the horizon. No other game covers such a long period of modern naval warfare, or gives such an insight into how technology, ship design and tactics interact and develop over time.
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Rule the Waves 3 - Out Now
Thu May 18, 2023
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44009852/9abe405860a4ad2af8faf97928266a28eb9a442b.jpg)
We are happy to announce the release of Rule the Waves 3, a naval grand strategy game that places you in command of the great fleets of the 19th and 20th century. Engage in national politics, set your research priorities, build your fleet, and fight massive fleet actions from the age of ironclads to missile destroyers. Rule the Waves 3 is available as a digital edition on Steam, with physical copies available on the Slitherine store (https://www.matrixgames.com/game/rule-the-waves-3).
https://youtu.be/BKnZdIdZIoI
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Rule the Waves 3 - Update 1.00.008
Wed, 31 May 2023
(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/44009852/7a54631f3530846cb221bf6cf687ef4063a19cba.jpg)
Bugfixes, Typos, and Tweaks
We are happy to announce the first update for Rule the Waves 3. We have fixed several bugs and typos, tweaked templates to improve AI ship designs, and added a button to pick a ships name from a historical list.
What’s New in Version 1.00.008
• Fixed some glitches in torpedo fire arc visualization in the design window.
• Made sure tech sharing agreements are terminated if the nations are at war.
• Fixed a tension reduction bug
• Fixed some typos.
• Made slight adjustments to 1890 engine weight calculations and starting ship speeds.
• Fixed a bug in battle generation when one side has too few ships and only DD present.
• Fixed a bug that could generate error messages in AIDetermineTacticalStance
• Fixed a bug with placement of tertiary gun mounts occasionally not working.
• Tweaked some templates so AI generated legacy ships are not overweight in 1890 and 1900.
• Fixed a bug in blockade strength calculations.
• Removed confusing message "Ships without hangar can not have more aircraft than catapults" when the ship has a helipad.
• Added popup menu items to increase or decrease number of tubes in misssile launchers.
• Fixed an interface bug that allowed setting missile reloads too high.
• Fixed an interface glitch with entering course in numbers in the division status screen.
• Fixed a bug with submerged torpedo tubes contributing to topside load.
• Added a button to pick ship name from the list of historical names.
• Stopped the museum ship from counting as active ship in the almanac.
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Rule the Waves 3 - Update 1.00.14
Fri, 16 June 2023
(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/44009852/7a54631f3530846cb221bf6cf687ef4063a19cba.jpg)
We are happy to announce another update for Rule the Waves 3. Included are numerous bug fixes and UI improvements.
Read the full changelog below and download the update here (https://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/RuletheWaves3/RuleTheWaves3-UpdateComp-v1.00.14.zip) or via Steam.
What’s New in Version 1.00.14
Fixed a bug with warning when the player has exactly 2 AMC in peacetime, instead of more than 2.
Fixed a bug with unrest sometimes unintentionally increasing when industrial productivity increases.
More variation in first carrier AI design for some nations.
Fixed a rare bug where an enemy ship could get speed 0, which would generate error messages in battle creation.
Fixed a bug with Unit machinery sometimes being applied in battle even though the ship was designed without it.
Fixed a bug with DD and CL division commanders not being auto assigned when they should be.
Damage control training will now not be selectable before the tech is researched.
Fixed a bug in the display of medium and heavy SAM ranges against surface targets.
Fixed a bug where scrapped ships could turn up as coastal patrols in battles.
Added function to multi select air units and make them night capable.
Fixed a bug with industrialists complaining about the Navy buying foreign aircraft even if nation has no aircraft industry (China).
Fixed a bug with magnetic pistols doctrine choice not being saved.
Removed non-functioning auto ammo choice checkbox in doctrine screen.
Made sure the DD request event does not fire before DDs are invented.
You will now no longer be reminded if the museum ship is a carrier and has no aircraft assigned.
The close button in the division editor now keeps alignment to the right edge of the screen.
Fixed a bug with secondary hit modifier from director control sometimes wrongly calculated.
Fixed a bug with small ships detaching/slowing down to quickly from flooding, and large ships being to slow to do it.
User preferences, added option for no popups when divisions lose contact.
Increased starting distance in battles with long radar ranges (this will primarily affect the missile age).
CVL must now have a displacement of at least 6000 tons and a speed of at least 15 knots.
Separated the commander and division submenus in the ships in service popup menu.
In the ships in service popup menu, you can now reassign a ship to another division even if it already is in a division.
Made it possible to assign officers to command destroyer divisions from the officers tab.
Added a check for ship name being used when naming new ship classes.
Added "Independent" in the role selection screen of the division editor (= effectively no specified role).
Division editor: Made it possible to move divisions up or down in the division list.
When creating a division and changing the type of an already autonamed division, a new appropriate name can be autogenerated.
Made sure aircraft maneuverability can never go negative.
Probably fixed a bug that could corrupt savefiles (hard to recreate the bug).
Tweaked the AI to be more sensitive to threats to its home area.
The VP display is now updated immediately after the player or the AI declines battle instead of at the end of turn processing.
The visual equipment list in the design window is now cleared when you press "Clear all values" for the ship design.
Added a button to clear all visuals.
Reduced the chance of AI nations allying if they have incompatible government systems.
Officers are now sorted on rank value and not on rank as text.
Copy and paste air unit will now also copy carrier capable and night capable characteristics.
Added option to center the map on selected possession when selecting possessions after a peace.
Improved the list in the officer selection screen with sortable columns for traits.
Added some Rear Admirals to the officer pool at the start of a new game.
Added query for automatic mirroring of opposite mount when moving tertiary gun mounts.
There is now a chance for officers in the starting pool to have their traits known at start.
The player will now be asked about auto scrapping all AMCs after a war.
Prevented an error when pressing OK on an aircraft prototype request without selecting a role.
Ships transferred as reparations or lend lease are now automatically removed from division organization.
Fixed a misleading description text in research of Wireless Telegraphy.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2008100/ss_367ab18d077094517c34137dd71f9ee0266eac77.jpg)
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Rule the Waves 3 - Dev Blogs: The Battle Generator in RTW3
Tue, 4 July 2023
(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44009852/ae58826248573c8d945b6dd6bcd04700335b7c71.jpg)
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2008100/ss_a3c488a796a83c6dca879aa4b15831ae140306ae.jpg)
Why Cruisers and Escorts Matter
The battle generator is an aspect of the game that has generated some discussion I will take the opportunity to explain some of the decisions behind it.
The aims of the battle generator is to generate:
* Battles that are realistic compared to actual historical encounters.
* Different types and sizes of battles.
* Battles with a variation of ship types, rewarding a balanced fleet with ships for all missions.
* Variations in battle conditions, mostly day and night, but also general weather conditions.
* Reasonably equal and playable battles. (Few players want to fight to fight a lot of lopsided battles
where they easily crush the AI.)
The battle generator can generate some frustration for players, but remember that real admirals were often frustrated by things not turning out as intended. Navies desired the decisive battle for years, and often it never occurred.
(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//44009852/cd4025a88b8d9d21d5a323205b9d5e3b2c89ba4f.jpg)
Real naval battles in history were few and far between. Historically, there were really only two full fleet battles in the period covered by RTW3, Tsushima and Jutland. Most sea battles were minor actions, and battles were often broken off after a few salvoes. RTW will actually generate far more battles than historical naval campaigns. Having it deliver battles at a rate that closely follows history would have led to a more uninteresting game, so the chance of battles happening has been increased over what would have been historical to increase playability and fun factor.
Real navies could not expect to fight battles with their ideal ships where they wanted under the
conditions and force levels they wanted. Battles were often fought by second line ships in unexpected
locations and circumstances. RTW tries to recreate this. Some players seem to expect that if they have a superiority of ships in an area, any battles fought should reflect the overall force balance. That however, is not how real naval battles worked. Actions were often fought between forces that happened to encounter each other, and the defeat of the enemy fleet often had the character of a gradual attritional wearing down of the enemy fleet, with the larger fleet often eventually winning the naval war.
RTW also tries to simulate that navies needed to be balanced, and contain ships for different missions.
You cannot just build battleships, you need cruisers for scouting and cruiser warfare, you need
destroyers to escort your major units, and to protect your merchant shipping from submarines. If you are deficient in one ship type, it can lead to imbalanced forces or an inability to field a force in some battles in RTW3.
The battle generator in RTW3 will start out with a type of battle, and a ship type suitable for that type of battle. Cruiser battles for example will try to generate a force centred on CA or CL (or possibly BC). If there are no ships available of the desired type, it will sometimes try with similar ship types present in the area. The number of ships in the force will be randomised, but is modified by the number of ships
of the type available in the area. Thus, there is a chance, but not a certainty, that the larger fleet will get more ships of the type. Tonnage is also taken into account, so a navy building very large ships of a type may get fewer ships than a navy with smaller ships.
The only battles in RTW3 that will put your entire fleet in action are fleet battles. A fleet battle will
generate a force with most battleships present in the area with their supporting forces, perhaps with
some ships missing due to technical and operational reasons. Note, however, that the AI also has a
chance to decline battles. If it feels it does not have enough forces in the area to contest the battle, it will stay in port. One thing that was added in RTW3 compared to earlier versions of RTW is the permanent division organisation. This was added due to player feedback. In previous versions of RTW, ships were automatically grouped in divisions when battle occurred, based on speed and characteristics. However, players understandably wanted more control over which ships would fight together. The division editor gives the player the possibility to build a permanent organisation for their fleet. The ships in the same division will be grouped together in battle, supported by the ships defined as supporting them, provided they are deployed in the same sea area of course. Some randomness is still applied as ships might be absent due to technical or operational reasons.
Another thing that has been requested by players is a more detailed operational setting for the battles,
with the player selecting the force for a particular mission or task, similar to how it worked in the
campaign game of our earlier game Steel and Iron. However, that required a system where the player
pays to activate a number of ships for a mission (otherwise the player would obviously sortie the entire
fleet for every operation). It also required simulating the base infrastructure available and a detailed set
of AI plans and courses of action for all possible mission sets. All of these had to be worked out and play tested. That was feasible for a limited and relatively stable theatre, like the North Sea, the Adriatic or the Baltic, but it would have required an unrealistic amount of work and data to create and playtest similarly detailed operational prerequisites for hundreds of potential battle sites over the whole world. Add to that the fact that in RTW possessions will change owners, which can dramatically change the conditions for any operational courses of action. That is why the battle generation system in RTW3 is considerably more streamlined.
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Rule the Waves 3 - Update 1.00.19
Fri, 4 August 2023
(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44009852/920442e22f440a8879cefd24c7ea13e4e7978932.jpg)
Hello everyone,
We are happy to announce another update for Rule the Waves 3. Along with multiple bug fixes and tweaks to the campaign and battle generator, a new feature added with this update increases the number of large fleet battles you will have in a campaign. You can toggle this option on or off with the in-game preferences menu.
What’s New in Version 1.00.19
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a minor bug that led to some hits being without hit location explanation.
- All nations will now get numbered DD names if names run out.
- Fixed a bug that could delay gun research if playing with bigger fleet sizes.
- Fixed a bug with triple turrets in A or Y positions on high speed ships connected with the wrong tech.
- Fixed a bug with the ammo for secondary and tertiary guns in combat not corresponding to the designed amount.
- Fixed a bug where good quality heavy guns could be developed before longer gun barrels tech was researched.
- Magazine explosion sound will now not play if no sound is selected.
New Game Options
- Added option for more frequent large battles and fleet battles in the in-game preferences.
Battle Generation
- Made some adjustments in battle generation to reduce the risk of divisions assigned to support carriers being used for other duties.
- Adjusted pre battle placement to increase variability and give opportunity for more pre-battle maneuvering, especially in the missile age. Note, this might increase the number of no-contact battles.
- Fixed a bug with the battle generator ignoring the designated fleet flag division if the flagship was a B.
- Tweaked the battle generator to adhere more closely to division organisation in some cases.
Battle Resolution
- Tactical AI: Made cruisers and BC on AI control more careful about staying in range of enemy battleships.
- Fixed a bug with formation line abreast not really working. Note, as a consequence of this, ships in line abreast formation can now collide with friendly ships in the same division, to discourage unrealistic wild turning maneuvers while in line abreast.
- Ships maneuvering to avoid air attack will now tend to turn away from nearby enemy ships.
- Reduced the chance of friendly bombing of ships close to the originating carrier.
Ship Design
- Raised maximum ROF for autoloaded light guns.
- Allowed DD with Unit machinery to be rebuilt to KE.
- Fixed a bug with battlecruiser building allowed too early (now requires four levels of ship design research).
- Corvette AI ship templates updated.
- DD ship type will be correctly classed when DD up to 3800 tons is researched early.
- Autodesigned ships will not have incresed elevation if not researched.
- Made sure the autodesigner does not include inclined belt if not developed.
- Made sure the autodesigner does not include mines on AMC if not developed.
- Ship design: Fixed some quirks when entering numbers with the keyboard when editing rest angles for guns.
- Ship design: Funnel positions are now rescaled when ship displacement is changed.
- Ship design: When setting rest angle for tertiary mounts, opposite mount, if any, will automatically get corresponding rest angle.
- Ship design: Removed lingering red circles after editing secondary and tertiary gun positions.
- Improved AI design templates for early pre-dreadnoughts.
- Tweaked the AI ship designer so it will not mangle lozenge design old battleships.
Officers
- Made sure officers can never be so stupid that they get invalid ability ratings.
Divisions
- Made sure the division editor display of subordinate divisions is updated after dissolving a division.
Balance Changes
- Increased the treaty build limit by 20%.
- Adjusted some aspects of research when playing at less than 100% research speed.
- Changed the starting dock size for USA in 1890 to 10000 tons.
- Adjusted gun research on less than 100% research speed (now easier to develop guns).
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Rule the Waves 3 - The Admiral Update
Wed, 29 November 2023
(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44009852/322af94f9d229d962873393bcb786e0b87375173.jpg)
Hello Admirals,
We are happy to release the largest update RTW3 has gotten since launch. The Admiral Update includes a completely reworked battle generator, adding an entire new level of command to Rule the Waves 3.
A Steam installation of the game will update automatically, while a manual update of the game is available here (https://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/RuletheWaves3/RuleTheWaves3-UpdateComp-v1.00.27.zip).
(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//44009852/4d865a6c034941e88998d64b1bd4921bf40d2419.jpg)
Admirals can now be promoted and assigned to command forces in a particular area. These admirals have command skills that can be used to re-arrange your divisions before contact with the enemy.
(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//44009852/536a9ba9f9cf9d3558cdb6ee8290f550affd112d.jpg)
Rearranging your forces can lead to misunderstood signals before battle however, so it is a risky option. With an intelligence coup you can even decline battle without the normal victory point penalty.
There are also numerous other features included with this update. The tactical AI has been tweaked, a slew of bugs have been fixed, and improvements have been made to the UI to improve functionality (the N key will advance time on the strategic map, the ESC button now closes the division editor etc).
The full changelog is posted below, there is a lot going on with this update and we hope you enjoy it.
What’s New in Version 1.00.27
Battle Generation
Fixed missing objective in a convoy attack battle Germany vs France.
Completely new pre battle procedure that lets the player edit the force before battle, depending on a command roll for the commanding admiral.
On an intelligence coup, you can decline the battle with no penalty.
Fixed a bug in battle generation that could lead to error messages, primarily in carrier battles.
Battle Resolution
Some tweaks to the tactical AI.
Made the check for airstrikes in the air preventing scenario end more restrictive. An air formation must now have more than 3 aircraft and be within 100 nm of enemy ships to stop a scenario from ending.
Improved the notification when a friendly ship suffers a magazine explosion from a torpedo hit.
Limited flooding from collisions in some extreme cases.
Ship Design
Fixed illegal AI build templates that combine protected cruiser and narrow belt.
Prevented replacement of -2 quality main guns if ship has more than 2 centerline turrets.
Stopped the auto-designer from using triple wing turrets.
Improved Japanese ship names list (thanks to @Burningapple3 and helpers!).
Officers
Admirals can now command forces in areas. Their ability will be used in the pre-battle stage.
Admirals will not be eligible to send as Naval Attache.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug with KE being allowed to have submerged torpedo tubes.
Fixed a bug with battlecruisers not being included in the losses history statistic.
Made sure the the lukewarm wartime support event does not fire if the player nation has been at war with the enemy of the ally.
Suppressed a debug message with "Too many rounds" that could appear very occasionally.
Fixed a bug that made detached damaged ships occasionally go towards their original division instead of to nearest friendly base.
Removed double message in turn reports about base expansion.
UI Improvements
On events, pressing the 1,2,3 key will now select the respective answer and close the event dialog.
Escape button now closes the division editor.
Current submarine reliability is now visible when building a new submarine.
Added a button in the design screen for upgrading guns in a refit (instead of changing the caliber back and forth).
The N key will now advance the turn in strategic mode.
Added a help button on the main screen to show keyboard shortcuts.
Divisions
Added warning when assigning more than one core division to follow the same lead division.
Fixed oversensitive core divisions check.
Fixed a bug that could cause an error message when the division screen was closed.
Balance Changes
The Japanese surprise attack can no longer be declined by the defender.
We hope you enjoy this new update, and hope to deliver more exciting news and updates next year.
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Rule the Waves 3 History Series Episode 1 - Steam and Steel: 1890-1905
Mon, January 15, 2024
(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/44009852/34952aa022d24a691b94e8b300a1db747b7741f8.jpg)
While technology has always played a role in shaping the military, naval warfare in the early 20th century was defined by rapid innovation that saw whole generations of ships made obsolete only a few years after they were completed. The Ironclad gave way to the Battleship, and the Battleship to the Dreadnought. Here we are covering the big innovations that drove the changing face of naval warfare in the 20th century in our new historical video series.
https://youtu.be/V3q5QCHTgik
Special thanks to Drachinifel (https://www.youtube.com/@Drachinifel) for lending his voice to this project.
You can expect Episode 2 out February, next month.
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Rule the Waves 3 History Series Episode 2 - Dreadnoughts: 1906-1918
Tue, 20 February 2024
(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44009852/ee74376910e50bfc98dc8f3a59d7d1d0e2a87c2b.jpg)
With the launch of Dreadnought and Invincible the race for naval supremacy intensified. Ships ballooned in size, cost, speed, and armament. From 1906-1914 the navies of the world built a combined 63 Dreadnought Battleships in a naval arms race that helped bring about the First World War. Submarines made their debut as a practical weapon of war, and destroyers grew in size and displacement with multiple torpedo launchers. After the war the cost of these fleets was so ruinous a new innovation in international diplomacy was adopted to curb spending, the Washington Naval Treaty.
https://youtu.be/rJI4aY2dGPo
Special thanks to Drachinifel (https://www.youtube.com/@Drachinifel) for lending his voice to this project.
You can expect Episode 3 out in March.
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Rule the Waves 3 - Update v01.00.37
Mon, 26 February 2024
(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/44009852/7a54631f3530846cb221bf6cf687ef4063a19cba.jpg)
Hello RTW3 fans.
Beta testing on the next update is completed, and we are now live with v01.00.37.
You can download this update either automatically via Steam or directly from the forums here. (https://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/RuletheWaves3/RuleTheWaves3-UpdateComp-v1.00.37.01.zip)
This update has several big changes that will improve gameplay and functionality. The first of these is a change of save file locations. Specifics are listed in the changelog below but the key points are that this new save system is considerably smaller and streamlined, fixing most of the issues previously found with syncing cloud saves. Upon loading an old campaign the old save file will be converted to this new format, which may take some time and lead to some errors with any old campaigns you are loading. Going forward all new save games will automatically use this new, streamlined save format.
Besides a better save file system, we have also made some significant gameplay changes at the strategic layer. Victory Point losses for declining battles distant from your home port have been greatly reduced. Home ports with at least 200 basing capacity will now also be able to rebuild ships. You can also now occasionally get the option to sell a ship to another nation when you select it for scrapping. In addition to all these changes there have also been...
(https://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Test2/RTW3/Patch/UIImprovements.jpg)
Improvements to the User Interface
(https://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Test2/RTW3/Patch/Export-ImportFunction.jpg)
The creation of an import/export ship system so you can share your designs
(https://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/Test2/RTW3/Patch/BattleGeneration-OfficersandUIImprovements.jpg)
Improvements to battle generation, with area commanders now influencing the chance of unexpected battles
With the ability to share ship files, this opens up a whole new level of collaborative ship designing. We look forward to seeing all the warships the community will be able to come up with.
The full changelog is posted below, happy hunting Admirals.
v01.00.37
Save Games
Games are now saved to the directory "C:\USER\Documents\My Games\Rule the Waves 3". Old saves are loaded from the old save directory and saved to the new save directory.
Refurbished the saving of design files. All designs for each nation is now saved in one file. A saved game will now consist of fewer files, and the total save game size is reduced considerably. This should mitigate problems with saving to Steam cloud. It will also mitigate problems with some ship names on some (mainly Asian) language operating systems.
Important Note: The first time an old save game is opened, loading will take considerably longer as old style design files are converted. Also note that there might be errors from inconsistencies in existing saved games. There are functions for the player to manually rectify these during the save conversion.
Strategic Level
Penalty points for declining battle is now reduced for battles far from friendly bases.
Adjusted some inconsistencies in the actions of allied nations in a multi nation war.
There is now a chance that scrapped ships can be sold to small nations (less than average economy), including to the player if the player is playing a small nation.
Adjusted submarine build times.
Ships being rebuilt will now be automatically moved to the closest home area with a rebuild yard.
There will be rebuild yards in home possessions with at least 200 base capacity. (That means US West Coast and Russian Far East will not have any initially on some starting dates, but by expanding base capacity, they will get the capability).
Increased the maximum number of ships that can be built at one time in the build ships screen to 25.
Nations at war with you will now not ask to buy a license for your aircraft.
Increased the cost of missile systems and missile maintenance.
Battle Generation
Removed some occasional quirks in force selection in battle generator, for example having a BB subordinated to a CL flagship.
Allied forces can now appear as support force.
Added ship speed and displacement to ship list in battle preview screen.
Background color now changed in battle preview screen.
Controls and Preferences
Added an option to convert some characters in German ship and officer names, for example ö becomes oe, ü becomes ue etc. This is for the benefit of users with Asian language OS which can have problems with these characters.
Added an option to see submarine sinkings in aggregate only. (Useful if you have many submarines and want to bring down the number of after turn messages)
The space key will now only pause the game. This is to prevent inadvertently restarting time when you want to pause.
The alt key will run the game one minute (or longer if auto play is switched on).
Ship Design
Added an export/import function for ship designs. The export function for ship designs is located on the graphics tab in the ship design screen. It will let you export any ship design as a file. The design can then be shared with other players or reused in a later game. Exported ship designs are located in the folder "My Games\Rule the Waves 3\Save\Ship Designs".
Moved the auto carrier conversion button to the box for flight installations.
Added a function to auto change carrier graphics to angled flight deck.
Curbed the tendency of the AI designer to overuse triple turrets on ships.
Fixed a problem with rebuilding ships transferred from other nations.
Fixed a problem with multiple classes being generated when fire control is upgraded for ships under construction.
Further adjustments to secondary gun placement on cruisers and destroyers.
Improved the autodesigner to avoid illegal triple turrets in A or Y position.
The upgrade guns button will now be available when opening an existing design that has worse gun quality than available.
Adjusted the automatic secondary gun placement on cruisers to avoid having them placed outside the hull. (It is better but not perfect)
Using auto design in the design screen will now force a different template.
Improved the British name list to produce more appropriate ship names from the 1920s.
Prevented fitting V turret on ships that couldn't have X turret.
Fixed a bug with the gun quality of the rebuilding nation not being taken into account for gun upgrades.
Fixed a bug with the autodesigner sometimes building ship with AON armor when it isn't researched.
Fixed a bug with ammunition weight calculation in the 80-85 rounds per gun interval.
Fixed a bug where a CA could have protected cruiser armour configuration.
Map Changes
Updated the Chinese coastline with shallow water.
Battle Resolution
Adjusted HE penetration and splinter damage on armored areas.
Some adjustments to the tactical AI.
Some adjustments to mission data.
Prevented avoiding battles by closing the battle preview screen.
Field batteries will now only have HE ammo.
Radar blind fire range reduced to 80% of radar sighting range.
Gyro Stabilizer will now reduce the gunnery penalty for sea state.
Improved go to base behaviour for divisions following the force flagship into friendly port.
Improved AI convoy defence decisions.
Ammunition expenditure is now spread more evenly across turrets. (Previously, A and Y turret tended to use somewhat more ammo than X and B).
Reduced SAM hit rates (they were a little too good).
Aircraft
One floatplane squadron of up to 12 aircraft may now be based at any airbase without counting against capacity. (This is to increase the utility of floatplanes at land bases in the early game).
Before 1930, a floatplane scout with bomb + bomb priority will have torpedo capability and can be used as strike aircraft from AV without catapults.
Reduced the rate of aircraft production and added a column for production in the aircraft types screen. (The intention is that heavy aircraft losses should hurt more).
Officers
Area commander ability now influences the chance of unexpected battles.
On auto assign of officers, rear admirals might now be auto-promoted to admirals to fill an empty slot, just like the case with empty division or ship commands.
It is now possible to manually promote the senior officer of a rank for free (no prestige cost), You can only do this once per turn.
The ROF enthusiast will now give -10% accuracy in addition to the +10% ROF (or 20% at shorter ranges).
Adjusted officer promotions and retirements to reduce the risk that a nation should have too few admirals available.
Fixed a bug with admirals not being removed from an area command when they were assigned to another.
AI
The AI will now be better at replacing floatplanes on ships with helicopters and helipad.
User Interface
Research breakthroughs are now also shown in the turn message summary.
Made sure the commander text is visible in the ship status screen.
Obsolete ships are now clearly marked as so in ship status screen.
Officer list now remembers sorting and filter options.
On the missile control panel, renamed the Fire Salvo button to Manual fire to better describe what it does.
Added a button to exit the battle from the results screen and a button to view the map.
Added a button to go back to the results screen from the map after battle.
Doctrines
Added doctrine choices for AP shell design.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug that prevented AI nations from taking territory from each other in AI wars.
Fixed a bug in Fleet Exercise setup where a ship removed from a division would lead to all the ships in the division being duplicated in the available ships list.
Fixed some typos in tooltips.
Fixed the height of the ship status window.
Fixed problems with some corrupted save files.
Fixed a bug with divisions with Land CAP were not saved.
Fixed some misspellings in Spanish officer ranks.
Fixed a bug with the AI rebuilding ships occasionally producing error messages.
Fixed a bug where having no fire control used more crew than intended.
Fixed a bug with occasional miscount of free shipyard capacity to build ships.
Fixed a bug with helicopters on recon sometimes going in the wrong direction.
Fixed a bug with showing ship details from the build screen.
Fixed a bug in scenario info that led to France having no convoy in one of the convoy defense missions.
Fixed a bug with background sound not changing on weather change.
Fixed a bug with magazine explosion sound playing even if sound options were set to No sound (I guess this one could have been somewhat jarring if you expected silence).
Fixed a bug where in some cases a CL with 4 in B armor was classed as a CA.
Fixed a bug where submarines could engage in gunnery duels with enemy ships in another area.
Fixed a bug with ships not having missile or torpedo reloads in battles.
Fixed a bug that could make the choice of scout force flag division ineffective in cruiser battles and other battles smaller than fleet.
Fixed a bug that could lead to an error message when a peace breaks out.
Fixed a bug with numbers of missiles not being included in the short ship description.
Fixed a bug with getting the correct name of the nation whose aircraft sinks a sub.
Fixed a bug with the number of reloads for missile launchers.
Other
Miscellaneous minor improvements
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Rule the Waves 3 - Update v01.00.40
Wed, 20 March 2024
(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44009852/920442e22f440a8879cefd24c7ea13e4e7978932.jpg)
Hello Admirals, Captains, and any newly commissioned midshipmen. We have an update today for Rule the Waves 3. Update v01.00.40 brings us several new fixes and some new QoL features that should improve player experiences. Pre-battle, players will now have access to a forecast that projects how the weather will evolve during the engagement. This is subject to error, improvements in tech will gradually make forecasts more accurate as it did historically.
The really big change with this update was classification of CA and CL to make pre-1900 designs more historically accurate. This may cause some issues with designs as you update from 1.00.37 so please keep that in mind. A full rundown of these changes is available in the changelog below. Good luck and happy hunting everyone.
This update will automatically download via steam or is available on the forums here (https://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/RuletheWaves3/RuleTheWaves3-UpdateComp-v1.00.40.zip).
Reversed the "CA cannot have protected cruiser armour configuration" change.
Important Note: The earlier change to early CA in 1.00.37 proved to be ill considered. As some players have correctly pointed out, the main difference between pre-1900 in game CA and CL should be size, not armor configuration. Early cruisers have now been refurbished in the game and CA are now cruisers that have an armored belt or have a size over 8000 tons, others are CL. Templates and design logic have been updated accordingly. France and Russia have been given belt and sloping armor deck as bonus techs to reflect their early adoption of armored cruisers. This might cause transient issues in already started games with 1.00.37, in which case we advise continuing to play until this resolves itself or starting new game. The end result is that the treatment of pre-1900 cruisers is now much more historical and consistent.[/list]
Added an option to have spacebar both pause and run the game.
Added weather forecast to pre battle screen. Note that this is unreliable, just as the real weather forecast. It will improve with tech and time.
Prevented some cheesy tricks in officer assignment, for example assigning bad officers to empty divisions.
Added possibility to manually change aircraft type of an air unit.
Added save path info on main screen.
Fixed a bug where the default settings were not used if the preferences file was not found.
Fixed a bug that could set the year of ship designs to 1899 in an 1890 start.
Fixed a bug where a Lieutenant commander could be promoted directly to Admiral in some cases.
Fixed a bug with the free manual promotion per turn not resetting after the turn.
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Rule the Waves 3 History Series Episode 3 - The Washington Naval Treaty: 1919-19
Fri, 22 March 2024
(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/44009852/74a79a7a6ed73c285e084e7284ebb245410d3bd6.jpg)
The First World War was ruinously expensive. Dreadnought construction had drained the coffers of competing fleets. To help limit this reckless spending the naval powers agreed to limits on capital ship construction. Cruisers and Carriers would be the main focus of naval spending in the interwar period.
https://youtu.be/A8ZZRL1VfHE
Special thanks to Drachinifel (https://www.youtube.com/@Drachinifel) for lending his voice to this project.
You can expect Episode 4 out in April.