Steam & Iron. Battle of Port Arthur

[Asid]

Steam & Iron. Battle of Port Arthur



Steam & Iron: Battle of Port Arthur is a tactical real-time naval simulator focusing on the combat of early 20th-century steamships. Squadrons of battleships, cruisers, and torpedo boats from two empires await your command to clash in epic naval battles.


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STEAM & IRON. BATTLE OF PORT ARTHUR

About This Game

Steam & Iron: Battle of Port Arthur is a real-time naval simulator set in the era of early 20th-century steamships. Step into the shoes of Japanese Admiral Heihachiro Togo aboard his flagship battleship Mikasa and lead your fleet into battle against the Russian navy's formidable squadrons of battleships, cruisers, and torpedo boats.

Our game faithfully simulates naval engagements between individual ships and fleets in the Yellow Sea during the Japanese Navy's siege of the Russian naval base at Port Arthur.

Key Features

• Play through ready-made missions or create your own using a built-in editor.
• The game features ships from the Russian First Pacific Squadron and the Japanese Navy (Nippon Kaigun).
• Tactical naval combat is carefully simulated, factoring in ship positioning, speed, sea conditions, fire and flood control systems, and accuracy adjustments.
• Weather conditions, sea states, and time of day directly affect combat dynamics.
• All ships are based on real historical prototypes with accurate technical specifications.
• The game includes dozens of military and civilian ships from both fleets, with more being added over time.

Planned Features

• Dynamic campaign for the battles in the Yellow Sea for both sides.
• Save and load functionality during missions.
• Naval operations in other theaters (e.g., Vladivostok, Tsushima).
• New ships.

[Asid]

[Asid]

Steam & Iron is approaching release
Thu, August 27, 2026



Development of Steam & Iron: Battle of Port Arthur has entered its final stage.

Right now, most of my time is going into polishing the game, testing battles and missions, fixing bugs, and improving the small details that become increasingly noticeable as everything comes together.

The main systems for EA are already in place, so at this point development is less about adding new features and more about making sure the existing ones work together as they should.



There is still work to be done, and I don't want to rush these final months just to meet an arbitrary date. The exact Early Access release date will be announced a little later.

In the meantime, I'll keep polishing, testing, fixing things. Occasionally it may break something that worked perfectly well before I touched it. Hope it won't be the case.



We're getting close.

Thank you for following the development of the game.

[Asid]

Steam & Iron: Battle of Port Arthur launches October 7
Thu, October 1, 2026



After a long period of development, testing and polishing, I can finally announce the Early Access release date.

Steam & Iron: Battle of Port Arthur launches on October 7.

At launch, the game will include:

• Quick Battle
• Mission Editor
• 7 handcrafted missions
• 35 unique ship models
• Russian and Japanese forces
• dynamic weather, different sea states and changing visibility
• day and night combat
• artillery and torpedo combat
• a full tutorial covering the main game systems

This is only the starting point.
After the EA release, I plan to continue expanding the game with new missions, additional content and new mechanics.

Right now, though, the priority is simple: make sure the game is stable and ready for October 7.
Thanks to everyone who has followed the development, commented on videos, tested builds, shared feedback or simply kept the game on their wishlist.

Six days to go.
See you at sea.

[Asid]

Minor update v0.12.09102026
Fri, October 9, 2026



Changelog v0.12.09102026.

- Fixed incorrect UI display on widescreen monitors in the Quick Battle screen.
- At mission start, the map centers on the first ship of the player's first division.
- Added drag-and-drop editing of the active division's waypoints with a route preview. Moving a waypoint can be canceled by pressing Escape or dropping it outside the map.
- Fixed jitter in targeting and follow lines when panning or zooming the minimap.
- Detached ships now inherit the lead ship's current route and no longer return to outdated waypoints.
- Fixed SEVERITY in Ship State: it now returns to NONE when both FIRE and FLOOD reach zero.

[Asid]

v0.14.20102026
Tue, 20 October 2026



New features:
- Quick Battle now supports all 35 existing ship classes — 21 more than before.
- Added gunboats, destroyers, torpedo boats and transports to Quick Battle. Each category forms its own columns and divisions.
- Added mission #8 "Squadron Sortie": an engagement between the Russian squadron and Japanese forces near Port Arthur.

Visual effects and damage visuals:
- Added new shell impact effects with separate variants for penetrating and non-penetrating hits.
- Updated flashes, sparks, debris and smoke. Effect scale varies by calibre.
- Directional penetration effects now account for the firing ship's position and firing range. Smoke rises and debris falls independently of the target ship's list.
- Added new decals for penetrating and non-penetrating hits, featuring soot and fragmentation marks.
- Fixed decal rendering near the waterline: water now covers the submerged portions of decals.

Artillery balance:
- Rebalanced penetration and damage for battleship main battery shells. All seven battleship classes can now penetrate one another's belt armour with appropriate main battery ammunition at ranges up to 5 km.
- Increased the explosive effectiveness of Japanese shells and the armour-piercing effectiveness of Russian shells.
- Battleship belt armour remains protected against penetration by 152 mm shells.

Interface and controls:
- The Event Log now reports critical hits inflicted by friendly ships on enemy vessels and their consequences, respecting visibility rules.
- Standardised combat messages: ship name, event, penetration result and consequences.
- Right-click now cancels the current targeting or waypoint placement mode, preserving assigned targets and existing waypoints.
- Map dragging now uses the left mouse button only. Holding the right mouse button over the map no longer rotates the camera.

Bug fixes:
- Fixed an issue where active fires or flooding could receive SEVERITY: NONE due to the additional crew bonus, preventing Damage Control from resolving them.
- Fixed severity calculations above the highest threshold: these emergencies now remain OVERWHELMING.
- Sunk enemy ships now retain a dimmed map marker labelled (SUNK) at their last known position.
- When a division's lead ship is sunk, the remaining ships inherit its remaining route and no longer turn back towards waypoints already passed.
- Fixed an error when spawning floating objects during a ship's sinking.
- Fixed triggers in missions #2, #4 and #5.