Team reorganization and new hotfix update

[Nick Thomadis]

Hello Admirals,

We just wanted to inform you that today our new programmer has started to work, replacing our previous lead programmer. We are able to provide a new hotfix update within the next 5 working days. Here is what we plan to include.

============================

BALANCES

• Gun rebalance: The smaller guns from 9-inches and lower are now reloading slightly slower and with more desynchronization. Their damage became accordingly higher. Damage now will be more meaningful per caliber and guns below 7-inch will clearly be more useful against Destroyers.
• Targeting rebalance: The “Targeting penalty due to speed” has been reduced significantly but the dynamic targeting that utilizes target bearing and range rate became intensified. As a result, ships moving fast at a straight line will no longer be so hard to aim at. Maneuvers, though, became more impactful to targeting. In any case, when ships are at close distance, the hitting rate will be more consistent.
• Base deceleration of ships slightly decreased, addressing cases where some ships could turn too sharp. The base “rudder shift time” is slightly increased to compensate for this change.
• CSS Virginia’s guns became slightly stronger, as it was too weak compared to the Monitor.
• Triple and Multiple expansion steam engines have slightly increased weight, so that older pre-dreadnoughts cannot easily exceed the 20 knots speed.

AI

• AI will maneuver more often according to enemy strength and battle situation. You will notice AI ships to approach or retreat at sharper angles, while keeping an effective broadside. Issue of torpedo boats not approaching close enough to launch short-range torpedoes should be resolved.
• AI targeting improved, affecting AI opponent and friendly ships. You will notice guns to be more effective in switching to the nearest threat or distributing gun groups against multiple targets.
• AI screening behaviour improved. The main fleet and the screen ships will operate closer to each other and keep a more effective formation. There are known issues of formations, which are still evident, especially when AI has to handle a large formation of different ship types. We will address all formation issues gradually on next updates.

FIXES

• Fixed potential bug that sometimes made transport ships to be auto-designed without any funnel.
• Fixed issues with ramming. Previously, the smaller ship caused more damage. Now when ships ram each other, the damage will be more consistent and flooding should occur with more probability. There are remaining problems on ramming that we will address in a next update.
• Fixed a problem with ship evasion logic which previously made ships to react at a shorter distance, and thus collide with a friendly or enemy ship with more probability. As a result, ships will be harder to ram at. We will later further improve the evasion system and ramming might become a tactical choice for the player, if he wishes, with a special control option.

============================

We will keep you updated when this patch will be released. Thank you for your ongoing feedback!

[Cptbarney]

Yay, this a good step in the right direction. Great balance changes as well, can't wait to see moar. 'w'

[HusariuS]

Finally some news!  

[SonicB]

Thank you for keeping us informed, and for listening to the issues raised over stationkeeping and gunnery. Can't wait to play it!

In terms of upcoming changes to formations, is the stationkeeping AI at the stage where you are able to add more formations, a turn-in-sequence/turn together toggle, or even a manual formation editor like that in Battlestations: Pacific?

[1MajorKoenig]

Good to see that the situation on Dev capacity is going to be improved!

The balance changes look reasonable 

[Aceituna]

It's nice to finally get some news. Althrough it's not the kind of news I'm interested in the most. It would be beautiful if you could tell us when we can expect the first of the promised  campaign patch notes. (At least during which month)

Edited August 18, 2020 by Aceituna

[Cptbarney]

24 minutes ago, Aceituna said:

It's nice to finally get some news. Althrough it's not the kind of news I'm interested in the most. It would be beautiful if you could tell us when we can expect the first of the promised  campaign patch notes. (At least during which month)

Probs expect those around october november from what they said back in june me thinks. Although i could be wrong as they usually post stuff way before my predictions usually.

[Aceituna]

26 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Probs expect those around october november from what they said back in june me thinks. Although i could be wrong as they usually post stuff way before my predictions usually.

In the post where patch notes were promised Ink said: We will update the community on the progress by posting the internal campaign patch notes at least once every month.

Of course that a lot of things changed since then (like postponing Steam release) but if we assume that promised date of campaing release didn't change (it was promised for November - December) than I think that your prediction is a bit too dark (altrough I can't know it for sure) because they said that they will give us patch note EVERY MONTH. So if I understant it correctly it should mean that first of these patch notes should come out at least 2 - 3 months before campaing release. Because if they would release the first patch note one month before release (as you said November) then the phrase EVERY MONTH wouldn't make sense.

 

Edited August 18, 2020 by Aceituna

[Cptbarney]

1 minute ago, Aceituna said:

In the post where patch notes were promised Ink said: We will update the community on the progress by posting the internal campaign patch notes at least once every month.

Of course that a lot of things changed since then (like postponing Steam release) but if we assume that promised date of campaing release didn't change (it was promised for November - December) than I think that your prediction is a bit too dark (altrough I can't know it for sure) because they said that they will give us patch note EVERY MONTH. So if I understant it correctly it should mean that first of these patch notes should come out at least 2 - 3 months before campaing release. Because if they would release the first patch note one month before release (as you said November) then the phrase EVERY MONTH wouldn't make sense.

 

Yeah but they had to spend around 2 months dealing with internal issues, so most likely the campaign has been pushed back i also mentioned october as well since it will probs be released on feb or march next year. Thats assuming if they haven't been working on anything in the mean time relating to the campaign and how much work they did prior to said events.

If they have however then september and maybe october will be the best bet for the first patch note release, but don't be too surprised if those two months come and go with nothing to show for.

Although im mostly pessimistic so when things are far better than i would of thought its a nice surprise.

[Aceituna]

24 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Yeah but they had to spend around 2 months dealing with internal issues, so most likely the campaign has been pushed back i also mentioned october as well since it will probs be released on feb or march next year. Thats assuming if they haven't been working on anything in the mean time relating to the campaign and how much work they did prior to said events.

If they have however then september and maybe october will be the best bet for the first patch note release, but don't be too surprised if those two months come and go with nothing to show for.

Although im mostly pessimistic so when things are far better than i would of thought its a nice surprise.

Sure, development was slowed down due to the internal problems which is no surprise because when we were earlier informed that team will get new programmer they said that it will slow down progress but they also said that this reinforcement will later pay off and I think that another 3 - 4 months is enough time for this action to start to pay off. So I think that this 2 months don't neccesarily mean delay of campaing.

Also I don't think that they were ,,doing nothing'' because: 1. We can see that there was at least some activity because of this hotfix that was made. 2. And also Devs are employees so I think that they can't just ,,don't work''.

Anyway I think that it's groundless to continue this discussion because it's based entirely on speculations.

 

[Cptbarney]

19 minutes ago, Aceituna said:

Sure, development was slowed down due to the internal problems which is no surprise because when we were earlier informed that team will get new programmer they said that it will slow down progress but they also said that this reinforcement will later pay off and I think that another 3 - 4 months is enough time for this action to start to pay off. So I think that this 2 months don't neccesarily mean delay of campaing.

Also I don't think that they were ,,doing nothing'' because: 1. We can see that there was at least some activity because of this hotfix that was made. 2. And also Devs are employees so I think that they can't just ,,don't work''.

Anyway I think that it's groundless to continue this discussion because it's based entirely on speculations.

 

Well we will see anyways, but if they don't release anything next month or the next. 😕 Then it may arrive in those months.

[Shaftoe]

Now we just wait.

[Marshall99]

Thanks for the news! I am realy looking for these fixes. I can't wait! Keep up the good work! 🙂

[Warbie]

Finally some targeting rebalances. In the previous updates, it was near impossible to target faster battle cruisers and destroyers, with bigger, slower BBs. I think this will solve most of the gameplay related issues, next design-related feature could be showing/highlighting where the armour is, or being able to choose between different armor placement concepts (all-or nothing, balanced, front heavy etc...) I hope you guys can get working on the campaign as soon as possible!

Edited August 18, 2020 by Warbie

[BobRoss0902]

21 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Hello Admirals,

We just wanted to inform you that today our new programmer has started to work, replacing our previous lead programmer. We are able to provide a new hotfix update within the next 5 working days. Here is what we plan to include.

============================

BALANCES

• Gun rebalance: The smaller guns from 9-inches and lower are now reloading slightly slower and with more desynchronization. Their damage became accordingly higher. Damage now will be more meaningful per caliber and guns below 7-inch will clearly be more useful against Destroyers.
• Targeting rebalance: The “Targeting penalty due to speed” has been reduced significantly but the dynamic targeting that utilizes target bearing and range rate became intensified. As a result, ships moving fast at a straight line will no longer be so hard to aim at. Maneuvers, though, became more impactful to targeting. In any case, when ships are at close distance, the hitting rate will be more consistent.
• Base deceleration of ships slightly decreased, addressing cases where some ships could turn too sharp. The base “rudder shift time” is slightly increased to compensate for this change.
• CSS Virginia’s guns became slightly stronger, as it was too weak compared to the Monitor.
• Triple and Multiple expansion steam engines have slightly increased weight, so that older pre-dreadnoughts cannot easily exceed the 20 knots speed.

AI

• AI will maneuver more often according to enemy strength and battle situation. You will notice AI ships to approach or retreat at sharper angles, while keeping an effective broadside. Issue of torpedo boats not approaching close enough to launch short-range torpedoes should be resolved.
• AI targeting improved, affecting AI opponent and friendly ships. You will notice guns to be more effective in switching to the nearest threat or distributing gun groups against multiple targets.
• AI screening behaviour improved. The main fleet and the screen ships will operate closer to each other and keep a more effective formation. There are known issues of formations, which are still evident, especially when AI has to handle a large formation of different ship types. We will address all formation issues gradually on next updates.

FIXES

• Fixed potential bug that sometimes made transport ships to be auto-designed without any funnel.
• Fixed issues with ramming. Previously, the smaller ship caused more damage. Now when ships ram each other, the damage will be more consistent and flooding should occur with more probability. There are remaining problems on ramming that we will address in a next update.
• Fixed a problem with ship evasion logic which previously made ships to react at a shorter distance, and thus collide with a friendly or enemy ship with more probability. As a result, ships will be harder to ram at. We will later further improve the evasion system and ramming might become a tactical choice for the player, if he wishes, with a special control option.

============================

We will keep you updated when this patch will be released. Thank you for your ongoing feedback!

Is the campaign still on track for release in November?

[Cptbarney]

1 minute ago, BobRoss0902 said:

Is the campaign still on track for release in November?

Dunno, im hoping it will be. But it depends on how much work they got before corona-chan and also what had been doing since the announcement in june. Otherwise i probs wouldn't be surprised if we don't see the campaign till next year jan/feb/march.

Hopefully not, but hey i'd rather be mentally prepared for that just in-case.

[TotalRampage]

16 hours ago, Cptbarney said:

Dunno, im hoping it will be. But it depends on how much work they got before corona-chan and also what had been doing since the announcement in june. Otherwise i probs wouldn't be surprised if we don't see the campaign till next year jan/feb/march.

Hopefully not, but hey i'd rather be mentally prepared for that just in-case.

Honestly I cant wait for any new content updates. Keeps me entertained.  

[Cptbarney]

6 hours ago, TotalRampage said:

Honestly I cant wait for any new content updates. Keeps me entertained.  

Same, i want moar stuff. Just depends how they are going about updates before the campaign.

[AdmER]

This is a very good new, those fix will made the game more real and playable, and should solve the biggest frustration with the current state of the game. The ship designer (more freedom as advertise) and the capacity to save our design should be a next priority.

Hope the next update will come soon.

Great job thanks!