What's coming next (v1.06) *UPDATE 28/5/2022*

[Nick Thomadis]

Hello Admirals,

After the last major update which we hope you enjoy it, we started to work on the next major features. We can now share a confirmed list of the next very important new features, which you also have asked many times from us. 

-=Upcoming v1.06 Changelog (Work in Progress)=-

CONTINUOUS CAMPAIGN
The campaign can now be started at the selected year with no immediate wars happening and will continue until 1950 or until one of the following circumstances are satisfied:

• Low naval prestige: Player is replaced by the current government.
• Revolution and naval prestige is not high: Player is replaced by the new government.
• Total Nation Defeat: 50% or more of the Home Provinces are lost.

The AI players will also lose with the same rules and their nations can be obliterated from the map if the home provinces are conquered by another nation. 

During peacetime, the following new mechanics are introduced:

• Random events: Events in which you must take a decision that will affect relations with other nations and other aspects of gameplay. This is a work in progress functionality that will expand further.
• Tension: Tension will be produced mainly between nations with bad relations that have a stronger fleet than necessary in common waters. Tension affects bilateral relations and can slowly bring nations to war.
• Alliances: If two nations have good relations up to +99, then special events can trigger alliance agreements. Nations in an alliance fight their enemies together as it happens in the update v1.05.
• War: If two nations have bad relations up to -99 then special events can trigger a war between them. Other nations will immediately pick a side according to what were their previous relations and modify relations accordingly. This large modification of relations can immediately trigger new alliances and force other nations to enter the war.
• Negotiations for Peace: When eventually a peace agreement is signed and war reparations are shared for the victors, money, ships and provinces are transferred accordingly to the nations (previously the game just ended). While there is no land conquering mechanic yet, the province exchange via war reparations will be somewhat exaggerated. 
• Economic Cycles: During prolonged wars the GDP will suffer greatly and the economic growth accordingly. After the war it will need much time to recover financially, especially if you were defeated and lost provinces.

MAJOR NEW FEATURES
A detailed Citadel functionality, new gun mechanics and Dud Torpedoes enrich the realism factors of the game.

• New detailed Citadel: The damage model becomes upgraded with a far more detailed armoring system. The way you layout out your guns and funnels will affect the length of the citadel (the armored box covered by the main belt and deck) and you will be able to view it in the ship preview during the design process.
  
  So it will be now fully realistic to create Nelson type ships which save weight due to the shortening of the armored citadel. Moreover, the hull weight and strength in each section will be dependent from the way you choose to layout your main guns as well as the center of its mass. For example, the sections in the middle will be significantly stronger and more resistant against damage than the lighter sections at the edges of the ship. Finally, you will be able to add an extra multi-layered armor in the citadel and choose independently its values according to the components enabled "All or Nothing", "Turtleback" etc.
  
  Furthermore, the new calculations for the hull will affect everything about the ship stability and weight allocations. For example, you can enlarge the citadel to reduce the pitch/roll, because by adding weight in the central parts of the ship will significantly increase its stability (Currently this effect is not so strong, because all sections were weighted equally, so adding big guns on the ship would always increase pitch/roll with no way to reduce other than bringing guns closer to the center).
   
• New Special Gun Calibers: A new design panel will allow you to edit the diameter and length of the gun barrels which will affect the gun statistics and their actual size on the ship. So, for example, you will be able to have calibers such as 13.5 inch for your guns before you research the next bigger 14 inch caliber. The variations of designs now will become extremely enriched, as each ship will look different also on the gun scales.
  
  The different guns on diameter and length-caliber will also vary according to the 3D model used for them. Guns of different nations that are large or have a shorter barrel than others of the same caliber and technology, will not be identical as now, but will have different stats accordingly.
   
• Dud Torpedoes: Torpedoes will not be as successful as now but will detonate and damage ships according to their angle of impact and their technology. You may have torpedoes to not explode on impact or explode prematurely with new visual effects. Torpedoes can also deviate from course (extremely rarely in more than 90 degrees).

NEW  HULLS & GUNS (WIP)
Up to now we can confirm the addition of the Danton-class battleship for the French Navy along with new French guns and other hull variants for France and other nations. More hulls will be added.

New models you will find now in the current beta are:
  - New late tech 8-inch and 9-inch guns for Japan
  - New late tech 2-inch and 3-inch guns for USA, Britain, Spain, China
  - New generic Mark 3 Torpedo Tubes for all nations.
 

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

• Improved ship motion at sea: Pitch/Roll and overall ship movement characteristics are updated to support the new hull weight adjustments. Ships will interact with waves more realistically, as a result.
• Improved shell ballistics & mechanics: Following the new gun mechanics, the aiming/targeting/shell dispersion will be improved and will have extensive variability according to the virtually countless combinations of the different gun settings. When guns fully aim they will characteristically speed up their firing rate to destroy the target quicker.
• Over penetration mechanics improvement: Overpenetration will now be depended further from the angle of impact, increasing the chance of striking full penetrations when firing through the bow of a ship.
  Moreover, overpenetration damage will be dependent greatly from the angle of the ship, significantly damaging the hull if a shell passes through the bow and along the length of the ship.
• Torpedo tubes create special detonations: When Torpedo Tubes become hit and destroyed they can cause a special detonation, simulating the damage caused by the destroyed torpedoes (which are removed from ammo).
• New Ship Components:  “Advanced Electrical Turrets”, “Advanced Electro-Hydraulic Turrets”, and “Advanced Gun Reload System” are now included in the available list of ship components.
• Many Ship weight/cost balances: Following up the new Citadel and Gun mechanics, the weight and cost of ship assets have been adjusted accordingly.
• New weapon stats visible in the UI: In weapon stats you can now review the weapon’s rotation speed in deg/sec and what is the exact weight of ammo per turret. 
• Colored weapon availability: During battle, by hovering the mouse on a weapon type all the respective weapons become highlighted and colored according to their status. “Green” is fully operational, “Yellow” is seriously damaged, “Red” is destroyed or out of ammo. Previously you could just view the weapons highlighted yellow with no information if they were working or not.
• Further Auto-Design improvements: AI will design ships even better following the logic of the new mechanics for Citadel and Guns.
• Further Battle AI  improvements: Battle AI will operate overall in a more effective way vs the player. 
• Further Division logic improvements: There should be less errors in division auto-management.
• Fixed Window Mode: You can now safely Alt+Tab or play in “Window Mode” and the game will continue to play, it will not be paused.
• Beam/Draught Custom Edit: You can now type the needed values for Beam/Draught.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed bug that made HE penetration to be dependent from the penetration of AP shells. AP and HE shells penetration will now correctly work independently according to the chosen AP and HE shell types.
• Fixed various campaign bugs.

Many more will be added, which we will share as soon as we arrive closer to the release of the next update.

Thank you for reading!
The Game - Labs Team

=====

*UPDATE 27/5/2022*
Hello all,
This week we have been fixing many bugs so that we can provide the first beta in a playable state for you. The campaign state should be fixed tomorrow, we will try to repair its current issues, so you can start playing it, and we will fix the rest during the beta process. Tomorrow we will inform you what will be possible. Thank you very much for your patience. 

[o Barão]

"New detailed Citadel: The damage model becomes upgraded with a far more detailed armoring system. The way you layout out your guns and funnels will affect the length of the citadel (the armored box covered by the main belt and deck) and you will be able to view it in the ship preview during the design process."

Amazing!!! Thank you!

[Manerk]

Will economic scaling be added to the campaign, to more allow the longer campaigns as well?

[slightlytreasonous]

48 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

•  
• New Special Gun Calibers: A new design panel will allow you to edit the diameter and length of the gun barrels which will affect the gun statistics and their actual size on the ship. So, for example, you will be able to have calibers such as 13.5 inch for your guns before you research the next bigger 14 inch caliber. The variations of designs now will become extremely enriched, as each ship will look different also on the gun scales.

This sounds familiar...

How precise will the customization be, large or small increments?

Either way just these sound absolutely fantastic. 

[Danz_Von_Luck]

1 hour ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Hello Admirals,

After the last major update which we hope you enjoy it, we started to work on the next major features. We can now share a confirmed list of the next very important new features, which you also have asked many times from us. 

• Long campaign with peacetime periods: This was actually a planned and expected feature of the campaign. On the current WIP map you will be able to start from your selected year without instant wars. New tension mechanics and special events will trigger diplomacy effects. Alliances will be formed and different wars will be fought throughout decades of gameplay.
   
• New detailed Citadel: The damage model becomes upgraded with a far more detailed armoring system. The way you layout out your guns and funnels will affect the length of the citadel (the armored box covered by the main belt and deck) and you will be able to view it in the ship preview during the design process.
  
  So it will be now fully realistic to create Nelson type ships which save weight due to the shortening of the armored citadel. Moreover, the hull weight and strength in each section will be dependent from the way you choose to layout your main guns as well as the center of its mass. For example, the sections in the middle will be significantly stronger and more resistant against damage than the lighter sections at the edges of the ship. Finally, you will be able to add an extra multi-layered armor in the citadel and choose independently its values according to the components enabled "All or Nothing", "Turtleback" etc.
   
• New Special Gun Calibers: A new design panel will allow you to edit the diameter and length of the gun barrels which will affect the gun statistics and their actual size on the ship. So, for example, you will be able to have calibers such as 13.5 inch for your guns before you research the next bigger 14 inch caliber. The variations of designs now will become extremely enriched, as each ship will look different also on the gun scales.

Many more will be added, which we will share as soon as we arrive closer to the release of the next update.

Thank you for reading!
The Game - Labs Team

So so happy to see this, amazing stuff

[Captain Basilone]

Yes!

on a side note I would like to see the addition of the Brazilian, Argentinian and Chilean navies as they all had battleships.

[Fangoriously]

Awesome! That customizable barrel caliber and incremental width for guns was my main suggestion in those suggestion threads, glad to see this is getting implemented. Is it just .5 inch increments, or is it more like .1 inch increments? And whats the range of caliber, 30 to 60?

Viewable and customizable citadels are great too, in the 30s to 40 i usually build battleships with 2 superfireing triple turets up front, potential accuracy at that point in time is generally high enough not to need a lot of guns, I'll really be able to minmax now.

I hope in the campaign you can make your own alliances and could find yourself at war with anyone. is Spain and Russia also going to become playable?

[admiralsnackbar]

• Long campaign with peacetime periods: 
  
  Nice
   
• New detailed Citadel: 
  
  Super Nice, hopefully now armoring the citadels makes more sense. Right now it seems like you can give your warships 20 inch belts (i.e. thicker than yamato) with no real problems but god help you if you try to put a citadel on your warships. 
   
• New Special Gun Calibers: 
  
  I'm guessing your doing some kind of interpolation between the stats of the guns?
  How would this work in the context of the tech tree? Do you unlock 'Ranges' of calibers? i.e. 13<=X<14  etc. 
  
   

[ColonelHenry]

9 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

New Special Gun Calibers: A new design panel will allow you to edit the diameter and length of the gun barrels which will affect the gun statistics and their actual size on the ship. So, for example, you will be able to have calibers such as 13.5 inch for your guns before you research the next bigger 14 inch caliber. The variations of designs now will become extremely enriched, as each ship will look different also on the gun scales.

This is great. I still think we should be able to customize the gun house and the gun itself. Right now in most cases, the single gun turret is the exact same size as its double or triple guns turret except for some low caliber 5-6inch guns. Having the ability to modify the turret house would be great, we could have a larger turret house with less guns but more space for better loading system or longer shells, etc. all affecting the ship performance and hull integrity or whatnot. Is it feasible to develop such system?

[Speglord]

Really excited to hear about the special gun calibers addition. Looking forward to this next update.

A related question: will the models for some cruiser turrets (again, late-period Japanese heavy cruiser turrets come to mind immediately) be re-done? 

[mk4m]

Please more focus on ironclad era, more hulls, turrets (correct french turrets), authentic gun calibers.. 

And more important - torpedoes needs serious rework. Less accurate, no spamming.

Maybe add more scenarios start options - 1895, 1905? I love pre-dreadhnout ships and battles, hate torpedoes:)

Edited April 23, 2022 by mk4m

[Candle_86]

If i could make one suggestion it would be to give triple expanion and nickle steel at 1890, both where known by this time, Iron over wood was 1860's, and Compound of Steel over Iron was mid 1870's, by 1885 Nickle Steel was a thing, though not harvey yet. Also Mk 0 Main guns, in 1890 we had some navies still using breechloading guns of sizes up to 16in, with the RML 16in in Brittish service, you could give them a ROF of say the 16in as 5minutes between shots but deadly if it hits, and similar for smaller Mk0 guns, just an idea

Edited April 23, 2022 by Candle_86

[Vanhal]

Really great to see. I have two questions though:

1. Will the turret size scale for amount of guns too? 1 gun trurret should be smaller than 2 gun turret.

2. Will you balance torpedoes?

[Tycondero]

13 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

• New Special Gun Calibers: A new design panel will allow you to edit the diameter and length of the gun barrels which will affect the gun statistics and their actual size on the ship. So, for example, you will be able to have calibers such as 13.5 inch for your guns before you research the next bigger 14 inch caliber. The variations of designs now will become extremely enriched, as each ship will look different also on the gun scales.

Will we also get barbettes that (automatically) match with the size of the guns? I hate to see (especially for the AI) the use of overly sized barbettes to mount guns. 

[Nick Thomadis]

New feature confirmed!

Dud Torpedoes: Torpedoes will not be as successful as now but will detonate and damage ships according to their angle of impact and their technology. You may have torpedoes to not explode on impact or explode prematurely with new visual effects.

[Nick Thomadis]

15 hours ago, Fangoriously said:

Is it just .5 inch increments, or is it more like .1 inch increments? And whats the range of caliber, 30 to 60?

Diameter of barrels will be incremental from initial size to 0.9 increase with 0.1 step. So for example, you can have 5.9 inch guns on Destroyers.

The length of the barrel, as of now, will span from -20% to 20% of initial size.

[Toby]

@Nick Thomadisyay fukll length campaigns. cant wait. as to the rest they sound really cool although in free play i can see a few super wacky stuff like low claiber super loing guns lol. will be an interesting set of mechanics to play with. the torpedoes not being perfect everytime will heavily change up how i and other build our fleets i feel which is great.

on a seperate note i know i keep asking this but how are you and the team? is everyone that can be safe safe? how are you families etc?

[Jyson]

3 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

New feature confirmed!

Dud Torpedoes: Torpedoes will not be as successful as now but will detonate and damage ships according to their angle of impact and their technology. You may have torpedoes to not explode on impact or explode prematurely with new visual effects.

will my ships that have torps set to safe still fire torps at horrendous angles, or will they launch for a 80-90 degree approach? And will we have the options for impact or magnetic detonators?

[SiWi]

I'm a bit skeptical about "Dud torpedos" because that has the potential to feel really frustrating. But we will see.

The main course is of course that the campaign could "finally" reaches its form where long term planing will make a difference. I wonder if they also rework peace offers since it doesn't seem to be actually implemented for a country to lose a province.

 

[Drenzul]

@Nick Thomadis
2 big things - Large towers make a lot of ship designs impossible.
Particularly annoying are the towers with extra funnel slots on the back/front
when you don't need that funnel slot. Need a way to at least remove that big.

Turret scales also need to be done asap so 2x turrets aren't the same size as 4x turrets.

[neph]

Can't wait!!

[Gangut]

Loving the new upcoming features, especially the longer campaign and dud torpedoes as the ai somehow has an obsession with launching waves upon waves of them. Would like to see Spain being added in a future as a playable nation as it's weird sending my fleets round the coast of Spain without there being a nation there. Ottomans/Turkey would also be an interesting addition as it makes fighting for control of the medditeranian more interesting.

[Werwaz]

On 4/22/2022 at 1:26 PM, Nick Thomadis said:

Hello Admirals,

After the last major update which we hope you enjoy it, we started to work on the next major features. We can now share a confirmed list of the next very important new features, which you also have asked many times from us. 

• Long campaign with peacetime periods: This was actually a planned and expected feature of the campaign. On the current WIP map you will be able to start from your selected year without instant wars. New tension mechanics and special events will trigger diplomacy effects. Alliances will be formed and different wars will be fought throughout decades of gameplay.
   
• New detailed Citadel: The damage model becomes upgraded with a far more detailed armoring system. The way you layout out your guns and funnels will affect the length of the citadel (the armored box covered by the main belt and deck) and you will be able to view it in the ship preview during the design process.
  
  So it will be now fully realistic to create Nelson type ships which save weight due to the shortening of the armored citadel. Moreover, the hull weight and strength in each section will be dependent from the way you choose to layout your main guns as well as the center of its mass. For example, the sections in the middle will be significantly stronger and more resistant against damage than the lighter sections at the edges of the ship. Finally, you will be able to add an extra multi-layered armor in the citadel and choose independently its values according to the components enabled "All or Nothing", "Turtleback" etc.
   
• New Special Gun Calibers: A new design panel will allow you to edit the diameter and length of the gun barrels which will affect the gun statistics and their actual size on the ship. So, for example, you will be able to have calibers such as 13.5 inch for your guns before you research the next bigger 14 inch caliber. The variations of designs now will become extremely enriched, as each ship will look different also on the gun scales.
• Dud Torpedoes: Torpedoes will not be as successful as now but will detonate and damage ships according to their angle of impact and their technology. You may have torpedoes to not explode on impact or explode prematurely with new visual effects.

Many more will be added, which we will share as soon as we arrive closer to the release of the next update.

Thank you for reading!
The Game - Labs Team

any idea on roughly when we can expect these features to be in a beta build?

[Dave P.]

Awesome.

The "long" campaign option, however, makes it very, very important that we're able to refit obsolete hulls. (Even if we can't build new ones.)

[richarddenk]

stoked!  looking forward to the longer campaign!  ive had several where germany wants to sue for peace after the very first, albeit large, engagement.