Upcoming “Update v1.09” News [07/10/2022]

[Nick Thomadis]

Hello everyone,
The work for the next major update continues and now we are ready to share some details of what is going to include. Please note that the list of changes is not final. We will certainly add more improvements or some of them may need more testing before they come live for players.

MAJOR CAMPAIGN FEATURES

• Full Global Map: The map is expanded in its maximum size scale and it includes the whole world. You will be able to travel with your fleets everywhere and now the strategic importance of Task Forces and other new technologies become a necessity.
   
• All Major Nations added: All 10x major Nations become available to play.
  
  The previous nations were:

  - British Empire 
  - French Empire
  - German Empire
  - Italian Empire
  - Austro-Hungarian Empire
  
  and the new are:

  - United States
  - Russian Empire
  - Empire of Japan
  - Spanish Empire
  - Chinese Empire
  
  Note: For starters, their initial starting provinces will not differ according to the start year of the campaign.

• All necessary technology aspects become available: All previous not functional “To-Do” which you were seeing in the technology tree will be now fully operational, and many more. The most important to mention are the following:
  
  Submarines & ASW: The technology tree is enriched with the submarines which you can fully use in the campaign map. ASW new techs will help in the countermeasures against submarines. Fleets with no ASW and light ship escorts will be very vulnerable against submarines.The submarines will only be playable on the campaign map and will execute autoresolved missions against convoys and enemy fleets.Special mine submarines could sink enemies with their mines without engaging them.
  
  Mines: The technology tree includes a full set of mines and minefield options which can be used in the campaign map. DD and CL will have the ability to deploy mines with special components around the ports. Fleets will be able to clean them up faster if they have DD or TB with dedicated minesweeping equipment. Ports that are protected by mines can heavily damage enemies that attempt to close in for Port Strike missions.
  
  Ship Construction Flaws: Only for the campaign, the ships may have various minor or major defects when building them which you can overcome if you invest in construction technologies. Some complex components may increase the chance of defects, so overpowering your ship with the latest technology may result in defective ships if you haven’t invested sufficiently in the ship construction technologies. The “Overweight” and “Underweight” type of defects are permanent, while the extra “Hull Defects”, “Weapon Defects” can be gradually repaired with refits.
  
  New “Recon” rating for ships: The *Recon* rating represents the reconnaissance capability of the ship, its ability to report enemy movements without being detected, and greatly improves the strategic power of the fleet to gain initiative on offensive missions or get away from trouble before the enemy comes too close. “Recon” is affected mainly by the respective technology as well as spotting, detectability and speed attributes of the ship. 
  
  Large and slow ships such as battleships are expected to have a smaller “Recon” rating than small cruisers and destroyers. Radio and Radar equipment greatly increase the reconnaissance capability surpassing inherited disadvantages of larger ships.
   
• Various strategic technologies: Technologies that speed up the crew training, raise the maximum training level without combat, enhance the power projection/invade/protect capabilities or even reinforce transports with more armament (and torpedoes). All in all, the technology aspects have been rebalanced and enriched so that they matter significantly and require careful planning on which one to focus on.

EXTRA MAJOR FEATURES

• Updated Shipyard graphics: New graphical improvements for the shipyard, according to the size of the designed ships. These shipyards will fit all ships, even the largest super battleships.
   
• Campaign Ammunition: Spending ammunition in combat is no longer free, but has a cost which is added in the fleet maintenance. Ships will gradually regain ammo according to the weight of their requited ammo, the free port capacity and their distance from it. So ships that are in Task Forces must not waste ammunition, especially if they are far away from a large friendly port, as they will be in danger of ammunition shortages.
   
• Detailed ship map movement and fuel: Ships travel at sea according to their cruising speed which is dependent from the designed top speed and the engine type (for example, Diesel Engines provide a higher cruising speed). According to their operational range, they spend fuel, in map or during combat (maximizing consumption at full speed). 
  
  If they reach a “Low Fuel” state their maintenance becomes more expensive (simulating the necessity to refuel with supply convoys), they slow down the fleet with their lower cruising speed and in combat they cannot use the full engine throttle, so they are severely more vulnerable. 
  
  Ships will gradually refuel according to their distance from a friendly port and its free capacity and the refueling cost will be dependent from the designed operational range and its cost. So now, chasing for hours withdrawing enemies may result in excessive fuel costs and shortages which will negatively affect your fleet in the next turns.
   
• New “Defend” Role: During wartime players can switch to “Defend Port'' when they wish their ships to not participate in any other mission than port strike defense. This was many times asked by players as a way to manage the economy without trying to exploit the mothball options.
   
• New “Commission Time”: When ships are constructed or are removed from mothball status, they need some time to become fully operational. Note: This new essential feature replaces the temporary very large “Repair” time when ships returned from mothball status.
   
• New “Repair Priority” for ports: Previously all ships in ports received immediate repairs even for minor damages. Additionally, if you moved damaged ships from a task force to a port they would not be repaired unless they participated in a battle and survived. These problems are now addressed by having a “Repair Priority” button which appears when you click to a port which works similarly as for the Task Forces.
   
• Detailed Refit Time: After popular player request, the refit time became more detailed, utilizing the amount of objects and tonnage changed on the ship. The refit time shows up during the refit design, so the player is well informed of his design actions.
   
• Undo Action in Ship Design process: Players can undo a certain number of previous actions if they make a mistake. This new feature is a work in progress and may not be fully working.
   
• Multiple Saves for campaign: A simple way of having different campaign save slots. We will try to include save capability during campaign battles.
   
• Engine Vibrations: According to engine type or technologies, the ship may have excessive engine vibrations which negatively affect the ship’s accuracy. By lowering the ship’s throttle, the vibrations become reduced.
   
• Shell Splashes accuracy effect: When firing at a target and other guns of your own or friendlies also fire at the target, there is a temporary accuracy penalty, simulating the difficulty to distinguish different splashes of multiple gun calibers. Rangefinders (especially the Radar) and some new techs lessen this negative effect. This new feature also enhances the ships of uniform gun caliber because shell splashes from minor secondaries is very small.
   
• Gun recoil accuracy effect: You will now notice a realistic recoil accuracy effect when firing guns which will be significant if your hull is too small for those guns. This effect will dissipate over a short time but can greatly affect ships which are equipped with super velocity guns, too large for the displacement of the hull.
   
• Updated ship physics: Ships interact with the waves more realistically. You will notice the acceleration to increase not linearly according to the size of the waves. 
   
• Engine efficiency is more important: The engine efficiency benefits are enhanced, since the engine efficiency level can increase further to 100%. Ships with low engine efficiency will be drastically slower at sea and have less operational range, making them strategically less important.
   
• “Funnel smoke” and “smoke screen” new functionality: Smoke obstruction from funnels no longer causes a permanent accuracy penalty but this penalty is applied according to the direction of the smoke in relation to the target. Furthermore, this smoke obstruction affects other ships which will target with accuracy penalty when their targets are obstructed by the funnel smoke. The same functionality enriches the smoke screen which will now reduce the accuracy for targets that reside behind the smoke screen (not only inside the smoke, as before).

• Armor plate damage affects shell penetration: As armor plates become damaged their resistance against incoming shells becomes reduced. So you will notice that even the most heavily armored ship can gain weaknesses after a prolonged combat and the hazard of a catastrophic detonation increases significantly when the ship is almost a wreck. 

• Flooding increases according to section damage: Various ship design aspects, crew and amount of damage received affect the flooding effects. Now the ship’s structure integrity affects them further. As a result, ships with increased damage have much difficulty to control flooding and so ships with maximum bulkheads will not feel “invulnerable” and so hard to sink as before.

• New hulls: The USS Maine (1889) and several ship variants of early technology will enrich the roster of available hulls.

BALANCES / FIXES

• Battle AI improvements to follow the new changes.
• Auto-Design improvements to follow the new features. It should also now not produce ships with zero superstructure armor (unless it produces a very special rare armor layout).
• Various balances in ship weights.
• HE armor penetration capacity is reduced. Overpowered large caliber HE shells should not exist anymore.
• Shell ballistics improvements affecting penetration mechanics. Shell dispersion should be noticeably improved.
• Various balances in many components and techs.
• Fixes of various campaign bugs (too many to mention) .
• Fixed the turret rotation stalling when angle is not sufficient (WIP).
• Various minor hull improvements.
• Fixed issue of overpowered player technology when he started a campaign with “Own Fleet”. Previously the AI ships would be behind at least 3 or 4 years while the player would have ships of the present start year (for example 1910 instead of 1906 ships). This fix addresses one of the main reasons that AI was weaker in battles because it always started with lower tech ships than the player.

There is a pending feature that we are not sure yet if it will be needed for this patch: the limitation of Task Force size according to techs, because we need to try how the AI will respond to all the new mechanics first. We will continue to work on the patch and we will make available the first beta, as soon as we stabilize its content. Thank you very much for reading!

The Game Labs Team

===21/9/2022 Update===
Hello everyone,
We would like to share a brief information update about our current progress. We have prepared almost everything, added more fixes and improvements and all the planned features except the following:
- First Global map version: Needs a first graphical base, plus some needed mechanics.
- The Updated shipyard.
- Submarine feature: It is currently very beta to share. Needs crucial bug fixes and some remaining non-working features.

We will let you know very soon when the next beta will be available for you.

===30/9/2022 Update===
Hello admirals,
The work for the next major update continues. This update is actually the largest we have ever worked for in terms of content, so it takes more time to complete than the usual. According to what we have finished and what we consider stable for you to play, we estimate that next week, we will offer the first playable beta. It is going to have extra improvements in various aspects of the gameplay and the following limitations:
- The map is not going to have finalized province borders. The borders will look generic and will not show accurate cutting of land according to the game's provinces. Map graphics will be incomplete but mostly done.
- The submarines and mines will work but some issues in balance or bugs are to be expected.
- The new hulls will be unavailable.
- The new shipyard might not be available yet.
- Other known small issues will be fixed during the beta.

 

===07/10/2022 Update===
Hello Admirals,
The first beta of version 1.09 is almost ready but some remaining critical bugs did not allow us to release it. These bugs could create highly inconsistent engagements ignoring the fleet control zones, crashes due to submarine mines or never-ending auto-refits in some rare occasions, and also the known turret rotation issue is not yet fixed (not critical though). 

We try to stabilize the beta so that it is enjoyable when we make it available for you. Due to the fact that the remaining critical bugs are few, we can guarantee that by early next week it is going to be ready.

Thank you for your patience!

[Mutsu]

Wonderful news, really looking forward to the full map and playing an IJN campaign 

[Grayknight]

Awesome. Cannot wait to Play china

[IshPR7777]

Good work guys!! Keep it up!!

[kineuhansen]

awesome but really hope we get more hulls special british hulls between 1910 and 1940 and any word  on release date yet like an beta or something

[SiWi]

I'm kinda skeptical with the whole "hidden flaw" thing, since it sounds to me as a potential very annoying feature.

But besides that, the next Update sounds awesome and huge in many ways.

[SodaBit]

Overall, this is a very, VERY good patch by the looks of it. I only really have one concern with regards to campaign balance.
 

Various strategic technologies: Technologies that speed up the crew training, raise the maximum training level without combat, enhance the power projection/invade/protect capabilities or even reinforce transports with more armament (and torpedoes). All in all, the technology aspects have been rebalanced and enriched so that they matter significantly and require careful planning on which one to focus on.

With the new tech changes, players are going to have a bit more to focus on with regards to tech priorities. In previous patches, there were techs you simply wouldn't bother prioritizing (Submarine Design, Minelayers, etc.) because they weren't implemented, so you'd just use your 3 priority slots on things that were actually implemented in order of importance. Now that there's more techs that are crucial to long term success in campaign, can we get a 4th research priority slot? Or, perhaps a system tied to either GDP or tech itself that can increase/decrease tech priority slots?

[AdmER]

Can we have a more precise choice on techenologies developpement.

Exemple, A Navy will stick with precise caliber over time. so I want to focus on developping 2 inch and 5 inch small gun. is it possible to concentrated on more specific tech, espacially in upgrating gun caliber and skip some, like 3 or 4 inch in my exemple.

Ammunition and fuel should be someting more important in the campaign. Supply is the core of a navy and should be more important in our ship design.  We could have to manage stock of ammuntion according to caliber , torpedo and fuel per ports, and account for the cost of stockpiling using old spec ammunition or replacing by newer.

Thanks great update looking forward to it

 

[Sapphire]

Looking forward to being able to mod the new update. 

as for "Fixed issue of overpowered player technology when he started a campaign with “Own Fleet”. Previously the AI ships would be behind at least 3 or 4 years while the player would have ships of the present start year (for example 1910 instead of 1906 ships). This fix addresses one of the main reasons that AI was weaker in battles because it always started with lower tech ships than the player" I'm excited to see how it's done in the files and tweak it so it's even more difficult for players currently the solution I came up with was just to boost the tech if it's behind in x years. Wish there were a few lines that would be just AI research speed etc 

I do wish you could play older versions of the game via the BETA tab on steam. 

[Vinrellren]

Hats of to the devs, that's what I called an update log. Thank you for fixing the HE Overpower and AI design issue and also looking for a fix against a AI doom stack fleet. Neat new features too! Frankly I did not see any change log about the absurdity of 12'' and 8'' guns? Will those still be the best guns (in terms of accuracy and RoF)? I also think that hopefully with the introduction of the new nations, diplomacy will be fixed (eg: no eternal war, no AI rejecting peace although they are the ones who offered it).

[Airzerg]

I have no doubt that half of what you have stated will not work or will not work correctly. But you are still great and just super that you are doing all this!

[TheMadTypist]

I am intrigued by these new campaign factors, the impact of recon/fuel/mines/asw/ammo and so on, as pressures against purely combat optimized ships. Previously we did not have any such pressure and so it was easy to produce designs with universally superior performance to the AI’s competitors. By forcing us to balance our intent between utility, endurance, and battle functionality, our designs will be less razor optimized and may reduce the gap between player designs and the AI.

The recoil mechanic, I hope, will have each hull’s limits clearly defined in the UI during construction. It could be rough to start a campaign only to discover your main battle-line design attempts a barrel roll with every salvo.

It will be interesting to see how this new research will play now that more categories are valuable. Previously using priorities was something I didn’t often do, now with even more things of value that could be impacted the decision will be more difficult. Perhaps research should display a hint as to what the outcome might be when the current research is earlier on, like “improves a gun caliber between 4-7 inches” for a small guns 6 inch research at 30% progress, or “a new funnel design for light ships” for advanced small funnels II. ??? until 70% makes understanding short term benefits and costs more difficult.

[kjg000]

A lot of work and a great effort by the Devs ... BUT, unless a lot of these new features are optional this could well be the end of the game for me. 

I don't really want an expanded tech tree, a more rational one yes but not a larger one.

I would have to see the 'hidden faults' mechanics but it sounds more frustrating than rewarding. 

I often play big ships only as the battle ai is useless and formations don't work. Forcing me to use ships I have to micromanage would be a game killer. Especially as task forces don't work and get split up or combined randomly and I have no way to allocate fleet roles to ships within the TF. I don't care if the Devs think it magically makes a better game. Having randomly selected ships separated from the TF because they have a numerical value that is convenient for the devs does not improve game balance. 

It's great that the game allows deep immersion into the mechanics but I often just want to play a more entertaining game for relaxation not a game that I have to study all the time.  The academy and custom battles become bland quite quickly.  So unless these will also be revamped, to allow coastal features perhaps, and to unlock the academy games, making the campaign tedious will have the effect of killing the game for me.

Unlocking the academy is particularly important as I've played through it as often as I'm going to. I don't see the advantage to locking it in the first place. 

Being penalised for the devs fanciful spotting mechanics by making chasing ships 5kts slower than yours, but magically seem to stay just outside spotting range as you're bridge crew don't know how to report a compass direction correctly,  is merely frustrating and not great game play. 

In short, if the Devs are going to get rid of their more fanciful features and make things like spotting and formations work as well as making many of the more tedious features optional and strategic positioning  meaningful, then this should be a great update. Otherwise it may just be the last straw.

 

[Tycondero]

This is a great update post. I am really looking forward to it. 

Submarines 

Regarding submarines, will we be able to design them according to certain specifications (e.g. number of torpedo tubes, deck gun, speed, max depth)? I would love to be able to see the submarine in 3D in the shipyard at least, even though I understand we will not control them in battle. 

Task force control

Will we get some more control over the mission of task forces? Task forces are formed with a task in mind (hence the name), so it would be great if we can set the mission of a task force to assignments like convoy defense, port strike, naval invasion, convoy raid, patrol etc. That way we can direct the missions that you get with them and also let them be more than just a group of ships sitting in a certain sea zone. If anything setting up the strategic use of task forces is the premier task of the admiralty during war time. Therefore, we should be able to do so in a game revolving around being the head of the navy. 

Edited September 11, 2022 by Tycondero
Grammar

[Skeksis]

Every nation has there 'Large Armored Cruiser' hull by 1910, except...

France, they get theirs in 1914.

And the United States, it doesn't get one at all. Their next heavy cruiser hull is 'Heavy Cruiser I' and that's in 1919. So United States gets 'Armored Cruiser IV' hull in 1897 and then the nation has to wait until 1919 for its next improved hull, 22 year gap. While other nations have the advantage of 'Large Armored Cruiser', i.e. advantage of a flat deck to design on.

It's alittle unfair. Sourced from custom battles database. 

Edited September 11, 2022 by Skeksis

[M3rky1]

Any idea when this will be available? 

[SpardaSon21]

10 hours ago, Skeksis said:

Every nation has there 'Large Armored Cruiser' hull by 1910, except...

France, they get theirs in 1914.

And the United States, it doesn't get one at all. Their next heavy cruiser hull is 'Heavy Cruiser I' and that's in 1919. So United States gets 'Armored Cruiser IV' hull in 1897 and then the nation has to wait until 1919 for its next improved hull, 22 year gap. While other nations have the advantage of 'Large Armored Cruiser', i.e. advantage of a flat deck to design on.

It's alittle unfair. Sourced from custom battles database. 

The USA didn't build any flat-decked armored cruisers though.  Our large armored cruiser hulls had a massive central casemate battery of 6" secondary guns. 14 for the Pennsylvanias and 16 for the Tennessees.  Of course, that's still a problem for the obvious reasons that you can't stick historical casemates on any nation's ships, let alone American ships that had an entire TB flotilla's worth of small guns as a tertiary battery and said hulls were first laid down in 1901 before commissioning in 1905.

Those outermost guns in the central battery are 6" guns, with the rest being 3" guns, for 11 3" guns and 8 6" guns per side, for a total of 22 and 16.

 

Again, Game-Labs, we need historical casemates, especially if you're adding the USA to the campaign where massive secondary batteries and even tertiary batteries were a key hallmark of our designs for the dreadnought and pre-dread eras, especially the Connecticut pre-dreadnoughts which had two heavy cruisers worth of firepower per side with 2x2 8" turrets, 6 7" casemates, 10 3" casemates and 6 1.9" casemates.

Edited September 11, 2022 by SpardaSon21

[Zuikaku]

I like the hidden flaws idea. Great update!!

[Skeksis]

3 hours ago, SpardaSon21 said:

The USA didn't build any flat-decked armored cruisers though

Sure, the dedicated historical enthusiast few, including Dev’s, will say yes, it’s not historical, but the rest, who are just here to play a wargame including a huge American audience, will say “where are they?”.

Playing the US campaign changes everything.

If you add the building time and slower cruiser research, a player could be facing 1922-1925 enemy built CAs verses their 1897 US obsolete designs and getting hammered. On the flip side, AI 1897 US CA would be a no challenge from 1910 onwards, a no contest.  

And that’s what it all boils down to, the contest, i.e. gameplay. In this case gameplay should override historical.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Skeksis

[kineuhansen]

hope we start see the 1.09 asap

[ZorinW]

2 hours ago, Skeksis said:

Sure, the dedicated historical enthusiast few, including Dev’s, will say yes, it’s not historical, but the rest, who are just here to play a wargame including a huge American audience, will say “where are they?”.

Playing the US campaign changes everything.

If you add the building time and slower cruiser research, a player could be facing 1922-1925 enemy built CAs verses their 1897 US obsolete designs and getting hammered. On the flip side, AI 1897 US CA would be a no challenge from 1910 onwards, a no contest.  

And that’s what it all boils down to, the contest, i.e. gameplay. In this case gameplay should override historical.

Exactly, it's the whole point of desigining our own ships to have the ultimate freedom. So please give us the UNLOCK option in the campaign.

[Lakel]

5 hours ago, Skeksis said:

Sure, the dedicated historical enthusiast few, including Dev’s, will say yes, it’s not historical, but the rest, who are just here to play a wargame including a huge American audience, will say “where are they?”.

Playing the US campaign changes everything.

If you add the building time and slower cruiser research, a player could be facing 1922-1925 enemy built CAs verses their 1897 US obsolete designs and getting hammered. On the flip side, AI 1897 US CA would be a no challenge from 1910 onwards, a no contest.  

And that’s what it all boils down to, the contest, i.e. gameplay. In this case gameplay should override historical.

Or at least allow the possibility of actually building the St. Louis class, that 6" in casemates  build.

[Pizzafighter]

Is it possible for convoy-missions, that we could sink all warships of the enemy and still fight the convoy afterwards? Or maybe it will automatically be considered as sunk, but it is totally stupid that, if the escort is killed the convoy is totally fine and unharmed. Would be nice if this could be implemented in 1.09

[Skeksis]

Every nation gets its Dreadnought III flat deck hull by or about 1910, except... 

Who else, the United States.

But instead gets a Dreadnought II (USA) in 1912, South Carolina Class, a built-up superstructure hulk with very little design options. And the US doesn't get any flat deck hulls until 1919, and then gets two of them, Dreadnought III and Dreadnought IV.

It seems to me that there is a lack of design options for 1910 campaign starts and a lack of flat deck design options from 1905 (Dreadnought (USA)) to 1919.

For gameplay, Dreadnought II (USA) should be push back to 1906, the year when USS South Carolina was laid down, and Dreadnought III hull availability set to 1910 or at least less than 1914. 

Alot of people are going to be playing the 5 new nations, especially the US.  

Edited September 12, 2022 by Skeksis

[SodaBit]

4 hours ago, Skeksis said:

Every nation gets its Dreadnought III flat deck hull by or about 1910, except... 

Who else, the United States.

But instead gets a Dreadnought II (USA) in 1912, South Carolina Class, a built-up superstructure hulk with very little design options. And the US doesn't get any flat deck hulls until 1919, and then gets two of them, Dreadnought III and Dreadnought IV.

It seems to me that there is a lack of design options for 1910 campaign starts and a lack of flat deck design options from 1905 (Dreadnought (USA)) to 1919.

For gameplay, Dreadnought II (USA) should be push back to 1906, the year when USS South Carolina was laid down, and Dreadnought III hull availability set to 1910 or at least less than 1914. 

Alot of people are going to be playing the 5 new nations, especially the US.  

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that hull forms shouldn't be restricted by nationality in the campaign. An AI with "historical personality" should learn more towards using hulls that its nation historically used, but seriously, there's no real reason I can think of that should stop folks from using the hulls they want to use. This isn't just going to be a problem for USN players. Between the years 1909 and 1915, Great Britain gets access to Dreadnought 3, 4, and 5, but a decent number of players won't use them, myself included, because the lines of this hull are based on SMS Seydlitz, meaning they can be a royal pain in the ass to balance, and limit the player's options with regards to armament layout. I really don't see why we can't give players the option of choosing what their hulls look like, as players who want to experiment with new designs would be able to do so, and players who want to go with more historically authentic designs maintain their ability to do so.

Edit: And if we're going to stick to having flat hulls in particular, and not just hulls a player doesn't like personally, or are annoying to deal with, then we're going to have to talk about the Japanese. They start off with their Dreadnought 1 hull being flat in 1905, but it really is just bad news from there. The IJN has to wait until 1927 in order to get a new flat hull BB, in the form of Modern Battleship 1. And before anyone mentiones the Allegedly Flat Modernized Dreadnought 1, which is supposed to be, as the name suggests, a modernized version of Japan's original flat hull Dreadnought, I should note:

That Hull Isn't Actually Flat.

Also, if we're going with hulls similar to the ones nations used historically, why do the Brits get to use Seydlitz's lines? Was she really that similar to some of the super dreadnoughts that her lines are adequate for representing these classes in game?

Edited September 12, 2022 by SodaBit