>>> Beta 1.09 Feedback (Released)<<<

[Nick Thomadis]

Hello everyone, the first beta version of the next major update is now available for you to play!

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:

- Find the game on your Steam Game Library and right click on it:

- Click on properties...

- ... and on the opened window, select from the list the "BETAS" option. On the appearing list, select the "beta branch" to switch to the latest beta version of the game.

- If you want to switch back to the stable live version, repeat the procedure and select from the Beta list "None".

The final v1.09 will include the following:

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

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.

• Gun length settings depended on technology: The maximum gun length caliber is now researchable in “Turret Mechanisms” (and can be increased a little further than before), simulating the needed metallurgy developments to allow durable large caliber naval rifles which previously were unrealistically available too early in the technology era.

• (POSTPONED for the next update) - 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.

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

PLEASE READ:

Here are below the features which are lacking from the latest beta:

- Map borders are incomplete.
- The new shipyard graphics are incomplete.
- The new hulls are not yet added.

The Beta is not a complete version. All previous saves will not work and we might reset your ongoing saves while we add more content or balances to this beta. We tried to offer an as much stable version as possible, but we cannot guarantee the absence of bugs or inconsistencies. You can help us finish the v1.09 with your kind feedback.

Beta Update 2 (18/10/2022)

- Completed map edges so that ships can travel via the Pacific Ocean.
- Fixed bug of negative ammo which also affected the AI and made it passive or cause battle crashes.
- Fixed bug that could cause ship operational range to become negative.
- Fixed old issue with repair of task forces that caused ships to be teleported in far away ports. Now ships that need repairs will seek for nearest port that can be reached in one turn or else they will not detach from the task force.
- Fixed small Campaign UI issue which showed wrong active ships number.
- Fixed bug that could make AI to not be affected by "Low Fuel" State.
- Improved fuel consumption mechanics as per feedback.
- Fixed issue which caused very slow ship movement on the map.
- Fixed problem in ship evasion which caused ships in line formation to stall often.
- Warning: Added new shipyard but is mostly incomplete with untextured objects. Please report if you find any ship that overlaps with the current shipyard layout.

Note: The remaining turret rotation issue which causes turrets to not follow the ship's listing will be fixed ASAP.

Beta Update 3 (19/10/2022)

- Fixed multiple pathfinding problems at the map edges and in Gibraltar region. Please report if you have any more map movement issues.
- Fixed the remainder of the turret rotation bug. Turrets should now also follow the hull's listing.
- Fixed some issues with mission mechanics, that could cause inactivity.
- Technology speed up as per feedback.
- Flaws can be overcome with more consistency after multiple refits.
- Balances in Fuel/Ammo replenishment costs.
- Balanced the map movement speed further.
- Fixed problems that could cause auto-design delays and campaign turn delays (It is advised to start a new campaign if turns become awfully slow).
- Fixed operational range slider bug which made it to jitter.

Beta Update 4 (19/10/2022)

- Fixed rotation bug which caused turrets to lose their targets and stop rotating.
- Fixed various bugs of the campaign which could cause errors and stall the turns.
- Fixed bug that made ships to not sink after a battle and enter a never-ending repair cycle.
- Fixed bug that made impossible to bombard enemy ports after a successful Port Strike mission.
- Fixed errors in End Campaign results which prevented to show crew and transports losses.
- Finalized minefield mechanics. Now hits and damage when ship groups pass by minefields in ports or at sea should be consistent.
- Completed the Shipyard upgrades. Minor visual improvements may follow.
- Battle AI adjustments to raise its aggressiveness. 

Beta Update 4 HotFix (20/10/2022)

- Fixed major repair bug that caused ships to disappear.
- Fixed scrapping ships bug that made ships to reappear in next turns (needs testing).
- Further research speed increase (needs testing).
- Further fuel replenish speed up (needs testing). Note: Logistics Techs will become available to further increase it. Impact of Colonies/Minor Nations and conquering of next patch will finalize the feature.
- Further Battle AI aggressiveness adjustment (needs testing).

Beta Update 5 (21/10/2022)

- The turret rotation bug should be now totally fixed. Guns should follow the designed rotation patterns and not overlap with the hull when it lists.
- Transport Capacity now directly affects Ammo/Fuel replenishment rate. It is expected to notice shortages when Transport Capacity becomes too low.
- Battle AI further improvement to create more effective attack maneuvers and firing angles.
- Formation fixes addressing an issue where the rear ships could overcome the lead ship of a division.
- Fix of fuel consumption which wrongly used previous turn path even if the fleet was stationary. Players must note that fleets consume fuel not only from their straight paths but also doing patrols around the main formation according to their control zones, so the fuel consumption is affected accordingly and is not measured with a simple subtraction Operational Range - Path travelled.
- Various Map pathfinding adjustments (It is pending to fix some known remaining inconsistencies).

Beta Update 6 (22/10/2022)

Warning! Saves reset! Campaign long turns, and various bugs would be unavoidable with old saves.

-  Fixed major issues of map pathfinding which were also causing severe turn lags. Now you should notice a faster resolution of campaign turns. Moreover, the ship movement on map is more consistent.
- Fine tuned Technology Research, Fuel Consumption, and various other aspects of the campaign.
- (New feature)  Gun length settings depended on technology: The maximum gun length caliber is now researchable in “Turret Mechanisms” (and can be increased a little further than before), simulating the needed metallurgy developments to allow durable large caliber naval rifles which previously were unrealistically available too early in the technology era.
- Fixed bugs of flaws mechanics which caused various issues with the calculations. Please check if late era ships have less defects and if refits now repair those issues more consistently than before.
- Battle AI & Targeting balances.
- Nearest Supply Port now takes into consideration not only the distance but also the Port Capacity of distant ports. Moreover Supply ports can be not only those you own but also those of your allies. Consequently, supplying Task Forces with ammo and fuel in distant waters can be now more effective.

Beta Update 6 Hotfix (23/10/2022)

- Fixed turret rotation issue which could cause guns to slightly merge with the superstructure and stuck. Please check if this issue is fully resolved (It was quite random and not consistent). Players should not confuse this bug with the Angled! warning which is an expected functionality.
- Fixed various issues with campaign ship building which could cause auto-design invalid designs, errors and turn delays.
- Reverted temporarily a Technology functionality related with the submarine experiments (they became inactive when all the included technologies were discovered), because they could corrupt the technology tree and permanently destroy the campaign save.
- Fixed bug which caused inconsistent refit time (The time shown in constructor was applied differently when the ship actually became refitted and was much smaller).
- Tension mechanics adjustments so that tension is caused when big fleets enter the water of friendly nations.
- Fixes for formations, addressing some old issues which appeared when players disabled the Auto-Evade of ships. 
- Improved Campaign Fleet merging radius, fixing pathfinding issues and resulting in less "Doomstack" battles, as the fleets will not merge at so large distances.

Beta Update 7 Hotfix (24/10/2022)

- Fixed bug that caused AI to insist on trying to build invalid designs (ships with higher tonnage than allowed in campaign) creating many delays in turns and in campaign generation. This was one major reason for turn delays, but probably not the only one. We need your continuous feedback to fix any remaining issue.
- Fixed bug that did not allow saves to be deleted with the button. This bug probably could corrupt some saves, which when reloaded could cause partial overridden data and the permanent destruction of the save.
- Fixed bug that caused the background of "New Campaign" to interfere while editing inside the Save window, and so accidentally some of your defined settings would change to another value (for example, start a campaign with a different nation than the one chosen).
- Reverted Refit Time estimation code to an intermediate stage because it needs total refactoring. Version 6 always calculated time equal or higher than the ship construction time. Please note that sometimes the simple refit may need more time only when it traces invalid parts, which have to be re-adjusted automatically and are counted as measurable changes for the time evaluation.
- Fixed bug that could cause the Research Tech Tree interface to clone itself when you loaded a new campaign after another.
- Further fixes/improvements for the formations.
- Further balances to minefield damage and prevention against them.
- Further technology research speed up.
- Other minor fixes.

Please note the following

- Saves/settings have been reset (except Naval Academy and Custom Battle saved designs).
- The new hulls have to be postponed for the next patch, as well as the province border improvements (you see now lacking province borders or with various inaccuracies). Our target is to fix all major bugs and fully release the patch this week. Then we will progress on the next one with many new hulls and various scheduled new features.

Beta Update RC1 "Release Candidate" (26/10/2022)

Please note there is a TOTAL SAVES RESET!

- Fixed crash that made a campaign unplayable, related to "Research" phase of campaign turn.
- Fixed bug that made the campaign not able to continue after a battle (When you saw loading phase "Battle").
- Fixed bug that created many invalid saved designs due to extra, wrong change of tonnage, after the save. When it happened for AI in the campaign the designs were discarded and the AI had to spend more time to make a new design, resulting in more campaign turn delays. When it happened for the human player, the design (Normal or Refit) was unusable, could not build anything or it contained misaligned parts.
- Fixed bugs that created inconsistent Refit time calculations.
- Fixed bug that did not allow to change Role for submarines that went out in sea.
- Fixed bug that forced ships to enter a repair phase after commissioning.
- Fixed some bugs for control/attack radiuses of Task Forces/ Submarine groups which could make them very large and create various issues with extra mine hits and problems with pathfinding and mission generation.
- Ship costs / Optimal Hull speed balances, your old saves will have weight differences, if you try to use them. This change will address overpowered ships which were not costed sufficiently and the ability to sustain very large fleets in campaign.
- AI personalities balance for nations which could be more evasive than needed.
- Further Formation improvements.
- Other minor fixes.

This version is considered a release candidate. We need your feedback to fix any remaining issues, if needed, so we can release as soon as possible.

 

Beta Update "Repair Pack 1" (28/10/2022)

- Fixed various problems that could cause crashes or freezes during campaign gameplay. The fixes are not final. More will arrive today.

Beta Update "Repair Pack 2" (29/10/2022)

- Fixed more issues which could cause freezes or cause lag in campaign turns. Now the campaign should be more stable than all previous beta versions.
- Further formation improvements. The issue of ships not decelerating to avoid the lead ship of the formation should be resolved. Please do not disable the ship "Auto Avoid" if you still notice problems according to your maneuvers. We are going to fix more issues later.
- Fixed UI problem which allowed you to save invalid designs, when you chose to exit and NOT discard a design.

Beta Update "Repair Pack 3" (1/11/2022)

- Fixed longstanding campaign AI issues which caused the AI to create very large groups and then become idle, emptying its ports. AI activity to reinforce the various territories of the map should be now much larger, and the AI should attempt to break into smaller fleets and engage enemies in multiple fronts. It is advised to start a new campaign to notice the full changes, but the fix can apply to your ongoing campaign too.
- Reduced the maximum minefield range, addressing the overpowering effect of minefields at the late tech years.
- Added the first canal. In 1895 the "Kiel Canal" will become available to Germany. In the next major update we will fully implement this feature.

This beta aims to fix all the major problems reported so far and is a release candidate. Some hot fixes can follow depending on your quick feedback. We will continue to add necessary fixes after the release of 1.09 for the public.

Please Restart Steam to receive the new update.

[Grandpa Canuck]

Thanks for the opportunity to help test this. We will get on it.

[Werwaz]

19 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Hello everyone, the first beta version of the next major update is now available for you to play!

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:

- Find the game on your Steam Game Library and right click on it:

- Click on properties...

- ... and on the opened window, select from the list the "BETAS" option. On the appearing list, select the "beta branch" to switch to the latest beta version of the game.

- If you want to switch back to the stable live version, repeat the procedure and select from the Beta list "None".

The final v1.09 will include the following:

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

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.

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

PLEASE READ:

Here are below the features which are lacking from the latest beta:

- Map borders are incomplete.
- The new shipyard graphics are not yet added.
- The new hulls are not yet added.

The Beta is not a complete version. All previous saves will not work and we might reset your ongoing saves while we add more content or balances to this beta. We tried to offer an as much stable version as possible, but we cannot guarantee the absence of bugs or inconsistencies. You can help us finish the v1.09 with your kind feedback.

A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one

[o Barão]

Congratulations for all the hard work to deliver this important update. ✌️

1st turn 1890 campaign. I already have some techs researched. This is normal?

If possible, consider to move the player nation to be always the first one on the list. QoL improvement.

 

Edited October 14, 2022 by o Barão

[AdmiralObvious]

4 minutes ago, o Barão said:

Congratulations for all the hard work to deliver this important update. ✌️

1st turn 1890 campaign. I already have some techs researched. This is normal?

You get a random tech allocation from the last 3 effective years of simulation, so that's normal.

[o Barão]

3 minutes ago, AdmiralObvious said:

You get a random tech allocation from the last 3 effective years of simulation, so that's normal.

oh! Thx for the tip. 👍

[o Barão]

- Speed increase is lowering the recon stat value.

- Night vision stats is missing from the ship stats panel in the right. At this moment I don't know if the game only consider the biggest value from the two towers or will add both values.

- Speed / Range bug

Increasing the speed a little will lower the range. All ok here.

However if I increase the speed more the game will start to add more range. (bug)

- Armored cruiser I hull (japan 1890) stern casemate gun is blocking the main gun fire arc.

Edited October 14, 2022 by o Barão

[mikekervin]

I think there is an error in ship travel speed in the strategic map.

My ships have only made it halfway from San Francisco to Hawaii in 6 months - I think this works out to about 0.5 mph cruising speed.

This is 1900 tech so designs may not be perfect, but there should be some information available on the task force overlay to see if the ships are functioning as intended.

[Vanhal]

For a game with this much of calculations, its inability to count to 12 is slightly worrying:

Also making ships in 1890 has been for some reason much worse than in last versions, you can barely fit anything.

[mikekervin]

My task force is also not refueling after several months in port.

[o Barão]

- Refit mechanic

I can't build a refit ship design.

If I try to copy the design and add the new techs unlocked they will not be available.

I need to build the original first and then lose time with the refit or design from zero the ship I want.

 

This should be improve.

- I can't raise tensions with my fleets in the yellow sea. I can only provoke war trough events.

 

Russia Imperial fleet sailing all the way from the Baltic Sea to fight my ships in the yellow sea. Tsushima battle vibes. 😁

Edited October 14, 2022 by o Barão

[o Barão]

Ok this can be a critical gameplay issue.

TBs division can only go to 9knots? Low fuel or engine efficiency issues?

If the ship is detach from the division now can go to 21 knots? Why?

The TB Tomozuru don't have any issues in sailing in at almost 30 knots. They are all the same design. This one is rushing the enemy, from a screen division. The fuel is also low so what is happening here?

My CA division can only go at 3 knots? Again why? Do I need to detach all the ships?

[PalaiologosTheGreat]

Where do I report a 'Ships not repairing' bug?

[Tybor56]

2 hours ago, mikekervin said:

I think there is an error in ship travel speed in the strategic map.

My ships have only made it halfway from San Francisco to Hawaii in 6 months - I think this works out to about 0.5 mph cruising speed.

This is 1900 tech so designs may not be perfect, but there should be some information available on the task force overlay to see if the ships are functioning as intended.

Not only do ships travel way too slow but it seems that Ships cannot travel across the Pacific. Tried to send a fleet from California to the Philippines and the route showed that the ships would travel east to Europe first. When I manually put them on the edge of the map and set the route they still moved east even when I moved to the next turn. This plus the bugged movement makes it virtually impossible to get into a fight as the USA because you have to travel either across the Atlantic or all the way across the world the long way round to the West Pacific to get into an Engagement.

[SpardaSon21]

Cruiser hull weight limits need to be seriously looked at.  The starting limitations are well below historical values.  USS New York (ACR-2) was laid down in 1890 and weighed a staggering 9,043 metric tons at full load: well, well above the in-game 1890 limit for heavy cruisers of a mere 4,500 tons.  For comparison, USS Chicago, a protected cruiser laid down in 1883, weighed 4,600 metric tons, or more than the heavy cruiser limit!

 

You will also need to add the ability for light cruisers to mount 8" guns, as USS Charleston and USS Baltimore, both protected (light) cruisers, mounted 8" guns.  Baltimore and Charleston were even built to a light cruiser hull pattern:

 

Before anyone asks, yes, those 4 8" guns fore and aft on Brooklyn was considered light armament by the USA at the time.  USS New York (ACR-2) laid down in 1890 had six 8" guns, and USS Brooklyn (ACR-3) laid down in 1893 had eight 8" guns, 2x2 fore and aft and 1x2 on either side amidships.

Edited October 15, 2022 by SpardaSon21

[Werwaz]

6 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

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.
 

In my current playthrough, my ships have way too many defects for using more advanced techs, causing me to just scrap any defective ship that isn't a BB or BC. I think that the effects of defects should be drastically reduced, or at least give the the player the option to remove all of the hull and weapon defects with a single "fix defects" refit. 

EDIT: I also noticed that the battle generator seems to not be working for USA. 

Edited October 15, 2022 by Werwaz

[mikekervin]

20 minutes ago, Tybor56 said:

Not only do ships travel way too slow but it seems that Ships cannot travel across the Pacific. Tried to send a fleet from California to the Philippines and the route showed that the ships would travel east to Europe first. When I manually put them on the edge of the map and set the route they still moved east even when I moved to the next turn. This plus the bugged movement makes it virtually impossible to get into a fight as the USA because you have to travel either across the Atlantic or all the way across the world the long way round to the West Pacific to get into an Engagement.

I'm having this issue too.

Also the map scroll speed for mouse drag is too slow.

[spinaker]

I noticed that in convoy missions, enemy warships shamefully run away from mine, even though he has BB against my CA.
With the introduction of fuel reserves into the mechanics of combat, the gameplay has changed a lot, you can no longer drive at full speeds, you will have to get used to it again. But the first impressions are that there are not enough fuel reserves, at least in 1900. It is noticed that the destroyers accompanying BB are going next to them at a speed of, say, 18 knots, and they spend fuel on all 33. Trouble.

Edited October 15, 2022 by spinaker

[Pappystein]

1 hour ago, Werwaz said:

In my current playthrough, my ships have way too many defects for using more advanced techs, causing me to just scrap any defective ship that isn't a BB or BC. I think that the effects of defects should be drastically reduced, or at least give the the player the option to remove all of the hull and weapon defects with a single "fix defects" refit. 

I really Like the Idea of the Ship construction flaws.   But 1 ship out of a build of 36 was to spec.   1 Ship had some nice "Benefical flaws"  And the other 34 were not only bad but VERY BAD.

Out of 200 ships built since I downloaded the game, 4 were to spec,   6 after refits (and one of the to spec ships is no longer to spec)   

 

That being said, and echoing the issues with the map (which to be clear was somewhat explained in all the delay messages for the patch so I know it will become better.)  

My Biggest complaint is that when refitting a ship it is impossible to add new guns or torpedoes to the hull  "To far from original location" is cropping up every time I try to do so

Edited October 15, 2022 by Pappystein

[Pappystein]

So followup,  I started a Campaign as US.   I have been at war since the start of the campaign (1900) and only in one battle... vs Germany

Yet I have been minor defeated 4 times with no transports lost by the Russians!

 

Russia has declared war on me 3 times now... And each time sail right through my fleets as if I am not there (me with lots of destroyers, torpedo boats and light cruisers in my fleet.)  

 

I should add that it is now 1906 and I have Research at maximum.  

 

Edited October 15, 2022 by Pappystein

[Dave P.]

Ships returning to ports after battles was bugged before, but honestly it's more annoying with the larger map.

Playing as 1900 Germany, I send a group of DDs from Hamburg to Tsingtau. War with Japan starts, 7 of the DDs get into a convoy battle, and afterwards are back in Hamburg. Annoying.

Liking it otherwise. Cheers!

[Dave P.]

Is there a reason some of my ships seem to be limited in battles to ~1/3rd their actual speed? (Engine efficiency is >100% for all designs.) A 5kn battle line is... less useful.

Or is this one of those design defect things?

Edited October 15, 2022 by Dave P.

[The PC Collector]

2 hours ago, Dave P. said:

Is there a reason some of my ships seem to be limited in battles to ~1/3rd their actual speed? (Engine efficiency is >100% for all designs.) A 5kn battle line is... less useful.

Or is this one of those design defect things?

It's because the faulty (and completely unnecesary) tactical fuel consumption system. Even if your ship has 100% fuel, and no matter the range, they will run out of fuel in at most an hour combat.

Why I say unnecessary: Even if we take into account a ship with 3000 km range, the max battle duration is 3 hours. That would mean around a 3% of the global range. Which clearly shows that, with the current battle time cap, tactical fuel consumption is negligible, which makes the system unnecessary, so best solution for that would be simply deactivating it.

[Vagrant]

I haven't played a lot yet but I found one MAJOR issue. The EARTH IS FLAT, there seems to be no way to actually sail around the globe, which makes a scenario where Japan fights the USA almost impossible. Other than that the update seems great, I didn't expect to see that many other nations, which I presume will at least play a role in the politics.

Edit: It also seems like the speed of task forces is too low.

Edited October 15, 2022 by Vagrant

[Lima]

44 minutes ago, Vagrant said:

I haven't played a lot yet but I found one MAJOR issue. The EARTH IS FLAT, there seems to be no way to actually sail around the globe, which makes a scenario where Japan fights the USA almost impossible. Other than that the update seems great, I didn't expect to see that many other nations, which I presume will at least play a role in the politics.

Edit: It also seems like the speed of task forces is too low.

Finally, a based game that isn't afraid to tell the truth. The earth is flat, it's just like that.

[SARCASM]