Update 1.2 (30 December 2019)

Changelog posted in the game forum by the devs here.

December 29th, 2019 Update

Happy new year! I wanted to get the beta out before the end of the year, and here it is. The main new feature is a shroud system that makes turreted weapons look nicer. There are also a number of bug fixes and optimizations.

- Add more elaborate turret shroud graphics to many blocks
- Optimize explosions and resources
- Update SDL library versions
- Fix crash when entering wormhole

Modding features
- add shroud system
- fix shroud offset for invisible blocks
- fix bug where rotator angle was not saved on cluster changes
- add FRIENDLY_FIRE explosion flag
- add explosionColor0 and explosionColor1 faction data fields

B125 (28 December 2019) - Part I

Improvements:
- Complete rework of how new game is started. Player is now asked to choose a starting scenario with specific u-boat and create the starting skipper. It's the "Immersive Start" from the roadmap.
- Added "Continue" button to the main menu.
- Main menu displays information about the last played session - u-boat's name, skipper name, date and active assignment.
- Dynamically compressed textures are now cached on the hard drive to improve loading times and performance. Cache size is configurable in the video settings (200 MB by default). Cache for the most commonly used texture combinations is prebuilt into the game files.
- Added iron sight view for MG C/30, 43U and 8.8 cm deck gun.
- Sailors that are manning AA guns with officer now follow his orders instead of always choosing targets for themselves. Fix: They could also not fire at all, if their gun was previously manned by the officer.
- Attempts at researching technologies that historically appeared much later now take twice more time.
- 43U gun was reworked and is now operated in a historically correct way. More upgrades are planned later.
- Player's flotilla base is now marked with a star on the map.
- New icons for HQ tasks.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) New UI for entering areas.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Added promotion feature that allows to promote sailors to officers (at a cost of 1 reputation point) and officers to skipper, but at a given time only one skipper can be present.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Officers now usually won't appear among recruits in ports unless player has less officers than there is space for them on the deck.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Spies and war correspondents now appear among portraits and have a special class icon for easy distinction.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Ship rewards were decreased by 40% to make rewards for assignments stand out more.
- (Preview 12, 20.12.2019 13:10) Added collision damage. It has to be manually enabled in the realism settings and will remain marked as experimental for some time.

Mission overhaul:
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) New mission selection screen and new mission completion / summary screen.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Added battleship presence mission intelligence.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) War correspondent may join your crew during certain assignments and write a publication about your unit.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Added increased aircraft or warship activity mission intelligence.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Some missions will allow you to test experimental equipment.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Added weather forecasts for some assignments.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Patrol assignments now have additional objective of sinking specified GRT for an additional reward.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Player is much less likely to get a flotilla change assignment soon after changing the flotilla. Many tweaks related to this type of assignments. For example, player is now much less likely to be directed from French ports back to Germany.

Rewards overhaul:
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Added 17 decorations for officers to the game along with a cutscene for gaining them.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) New officers may join the crew after completing certain assignments.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Technology boosts, if tested experimental equipment during missions.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Reputation is no longer a reward for standard assignments. Only additional, harder objectives yield reputation points.
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) Decorations received by an officer are now displayed in the character screen.

New equipment:
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) T5 Zaunkönig homing torpedoes.

Simulation:
- Papenberg gauge and inclinometer in the control room are now functional and look better.
- Echosounder could end up displaying a wrong value on its scale, if difference between measurements was very high. It also looks much better and is more readable.
- One of the rudder angle indicators in the control room wasn't functional.
- All engine RPM meters are now coded and functional. Added missing RPM meters for the starboard in engine room and stern torpedo room. They aren't present in U-995 museum, but they had to be there.

New ship classes:
- C3 large freighters (produced since late 1940).
- Kirov-class cruisers (they can be encountered as an escort of Arctic convoys).

Sandbox:
- Added JW and SR late war convoys.

Graphics:
- Upgrades to most of the u-boat interior and hull textures and some geometry improvements.
- Certain clothes had improved geometry and textures: sweaters, headphones, some shirts and cook's apron.
- Added new main menu style with different music theme and camera. It's used interchangeably with the old one. Specific style can be forced in the "Video" settings.
- Improved textures for the submarine pen in the main menu.
- Glass on meters wasn't rendered correctly.
- Objects that fade under cursor like the attack periscope well in the control room and beds in the bow torpedo room were sometimes not casting shadows. This problem was permanent until the game was restarted.
- Removed shadow casting workaround for older NVidia drivers. It had negative effect on performance, but is no longer necessary on the latest drivers.
- Adjusted postprocessing settings for the new textures. These textures contain more reflective surfaces and bloom was too strong.
- Character faces improvements.
- Changed texture compression library from LibSquish to much newer NVTT. It's faster and produces less compression artifacts.
- Performance and memory usage optimizations related to reflections.
- Lens flares were rendering into some of the reflections, while it's not wanted there.
- Beards now use the same color as the hair instead of having always the same color.

B125 (28 December 2019) - Part II

Fixes:
- Game states saved while escort carriers were present in the scene could not load.
- Cursor was using a wrong texture after the game started until something was hovered.
- Character's age is now computed dynamically from the birth date instead of keeping it as a static value.
- If game data files are locked by another program, game now informs the player about the problem and quits instead of quietly running in a corrupted state.
- Label fixes on all port-side engine telegraphs.
- Small character animation alignment fixes.
- Fixed graphic glitch on the conning tower hatch that was appearing at periscope depth.
- Background work threads have their priority adjusted dynamically. This noticeably decreases occasional performance drops during normal gameplay and also makes loading a bit faster.
- Much better logging for async tasks. Added timeout for such tasks to recover from infinite loops and thread locks.
- Bed animations updates that fix characters levitating a bit above the beds.
- Conning tower guns didn't had recoil due to initialization bug. General upgrades to recoil code to make it feel more right.
- Fixed synchronization between character and MG C/30 gun. There was a noticeable delay between their animations.
- Ignoring resolution change popup for the displayed time limit would correctly cancel the resolution change, but also keep the confirmation popup on the screen.
- Certain objects were disappearing in the section view at the closest zoom level.
- It was possible to assign two officers to the hydrophone, while the second slot was meant only for officer's helper. This situation could lead to a few problems.
- Headquarters music theme wasn't always being enabled.
- Many fixes to MG C/30 on NPC u-boats. They weren't used properly.
- Depth displayed in map UI now has a much better precision.
- AI land avoidance algorithm could work improperly, if port was present in the scene.
- Wilhelmshaven had too strict level of detail settings and buildings were disappering too fast when zooming out the map.
- Upper starboard beds could remain visible in the section view after loading a game state with a character sleeping there.
- Recruitment officer was often talking with the officer without facing him.
- Main menu shadows were becoming a bit off after entering gameplay and leaving back.
- Fixes to clipping between certain options in the character customization.
- Many fixes to problems in the code which symptoms are unknown.
- (Preview 2, 20.11.2019 23:05) Fix for being unable to take an assignment.
- (Preview 2, 20.11.2019 23:05) Fix for missing cache folder.
- (Preview 3, 21.11.2019 14:35) Unity mod template wasn't up to date.
- (Preview 3, 21.11.2019 14:35) "Torpedo" command in console wasn't working.
- (Preview 3, 21.11.2019 14:35) Ships were having a wrong center of mass after taking any kind of damage.
- (Preview 4, 22.11.2019 13:30) Launcher wasn't working on Windows 7 and earlier versions.
- (Preview 4, 22.11.2019 13:30) Important security upgrade for scripting mods.
- (Preview 4, 22.11.2019 13:30) Multiple fixes to Unity mod project template.
- (Preview 5, 25.11.2019 22:45) Gyrocompass repeaters around the boat had various problems that were making them work unreliably or not at all.
- (Preview 5, 25.11.2019 22:45) Research penalty for researching technologies ahead of time wasn't applied.
- (Preview 5, 25.11.2019 22:45) Increased flooding tolerance for the navigator's table.
- (Preview 5, 25.11.2019 22:45) Star on the port icon on the map wasn't moving to the new port after player changed his flotilla in assignment.
- (Preview 5, 25.11.2019 22:45) Exposed more assets to mods.
- (Preview 5, 25.11.2019 22:45) Language fixes for scenario descriptions.
- (Preview 6, 26.11.2019 09:15) Added gyrocompass repeater on the conning tower.
- (Preview 6, 26.11.2019 09:15) Gyrocompass repeater in the radio room is no longer mirrored.
- (Preview 6, 26.11.2019 09:15) Loading older saves would load gyrocompass repeaters in a wrong orientation.
- (Preview 6, 26.11.2019 09:15) Character at 43U gun couldn't get out.
- (Preview 6, 26.11.2019 09:15) Loading game state fixes.
- (Preview 6, 26.11.2019 09:15) Tweaks to recoil on MG C/30.
- (Preview 6, 26.11.2019 09:15) Exposed more assets to mods.
- (Preview 7, 27.11.2019 23:30) Modding-focused fixes. Many textures couldn't be replaced correctly.
- (Preview 7, 27.11.2019 23:30) NPC u-boats at Wilhelmshaven could dock at the same spot as player.
- (Preview 7, 27.11.2019 23:30) Fixes to automatically reported errors that may enhance stability.
- (Preview 8, 03.12.2019 13:50) Badges on u-boats are now correctly applied to high-tier conning towers.
- (Preview 8, 03.12.2019 13:50) Added default name for the skipper on the skipper creation screen.
- (Preview 8, 03.12.2019 13:50) Time compression is now always consistently disabled whenever player spots the first enemy in area.
- (Preview 8, 03.12.2019 13:50) Binoculars and other accessories sometimes weren't hidden in various device views and were floating in the air after reloading a game state.
- (Preview 8, 03.12.2019 13:50) Crew was sometimes looking around on the conning tower without having binoculars in their hands.
- (Preview 8, 03.12.2019 13:50) Missing badge on the conning tower after reload.
- (Preview 8, 03.12.2019 13:50) Pressing "escape" in the headquarters view no longer opens in-game menu, but leaves the view. This behaviour fixes various problems and makes this view consistent with other special views in the game.
- (Preview 8, 03.12.2019 13:50) It wasn't possible to leave HQ view, if entered there by dialogue with leading officer that was started in FPP view with FPP hints enabled in the settings. Hints were appearing on top of the exit button.
- (Preview 8, 03.12.2019 13:50) Fix for clipping that was frequently occuring between UZO user and the rest of the watch crew.
- (Preview 8, 03.12.2019 13:50) It's now possible to move in FPP on the step at the front of the conning tower like the crew does, to clearly see what's in the front of the u-boat.
- (Preview 8, 03.12.2019 13:50) Russian localization fixes.
- (Preview 8, 03.12.2019 13:50) Fixes to auto-reported errors.
- (Preview 8, 03.12.2019 13:50) [Modding] Flags in ports now consistently use "DE Port" texture.
- (Preview 8, 03.12.2019 13:50) [Modding] Another, large batch of textures exposed for modding.
- (Preview 9, 05.12.2019 11:05) Beards weren't hidden in FPP view.
- (Preview 9, 05.12.2019 11:05) It was possible to salvage replacement parts in the workshop without having a free space for them in the storage.
- (Preview 9, 05.12.2019 11:05) Game launcher was crashing, if any mod had errors in the manifest file.
- (Preview 9, 05.12.2019 11:05) [Modding] Exposed many port models and textures for modding.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Depth near Bergen now matches bathymetric charts better. Satellite data we use has great coverage, but its precision is low at high-frequency areas and requires manual edits. A very crude bathymetry map editing capability was added into the game for this reason.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Multiple fixes to Nelson battleships.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Spy in Espionage Assignment now appears at the entrance to the port area instead of directly on the deck.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Map visual improvements that mitigate blurriness on lands at some zoom levels.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Sailors appearing temporarily among portraits sometimes had a square action icon instead of a round one.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) All inactive buttons were making "ticking" sound that could suggest that they are clickable.

B125 (28 December 2019) - Part III

Fixes: (continued)
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Officers that were observing the torpedo hit were getting XP instead of the officers that fired the torpedo.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) It was possible to share resources with u-boat in need multiple times and exploit that for reputation.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Small fix to u-boat deck mesh that allows characters to more easily move without exhaust pipes getting on their way.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Sailors could sometimes keep sitting at the table in the officers room after officer stopped playing cards.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Memory usage optimizations.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Hatch state wasn't fully restored from the saved game states. They could be for example visually open, but internally considered as locked until they were opened and closed back.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Warning under telegraph is now explaining exactly why the ship cannot be undocked. This label is now also open for translations.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Small delay after changing gear index is now scaled with time compression. It was taking about 20 seconds between order and execution with TC enabled and 1 second without it.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Asynchronous task scheduler wasn't balancing asynchronous work exactly as intended. That could in some cases create easily avoidable memory usage spikes.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Character fade state could render with a wrong silver-like material.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Level up sound is now much more quiet.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Wreck groups are now removed from the game after player leaves their area to avoid cluttering of the map.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Klaus Schmid (leading officer) had a white beard, if he was in Wilhelmshaven.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Night lights in ports were restored in a wrong, partial state after loading a night game state from the main menu, while being docked at a port.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) [Modding] Data in equipment tab from Entities.xlsx couldn't be overriden using usual rules. Important: If you overriden data in this data sheet, please update a header in this sheet to a new one.
- (Preview 11, 20.12.2019 09:40) Keyboard shortcuts for scaling interface weren't working when any window was open in the game.
- (Preview 11, 20.12.2019 09:40) Torpedoes now use historical ranges and start to sink after exceeding it. This also fixes issue when MTB-fired torpedoes would extend size of MTBs group indefinitely and preventing player from escaping the area.
- (Preview 12, 20.12.2019 13:10) Assignments list was sometimes empty due to an error (this fix requires a new campaign to work).
- (Preview 12, 20.12.2019 13:10) T5 Zaunkönig torpedoes weren't produced after research.
- (Preview 12, 20.12.2019 13:10) Fixed UI scaling issues on the character screen as well as provided compatibility with lower screen resolutions.
- (Preview 12, 20.12.2019 13:10) Translation fixes.
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) UI scale slider no longer allows for setting a scale that would make UI larger than the screen can contain with the current resolution.
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) Fixes to a few problems related to hovering activators that resulted in cursor becoming stuck with a changed bitmap or inability to interact.
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) Activator icons were appearing in the scene with a delay after pressing a key binded to queueing orders (CTRL by default).
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) While loading stern torpedo launcher engineer had two "green" slots for sailors, while only one could participate due to the space restrictions in this compartment.
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) Fixes to various problems related to torpedo loading. Not exclusively, but mostly esthetic like two torpedoes occupying the same space during animation.
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) War correspondent was behaving incorrectly after he ran out of questions.
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) War correspondent now responds to player answers to give a general idea, if the answer was correct and notify about publication progressing.
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) Reworked a few background tasks that were disallowing to save game state at random moments.
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) Torpedo research now takes much more time and has date restrictions that apply penalties when researching them early.
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) Fixes to multiple automatically reported errors.
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) Radioman was becoming bald on the portrait, if he was using hydrophone, had equipped hat and portrait was refreshed.
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) Fixes to animation alignment of knock out action.
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) Character screen UI is now compatible with 1280x800 resolution.
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) German localization by Ruby.
- (Preview 14, 24.12.2019 13:15) Sunk freighters no longer keep u-boat at the alarm state.
- (Preview 14, 24.12.2019 13:15) It's no longer possible to order loading torpedo into an already loaded launcher.
- (Preview 14, 24.12.2019 13:15) Multiple officers no longer can be sent to calm down or knock out a panicking sailor.
- (Preview 14, 24.12.2019 13:15) Header in the skipper creation screen and a port name on the campaign start screen weren't correctly localized.
- (Preview 14, 24.12.2019 13:15) War correspondent could operate ballast tank valves.
- (Preview 14, 24.12.2019 13:15) French localization fix (motor torpedo boats).
- (Preview 14, 24.12.2019 13:15) German localization fixes.
- (Preview 14, 24.12.2019 13:15) Decreased memory usage during collisions.
- (Preview 14, 24.12.2019 13:15) Some of the random events, like an ally requesting help, could activate when player was docked at port.
- (Preview 14, 24.12.2019 13:15) Choices during dialogues and events weren't supporting multi-line answers.
- (Preview 14, 24.12.2019 13:15) Added sound effect for collisions.
- (Preview 14, 24.12.2019 13:15) Device state tip wasn't appearing for manned attack and observation periscopes.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) C3 ships were rendering in a wrong way after becoming hit for the first time.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) "Sink" objective could be duplicated during lost ship side-mission, if player visited the ship multiple times. Duplicated objectives couldn't be completed.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) Player could end in a middle of the convoy, if experienced a lag or low framerate before entering the area.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) "Report to officer" objective was always marked as failed in the mission summary after completing flotilla change assignment.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) If uboat was docked at a port and then player activated quick travel to a checkpoint, ship would appear at the destination with an attached gangway.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) Collision damage was applied twice to both colliding ships. This could lead to exagerrated damage when colliding with pontoons and other light objects.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) "Exit" button on the customization screen couldn't be clicked at 1366x768 resolution, if customization panel was visible.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) Customization screen was missing information that promotion of a sailor to officer consumes 1 reputation point.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) It's no longer possible to promote crew on the open sea.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) Sailor promoted to officer is now removed from the ship, if that would lead to having more officers than it's currently allowed by the limit.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) NPC ships away from the player that were attacked by aircraft could occasionally move through land.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) If player ordered any action on another crew member like calming down a panicked sailor, this action would execute in a wrong spot, if it wasn't possible to arrive near the target.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) "Move to" orders assigned to right mouse button could stop to work after completing an assignment.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) Free roam assignment had incorrectly composed intro message.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) Skipper was rotated incorrectly in some ports during decoration scene.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) Sinking of ships with 88 mm gun wasn't correctly reported in the decoration summary.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) Increased requirements for some of the more reputable decorations.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) German localization fixes by Ruby.
- (Preview 16, 27.12.2019 21:05) Memory usage optimizations.
- (Preview 16, 27.12.2019 21:05) Rewards for espionage assignment, war correspondent mission and experimental torpedo testing mission weren't correctly awarded. Some of the declared rewards were given, but some not.
- (Preview 16, 27.12.2019 21:05) U-boat type on the campaign setup screen wasn't translated.
- (Preview 16, 27.12.2019 21:05) Warning that was explaining why sailor promotion isn't possible wasn't displayed with red font color as expected.

B125 (28 December 2019) - Part IV

Fixes: (continued)
- (Preview 16, 27.12.2019 21:05) Radio range parameter had incorrect value in the extended info window.
- (Preview 16, 27.12.2019 21:05) Officers could take command over spy and war correspondent.
- (Preview 18, 28.12.2019 01:00) Headquarters task UI title wasn't localized.
- (Preview 18, 28.12.2019 01:00) Promoted officers weren't showing up in the TAB menu until they were removed from the ship and added back.
- (Preview 18, 28.12.2019 01:00) Character screen was displaying a wrong skill tree until it was reopened.
- (Preview 18, 28.12.2019 01:00) Label indicating remaining skill points wasn't functioning correctly and wasn't translated.
- (Preview 18, 28.12.2019 01:00) German localization updates by Ruby.

Modding notices:
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Added "General.xlsx / Settings / Experience" section to the sheets. It contains various modifiers to officer XP.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) "Entities.xlsx / Types" sheet now has additional column titled "Iron Cross". It tells how many points toward iron cross decoration is yielded by sinking a ship of this type. Any existing mod that affects this sheet needs such column too.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Most of the remaining data sheets now support modding.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Removed deprecated data sheets.

Fixes to problems introduced in B125:
- (Preview 8, 03.12.2019 13:50) Custom music built-in mod wasn't working since B125 Preview 1.
- (Preview 9, 05.12.2019 11:05) Convoys could move with u-boat in Preview 8. This fix will work for existing game states, but not for the ones with convoys that are subject to this bug in a close proximity.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Hulls of certain types of ships were becoming white, if they cracked in half.
- (Preview 10, 19.12.2019 17:45) Fix for officer becoming stuck at 43U gun on Turm IV.
- (Preview 11, 20.12.2019 09:40) Fixed problem with scaling of assignment selection UI. Provided compatibility of this UI with 1280x800 resolution.
- (Preview 13, 23.12.2019 17:15) T5, prototype T5 and prototype T3 torpedoes were using T2 torpedo icon after they were loaded on board.
- (Preview 15, 27.12.2019 11:50) Sailors assigned to idle officer were no longer performing tasks from the global order queue like moving ammunition from A to B.
- (Preview 16, 27.12.2019 21:05) "Take command" action description was wrong.
- (Preview 17, 27.12.2019 22:15) First aid action wasn't working correctly since Preview 15.
- (Preview 18, 28.12.2019 01:00) Leading officer mouth was rendered with lower level of detail since Preview 15.