Changelog for 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.

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.

Changelog for B125 (28 December 2019) - Part II:

Fixes: (continued)
- (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.
- (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.

Changelog for B125 (28 December 2019) - Part III:

Fixes: (continued)
- (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.
- (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.

Standalone installer updated (B124 (Hotfix 2) ⇒ B125): 31 December 2019.

Thanks for the update guys, fantastic stuff :-)

Happy New Year!!

Dom

Changelog for B126 (14 February 2020) - Part I:

Hello skippers!

We are back with the next major release - B126. This version is focused mostly on quality of life improvements, fixes and stability. It comes with multiple technical improvements in the game that should push it one step forward from Early Access title towards a full release!

While it's not mandatory, we strongly recommend to start a new campaign on this version to enjoy it fully as some of the improvements require a fresh start to have effect.

We are now going to move back to the work declared in our roadmap. We are excited about some of the next features ahead and hope that you are too!

Gameplay improvements:
- It's now possible to disband crew members to clean up the list.
- AI now tries to avoid joining battles that have too many participants already to avoid performance drops. This behaviour is moddable in the data sheets.
- Lost contacts are now using a special icon with the question mark before disappearing to let the player know that this group is no longer being actively detected.
- There is now a floating warning above nearby contacts with high radius that explains that these contacts may be inaccurate.
- Aircraft now usually won't be starting from the bases shortly before sunset until sunrise. They will also try to get back home during day. They may still occasionally stay around at night, if they already found enemy u-boat, until their fuel will start to run out. Aircraft spawn rates were increased to compensate for these changes.
- Added "Harcore aiming mode" to the gameplay settings.
- Setting torpedo speed, depth and salvo spread is now possible in the torpedo launcher screen.
- It's now possible to hide the detection hint in the gameplay settings.

Technical improvements:
- Added mouse rotation sensitivity slider to the control settings panel.
- Added additional warning that tutorial is considered obsolete.
- Bug reporting system gives a very clear warning that mods are enabled before allowing to send a report. Mod list is now also uploaded along with the bug reports.
- It's now possible to disable vignette effect and to invert mouse for the periscope view in the game's settings.
- Optimizations to saved game states size and loading speed.

Graphics:
- Small tweaks to water normals for a better look.
- Decreased noise post-processing effect intensity.
- Disk space and memory usage optimizations.
- Added night lamp lighting to all base game ports.
- Large random freighter hulls weren't receiving all damage effects used in the game.
- Improvements to maps texture in the control room.

Localization:
- New German translations by Ruby.
- New French translations by Sword.
- Added a few new Spanish translations suggested by anonymous player through the reporting tool (thank you).
- Polish localization fixes.

Fixes:
- Too many neutral freighters could spawn at certain periods.
- U-boat propellers had wrongly assigned meshes, they both had linked meshes from the other side.
- Game window would flicker after selecting regular fullscreen mode in the settings and then adjusting gamma slider.
- Game states saved near minefields and anti-submarine nets had some problems related to them after loading.
- Fixes to many automatically reported problems.
- Infinite loading when entering land areas.
- Fixes to a few problems related to diving to wrecks.
- Fixes to saving and loading game states.
- Aircraft moving very slowly on the map.
- Characters could sometimes end being incorrectly rotated, for example leading officer after vacation ended.
- Group and ship AI fixes and performance optimizations.
- Gamma settings weren't applied in menu since B125.
- There were two memory leaks per each NPC ship that were increasing memory usage with each game state save and reload.
- Objective to sink a lost u-boat couldn't be completed, if player saved a game state after receiving it and reloaded the game state before proceeding.
- Ally asking for resources was continuing to wander around, even if its enemies were shot down or they left the area.
- Aircraft that ran out of bombs could occasionally search for submarines despite that.
- War correspondent could sit on seats occupied by other characters after 2.5 hours of in-game time.
- Steers UI was overlapping with mission summary after performing certain steps.
- After zooming camera out of binoculars/periscope/hydrophone manual mode geometry of character head would be visible from the inside for a fraction of the second.
- 4th and 5th engine gears were reverting back to 3rd after submerging, surfacing or swapping the engines manually.
- Characters that had equipped a rebreather, combat helmet or any other accessory were refusing to transport cargo between cargo storage.
- Foam trail on the sea could appear in a different place than the ship after meeting NPC group or sometimes after entering land areas after experiencing a lag.
- Medical aid with a medkit wasn't working properly.
- Target group in the lost ship mission, ally help mission and sink ship mission could in rare occasions move with u-boat on the map for some time.
- Minor leak in the toilet wasn't selectable and only AI could initiate the repair.
- Game states saved while looking through the periscope weren't loading correctly.
- Increased compartment flooding tolerance for the officer working at the navigation table.
- Better physics stabilization at high time compression. It improves dinghy behavior on the max compression with enabled map and paves the way for the new travel mode that we have in the plans.
- Recruits in ports are periodically disappearing from the list, making place for the new ones.
- Sailors promoted to officers could become cloned after reloading the game state, if officer count on board was already at the limit.
- Port of Alexandria didn't had any AA guns and mission with finding their positions was being instantly completed.
- War correspondent was loosing his camera after re-loading a game state.
- Crew list is now sorted by rank, level, class and name.
- Discovered AA guns count wasn't properly restored from the saved game states.
- If player would enter and then leave a character screen of any sailor during dialogue with recruitment officer, unwanted UI elements would appear on the screen.
- Character could sometimes drop a very unusual shadow, after player entered FPP view, that was blocking a large part of the light from the flashlight.
- Level of detail on some parts of Flower-class corvettes and Illustrious carriers was fading too fast, leading to weird graphic artifacts.
- Conning towers could turn invisible after installing them, if certain steps were performed.
- Rarely, enemy NPC groups wouldn't correctly unspawn from the scene and remain permanently spawned even hundreds of kilometers away.
- NPC groups could sometimes have problems with decisively resolving encounters between themselves. That could lead in the long run to formation of many hot points on the ocean, where multiple groups would jump into battle and stay there for a long time. This was increasing game state size and affecting performance.
- It's no longer possible to add sold items to wrong warehouse tab and have them restocked there.
- Setting spawner activity to zero in the data sheets was causing problems in the game.
- Accessories equipped by the officer couldn't be removed without reloading a game state.
- Coastal patrols spawn probability decreases with each group already spawned.
- Mines in ports no longer explode when friendly ships pass above them. Historically they were being switched off by a port crew at such time.
- Spawned mines sometimes weren't fully cleaned up from the memory.
- Land passage that appears after docking in port wasn't recognized by crew pathfinding, if player installed Turm II (possibly also Turm IV) and reloaded a game state while being docked.
- War correspondent article progress was being severely set back, if player spent reputation points on any purpose when he was on board.
- Icons for detection on map could be wrong, if a few types of detection happened in a specific order and remained valid together for some time.
- Torpedo launching now cannot be performed at a depth greater than 20 meters.
- Notifications that saving a game state is not possible should be much more rare.
- Multiple fixes to saving game states during short events like character transitions, torpedo loading animations and camera transitions.
- Fix for a permanently looped audio at a spot after loading a game state saved during certain animation transitions.
- Improved animation alignment on the navigator's station, also navigator's helper now joins the officer on the station.
- Possible fix for occasional black screen after clicking "continue" on the assignment summary screen.
- Snorkel was affecting ship's visibility even, if it was hidden under the deck.
- XP bars weren't displaying correct progress, if character had a high level of experience. XP bars can be now hovered to see exact number of experience points.
- If player encountered a coastal patrol that sailed very close to the coast during encounter and then player left the area, this patrol could in rare cases travel through the land to the next patrol target.
- Potential fix for portrait rendering problems on some systems.
- Alignment fixes for skipper animations on bed.
- Occasionally contact marker could disappear, but the pulsating circle around it would still remain on the screen for some time.
- Collision sound was continuously played after laying submarine on the seabed with enabled collision damage in the settings.

Changelog for B126 (14 February 2020) - Part II:

Fixes: (continued)
- Tooltip on the valves wasn't changing from "Flooding..." to "Flooded" after ballast tanks became full.
- Character destination pointer on the floor could become rotated a bit in relation to the ground.
- Skipper no longer comments switching between diesel and electric engines, if they are switched only temporarily because of snorkel being flooded by a wave.
- Fix for the problem with unexpected tilting of the periscope that was usually happening when the periscope was locked on a quickly sinking target.
- Assignment summary panel could clip with the screen edges on low resolutions.
- NPC u-boats that are targets of player missions attract less enemies from now on.
- Rudder rotation is now reset after docking.
- Small model changes in Battery Room no. 2 to give more space to sleep for the skipper.
- Radioman could become stuck at his station.
- Fixes to automatically reported problems.
- Snorkel compartment in the deck was disappearing after reloading a game state.
- Radio range wasn't displayed correctly in various descriptions.
- Better alignment for tooltip action descriptions and support for longer parameter names.
- Subtitles for hydrophone operator warnings are displayed, even if his voiceover doesn't contain such recordings (such as skipper voice).
- Echosounder ping actions are now temporarily disabled, when the latest operation still wasn't finished.
- Action state in the wheel menu is now regularly refreshed.
- Sea was beginning to stutter, if high time compression was used for a long time (this problem was linearly growing in intensity with passing time).
- Target ship velocity sometimes couldn't be determined by the officer.
- Update to NVidia Texture Compression library.
- Fixes to automatically reported problems.
- Officers were trying to punish themselves, if they burned eggs in the kitchen.
- Removing currently controlled officer in FPP from the crew was resulting in an error.
- Fix to one more problem that could lead to endless loading of a game state.
- Periscope locking/unlocking tip was always stating "Unlock". Provided various improvements to how this tip works.
- Periscope couldn't be locked on the randomized freighters using keyboard, only mouse was working in their case.
- Ships stationing in a port that changed owner are now escaping from the port.
- Fixes to automatically reported errors.
- Turm I, II and IV had a small part of U-96 badge visible on them, even if played with a different u-boat.
- Knocked out sailors that panicked were appearing at crew quarters and permanently stopping to work on the ship. They are now being actually knocked out and need to lie in the bed for some time before returning to duty.
- Officers could sometimes advance above max level, causing some small errors.
- Fuel/energy savings from having additional sailors with the officer at the engines weren't applied after switching engines until engineer was reassigned to the new engine.
- Errors appearing, if player started vacation when one of the crew members was smoking on the conning tower and then player upgraded conning tower during a vacation.
- Countries added by mods are now added to the world for loaded game states.
- Fixes to automatically reported errors.
- Crew was sometimes carrying to safety sailors that were already in a bed without any danger nearby, soon after they were taken there by somebody else.
- Sailors who are unconscious now cannot be promoted to officers until their recovery.
- Reworked add/remove sailor buttons tooltip.
- Assigned sailors count in the action tooltip wasn't correctly highlighted, if player added more sailors than could work at the current station.
- Added tooltips to actions listed in the action queue.
- It's now possible to open map using a keyboard shortcut when looking through the periscope in a fullscreen mode. Also going back by pressing a keyboard shortcut again opens directly manual mode.
- Fix for "coordinates spotted" intel being added to the journal.
- Control room collider improvements that should decrease cases of character ragdolls being stuck there in unusual poses.
- Port weren't alarmed by exploding torpedo after reloading a game state with that port nearby.
- Changing target wasn't possible in manual periscope mode when torpedo launchers UI was open.
- Torpedoes are now much less detectable to sonars.
- Escort ships AI could sometimes chase torpedoes for a bit.
- Skill tree is no longer accessible for regular sailors on the character screen.
- Hydrophone volume could be adjusted above 100%.
- Decreased memory allocations.
- Improvements to water physics performance for large convoys.
- U-boat could be moved a large distance on the world map without reason after meeting certain groups.
- Officer could have accomplishments with 0 point value in the summary for decoration.
- In the recruitment list, next character is automatically selected after recruiting to allow for bulk recruitment.
- Nelson-class battleships should be a bit easier to sink.
- Added new audio setting: "Play music in FPP". It's now enabled by default, which is a different behavior than before.
- Bug reports sent by F11 tool should now be always sent successfully, as long as Unity servers are online.
- Button for resetting periscope orientation now zeroes on the target, if periscope is locked on something.
- State tooltip on the galley was wrong, if it was checked right after starting a new game.
- Added draught to the ship identification book.
- Position estimation quality by navigator is now displayed on the map view at the upper right corner of the screen.
- Radio stations were stopping to work, if they belonged to a group that changed ownership.
- Added new animations to the navigator's station. Second sailor can now join the officer at the station.
- Food in the control room is now hanged a bit higher to clear up some space in a busy area.
- Chief boatswain is now more likely to work at the navigation table instead of socializing with the crew.
- Probable fix: boxes hanging on the hooks at the stern torpedo room were behaving odd after reloading a game state.
- Improved tooltip for the navigation quality in the upper right part of the screen in map view.
- Anti-aircraft guns in ports didn't had a checked flag to actually attack aircraft and were targeting only surface vessels.
- Ship's hull could duplicate during cracking, if game states with that ship nearby were saved and reloaded a few times.
- Fix to a very old bug in Screen Space Reflections effect that was causing ghosting in the interior of the u-boat. It was most intensively visible on meters and labels.
- Ports could not load, if there was more than 20 enemy groups nearby.
- Changed camera position for the navigator's station, because officer was often wandering out of frame due to the new animations.
- Gun rotations are being reset upon docking.
- Gauges on a diesel compressor were black due to a shadow cast by the railing.
- Drawn map markers were carried over between loaded game states.
- It's no longer possible to travel to a checkpoint when u-boat's position isn't known.
- Improved collider for Kirov and Nelson stern.
- Sea could disappear completely, if wind speed was extremely low, below 1 knots.
- Fuel cost in the warehouse was displayed as "500" until slider was moved for the first time.
- Using mouse wheel or panning in the journal no longer affects camera in the background.
- Unescorted transports (but not escorted convoys) that were attacked by NPC u-boat were slowing down to 1-2 km/h instead of following their path with full speed.
- After clicking with a right mouse button on a mission ship with selected officer on the map view to open actions list, course was changing to that ship.
- Switching devices on/off is now always possible, even if the compartment has a toxic air or is flooded (doing so may damage the device in the second case).
- Officer could be wrongly positioned in a dinghy, if his travel was initiated from a crowded area in the interior.
- Officer could be sent to other ships, even if u-boat was submerged.
- Ship upgrades were appearing in the budget summary with both signs together e.g. "+-4000".
- Camera can be now zoomed in closer on the torpedoes in the orbiting view.
- Slightly decreased probability for investigating a lost ship mission.
- Some operations in the budget tooltip didn't had a specified cost.
- Newly promoted skipper was counting double towards the officer limit on board.
- Skipper promotion description was wrong on the character screen.
- Textual warnings weren't presented for the action that involved officer leaving u-boat to other unit.
- Launched torpedoes and dinghies were disappearing from the scene, if player used "Teleport" command in the development console.
- Leaving area before enemy ship sunk completely would disallow cleaning its individual group from the world.

Changelog for B126 (14 February 2020) - Part III:

Fixes: (continued)
- Engineer was staying at the diving planes station even after ship surfaced, until player manually ordered him to stop.
- Multiple memory leak fixes that were increasing game states size for long campaigns.
- Added text wrapping to the decoration screen.
- Hydrophone targeting action didn't had a progress bar on the portrait.
- Patrol distance wasn't expressed with units selected in the settings, but kilometers.
- Added bearing display in the hydrophone manual mode view.
- "Next" button on the decoration screen didn't had a sound feedback.
- T5 torpedoes homing improvements.
- Nearby groups can now continue their journey when time is skipped during crew vacation and ship maintenance to avoid occasional "traffic jam" in a port after staying there for a few days.
- Game wasn't allowing to fire a gun with incompatible ammunition type, but it still would be displayed in the gun UI as available.
- Fixes to automatically reported errors.
- Order labels in the TAB menu had a second line cut off, if the first line ended with ellipsis ("...").
- Torpedo maintenance action had a missing indication of the launcher number in the TAB menu.


Standalone installer updated (B125 ⇒ B126): 17 February 2020.

~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~

Standalone installer updated (B126 ⇒ B126 (Hotfix 1)): 20 February 2020.

Changelog for B126 (Hotfix 2) (23 February 2020):

Localization:
- New Russian translations by ZNC.
- New Spanish translations by Tordo.
- War correspondent fixes in French localization.
- Beard, complexion and voice customization options weren't translated in the summary panel.

Fixes:
- Convoys with escort carriers could expand their area radius indefinitely in some cases.
- Fix for a square artifact that was appearing around the hatch on the conning tower under water.
- "Scrollable view modes" setting was disallowing to zoom camera in and out in the orbit view. It wasn't intended.
- Water could turn pink for some time, if many torpedoes exploded and multiple ships started to burn simultaneously.
- Sunk ships weren't listed in the assignment summary after ending a free roam.

Standalone installer updated (B126 (Hotfix 1) ⇒ B126 (Hotfix 2)): 24 February 2020.

Changelog for B126 (Hotfix 3) (27 February 2020):

Localization:
- New Russian translations by ZNC.
- New Spanish translations by Tordo.
- New translations in the data sheets that were previously missing.

Fixes:
- Railing mesh on the starboard was missing on Turm I, Turm II and Turm IV.
- Subtitles position was wrong, if certain steps were performed that involved opening launchers UI in a manual periscope mode.
- Outline around target sector wasn't fading out after zooming in map camera and was very blurry.
- UI was in a wrong state after leaving character screen, if player entered it from FPP or TPP view.
- Music could stop to play for a few minutes after leaving the character screen.
- Cargo transfer during time skipping in port could become stuck due to a numeric accuracy problem in the code.
- Game could in rare cases remain paused after loading certain game states without possibility to unpause them.
- Periscope zoom level was in some cases incosistent with the UI after leaving and entering the manual mode back again.
- Fixes to automatically reported problems in the code.
- Escort carriers could instantly disappear from the scene during sinking, if they were in a rare convoy that had 28 or more units.


Standalone installer updated (B126 (Hotfix 2) ⇒ B126 (Hotfix 3)): 28 February 2020.

Brilliant, thank you so much for keeping this updated here on GOG.

Keep up the great work :-)

Dom

A large update: B129 is ready! (So., 5. September 2021 - 15:37 CEST)

https://steamcommunity.com/games/494840/announcements/detail/2962794086566130800

https://steamcommunity.com/app/494840/discussions/0/3088885996493591123/?snr=1_2108_9__2107

Update B130 at 11/21

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/494840?emclan=103582791455250122&emgid=5627805600565808217

2024.1 Patch 23 (3 December 2024)

Crew:
- Fix: Officer using AA gun on Type II U-boats could become invisible for the time of using it in certain circumstances.
- Fix: In rare cases, it wasn't possible to assign an officer to perform a repair, if it was previously being repaired by a sailor. This fix corrects that problem in the affected game states as well.
- Fix: Sailor could sometimes enter a state, where he stood idle near the position where he stopped to work and wasn't going to rest, even though he was tired.
- Fix: On Type VII U-boats, if officer was assigned to a helmsman station, that was being already occupied by a sailor, he sometimes wasn't walking to the work place and was standing still instead.
- Fix: Increased tolerance of a galley to water in the compartment on Type VII U-boats.
- Fix: The external hatch could in a specific case not be closed once the last person left the deck. Once this happened, the dive orders were ineffective, because assigned officers were waiting for the hatch to be closed before flooding the tanks.

UI:
- Added a fade out animation to a loading screen.
- Fix: Compass tool was clickable, even when it was behind something else, for example a menu dropdown.
- Fix: "Vacation" modifier to discipline was renamed to "Last vacation", to make it clearer what it means.
- Fix: Warehouse inventory screen couldn't be scrolled with a mouse wheel, when the cursor was above the window's background. It was working only when the cursor was above one of the items.
- Fix: Assignment about destroying oil tanks near Haifa was having a wrong description in German.

Audio:
- Fix: Combat music could stop to play in some cases when it should be playing as usual.

General:
- Fix: Save system fixes.