Whoops! It's been two months since the last build. My apologies for the delay: I've been head-down focused on wrapping up the campaign.
The good news is that the campaign's gameplay is now completed! The bad news is that I can't release the new missions yet. I need a good-sized package of New Content to show off when launch time comes, in early 2023, and the remaining campaign missions are that content. Believe me, I'd like nothing more than to let you all see what I've been working on. Keeping everything under wraps, not just here but on Twitter, has been killing me. But it's all part of making sure that the game's launch is a success.
What I do have for you in this release is a fairly major polishing pass. Expect more of these in the coming weeks. Now that the content grind is over, I'm able to focus on fixing all those issues you've been telling me about. My to-do list is gigantic, but hopefully from here on it's only going to get smaller!
With luck, I'll also find some time to create a couple of extra bonus missions. I want to do another racing mission at least, and maybe another Halloween or other holiday-themed mission. We'll see what the future brings! In the meantime, thank you for supporting Waves of Steel!
Gameplay:
- Add a treasure to "Eitri's Forge"
- 21" torpedoes deal twice as much damage.
- Rocket weapons should properly lead targets
- Added new extra-weak sound effects if the player is struck for trivial damage.
- The 9" MLRS has reduced spread
- The railgun's damage output has been tripled.
- Missions can be restarted from the combat menu; restarting or aborting a mission now prompts for confirmation
- The Flying Battleship now tilts into turns
- Enemy aircraft have longer attack runs when using cannons/torpedoes
- Aircraft that drop bombs have better aim.
- Enemy aircraft carriers should be harder to run out of aircraft
- Aircraft HP have been halved
- Most AA weapons have better range, muzzle velocity, and tracking speed
- The UI for loading a saved ship has been updated
- The options UI has been updated
- The default flag for each hull depends on that hull's nationality
- The Ratatosk in mission "Chrysalis" has double defense
- Tweaked some dialog in mission "Chrysalis"
- The player cannot sink while they are reeling in a health crate
- Overhaul main gun sound effects
- The Drifter special is now accessible from the start of the game
- "The Tendency of Power" has fewer aircraft
- The ship designer should have better control when placing parts near the centerline
- Activating the engine overdrive special now automatically sets the ship to full throttle
- If the player grabs tech crates after finishing a mission, a message pops up to tell them that this isn't necessary
- Improved performance of ship designer by making most AA guns always get their full range of motion
- "Stress Test" has more aircraft
- The "Super Foghorn" starts out unlocked
- The "Time Bubble" special has been changed so that the player's projectiles still behave normally.
- The game should take more automatic photos of the player during missions
- Anti-aircraft missiles have a slower fire rate
- "The Tendency of Power" has some extra dialog if the player does objectives out of order
- Slightly reduce drag for the "Bazel" ship
- Tweak layout of the playership picker
Bugfixes:
- Fix bug causing most AA guns to benefit from fire control
- Fix rapid "wobbling" of the ocean when the camera moves
- Fix AI ship wakes visibly toggling on/off when the camera moves
- Fix various issues causing sound effects to not play or get cut off
- Fix certain in-universe UI elements (like impact warnings, guide arrows, and waypoint halos) drawing in photo mode or when the HUD is disabled
- Fix weird motion of ships that are sailing in formation if they're close to but not on top of their desired position
- Fix the Mysterious Ship not being able to fit engines/drives.
- Fix the model for the Squid ASW mortar
- Toggling the mass limit in the ship designer now immediately updates the mass stats in the sidebar
- Parts that increase a ship's max mass allotment can now be placed even if they'd put the ship over its previous max mass
- Fix a graphical issue with the hologram special
- Enforce a 64-character limit on ship names, to avoid UI issues
- Fix bad ship thumbnail images
- The Super Omega (AI-only ship) is no longer shown in the ship designer
- AA gun sound effects should be quieter
- AA gun projectiles now despawn when they hit their max range
- The ship designer tutorials should allow more leeway in exactly where you need to place parts
- In ship designer tutorials, the expected part placement position should be more clear
- Fix issue causing ship designer tutorials to break if played more than once
- Fix weapon configuration being inaccessible after going through a ship designer tutorial
- The lower half of the ship designer view only dims if you try to place a part using that view
- Fix an issue with the mission summary screen on displays with non-16:9 aspect ratio displays
- Improve performance of a certain hazard in mission "Escalation", as well as of paradropped ships
- Fix issue causing magenta flamethrowers in "The Dead Travel Fast"
- Fix missing texture on the Frightening Gun
- Fix some buildings catching on fire that logically shouldn't be able to
- Fix bug causing bogus targets to be shown near the center of the map
- Fix ship color bug in mission "Juno's Wrath"
- Fix boss in "Juno's Wrath" not being able to target some locations
- Fix a broken cinematic in "Hunter, Hunted"
- Fix bad rendering of the "damage critical" overlay on non-16:9 aspect ratio displays
- Fix rendering bug with shields on buildings
- Fix aircraft flying through buildings and ships
- Fix rare bug causing aircraft to gain altitude indefinitely
- Tweak impact warning overlay colors to be more visible in certain weather conditions
- Fix the BB Iowa layout (used by the AI) having some mis-placed parts
- Fix the invisible DoesNotDisplay material getting painted by camouflage
- Fix a bug when exiting the recent-items menu in the designer
- The Flying Battleship in "Between Scylla & Charibdis" cannot be destroyed
- Fix "Enemies die in 1 hit" assist allowing the player to destroy un-targetable objects
- Fix a trigger in "Winter" not being triggered if the player uses a flying ship
- It should be easier to trigger waypoints (large green halos) with flying ships
- The "shield down" sound effect is louder
- Fix poorly-framed rendering of the inset "current target" display
- Tweak appearance of the inversion bubble created by the "Time Bubble" special
- Fix error in description of Defense Command systems
- Fix bug causing text scrolls (such as at the end of "Chrysalis") being very slow if the game is in slow motion when they are triggered
- Fix the "12x29 block" superstructure not being able to be placed on top of other superstructure
- Fix flying ships not kickflipping properly
- Fix kickflips not reliably causing the ship to jump
- Fix shield and hologram specials not extending the duration if they are stacked
- Fix lack of visible objectives in "Lost Sheep"
- Fix a model bug with the Myoko Aft Bridge part
- Fix double fade-in after some cinematics
- Fix issues where the resolution gets reset when changing scenes
- Fix the "windowed/fullscreen" toggle not initializing properly
Modding:
- GRAPPLE-type weapons have configurable grapple strength, using the `targetPushMultiplier` field