Greetings Captain,
We are breaking the record for the smallest amount of time between two Developer's Diaries for the second week in a row, as our now weekly diaries will be published on Thursdays instead of Fridays from now on due to a scheduling conflict.
After a grandiose two diaries showcasing the biggest, toughest and meanest ships we have in the game, the third diary of the series will be about the unsung heroes of Boat Crew, the auxiliary units that play a huge role in gameplay, even if they are often swept aside without so much as a second thought. This time around, we'll be introducing three new units entering the fight on the Japanese side that are sure to leave an impression.
The first is the Ki-84 Hayate, a high-performance fighter from slightly outside the game's time period, joining the fight against the PT boat menace that is consuming the Solomons. Coming in three variants, based on the Ko, Otsu and Hei variants respectively, the Ki-84 is a fighter-bomber like the P-40 we have previously shown, packing even heavier bombs with all three variants while also being a beast in dogfights.
The Ki-84, alongside the Ki-45, will form the IJA aviation presence in the region, and you will most commonly run into them around zones of control that extend from enemy Airstrips or Airbases, the distinction between which we will be extending upon in the next diary.
You can expect the normal and Elite Ki-84 variants to give you as much trouble as the Elite and Heavy variants of the Zero respectively, with the Heavy variant being an unprecedented threat packing 2 30 mm cannons not seen on any other unit, on top of the 2 20 mm cannons that are on the nose.
They will all carry bombs and dive at higher speeds, meaning both you and they will get less time to shoot at each other. We hope they will create an immediate threat against allied ships, more so than the slow and fragile D3A, leading to some intense moments.
Also entering the fight is the No.4 Class Subchaser, the Japanese counterpart to the PC-461 class Subchaser. Fulfilling a role that is similar to the existing No.101 Minesweeper, which is also getting some additional AA guns in this update.
Lacking the 3 inch gun of the Minesweeper, the No.4 compensates by packing a pair of Dual Bofors guns. Now that might have caused you to do a double-take, and we get it; the Japanese using Dual Bofors is quite the use of artistic license.
This is indeed what's happening, as the 40mm guns used by the class in real life were copies of the QF 2-pounder gun, which, in effect, would be a less effective version of the Bofors with less coverage. In a word, we thought that would be boring, so we imagined that in the Boat Crew universe, where the IJN is a lot stronger and more competent, they managed to capture multiple shipments of Dual Bofors guns and place them on their Subchasers to act as force multipliers against the PT boat menace.
In short, the No.4 will be a medium range and AA powerhouse that is held back by its low speed, making it wise to engage her at longer ranges. The Bofors positions are quite vulnerable, being open mounts, so de-fanging the boats from a distance using a utility weapon before approaching them is highly recommended.
Last but not least, the Jingei-Class Submarine Tender is joining the fight against, you guessed it, the PT boat menace. She's a rather heavy ship with similar displacement to the Nagara, using fewer of the same guns, some additional lower caliber guns, and a decent number of AAA guns, being the first ship in the game combining the small caliber cannons with the full size ship cannons. Her main weakness will be her meandering speed, and the fact that she will be lightly guarded, if at all, when encountered, due to her special position as the leader of submarine groups.
Currently, Supply Submarines are a favorite snack of the avaricious PT boats, sailing around in groups of 2-3 with no defense when not surfaced, and with no additional support. These groups are a source of easy early game income and they tend to disappear later on, taking the submarine presence with them and making anti-submarine weapons somewhat superfluous in the late game. The Jingei will uniquely appear in mid-to-lategame supply groups carrying a larger number of submarines, the Jingei, and occasionally some additional escorts.
We're hoping these new groups will spice anti-submarine warfare up, with the potential for larger rewards and more dangerous engagements due to the presence of surface escorts. This was our solution to the relative lack of anti-submarine gameplay in the late game, and we hope the additional challenge will be welcome.
Wrapping up, with this diary, we have shown every new unit that will be in the upcoming Big Update, all except one. That's a topic for a later diary as the next one will focus on mechanical changes and improvements.
You have been briefed,
Captain,
T.T.