Hello Captains!
We have been working hard on the current update that includes our Visual Overhaul: Part 1. This is a total rework to the lighting, materials/shaders and weather system (Which will be expanded on more and more). As well as the final major updates to the UI menus and panels. There are still a few odds and ends to clear up. But these parts will now come in smaller frequent patches moving forward.
We have also essentially completed the framework for controller support and all of its UI. This was a very large task that has taken a lot of thought and processing to get to fit to the game which we hope enables greater accessibility once it's all complete! This will be coming in the next larger update.
Lastly we have worked on stabilizing the current content (bugs wise) alongside the visual overhaul in preparation for our next big push! This has also taken some thought and preparation, which will act as a decent launch pad moving forward. Please take a look at the patch notes for specifics on this update. There are still a few of the known bugs to squash.. But everything is underway.
What’s Happened In This Update?
Visual Overhaul Part 1:
Improvements:
- New time of day and weather system.
- New terrain shader that linked to weather effects.
- Improved environment shaders that linked to new weather effects.
- Loading screen improvements.
- Water visual improvements, rendering and colour.
- Buoyancy improvements to the submarine.
- LOD improvements to reduce polycount in midway (Better performance)
- Lighting quality option in the quality settings manager now has improved reduction for GPU usage on lower quality options.
- Fixed some submarine initialise bugs that could happen under certain circumstances.
- Now set new defaults to enable texture streaming 4GB VRAM 16GB Memory RAM, this helps us see if memory is an issue that could be causing crashes in builds.
- DX12 fixes that would cause some crashes.
- Updated Submarine material masks
- Updated Deck Gun material masks
- Updated enemy ships materials
Features:
- New Visual effects for fire, smoke and shell hits (deck guns and enemy shells) on ships and the submarine.
- New torpedo impact effects
- More robust and dynamic weather management system to better simulate weather and weather patterns.
- New day and night sky with sun, moon and stars
- Buoyancy added to all docked ships at midway + Sub in the main menu.
- New post processing sync system that is linked to the post processing quality in the quality visual settings.
- Bad weather now affects the submarine buoyancy
- New Loading Screen Images
- New UI Elements : Service Report (Button and Panel) - You can now view the service report via the new panel button found on the bottom left of the controls/view modes panel.
- Service Report now shows in command centre
- New UI Elements : Added a new feature for naming for submarines at the start of the game which affects all UI elements in game.
- New UI Elements : Welcome Aboard Message.
- New UI Elements : Enemy Sighted note.
- New UI Elements : Death Alert and Final Service Report (This will be important later)
- (Toggle Submarine symbol button for command centre view and omni cam view modes)
- Improved Periscope and Target Bearing Transmitter movement smoothness.
- Added New Road Map to the main menu.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed issue with quality presets value not being set correctly would fail to load presets that could cause crashes.
- Texture memory reduction to help improve RAM and GPU Vram issues could cause crashes.
- Bug fixed where after leaving midway the ambient audio would still be present.
- Reduced the amount of garbage collection (GB) by about 4-9KB.
- General scripts and system performance improvements on the main thread on the CPU.
- VFX performance improvements.
- Fixed: Bow Spray particle effect sticking when the sub is not moving.
- Fixed bow spray have to go at least 2/3 speed to activate.
- Fixed: sub propeller particles frozen with no animation bug.
- Some texture compression settings were fixed that would cause some artifacting on enemy ships in DX12.
- Some physics fixes and general improvements to reduce CPU load.
- Null reference fixes when loading into the game for the first time, would cause it to not be playable or not load into a war patrol correctly.
- Fixed: bug with input callbacks and missing references on a destroyed KeyboardHandler instance.
- Fixed: options ui back button sometimes not working
- Fixed: options menu back and reset button collider offset.
- Updated tracer flare bullet to not be so bright and work better with our new lighting.
- Fixed Multiple Flare Issues: Flare Sticking after battles, flares causing extreme brightness.
- Limited 1 tracer flare bullet per ship.
- Updated ship flares management, now controlled via ShipsManager
- Now it doesn't fire during the day.
- Can control the amount of flares from the ships manager profile default 1 per encounter at a time max.
- Fixed: Submarine kills not being registered on service report.
- Fixed: Various mouse input issues.
- Fixed: Enemy Battleships instantly turn to sub when battle commences and seem to know its location at all times. This issue is still present for some other ships. (We know it is related to submarine speed (beyond standing speed seems to alert them) and we are on the case to fix this for all other enemy ships next.
- Fixed: Battleships circling loop bug.
- Fixed: Old UI numbers still showing in detail map.
- Fixed: Bow spray showing when camera is underwater.
- Fixed: Some instances of bow particles and wakes disappearing depending on sub's orientation.
- Fixed: Rotating Aircraft Carrier and other docked ships.
- Fixed: Encounter alert message fixes and add line and circle art.
- Fixed: Can now correctly pause while looking at the service report.
- Fixed: Pixelated blur.
- Fixed: Sunk enemy ships will now sink much further before despawning.
- Fixed: Underwater rain.
- Fixed: Deck Gun shells light intensity.
- Fixed: Underwater lighting settings.
- Fixed: UI not rendering after loading a saved game
- Fixed: black screen in certain cases for UZO and Gun view
What's next?
The planned next steps are big ones! So it's best that we update the roadmap to showcase the planned content and features moving forward. We are not taking away anything from the current roadmap, we are adding to it. To ensure this game is going to transform into a great one. We will aim for these updates to happen in the order that they are written, however that may be changed around depending on what comes logically.
There may still be some persistent issues that some have reported moving forward. But we believe focusing on the roadmap update timeline will squash these bugs out of existence once and for all as we make the changes going forward! We understand that the Early Access process can be a bit aggravating, but even with the very small team that is developing Silent Depth 2 it allows us to make the best game possible in real time with your help!
And we do appreciate all of you! Thank you to those that have supported the game thus far.
Please take a look at our updated roadmap.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2591010/Silent_Depth_2_Pacific/