NavalArt update V1.6.1 Part–Gun Synchronization and Buoyancy System Refactor

Introduction

Hello, everyone!

As an important part of the major building system overhaul introduced in version 1.6, we're bringing the long-awaited Part–Gun Synchronization feature to NavalArt in version 1.6.1!

At the same time, we've completely refactored the physics of ships at sea, significantly improving the long-standing physics issues that have troubled players for years.

This update also includes numerous fixes and adjustments, a batch of brand-new parts, and a massive fleet of new Presets ships!

Dynamic Sub-Mesh Attachment

The Dynamic Sub-Mesh Attachment system is now officially available! You can attach selected parts directly to turrets simply by placing them on top of the turrets.

This system offers an extremely high degree of freedom and gameplay potential, allowing you to implement a wide variety of features on your beloved ships:

1. Attach decorations to turrets so they rotate together.

2. Attach AA guns to turrets so they rotate together.

3. Attach fire-control equipment to scaled-down guns with firing disabled, allowing fire-control groups to rotate together with gun groups.

4. Combine CIWS guns and surface-to-air missile parts to create integrated gun-missile air defense systems.

5. Attach parts of the hull or superstructure to scaled-down parts with ammunition magazines to simulate localized battle damage and destruction.

6. Add new decorative outer shells to existing turret parts.

7. Use deck guns and barrel-only parts to create fully customized turrets (usually requiring modded parts).

And much more...

Of course, this feature also introduces many challenges. Complex edge cases significantly increase testing and maintenance costs, while leaving the system completely unrestricted could lead to unexpected problems.

During the relatively lengthy closed testing period, we resolved most of these issues and introduced certain restrictions:

1. Sub-meshes cannot be attached to propulsion modules, including rudders.

2. Sub-meshes cannot be attached to the elevation axis of a gun.

3. For performance reasons in the Shipyard, there is a limit to the number of parts that can be attached simultaneously. (This limitation can be worked around using Custom Parts.)

4. Guns with ammunition magazines and propulsion modules cannot be used as sub-meshes.

5. Dynamic Sub-Mesh Attachment only supports one level of rotational synchronization. Nested synchronization across multiple rotational axes is not supported. Even if you stack countless turrets into a giant tower, each turret will only follow the movement of its direct parent part.

6. The sub-mesh and its parent part must have some degree of collider contact. Unlike the Custom Parts system, attachment relationships cannot be assigned completely freely.

Additionally, attached sub-mesh parts retain their physical properties, meaning they can affect armor and shell interactions as well as ship physics.

Scenes containing large numbers of synchronized sub-meshes can also significantly increase performance costs. We therefore recommend limiting the number of sub-meshes on each ship, especially in complex scenarios such as multiplayer battles and AI-controlled ships in Operations.

Disabling sub-mesh physics in the Developer Tools can help reduce performance costs to some extent.

Furthermore, we are currently not planning to provide additional dedicated mechanics for custom turrets, synchronized fire-control systems, or custom rotational axes. We still need to focus our development resources on other systems to improve the overall completeness of the game.

（Credit：当旗帜飘扬时）

*The main turret is based on the vanilla British 203 mm/50 BL Mk VIII twin turret, with an additional decorative outer shell that gives it a unique appearance. The 47 mm gun mounted on top of the turret can also fire correctly.

Buoyancy System Refactor

The previous buoyancy system had long suffered from various issues. For example, small ships were particularly prone to bizarre porpoising behavior at high speeds or in rough weather. Large ships also exhibited certain physics-related problems.

Despite multiple attempts to fix these issues in previous updates, we were never able to fully address their underlying causes.

For this reason, we have refactored the buoyancy system, and the results have been quite promising.

Gravity and related parameters now behave more intuitively. We have also introduced a system that increases the number of buoyancy sampling points according to the size of the ship.

You can see the improvements in action in the demonstration video, or experience them yourself in the latest version!

Bilibili

Youtebe

Note:

• Following the Buoyancy System Refactor, the maximum speed of some ships may be affected.

• Ships with excessively steep buoyancy curves, usually caused by stacking large numbers of overlapping hull blocks to increase buoyancy, may experience more severe abnormal oscillations at sea. This is because their response to changes in buoyancy has become more pronounced under the new system.

Mechanics Adjustments

Custom Parts Adjustments

We are currently maintaining and upgrading the existing Custom Parts system, with the goal of making it play a more important role in the future.

In this version, Custom Parts will now retain their combined structure after being saved as part of a ship save and subsequently reloaded.

Additional features for the Custom Parts system are also planned for version 1.6.2.

Adjustable Ballast Algorithm Improvements

Reduced the issue of excessive weight being added when using automatic trimming with Adjustable Ballast Blocks.

You can now place Adjustable Ballast Blocks at the front-left, rear-left, front-right, and rear-right positions near the bottom of your ship, then click Trim in the Build Tools to automatically balance your ship.

Afterward, you can place another Adjustable Ballast Block directly below the center of mass and manually adjust its density to bring the waterline to the desired position.

If your ship becomes excessively heavy after automatic trimming, it may indicate that the system has reached its trimming limits. In this case, we recommend first trying to reduce the weight on one side of the ship.

Steam Workshop Copyright Notice

A Steam Workshop copyright notice will now appear when uploading ship saves to the Workshop.

This notice covers user rights, basic rules, the default distribution license, and important information for original creators who wish to establish their own custom distribution licenses.

Please read and follow these rules carefully before uploading Workshop items.

Workshop items that violate these rules may be modified, hidden, or banned by Workshop administrators.

Parts

Pre-Dreadnought / Ironclad Gun Balance Adjustments

To improve the firing experience and establish more consistent balance standards, the reload times of most pre-dreadnought main guns have been reduced to 55 seconds per firing cycle, while most breech-loading ironclad main guns now reload in 65 seconds per firing cycle.

The days of waiting three or four minutes for your guns to reload after every shot are finally over!

For exceptionally large British muzzle-loading guns, such as the 450 mm "100-ton" gun and the 406 mm "80-ton" gun, reload times have been adjusted to 130 seconds and 80 seconds, respectively.

The Italian breech-loading 100-ton gun now has a reload time of 90 seconds.

Additionally, the stats of several parts have been adjusted to address historical research issues or suspected inaccuracies.

General Part Adjustments

Fixed An incorrect English localization for part n1180, where the letter N was mistakenly described as the letter M.

Fixed Part n1423 Skylight VI not being included in the Skylight collection.

Adjusted Renamed part n477 to French 305 mm/40 Modèle 1893/1896 Naval Gun (Twin Turret, Charlemagne).

Adjusted Parts n34, n557, n558, and n559, four variants of the American improved 40 mm Bofors AA gun, have been reassigned to the United States nationality, and their descriptions have been rewritten.

Adjusted Rewritten the description of part n738 US 40 mm/56 Bofors AA Gun (Mark 1 Twin Mount).

New Parts

（Credit：Worldoz）

Presets Ships

Added New Historical Presets ships: Nevada, North Dakota, Tosa, Nagato, Hyūga, Shimakaze, Ayanami, Belfast '59, Exeter, Eskimo, Surcouf, Helgoland, Karlsruhe, Leningrad, De Ruyter, Tromp, and Liscomb.

Added Several new Presets hulls, including 3 large hulls and 6 medium hulls.

Added New nationality folders for Historical Presets ships: Canada and Netherlands.

Fixed An issue where the automatic preview image generation option was not enabled for the Historical Presets ship North Carolina.

Fixed Several issues with the large Presets hull Nelson.

Adjusted Reset the Historical Presets ship North Carolina.

Adjusted Added synchronized sub-meshes to the following Historical Presets ships:

• Missouri '45

• Massachusetts

• Constellation

• Scharnhorst

• Yamato

• Amagi

• Kirishima

• Lion '38

• King George V

• Devonshire '44

• Belfast '43

• Sheffield

• Orion

• Roma

• Caio Duilio '42

• Giulio Cesare

• Scipione Africano

• Ersatz Monarch

• Viribus Unitis

• Pr.24 XIII Variant

• Sovetsky Soyuz

• Kronshtadt

• Sevastopol (Pr.69-I)

Adjusted Added synchronized sub-meshes to the Advanced Presets ship Ersatz Scharnhorst.

Adjusted Updated the description of the Historical Presets ship Dingyuan.

Adjusted Renamed the file of the Advanced Presets ship Tosa to HIJMS Tosa.

Adjusted Renamed the file of the Advanced Presets ship Shimakaze to HIJMS Shimakaze.

Adjusted Updated the ship names of the Advanced Presets ship Z23 and the Historical Presets ships ZF2 and Z52.

（Credit：Anozumi）

General

Added Support for quickly copying selected parts in the Shipyard using Ctrl+C.

Added The ability to remove key bindings in the Key Binding menu.

Fixed An issue where folder descriptions in the Quick Battle ship selection menu were obscured by the dropdown menu.

Fixed Incorrect initial colors on ropes.

Fixed An issue where the flagpoles of flag parts could not be recolored.

Fixed An issue where turrets could still fire in battle despite exceeding the elevation limits assigned to individual firing arc sectors.

Fixed The wave-field normals used by the bow wave effect are now accumulated additively, preventing the ocean surface from becoming mirror-like when the effect is applied.

Fixed An issue where the Accuracy Perk for level bombers had the opposite effect from what was intended.

Fixed An issue where parts using PartColorMask would lose their custom textures during battle.

Fixed An issue where the cutout material on missile launchers would stop working after pressing O to display modules and then returning to the normal view in battle.

Adjusted The warning message displayed when Custom Parts cannot be placed.

Adjusted Removed the default Backspace key binding for deleting objects in the Level Editor.

Adjusted Improved the appearance of the Pause Menu, including visual refinements and added shadows.

Adjusted The default contrast settings in the Main Menu and Gallery.

（Credit：LakV）

Coming Soon

In version 1.6.2, we plan to introduce an entirely new hull-building part.

The key feature of this new part is that players will be able to quickly and intuitively adjust the shape of their hulls through simple dragging operations, with immediate visual feedback.

At the same time, we plan to introduce the following new features for the Custom Parts system:

• More detailed Part TAG classifications.

• UI improvements for the Shipyard Part Warehouse.

• Support for uploading Custom Parts to the Steam Workshop.

If everything goes smoothly, version 1.6.2 could introduce a much simpler and more efficient shipbuilding workflow:

With just one or a handful of hull parts, you could select pre-made superstructures from the Part Warehouse and quickly put together an entirely new warship!

（Credit：猎奇仙）