Foreword
Hello Captains and Designers, after a period of quiet development, NavalArt is now in alpha testing for the 1.0 carrier update, which will be unveiled as a public beta in the near future. Here are some brief descriptions of the main content of the 1.0 update:
Brief description of the main features of the new version
1. Aircraft Carrier System
The new carrier system includes fully remade squadron formation system, anti-air system and aircraft attack system. Initializing an aircraft carrier with planes will require you to start on the Ship Squadron Edit page and create one of five formation types: Torpedo Bombers, Dive Bombers, Fighters, Demonstration Squadrons, and Reconnaissance Squadrons.
You'll need to make good use of the changes brought about by different formations and modifications, using the new scout aiming view to increase the accuracy of your artillery barrages, to gain an advantage in battles where fighter squadrons are fighting for air superiority, or to increase the projected firepower of your flying squadrons.
The altitude at which Planet NA's aircrafts fly will be categorized into three altitude tiers, flight altitude will be indicated by vertical squares at the bottom left of the formation icon, and the flight altitude mechanic will have a significant impact on the squadron.
The above is just a brief description of the new carrier system, more content such as takeoff and landing mechanism, the new test flight airstrike mechanism waiting for you to explore, looking forward to the release of the new version of the time you can like the reset of the carrier and aircraft system.
2. Blueprint Generator
In the new Blueprint Mode, designers will be able to generate drawings of their favorite designs in a very convenient way that is not limited to three views:
3. New ports and cameras
New, more beautifully crafted ports will be added to the main menu page in the new version, allowing you to review your ships with a smoother camera.
After zooming in on the view, you will be able to view information about specific weapons.
4. New system ships and missions
New system preset ships from the community bigwigs will set a benchmark for the highest level of builds in the game, and in the future may also be used as preset ships for the new System Ship combat mode in multiplayer.
New missions have also been added to add more playability to the game. In the future, the game will also include a mission editor to take the depth of the missions in the game to the next level.
5. Dock experience optimization (fps up, new regulation mode, etc.)
After extensive optimization of the dock rendering by the author tested fps has increased by about 50% to 60% after loading specific ships, and the building process will be smoother for ships with more than 5000 parts.
The new three-position adjustment tool will allow designers to quickly adjust the shape of the adjustable hull and other components without having to use the numeric keys, which will greatly increase the efficiency of the construction process after adapting to the new, more user-friendly tools, including the lighting adjustment tool in the upper left corner of the screenshot, and more improvements to explore and discover.
6. New content, lots of bug fixes and experience optimizations
Dozens of craft from WWI to Cold War will be gradually added to the game with the open beta update after the first version of the open beta featuring around 20-30 craft (thanks to "Mig:魂现猫亡" for contributing to the new version of the models)
7. Raytracing Gallery dlc
The light tracing feature is a heavy hitter for vase parties and interior parties, you can view your design in realistic lighting conditions, not just the exterior, add a glowing object to a dark interior and it will light up the entire cabin. After some deliberation, the author decided to release this feature as a paid dlc, as it was not on the game's development path, and uses a lot of the author's personal experience in other areas of program development, and not everyone needs this feature, and the developer is not financially well off. The pricing will be reasonable, of course. Although the ray tracing algorithms used can theoretically run on integrated graphics cards, the minimum recommended configuration is a GTX1060 graphics card or higher.
The following screenshots are all rendered in-game using the dlc feature using designs from the player community
The Ray Tracing Gallery dlc will be released with the public beta, at which point players who purchased it will need to switch the game version to the 1.0 public beta via Steam library settings in order to utilize the feature before the official 1.0 version is released
More Content
There's more to the new version than just the above additions, and there's a lot more to explore at launch!
Development Route
After perfecting the experience of the fully remade aircraft system, we will release a public beta version, and the difference between the public beta version and the 1.0 official version will be:
Update Route: (Current stage) Alpha test in small groups --> Public Beta --> Official 1.0 --> Later versions
Q&A session
Q: Without getting into the have-nots, how long until I can play the carrier version?
A: After more development and functionality is improved, the 1.0 Open Beta will be released to all players by right clicking NavalArt from the Steam Library and selecting Open Beta from the Beta versions. At this point in time, the Open Beta will be available in about a month to a month and a half. The public beta is expected to last 1 month to 1.5 months until the release of the 1.0 offical update.
Q: Can I use carriers in multiplayer?
A: Of course you can, otherwise the wait for the 1.0 release wouldn't have taken so long, the author have rewritten the underlying code of the game for multiplayer, a lot of work requires a lot of time, for more detail see the previous dev log:
Development progress – Multiplayer and Aircraft carriers
Q: When will I be able to start working on aircraft mods?
A: Mod features need to be added after the main features are stabilized, otherwise the mod will not work after new features are added will greatly increase the workload of the mod author. For this reason, mod tool will be updated after the release of the 1.0 release when several fixes have been applied to stabilize the version.
Q: Will NavalArt continue to be updated after 1.0?
A: Version 1.0 is just a version number, it doesn't mean development is over, NavalArt will continue to be updated for a long time!