Boat Crew - v1.6.0 Stable | Shock and Awe

Nov 27, 2024

Hello Captain,

As those of you who have been following us recently will know, we have been having another experimental cycle starting on the 1st of November. After nearly 4 weeks of playtesting, development and making adjustments based on your feedback as well as our own observations, we are happy to say that the updatev1.6 Shock and Aweis now ready for Stable release.

As the name is hinting towards, this update has a central theme of big guns and big explosions, with multiple new units, multiple new playable weapons, a new playable boat, and more. If you haven't been following the Developer's Diaries or our Experimental patches, or if you just want a refresher on what exactly is different since the v1.5. Floating Fortresses update, here is the full changelog below:

v1.6.0 Full Changelog

Highlights

★ 78' Huckins - Playable PT Boat added. High performance design with versatile loadout options that sacrifices durability for agility.
★ 75 mm Pack Howitzer and 107 mm Mortar - New Utility Weapons added, powerful new artillery pieces that require two Gunners to operate. Reworked aiming mode.
★ Added the ability for boats other than the 81' Prototype to equip a second Primary Weapon, now called Heavy Weapon, on the front side of the boat.
★ 3''/50 Dual Purpose Gun - Playable new Heavy Weapon added, unique dual purpose gun with high recoil and three different ammunition types that are automatically picked based on the target.
★ Unit inspection mode "Boatuary" added, giving information about units in the game and putting them on display.

Additions

• John C. Butler-Class Destroyer added, joining US assault forces, supply convoys and Strategic Target group on occasion.
• Mutsuki-Class Destroyer added, joining IJN assault forces, supply convoys and Strategic Target group on occasion.
• IJN hunter groups now added to attack US Strategic Targets. They have a fixed speed and do not get targeted by air wings.
• New artillery call-in variants added; Beach Barrage Rockets, Smoke Shells and Superheavy Shells.
• P-38 metallic variant added, equipped with an improved cannon and lots of rockets instead of bombs.
• P-39 Airacobra added as both call-in and allied support aircraft.
• Added Nisshin-class Seaplane Tender to IJN, joining high end assault forces.
• Added McCawley-class Attack Transport to USN, joining high end assault forces.
• New set of semi-fictional ship names fitting IJN naming conventions to reduce name repetition.
• New Nagara AA variant inspired by historical Isuzu AAA conversion.
• Dual purpose guns added to several ships.
• Dual purpose guns of all calibers can now also attack aircraft with special anti-aircraft shells, including the Fubuki variants with the Type B turret.
• Japanese 12.7 cm and 14 cm guns will now occasionally fire incendiary Beehive Shells at small surface targets, including the player and their squadron boats.
• XP gain tickers for crew added.

Changes

• Added new physics to make boats feel more responsive to waves, changes to camera to help with sense of speed.
• Ryuujou-Class Carrier given an additional explosion node in the front, making it more likely to suffer magazine detonations.
• Smaller vessels will now try to evade incoming shells with trajectories, including the player mortar.
• Larger vessels will try to evade detected torpedoes.
• "Awaiting Fuel Arrival" message now appears under player unit on map rather than corner of UI.
• Map groups push away player according to their size, this should prevent engagements spawns that are too close to enemy carrier groups.
• Reworked assault system to manage multiple assaults at the same time with scaling.
• Proper strategic target spawning system.
• Strategic target / carrier group spawn frequencies are now scaled by victory points and developments of bases.
• Unused charges in call-in cards now contribute to a small reroll discount.
• Reworked starter boat selection screen.
• AT gun model and animation upgrades.
• New group templates added and some existing templates updated with the new units.
• Jingei is now a targetable bounty unit and has additional named variants.
• Separation of air group spawn cooldown time for bases and carriers so that bases spawn them less.
• Buffs to AI anti-air shells.
• M4 Autocannon and M2 Mortar will now have their cameras oriented on transition to wherever the camera was already pointing in other view modes.
• Max speed adjustments to ships.
• Squadron boat camo will now synchronize with player regardless of selected class.
• Radar model color will now synchronize with camo.
• Increased ocean rendering resolution, added graphics option to switch to lower resolution.
• CPU related optimization attempts for mid to large battles.
• Camo color option "Waterline" renamed to "Draft".
• Crew loadout titles should now automatically update, excluding those which have had custom name assignments.
• Restored sub hunting function for acoustic torpedoes.
• Added physics to torpedo deployment to make them nose heavy.
• Added minimum guaranteed damage mechanic to torpedo impact, to counter the splash damage loss due to distance from center of hitboxes.
• Damage buffs to Mk 24 and Mk 27 torpedoes.
• Mk 28 torpedo acoustic ability improved.
• New rocket firing sound.
• New bazooka firing sound.
• New mortar shell falling sound.
• Rockets now start slow and accelerate.
• EQ pass on ocean sounds.
• Reimplemented subtle boat wave crash sounds.
• Ocean horizons will blend better with sky.
• Reworked cloud rendering.
• Cargo net and antenna are now physically animated.
• RP crates respond visually to being picked up.

Fixes

• Fix attempt for player triggered assaults coming from bases that are already engaged.
• Fixed issues with weapons targeting some of the larger vessels.
• Fix attempts for AI aim issues caused by new bumpy ocean wave tuning.
• Fix attempts to prevent squadron boats from getting stuck in piers.
• Fixed having no crew in a boat class swapped back from reserve causing it to be marooned.
• Fixed long time edge case where squadrons and callins can be wiped due to active callins being fully depleted, active and reserve callins would be all reset giving you fresh ones. This happened when a game was loaded and an engagement was immediately entered and left.
• Fix attempts for squadron boats being too easy to flip on collision (a reemerging issue from v1.5).
• Fixed crew failing to point the mortar models towards where the shells should land.
• Fixed bombs falling through merchant ships and exploding in water.
• Fixed planes occasionally disappearing on radar.
• Fixed a case where clash logs spams are caused by post victory conditions.

v1.6.0.5 Stable

• Fixed carrier and catapulted planes not having small UI icons above them.
• Fixed an issue for camo pattern color override not being reset properly into saves. If an already selected camo pattern is clicked on again, the overwritten colors should reset.
• Fubuki Type B Turret can now fire AA shells
• 5''/38 can now target aircraft with an AA shell.
• 5''/38 now has a special HE shell to use against light targets.
• Merchant Ship generic cannon replaced with 2 8 cm Dual Purpose Guns.
• Decorative crew added to Casablanca's open 5''/38 gun.