Dear captains,

There is a new patch ready for the 2024.1 beta version.

Localization:
- French localization update by FvJ and Placebo.
- German localization update by Ruby.

Periscopes & TDC:
- Fix: Once player enters into manual control mode of any periscope or UZO, the officer that controls it stops to rotate periscope afterwards and keeps it pointed at the same bearing. This behaviour is reset once he leaves the station.
- Fix: It was often not possible to lock a clearly visible target. Please let us know, if this would be still happening in some weathers.
- Fix: Gyro angle dial on C/37 torpedo calculator had numbers arranged counterclockwise / mirrored horizontally.

UI:
- Fix: Since a few versions, there was missing realism setting during setting up a new campaign called "Mission types". This setting allows to select what kinds of missions will be offered by the command.
- Fix: Character role dropdown on character screen wasn't working.
- Fix: Positioning of telegraphs outside the screen is no longer possible. They also won't disappear after changing resolution to a lower one in any case.
- Fix: Lock arrows for distant targets were sometimes appearing below the target rather than above it, while using observation periscope on Type VII.

Uboatopedia:
- Added help links to several screens.
- Updated Uboatopedia in German and Polish.

Missions:
- Fix: It's now possible to use Type II gun to complete the mission at Hopen Island.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to complete mission by talking with the leading officer.

Type II:
- Increased fuel capacity of Type IID to give it historical range.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to upgrade batteries on Type IIA and Type IID. This fix requires starting a new game or changing the boat back and forth with another type.

Crew:
- Fix: Officers were often blocking, when they encountered a sailor on their path that was doing something, for example cleaning, sitting on a bunk etc.
- Fix: If U-boat was returning with wounded sailors from a mission and was welcomed by the orchestra, wounded sailors could appear among the crew that saluted to it. Once the cutscene ended, there were various issues with them.
- Fix: Crew members sometimes weren't going to rest on a bed, even when they were supposed to, for example when given an order.

General:
- When a silent run is ordered, ventilation is now automatically turned off by the crew. If it's enabled later on manually, it's not turned off again.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to enter into U-boat upgrade mode at the warehouse, if gameplay perspective setting was set to "FPP Only".
- Fix: In some cases, after loading a saved game state, saved in FPP, it wasn't possible to rotate the camera with mouse movements and there were some other issues too.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to start electric engines, if fuel tanks were empty.
- Fix: After changing U-boat to another type, the new U-boat's detection wasn't affected by weather factors.
- Fix: Fixes to a few errors spotted in the logs sent by the in-game bug reporting tool.

Yours,
DWS

Dear captains,

There is a new patch ready for 2024.1.

Localization:
- German localization update by Ruby.

Technical:
- Fix: After a saved game state was loaded from the main menu, and later U-boat was changed to another type, there were many issues present, such as not working section view and various storage issues.

Missions:
- Side-mission where enemy becomes aware of player's mission and starts a chase was rewritten from the ground up. From now on, enemies rely only on deduction and don't have any special knowledge. The longer player goes undetected, the larger area they search. Number of enemy ships and aircraft searching for the player is now also lower.

Detection:
- Fix: Certain types of contacts were reported as visual contacts, even when that wasn't the case, for example when U-boat was deep under the water and had no means of visual detection.

Ports:
- Fix: It was possible to ask command for relocation to ports that were belonging to enemy for example to La Rochelle in 1939.

Torpedoes & torpedo solutions:
- Fix: T5 torpedoes were no longer homing on their targets.
- Fix: If player fired at a target without using TDC, it was sometimes possible for infinity to appear in the computations. When that happened, all further torpedo solutions without TDC were incorrect and were always aimed directly at the target.
- Fix: If gyro angle receiver was manually set to "none" after flooding a tube, and later the default torpedo launchers UI was used to fire, the changed setting wasn't automatically fixed.
- Fix: Torpedo salvo preview visible on the map now displays the actual path that torpedoes would take after launch, considering their currently set gyro angle.
- Fix: Small fixes to computations performed by TDC to fix certain discontinuities in edge cases.
- Fix: Torpedo solutions are now also correct, when firing at targets that aren't targeted by any officer. In such case, bearing is set on TDC directly, without setting any bearing transmitter.

Graphics:
- Fix: Decreased volumetric lights intensity from port lamps.
- Fix: Guests waiting to be welcomed on the ship were becoming invisible, once they reached their destination on the deck, where they waited for the captain.

UI:
- Added description for each U-boat on the U-boat selector screen. This text better explains differences between each following type.
- Added tooltip for silent run button to explain all its effects.
- Fix: Compass at the top of the screen was sometimes displaying extra green dots pointing mission objectives, that shouldn't be there.

General:
- Fix: Game was freezing after a sailor was disbanded.
- Fix: After batteries were upgraded, they were no longer charging to 100%.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to rotate knobs on devices when the game was paused.

Yours,
DWS

Dear captains,

There is a new patch ready for 2024.1.

We hope that this patch will resolve all issues with faulty torpedo solutions (details below). Starting from now on, the game no longer minimizes in Fullscreen Borderless mode when loosing focus. There were also some tweaks to voiceover and once again a bunch of fixes to tutorial missions.

Localization:
- English localization update by Steve.
- Russian localization update by Hard.
- Portuguese localization update by AlexShuma.
- Turkish localization update by Narberal Gamma.
- French localization update by FvJ and Placebo.
- German localization update by Ruby.
- Spanish localization update by Miguel Haakon.

Firing solutions:
- When an automatic torpedo solution is ordered, the crew now uses AOB and bearing motors on the TDC. This slightly increases their accuracy.
- Fix: AOB was computed in a wrong way when any of the two periscopes of Type IIs or an observation periscope on Type VIIs were used for the attack.
- Fix: Officers working on an automatic firing solution were sometimes pointing the periscope a bit to the side, instead of the center of a target.
- Fix: A few other fixes that should make the automatic torpedo solutions more accurate.

TDC:
- Fix: Gyro angle pointer was rotated by 90 degrees to the left on C/37 TDC present on Type IIs and Type VIIB.

UI:
- Fix: Torpedo pictures weren't centred inside the torpedo tubes in the UI.
- Fix: When supplies were handed to shipwrecked sailors, text on the screen was claiming that 2x more reputation progress would be received than was later actually received.
- Fix: It's no longer possible to add whitespace at the beginning or at the end of a character's name. It was causing minor issues in the UI. It's also no longer possible to use only whitespaces as the name.

Tutorial missions:
- Fix: In tutorial mission #4, the first two popups were appearing twice in a row.
- Fix: Added red arrow to point "Continue" button in tutorial #3, when crew is about to be sent onto the second merchant ship.
- Fix: It was possible to press "Continue" button in tutorial #3, before the tutorial asked for this and break the mission script.
- Fix: In tutorial #4, it was possible for the officer using flak gun to have serious wounds requiring hospitalization.
- Fix: In some cases during tutorial #2, #3 or #4, officers could be in a loop, where they started to work on a station, stopped and started to work on it again. This was sometimes causing issues.
- Fix: When a tutorial mission is completed and the tutorial starts to explain how to start another one, play as skipper mode is deactivated for that time being.
- Fix: It wasn't possible to activate ladders and hatches in FPP, when tutorial asked to interact with something specific.

Events:
- Increased frequency of the event with smoke coming out of the engines. Note: It should be still relatively rare.

Voiceover:
- Fix: Officers were sometimes incorrectly commenting sinking of ships, like they would be sunk with a torpedo, even though they were sunk by different means.
- Fix: Officers were sometimes repeating many times, when a shallow area was entered.
- Fix: Engineer no longer reports a completion of torpedo maintenance when a time compression higher than 100 is used.

Starting scenarios:
- Changed start date and an emblem for U-616.

Technical:
- If fullscreen windowed (borderless) mode is active, game no longer minimizes after loosing focus.
- Fix: Minor issues and errors in the log, when crew was returning to a Type II U-boat from a vacation.

Graphics:
- Fix: Issues with the graphics on HDR displays.
- Fix: Water and rain were sometimes visible between the conning tower and the control room in a section view of Type IID U-boats.

General:
- Fix: Many dials and clocks on the ship were stopping to update after loading a game state from the main menu.

Yours,
DWS

Dear captains,

There is a new patch ready for the beta version of the game.

Localization:
- French localization update by FvJ and Placebo.
- Czech localization update by Spid3rCZ.
- Portuguese localization update by AlexShuma.
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.

Ports:
- Fix: All ports had too few defence guns in 1939.
- Fix: Norwegian, Canadian, USSR, Netherlands, Irish, Portuguese and Spanish ports didn't had any defence guns.

Missions:
- Fix: Side-mission about counting defence guns in a port now asks to find a lower number of AA guns.

Tutorial missions:
- Fix: It was possible to send crew onto the second merchant ship in tutorial #3 before the tutorial has asked for this and break the mission script.
- Fix: If a tutorial with a custom weather state was completed, and then another such tutorial was started right away, the custom weather from the next tutorial wasn't applied and there was no restrictions about the weather for its duration.
- Fix: Tutorial missions #2 and #3 weren't working when started from Marseille.

UI:
- Toolbar for switching between combat stations is no longer displayed for binoculars.
- A confirmation popup now appears, when player attempts to launch a salvo, before the gyro angle is set on the torpedoes.
- Fix: After clicking on a help button in the echosounder view, a wrong page of the manual was opened.
- Fix: It was possible to break the intro cutscene by pressing the keyboard shortcut for toggling a free cam mode.
- Fix: HQ task requirements were missing in the UI.
- Fix: Play as skipper mode is now correctly marked as experimental. Previously this suffix wasn't visible.
- Fix: Missing translation for the action displayed on the screen when looking at the torpedo launch lever from FPP.

Quality of life:
- Game is now paused when manual is opened.

Map:
- Fix: Circles drawn with a compass tool weren't visible, if motion blur was disabled and either FSR or DLSS were enabled in the graphics settings.

Graphics:
- Fix: Portraits could render completely white at night near ports.

Hydrophone:
- Fix: Keyboard shortcuts for increasing and decreasing volume were having reverse effect. It was possible to set the volume below 0% or above 100% with them. They were also too slow.

Type II:
- Fix: Compressor wasn't being automatically disabled by the crew after filling the compressed air tanks.

Yours,
DWS

Hello,

There is a new version up. It fixes the most apparent issues that we've noticed after publishing the initial release. Changelog:

Localization:
- Italian localization update by BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM.

General:
- Fix: Parts of UI could disappear after opening radio view from map, going back to map and then switching to the view orbiting around the U-boat.
- Fix: It was possible to switch to UZO view on IIA, even though it didn't had UZO. There were many problems present after doing it.
- Fix: Hours hand on clocks wasn't moving.
- Fix: The Happy Time cutscene was adjusted for English version of voiceover.

Tutorial:
- Fix: Random events, such as tuberculosis, could happen during tutorial.

AI:
- Fix (regression): Aircraft no longer attack during storms.

Graphics:
- Update to Type II interiors.
- Fix: Corrected antenna position on Type IID and fixed texture on its container.
- Fix: Wrong texture on ventilation in Type II engine room.

Simulation:
- Rudder indicator in Type II conning towers wasn't working.

Launcher:
- Fix: Added text wrapping to version name label.

Yours,
DWS

Dear Captains,

The day has arrived! We announce the start of beta testing of the UBOAT game. This is the result of many months of hard work and the contributions of many people who have helped us. Many of the elements included in this update are based on player feedback, reflecting their vision of how the game should look and what can enhance the gaming experience.

All UBOAT owners are welcome to participate in the testing. We hope we have met your expectations.

Please remember that the release of a beta version is primarily a preparation for the full release. We want to know your opinion on the changes. There will still be bugs, things to fix and add. When you find something troubling, report it to us and we will fix it.



You can install the beta version by right-clicking on UBOAT in the game list. In the opened window of properties, in the "Betas - Beta Participation" you must select "unstable" and download beta version of UBOAT... and have fun!



Below is an quick list of new features; more details will be available in the changelog that we will publish in a few days.

• New playable U-Boats: Type IIA, IID, VIIB, and VIIC41
  
• New and upgraded ports
  
• Updated visuals for the Type VII U-Boat
  
• Contact system overhaul
  
• New realism settings and related features
  
• New features in the TAB menu
  
• Improved night battles
  
• New voice reports
  
• Camouflages and emblems
  
• Improved First-Person Perspective (FPP) mode
  
• Ship and aircraft improvements
  
• Added random events on ships
  
• Fixes and graphical improvements
  
• Manual
  
• New items
  
• Improved simulation
  
• New starting scenarios
  
• Improved performance (FSR and DLSS effects)
  
• New cutscenes on the map
  
• Improved missions of various types
  
• Updated audio
  
• New mission types
  
• Dive schedule
  
• Different headquarters modes
  
• Improvements to explosion physics
  
• Interactions with shipwrecks

..and many more

Yours,
DWS

Dear captains,

We're thrilled to announce that the Full Release update is now ready for beta testing, starting on May 27th, 2024!

All players owning UBOAT are invited to participate. We will post an announcement at the mentioned date once the update is ready to download.

We can't wait for you to experience all the new features and refinements we've been working on. This is a major milestone for us, and we're incredibly excited to invite you, the UBOAT community, to join us on this final leg of the journey. Your feedback and insights during this beta phase will be invaluable and together, we can make this the best U-boat experience yet!

Using this opportunity, we will also delve into some final changes... welcome to our dev log #8! ⚓

The Full Release introduces camouflages, which you can swap in any port's upgrade mode. Additionally, conning tower emblems are now possible to obtain in various ways during the game. Joining flotilla will unlock its associated emblem, and you may even encounter painters offering unique designs for a fee.



This version will introduce a simple skill system for the regular sailors. Each sailor will be able to gain specialization that contributes to better overall stats of the boat like faster diving.



We are also introducing a new way to play the game, where you play in first-person perspective as the skipper. While playing in this mode, once you pause the game, the camera transitions into the section view to give a quick overview of the situation and let you pass orders to your officers.

We plan to keep this mode marked as experimental for several months, independently of the full release. We want to gain feedback from FPP players and polish it over time.



We've also implemented numerous smaller enhancements, including:

• Smooth transitions between all views.
  
• Audible buzzers when telegraph values change.
  
• Reworked Type VII engines with historically accurate models.
  
• Historical Kriegsmarine clocks.
  
• Net cutters on the bow of certain U-boat types.
  
• If you play with map mode without revealed circle of sight (fully paper map), you will hear sounds around you, like you would be still in the boat.

Yours,
DWS

Dear captains,

As the wait for a beta test continues, we've decided to release another dev log, to give you a heads up and also use this opportunity to present a few major features that are coming soon with the Full Release Update.

Without further introduction, let's proceed.

We've created various random events that may happen on your U-boat or around it.

These events mirror the real challenges faced by U-boat crews. Injured crewmates might need land-based recovery, overtaxed engines could demand extra grease, or tensions aboard might flare into a brawl. But with each challenge comes opportunity e.g. complete a daring mission, and you might find a personal gift from the admiral stashed in your storage.


We've prepared many such events to make your patrols feel more unique and immersive. They won't disrupt the core gameplay, but instead will remind you that life at sea is full of surprises. Most of them are inspired by the authentic struggles found in books and U-boat KTBs.


Using this opportunity, we've also improved missions with a war correspondent. We've greatly expanded his pool of questions and made interactions with him more user friendly.



Another addition, is that warships and aircraft deploy flares to illuminate the surrounding area when they know that submarines are around. You will also be able to use flares yourself, if you want to. Being close to deployed flares, increases your sight range, but also makes you more visible.


All warships in the game now also carry functional searchlights that aid them in searching for U-boats lurking in the darkness. They keep them disabled when they travel in a convoy and use them only when they go into battle stations mode.



There are now Vickers Wellington bombers in the game. These aircraft start to appear in the game in 1942 and will attack your U-boat without any warning at night using a combination of ASV radar and a Leigh Light. These attacks look quite spectacular and starting with 1943 sometimes include rockets.


We've also recreated effective counter-measures to employ against this danger, that may ensure the safety of your U-boat. We've added diving schedules, with which you can set your U-boat to travel underwater at a specific time of day (in the discussed case - at nights).



Another, even more effective counter-measure are radar waves detectors, which we improved to work more consistently and we made it easier to understand what their purpose is for new players.

We've ensured that attacks from the surface during moonless nights now work properly, especially if you sneak with electric engines. It was a very common tactic employed by many skippers and we felt that we had to make it effective in the game too.

By employing this tactic, you will be able to avoid the risk of detection by the sonars while sneaking into a convoy. Once the enemy illuminates the area, you can then quickly dive and escape, before being spotted.



We've added several ports to the game that have Arabic architecture in the cities. It's a massive boost for immersion on the Mediterranean, which previously lacked ports in general. New ports include Tobruk, Haifa and Tunis. Existing ports of Alexandria and Malta were improved. There is also new port of Marseille and Salamis naval base, both of which can serve as your home base.



While we've maintained this state during Early Access for variety of reasons, we've always intended to change this for the Final Release. Starting with this update, you will face a much more curated selection of missions offered by the command, and there is also a mode, in which you don't get any selections at all, and simply carry out with the orders as they come from the command.

While setting up the campaign, you will also be able to determine the type of missions that will be offered - varied or more centred on routine patrols.



At this time, we expect the beta testing to commence in a few more weeks. It's taking a bit longer than we hoped, but not overly so and hope to reach the stable version soon.

We still have to work out several things that could otherwise make for a frustrating experience and hope for your patience and understanding.

Once everything is done, we will announce the start of the beta testing with a week in advance to give you time to prepare.

Yours,
DWS

Dear captains,

We are back with the next dev log for the upcoming Full Release update. This time, we'll delve into details on how you'll progress through new U-boat types, discuss new mission content, and highlight other improvements.

As we announced previously, the Full Release update will bring several new playable U-boat types to the game. We've heard your questions about the differences between individual U-boats, and now that we've worked out the details of the progression system and how to obtain these vessels, let's dive in!

If you choose to, you will be able to start with the Type IIA. It's a small and cozy U-boat with a limited range, sufficient to perform patrols around the British Isles in 1939 - 1940. The big upside of these U-boats is their smaller size that makes them harder to spot on the surface or detect with sonar under water. They also have more compact engines and less numerous crew, which emit less noise and make them harder to detect for enemy hydrophone operators.

Type IIA lacks a UZO and a deck gun capable of sinking ships, but once you upgrade to Type IID, it's going to be a quite decent variant, equipped with UZO and a range nearing that of the Type VII.



Type VIIB is going to be a familiar territory, if you played the game before. It's much more heavily armed than Type II, with one additional launcher on the bow, one on the stern, much larger torpedo capacity and a deadly deck gun. It can also dive much deeper than Type II.

Type VIIC is a similar experience to its predecessor, but it has a better conning tower and supports more upgrades. It's also equipped with a much improved T. Vh. Re. S3 torpedo calculator that will make your torpedo solutions more accurate. That new TDC, in contrast to C/37 present on the older models, adjusts torpedo solutions for your own course changes in real time, as well as allows you to launch torpedoes during a turn.



The last U-boat, Type VIIC/41 is the one you may be familiar with from real-life as U-995 in Laboe is of this type. The main upgrade of this U-boat is its much higher pressure resistance than its predecessors, but it also starts with heavily armed Turm IV conning tower by default.

All these U-boats can be unlocked with the newly introduced ship upgrade points that are granted for completing certain campaign objectives.

We also have a good news for all simulation lovers. We've added a new gameplay mode that doesn't have the integrated 3D view on the map, but instead, the map is always presented in a 2D paper-like style.

To make such mode practical, we've also ensured that ports are now drawn directly on the map. As you may have noticed, previously port wharfs weren't present on it and only after approaching the port it was possible to see them in 3D.



For the next update, we've added several new historically-based missions. For example, there is a new mission where you will land a demolition team to sabotage a railway near Alexandria. These new missions belong to two new multi-stage campaigns, one for the Atlantic and one for the Mediterranean.



We've also reworked most of the old missions present in the game to make them more historically accurate and interesting to play. For example, missions about landing a spy now take place at historical locations, while regular patrol assignments have been enhanced with a few new side missions and endings to add variety.

All missions in the game now include a list of historical sources on which they are based on.

It's a small feature, although it's something that was often requested and is actually very aesthetically pleasing. The officer assigned to the lookout crew no longer sits all day near the UZO but uses binoculars like the rest of the watch crew. He goes to the UZO only when ordered to prepare a torpedo solution.



While we've finished the content that we planned, as things stand there is clearly still work left with bug fixes and prepping the final release.

For this reason, we've decided to organize beta testing before we leave the waters of Early Access. Doing this will let us work together to finalize this update and finish this last phase faster. It will also be a chance for the modding community to adjust the mods to the base game changes.

We plan to run this testing for about a month and everyone who already owns the game will be able to participate. We will provide you with more details in a separate announcement, as soon as we have all the details ready!

We can't wait to show you what we've been working on. While it's still the same UBOAT we all know, it now feels more fleshed out and different in many ways. We hope to see you soon back on the Atlantic.

Yours,
DWS

Dear captains,

There is a new small patch available for the latest stable release of the game. It's a Steam-only release, as it fixes just one issue that appeared after one of the updates to Steam. Changelog:

- Fix: Launcher could crash or have display issues on some systems with enabled Steam Overlay.

Yours,
DWS