Sep 22, 2022

Waves of Steel - derakon

Whoops! It's been two months since the last build. My apologies for the delay: I've been head-down focused on wrapping up the campaign.

The good news is that the campaign's gameplay is now completed! The bad news is that I can't release the new missions yet. I need a good-sized package of New Content to show off when launch time comes, in early 2023, and the remaining campaign missions are that content. Believe me, I'd like nothing more than to let you all see what I've been working on. Keeping everything under wraps, not just here but on Twitter, has been killing me. But it's all part of making sure that the game's launch is a success.

What I do have for you in this release is a fairly major polishing pass. Expect more of these in the coming weeks. Now that the content grind is over, I'm able to focus on fixing all those issues you've been telling me about. My to-do list is gigantic, but hopefully from here on it's only going to get smaller!

With luck, I'll also find some time to create a couple of extra bonus missions. I want to do another racing mission at least, and maybe another Halloween or other holiday-themed mission. We'll see what the future brings! In the meantime, thank you for supporting Waves of Steel!

Gameplay:

Add a treasure to "Eitri's Forge"
21" torpedoes deal twice as much damage.
Rocket weapons should properly lead targets
Added new extra-weak sound effects if the player is struck for trivial damage.
The 9" MLRS has reduced spread
The railgun's damage output has been tripled.
Missions can be restarted from the combat menu; restarting or aborting a mission now prompts for confirmation
The Flying Battleship now tilts into turns
Enemy aircraft have longer attack runs when using cannons/torpedoes
Aircraft that drop bombs have better aim.
Enemy aircraft carriers should be harder to run out of aircraft
Aircraft HP have been halved
Most AA weapons have better range, muzzle velocity, and tracking speed
The UI for loading a saved ship has been updated
The options UI has been updated
The default flag for each hull depends on that hull's nationality
The Ratatosk in mission "Chrysalis" has double defense
Tweaked some dialog in mission "Chrysalis"
The player cannot sink while they are reeling in a health crate
Overhaul main gun sound effects
The Drifter special is now accessible from the start of the game
"The Tendency of Power" has fewer aircraft
The ship designer should have better control when placing parts near the centerline
Activating the engine overdrive special now automatically sets the ship to full throttle
If the player grabs tech crates after finishing a mission, a message pops up to tell them that this isn't necessary
Improved performance of ship designer by making most AA guns always get their full range of motion
"Stress Test" has more aircraft
The "Super Foghorn" starts out unlocked
The "Time Bubble" special has been changed so that the player's projectiles still behave normally.
The game should take more automatic photos of the player during missions
Anti-aircraft missiles have a slower fire rate
"The Tendency of Power" has some extra dialog if the player does objectives out of order
Slightly reduce drag for the "Bazel" ship
Tweak layout of the playership picker

Bugfixes:

Fix bug causing most AA guns to benefit from fire control
Fix rapid "wobbling" of the ocean when the camera moves
Fix AI ship wakes visibly toggling on/off when the camera moves
Fix various issues causing sound effects to not play or get cut off
Fix certain in-universe UI elements (like impact warnings, guide arrows, and waypoint halos) drawing in photo mode or when the HUD is disabled
Fix weird motion of ships that are sailing in formation if they're close to but not on top of their desired position
Fix the Mysterious Ship not being able to fit engines/drives.
Fix the model for the Squid ASW mortar
Toggling the mass limit in the ship designer now immediately updates the mass stats in the sidebar
Parts that increase a ship's max mass allotment can now be placed even if they'd put the ship over its previous max mass
Fix a graphical issue with the hologram special
Enforce a 64-character limit on ship names, to avoid UI issues
Fix bad ship thumbnail images
The Super Omega (AI-only ship) is no longer shown in the ship designer
AA gun sound effects should be quieter
AA gun projectiles now despawn when they hit their max range
The ship designer tutorials should allow more leeway in exactly where you need to place parts
In ship designer tutorials, the expected part placement position should be more clear
Fix issue causing ship designer tutorials to break if played more than once
Fix weapon configuration being inaccessible after going through a ship designer tutorial
The lower half of the ship designer view only dims if you try to place a part using that view
Fix an issue with the mission summary screen on displays with non-16:9 aspect ratio displays
Improve performance of a certain hazard in mission "Escalation", as well as of paradropped ships
Fix issue causing magenta flamethrowers in "The Dead Travel Fast"
Fix missing texture on the Frightening Gun
Fix some buildings catching on fire that logically shouldn't be able to
Fix bug causing bogus targets to be shown near the center of the map
Fix ship color bug in mission "Juno's Wrath"
Fix boss in "Juno's Wrath" not being able to target some locations
Fix a broken cinematic in "Hunter, Hunted"
Fix bad rendering of the "damage critical" overlay on non-16:9 aspect ratio displays
Fix rendering bug with shields on buildings
Fix aircraft flying through buildings and ships
Fix rare bug causing aircraft to gain altitude indefinitely
Tweak impact warning overlay colors to be more visible in certain weather conditions
Fix the BB Iowa layout (used by the AI) having some mis-placed parts
Fix the invisible DoesNotDisplay material getting painted by camouflage
Fix a bug when exiting the recent-items menu in the designer
The Flying Battleship in "Between Scylla & Charibdis" cannot be destroyed
Fix "Enemies die in 1 hit" assist allowing the player to destroy un-targetable objects
Fix a trigger in "Winter" not being triggered if the player uses a flying ship
It should be easier to trigger waypoints (large green halos) with flying ships
The "shield down" sound effect is louder
Fix poorly-framed rendering of the inset "current target" display
Tweak appearance of the inversion bubble created by the "Time Bubble" special
Fix error in description of Defense Command systems
Fix bug causing text scrolls (such as at the end of "Chrysalis") being very slow if the game is in slow motion when they are triggered
Fix the "12x29 block" superstructure not being able to be placed on top of other superstructure
Fix flying ships not kickflipping properly
Fix kickflips not reliably causing the ship to jump
Fix shield and hologram specials not extending the duration if they are stacked
Fix lack of visible objectives in "Lost Sheep"
Fix a model bug with the Myoko Aft Bridge part
Fix double fade-in after some cinematics
Fix issues where the resolution gets reset when changing scenes
Fix the "windowed/fullscreen" toggle not initializing properly

Modding:

GRAPPLE-type weapons have configurable grapple strength, using the `targetPushMultiplier` field