We are back with another dev diary. This time, we will dive into polishing, quality of life improvements, as well as several world upgrades we were working on.
Kiel & Kiel Canal
Kiel was completely reworked to look more like the historic port. There is also Kiel Canal present next to it that extends to Brunsbüttel and after entering the canal, it's possible to quickly travel to the North Sea.
This addition makes it much more comfortable to operate from Kiel, since it's no longer necessary to travel all around the Jutland Peninsula to participate in The Battle of Atlantic.
Brest
We've added two new French ports to the game, in which it's possible to dock. First one is Brest. In this port, U-boats dock at barges that move vertically with the tides. There is an old castle present near the docking area, as well as the historic tower.
It's possible to build a submarine pen in here, like in the other French ports. It's a convenient port to operate from, as it's the closest French port to busy traffic areas on the North Atlantic.
Marseille
Another French port is Marseille on the Mediterranean Sea. The large structure seen on the screenshot is the Marseille Transporter Bridge. It was built above the entrance to the port and was one of the engineering marvels of the turn of XIX and XX centuries that sadly no longer exists due to war.
The addition of this port was a part of our larger efforts in this update, to add more content to the Mediterranean Sea to make it a more interesting area of operations.
Explosion physics
Sailors on the enemy ships now fall or sometimes even are thrown away off the deck when your torpedoes explode. It makes the torpedo hits much more convincing.
It was something we always wanted to implement, as it was an immersion killer when there was no proper reaction modelled on the enemy crew. It required extra care to do it right. It's something that could easily affect the performance and stability of the game, if not carefully optimized, considering the number of sailors present on large convoys.
Upgrades to interface tools
There are major quality of life improvements coming to the tools in the user interface. It's now possible to drag the tools, as well as keep several of them open at once. It's a long standing request from the community that we are happy declare as done.
We've also added a completely new chronometer tool, which no doubt will prove to be useful on many occasions.
Underwater upgrades
On popular request, underwater environment is now much brighter than it used to be, which coincides with a more realistic look. It's now also possible to use periscopes deeper under the water and use it to look at the enemy ships passing above, depth charges or mines on the seabed.
UBOAT: The Silent Wolf VR
We also have an exciting news about a second UBOAT game in the family, developed by a friendly studio, Titan GameZ. The game has multiplayer capabilities and is designed for VR platforms. It was currently published for Oculus Quest, but there are plans to bring it also to PC VR headsets.
The studio has put their hearts into this title and it's our utmost pleasure to recommend it to you! You can read more about the game and if you decide so, also buy it, by following this link:
Our current estimate to finish this work is March - April 2024. The main thing that extends the development time right now, are interior models for the new playable U-boats, that will be introduced in the Full Release Update. You can read more about them in this dev diary.
While our artist is busy finishing the new U-boats, the rest of the team, among other things, gathers feedback on the forum, so if you have something you always wanted added or changed, feel free to post. It's important to us, to make you satisfied with the upcoming release.
Also, we still have much more to share about the upcoming update and will soon in the upcoming dev logs.
Using this opportunity, we also send you our best wishes of great holidays and a Happy New Year! ✨ Have a good time in the upcoming weeks and see you in the next diary.
You must find the QR code object on the map, then scan this image in the game to reveal: "Laguig". It will help you fight in the game afterwards. There are several QR code objects on the map, some are harder to find than others. The QR code scanner does not work in multiplayer. A QR code can only be activated once per load. I will give the other QR codes later. Other QR codes could potentially be created later.
Thank you to everyone who reported bugs on Discord. As a solo dev, keep them coming, I appreciate greatly! If you're not yet on the Discord and want to contribute, you can join here.
Bugs
Hide the "Insanity" difficulty still shown in leaderboards and on the world select screen because it is not possible to unlock it right now in V1.0.
Corrected a few grammar typos and errors in English and French.
Fix a bug that would play the wrong song or victory jingle after a game over.
Security Guards in the W4 Headquarters are not able to jump on the moving platform at the bottom of the screen and stay stuck.
Fix a bug that would result in the World Unlock animation to play again after quit, restart or game over, and reentering the world select screen.
Fix a bug that wouldn't refresh the total coin after purchasing a power.
Fix a bug with the music being too loud on the world selection screen because it was in the wrong Audio Bus.
Fix a bug that prevented the Pacifist medal to be earned in the W4 Headquarters because it was required to kick to win. So now it's possible.
Fix a bug during the W3 boss fight where you could be stuck in the railing by staying on the 3rd floor
Fix a bug that would destroy doors during the W1/W4 boss fights making it impossible to finish because they wouldn't reopen at the end of the cycle.
Fix a bug that would shuffle the doors during the snowstorm of the W3 boss fight resulting in doors being closed reopening and vice versa.
Fix a visual bug where the Mini Snowplow during the W3 boss fight would be offseted when kicked
Fix a bug in 2-6 where the firebar in the middle was small in HARD difficulty instead of big.
Fix a bug that resulted in the player being able to die in the "How to play" cutscene so they would start with one less life in 1-1.
Fix a bug that would play the wrong song or victory jingle after a game over.
Change the total number of medals to 25 instead of 20 to add the 1985-mode medals to the total
Added the build number in the title screen (bottom right) to help keep track of version
Features
After player feedbacks, doors are now yellow during the W3 and W4 boss fights. It means that they act like in the boss fight of W1 and W2 where you need to close all of them for them to reopen.
In the W3 boss fight, the snowplow has a chance of freezing random doors when the snowstorm hits.
Added a SFX that screams "HURRY UP" when there are less than 20 seconds on the timer.
Re-written descriptions of the power items in French and English and added button-prompt in it.
The holidays are here survivors, along with beta patch v0.4.5!
This is a winter-themed update so be sure to bring your sweaters.
To start off, I would like to thank everyone who has been using our report system. This is a MASSIVE help and we made sure to bust out as many of your bugs as possible. If you have any bugs that you would like to submit, you can do that here: https://zsgo.atlassian.net/rest/collectors/1.0/template/form/8381ca5e
As mentioned, this is a winter-themed update, be sure to __head on over to the mall__!! Here you will find Santa. Talk to him so he can guide you to some good presents!
Highlights (TLDR)
• Added Santa to the Mall • FOV toggle added. • Improved Control Remapping process +Sensitivity Saving. (Should fix any game thread freezing issues people have while rebinding controls, also added proper remap settings for Q+E lean) • Optimized landscape material. • Health no longer regenerates • Reduced food & water depletion rates • Save System Optimization • Winter Season - The world has been covered in snow and now has winter weather states • OTHER CHRISTMAS MIRACLES
----------
Seasonal Content and Events
• Added Santa to the Mall. • Added Santa's Big Ole Sack Quest. • Introduced new seasonal items. Be sure to talk to Santa to find out more!!!!!! • Added North Pole.
Weather and Environmental Changes
• Winter mode! • Code added to maintain minimum snow coverage. • Surface wetness limited to prevent snow disappearance. • Main menu secret changes. • Modified rad storms to not produce dust. • Added snow to specific trees.
Gameplay and Mechanic Enhancements
• Expanded mountain parkour, added more loot, and designated it as a no build zone. (Shoutout to Squishy) • Fixed the map collisions and floating loot spots reported by players. (TY AGAIN) • Refined anomaly trigger system code. • Fixed and adjusted mouse sensitivity resetting bug. • Addressed bug hindering player actions (this should prevent the player from being stuck unable to shoot & reload sometimes) • Began groundwork for player temperature modifier. • Corrected item quantity display issues. • Optimized Aim Offset Networking Performance. • Fixed bug in updating interaction context actions. • Resolved inventory grid error on respawn. • Fixed player FOV loading issue. • Disabled health regeneration; left framework for future configurations. • Reduced hunger and thirst rates. • Fixed shotgun cursor bug; revised weapon logic. • Overhauled delays in weapon logic for bug resolutions. • Improved stability in weapon system switches. • Optimized and Refactored the gun equipping function chain to be less error prone fixing several bugs related to gun and scope initialization. • Modified ADS behavior during weapon swapping. • Increased zombie pursuit speed. • Tainted water changes.
User Interface and Control Updates
• Added FOV slider to game settings. • Corrected naming of Patreon user credits. • Resolved visibility issue with Chainlink mission. • Altered method for limiting aiming on weapon swap to client-side. • Fixed lean mechanics and replication. • Addressed remapping issues for Lean keys. • Improved Control Remapping process.
Technical and Optimization Improvements
• Reduced server lag during saving and autosaving. • Implemented a fix for accurate mission item count. • Applied additional save-related fixes. • Potentially fixed sleeping bag respawn saving. • Optimized landscape material. • Optimized ocean water material.
We noticed a bug where leaning can cause your gun to start shaking. For now, make sure to lean again to get rid of it!
- Fixed the parts/monitor selections so that they don't change their drawing order accidently when changing other parameters at the view's top limit.
- Output render now ceeps more precise track of frames and time rendered. Also rendering buffer queue is now visible for larger resolution rendering that will cause queuing.
Resolved issue where bots were erroneously performing clawing animations after a heart shot. Bots now exhibit proper behavior in response to heart shots.
Fixed a bug causing Lisa to take no fall damage. Players can now expect fall damage to be applied accurately for Lis