Imagine living with a giant hammer pounding inside your house, an underground train rumbling nonstop beneath your floor and a car alarm screaming right next to you - day and night. You couldn’t sleep, have a conversation, concentrate on anything or even relax for a moment. You’d be exhausted, disorientated and desperate to escape – just like whales, dolphins and porpoises when their home is filled with industrial noise.

Secret Mode are proud to announce that we’re partnering with Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) in support of their Quiet Seas Please campaign which launches on 5th November. 

“We can’t thank Secret Mode enough for their ongoing support and this new partnership with Oil Strike '75. Through this fun platformer, we are not only raising vital funds for whales and dolphins, it also highlights the very real dangers and threats to ocean life that oil prospecting causes.” says Sally Ward, Head of Digital Partnerships at WDC. 

“We need to develop cleaner, renewable energy sources to reduce our fossil fuel use and tackle the climate crisis. But offshore developments are noisy, and that's not good for whales and dolphins. So WDC is working to convince the UK government to set underwater noise limits that protect whales and dolphins while supporting the transition to cleaner energy. We are so grateful for Secret Mode’s support for our mission to turn down ocean noise.”

Alongside the free version, Oil Strike ‘75 will now have three optional pricing tiers, $4.99, $29.99, and $49.99 with 95% of all proceeds going to WDC’s global work to protect whales and dolphins from the many threats they face, including this campaign. Each tier will give you access to Oil Strike ‘75, so it’s completely up to you how much you’d like to pay. 

“We have been supporters of WDC since our inception, from joining their fundraising stream campaigns to donating a fixed amount from every sale of our game Loddlenaut,” says James Schall, Chief Publishing Officer at Secret Mode. “We’re thrilled to be able to support them again through a partnership with Oil Strike ‘75, and we encourage all of our players to learn more about WDC’s incredible work and support them however they can.” 

WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation is a UK registered charity (no. 1014705).

Hey everyone, today we’d like to go into detail regarding the new Damage Control mechanic for naval vehicles and clarify any misconceptions about the change and repairing in general.

In the Spearhead major update, we’ll be introducing a new Damage Control (DC) mechanic for every naval vessel in the game. In this updated form of damage control, you’ll be able to pre-select three different action presets that replace the basic manual repairs: firefighting, module repair, and water pumping. After receiving damage, all three DC processes begin automatically, and you can adjust the priority of which area you want to focus on. The manual quick repair is no longer needed, as the repairs will always be carried out automatically by the crew as long as it’s possible to do so.

Every ship will have an individual DC coefficient, which will be affected by the size of the vessel, crew count, and generation of the ship. The newer the ship, the more advanced and effective its damage control process will be. A high crew count will improve this further, and relative to the amount of crew it will also be more effective in general on smaller vessels, as the damaged areas can be reached by crew faster. The coefficient reduces the time penalty for the second and third DC processes in the setup you’ve selected, but not significantly. So in short, your ship will be repaired automatically, as long as there are crew resources for it!

Previously, some players deliberately did not repair knocked-out modules and compartments with the intention of “saving” part of the crew that remained in those areas. For example if the engine was destroyed, fewer crew would be there, and so less damage would be taken. This is no longer possible with the new system. The ability to do this was a consequence of the old system, but not an intended one. This “tactic” was not intentional as the advantage it gave was antithetical to gameplay and the intentions of the mechanic. We did not consider this a critical “exploit” for lack of better words, as this crew saving was not particularly impactful. For example, the combat crew of a gun turret or an ammunition elevator on a battleship is 10-20 people out of a total crew of, say, 1000 in total.

Fundamentally, the key issue with deliberately not repairing certain areas of the ship was that it was unfair to the player shooting at it. The most important modules are typically protected by the strongest armor, and to defeat this you need to pick the right shell, set the right range, and lead the shot accordingly. If a player does everything “right”, besting the defenses of an enemy ship, they should be rewarded for successfully carrying out that action. The unintended ability to lessen the reward for the player landing their shots harms gameplay overall.

We understand that DC may be seen as taking away agency, but this decision is in favour of fairer gameplay across the board, and rewarding the active player in the engagement. You penetrated an enemy ship in a critical spot? Excellent, you’ll be rewarded for that. You got hit by an enemy in a critical spot? Then they deserve the reward for that. This old system let a player reduce the reward gained by another player arbitrarily, and at the same time, engaging with a critically damaged ship does not exactly make for engaging gameplay, as it reduces the ability to move and fire.

This new system will keep ships in fighting form more effectively, and make battles more dynamic and, importantly, fair. This will also mean everyone can put more concentration into combat and action. Thank you for reading, we hope this has clarified everything for you! Please leave your feedback and suggestions on the forum and War Thunder’s social media pages. Thank you for being with us, seven feet under the keel and good luck on the waves!

• Original Entries Only – Write your own pirate insult! No copying from movies, games, or other forms of media.

• Keep It Clean – Be clever, not crude. No real profanity, slurs, or inappropriate content.

• Stay in Character – Keep your insults pirate-themed and funny!

• One Entry per Sailor – Only your first post counts, so make it yer best.

• No Editing After Posting – Once you’ve entered, leave it as-is.

• Deadline: All entries must be posted by November 13th.

• Judging: Entries will be judged by the Parasight team based on creativity, humor, and pirate flair.

Hi everyone!

THE GRABBING HANDS DLC IS NOW LIVE! 🎉

One of your most requested features has finally arrived – customizable hands! This DLC lets you personalize your in-game hands with a variety of styles, all bundled together in one convenient package:

• Female hands

• Monster hands

• A variety of gloves

• Cartoon hands

• And more!

I've also revamped the UI to make selecting and switching between your new hand options smooth and intuitive.

This marks my return after a brief hiatus, and I'm excited to say there's a LOT more coming your way. Some seriously exciting updates are in the pipeline, so stay tuned!

Thank you for your continued support! ❤️

This hotfix brings several important bug fixes and performance improvements.

• Performed a detailed bug cleanup, fixing multiple small issues.

• Fixed an issue where interactions didn’t work properly after the bank burned down and items were being moved.

• Fixed a bug where spray on the outer bank wall could not be erased.

• Fixed the infinite ink bug.

• Improved overall project optimization for better performance.

• Polished and improved some localization text issues.

Your feedback is very valuable to us. Please share any issues you encounter.

Thank you for your support and happy gaming! 🎮✨

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3846650/Parking_Garage_Simulator/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3721530/Motorcycle_For_Sale_Simulator/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3499220/Gamer_Stop_Simulator/

Recently, we introduced updates that increase the XP earned in official matches and reduce the XP needed for the first 20 attachment ranks.

As we continue to build on the improvements we mentioned previously, we are also delivering a major overhaul of Challenges and Assignments, guided by gameplay data and your feedback. Some of the adjustments in this update are substantial, and we wanted to share more context on how we arrived at them.

This update makes significant reductions to challenge requirements, cutting down on time investment while maintaining a focus on skill-driven progression that rewards consistent play. Challenges and Assignments are tuned around defined playtime targets, and these changes bring their requirements in line with those goals to make them more achievable within a reasonable session length.

Assignments will continue to range from goals you can complete through regular play to a few that reward true mastery, particularly those tied to cosmetic items. Some of the original criteria did not fully reflect that intent, and we have updated them to make their difficulty and purpose clearer.

The first set of changes went live today through a server-side update and are available immediately. Any progress you’ve already made will automatically be applied when you enter a match, unlocking any challenges or assignments you now meet based on the updated criteria.

As previously indicated, the scale of our plans for Challenges and Assignments are large and will take place over multiple server-side and client-side updates, expect additional updates in the future.

We wanted to get the first set of changes into your hands as soon as possible while we prepare further game updates. We’ll follow-up with more details on the rollout in the future.

In this first set of changes we made a total of 90+ adjustments to Challenges and Assignments. Below we’ve highlighted a few examples.

Class Challenges

Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon challenges now complete much faster.

• Assault 2: Have Squadmates deploy on your Spawn Beacon.

  • Reduced from 50 deploys to 5.

• Support 2: Revive teammates as Support.

  • Reduced from 200 revives to 60.

Weapon Assignments

All weapon-type assignments (ARs, SMGs, LMGs, Shotguns, DMRs, Snipers, Carbines) have been significantly simplified.

• Rapid Fire 1/Assault Rifle: Inflict damage with Assault Rifles.

  • Reduced from requiring 10000 inflicted damage to 3000.

Mode & Unit Assignments

The majority of our mode-specific assignments (Conquest, Rush, Breakthrough, Domination, and others) have been standardized to require two wins per tier. This change makes it easier to pursue these challenges with clear intent.

• Conquest 2: Wins in Conquest.

  • Reduced from 5 wins to 2.

• Conquest 3: Objective kills in a round of Conquest.

  • Reduced from 30 objective kills in a round to 10.

Gameplay & Mastery

General “Expert” and “Master” assignments that require multi-kills, headshots, kill streaks, or revives have been adjusted to better match the natural rhythm of gameplay. For example, multi-kill and streak goals now align with average round performance rather than rare, outlier achievements.

• Explosives Expert 2: Get Multi Kills (2+ Kills Onwards) with explosives.

  • Reduced from 20 Multi Kills to 5.

• Adaptable 2: Repair damaged Vehicles in a life.

  • Reduced from requiring 3000 damage to 500.

REROLL CHALLENGES SYSTEM

We have also made adjustments to the reroll challenges system.

When rerolling a challenge, it will prevent Battlefield 6 players from receiving a challenge that can only be completed in REDSEC. REDSEC players will continue to receive additional challenges that can be completed in REDSEC when rerolling. Which challenge you gain after rerolling will still be random.

Our intent is to have clear and achievable goals where reward meets challenge. These challenges and assignments are meant to be achievable without significant time commitment, while some will require a bit of mastery and reward you for that.

These changes are rooted in your feedback, so we hope that you’ll continue to share your constructive thoughts and concerns. You can report bugs on our EA Forums and join the community on the Battlefield Discord server.

See you on the Battlefield.

//The Battlefield Team

This announcement may change as we listen to community feedback and continue developing and evolving our Live Service & Content. We will always strive to keep our community as informed as possible.

As always, thank you for those who have been keeping up with the game development. I truly appreciate the support as I try to wrap up Chapter 1.

I made A LOT of progress this week. I added a few side quests, two new activities, and a new character. I also added a means of character progression for multiple existing npcs as well as created a new unlockable phone app that will be used to track and convert affinity points. Here's a breakdown of all these changes along with a few screenshots.

• Three New side quests - A Drink to remember, Special Delivery, Beyond the Pale Ale

• Two new Activities - Dream, Play with Dolls

• New Character - Dolly (Neutral Affinity) - A purchasable companion doll

• New App - Affinity App - Used to track and convert affinities as part of the affinity system

Screenshots: