Revision as of 03:57, 17 June 2021

Developer Bulletin 153 16.05.2021
News article

Disappearing ships

Update 0.10.5: The Grand Battle

German Destroyers ● Grand Battle ● U.S. Independence Day ● Changes to the Game Mechanics ● Recruitment Points ● Interface Changes ● Daily Shipments ● Armory ● Content Additions and Changes ● Other Changes and Improvements

• A new branch of German destroyers is now live and ready to be researched!
• Prepare to fight in the Grand Battle — a new temporary battle type that sets super battleships on their path to dominating our seas! You'll also get to try out the new "adjustment firing" game mechanic when you head into battle at the helms of these vast floating fortresses.
• The rocket-launching mechanics of all attack aircraft have evolved.
• Damage can no longer be inflicted to allied ships! Rest assured, your ships are now safe (when it comes to friendly fire from your allies, at least)! Reckless teammates can no longer damage or destroy you.
• Recruitment Points are being reworked and will re-emerge as a more versatile resource named "Community Tokens."
• Prepare your bids for a new auction dedicated to the U.S. Independence Day, and get ready for some combat mission groups that offer VII Colorado, clad in her Independence Day permanent camouflage, as the ultimate reward!

German Destroyers

Features of the branch

• Accurate 150 mm main battery guns — a large caliber for destroyers.
• Powerful AP shells with good penetration and damage-dealing characteristics, as well as enhanced ricochet angles. Deploy them in battle to bring the pain to cruisers!
• Their solid HP pools and decent armor protection can shield them from the HE shells of most destroyers (unless an enemy Commander has mastered the Inertia Fuse for HE Shells skill). Combined with their effective artillery, this results in special game play for the new German destroyers. They are essentially agile ships that primarily focus on lone targets — light cruisers especially.
• Due to the low damage-per-minute stats of their HE shells and the destroyers' high detectability, these new ships aren't cut out for fighting for control of Key Areas (caps).
• The Smoke Generator consumable boosts their already good survivability even farther. Starting from Tier IX, German destroyers come equipped with the Defensive AA Fire consumable — a valuable asset that will allow you to counter hostile aircraft with greater confidence.
• Torpedoes with a standard reload time for most destroyers, good damage, and an excellent reach, but also a rather low speed.

Grand battle

Update 0.10.5 brings a new temporary battle type — the Grand Battle. Its main feature comes in the form of super battleships. The destruction of legendary battleship Yamato by aircraft carriers presaged the domination of deck aviation in naval warfare. Super battleships are the ships that might have existed if shipbuilding had moved toward the development of main batteries as the primary decisive factor of battle.

Two super battleships will be available to you in the Grand Battle:

• Satsuma is a project based on X Yamato with reinforced primary armament—510 mm guns in four twin-gun turrets.

• Hannover is a Project "H-42" design with 483 mm guns placed in four twin-gun turrets and her secondary battery replaced with 128 mm dual-purpose artillery.

Key rules

• The battle format is 9 vs. 9 with Tier IX–X ships, including super battleships.

• Restrictions: no more than three super battleships per team.

• You'll receive Satsuma and Hannover as rental ships as soon as Update 0.10.5 goes live.
• To enter a battle at the helm of a super battleship, you'll need a new temporary resource — Intelligence Reports. You can earn them by participating in the Grand Battle playing Tier IX and X ships. You'll also be given some when you first log in to the game each day after Update 0.10.5 hits the servers.
• You'll be granted access to some special combat missions. Their rewards include Dazzling expendable camouflages, a commemorative flag, and the Grand Battle patch.

Adjustment fire

When playing the super battleships, you can try out a new game mechanic — adjustment fire. Each turret salvo that hits the target your guns are locked on to, or lands near it, fills the adjustment fire meter. As soon as the meter is filled, special combat instructions temporarily enhance the super battleships' characteristics. Satsuma's main battery gets an accuracy bonus; Hannover's secondary battery gets bonuses applied to its range, accuracy, and reload time.

The adjustment fire bonuses can be activated an unlimited number of times in a single battle. If your ship ceases firing for a certain amount of time, the progress of the adjustment fire meter gradually resets.

The new mechanic allows you to reinforce your ship right in the heat of battle, but you'll need to plan your actions and positioning in advance to use this feature to maximum effect. We hope it will make the game play more interesting and diverse!

U.S. Independence Day

In celebration of the American Independence Day [July 4 - ed.], the game will feature a set of dedicated combat mission groups and a new auction.

Summer Battles

Update 0.10.5 unlocks access to four themed combat mission groups called "Summer Battles." Completing them will bring you Dazzling and "Stars 'n' Stripes" expendable camouflages, as well as signal flags. Once you're done with the third group, you'll get VII Colorado, a Port slot, and a 6-skill-point Commander. The fourth group will bring you the Independence Day permanent camouflage for Colorado.

Independence Day auction

Auction key rules

• Each auction consists of the following stages:

• An auction lot is announced with details of its starting price and the number of possible bid winners.
• The auction begins and bids can be placed.
• The results of the auction are summed up; bids are no longer accepted.
• The auction winners receive their rewards, while the other Auction participants receive their bids back.

• You can change your bid amount at any time, as long as bidding for that lot is still available.
• The number of lots is limited. The highest bids win.
• Players will only be notified about the starting bid for a lot and the number of possible winners.
• Depending on the lot, you can use various in-game resources for your bid.
• Once the results are calculated, the highest bids win. If there are several bids of the same amount, the earliest-placed bid wins. In this situation, the time when the bid was last changed is taken into account.
• It's a risk-free adventure! Any bids that don't win will be returned to the bidders when the auction closes.

Lots

• U.S. Commander Theodor "Trouble" Murphy with 14 skill points, plus 20 Rising camouflages
• Sharks permanent camouflage for X Worcester
• Eagles permanent camouflage for X Worcester
• 100,000 Coal
• X Somers commemorative flag

Auctions are cross-server — players on all World of Warships regions (CIS, EU, NA, and ASIA) compete with each other for the same lots, so the final number of winners is shared between the four servers.

Changes to the Game Mechanics

Friendly fire is now disabled

In Update 0.10.5, we're disabling the ability to cause damage to allies (friendly fire) in all battle types. This change will have a positive effect on game play—your teammates will no longer be able to damage or destroy your ship. Main changes

• You can no longer damage or destroy allied ships, disable their modules, or cause detonation. Ramming won't cause any damage to allied ships either.
• At the same time, all armament types can still hit allied ships. This means that you still won't be able to launch torpedoes at an enemy through an allied ship.
• Camera effects that indicate incoming damage won't be active for a ship that gets hit by allied shells or torpedoes.
• The warning about incoming allied torpedoes has also been removed, as they can no longer inflict damage.

Friendly fire penalty

While it's now impossible to damage allied ships, friendly fire is still tracked by the unsporting conduct penalty system. Any players who fire at teammates deliberately can expect to be penalized. This kind of behavior interferes with other Captains' experience of the game and doesn't contribute toward the success of the team.

• A warning for unsporting conduct will now be issued for a certain number of hits on allied ships in one battle:

• 40 hits or more on one ally.
• 50 hits or more on several allies.
• Hits on allied ships with any armament type, except for secondary battery hits, are counted.

• If you receive a warning in a battle, any Credits or XP earned in that battle will be forfeit as a penalty. However, provided that you don't break the rules in your next battles, any resources you earn in those battles will be credited to you as usual.
• An issued warning also triggers a friendly fire penalty. Damage will be inflicted to the perpetrator's ship each time they open fire at allies. The exact amount of inflicted damage depends on the perpetrator's current HP and grows with each new hit on an allied ship.

Attack aircraft: evolved mechanics

We've reworked the rocket-launching mechanics for attack aircraft in Update 0.10.5.

• These planes will now fire small-caliber machine guns prior to firing rockets, and the duration of an attack run is now longer.

• The machine guns don't inflict damage to ships—their function is to show the exact spot where the rockets are going to hit.
• Once the machine guns open fire, you won't be able to adjust the flight path of your attack aircraft. However, your attack aircraft also become immune to AA fire at that point.
• Apart from the rocket-launching mechanics, we've also changed the aiming settings, the time it takes to prepare for an attack run, and other attack aircraft characteristics. The attack aircraft of VIII Saipan, VIII Sanzang, VIII Lexington (F4U-1D Corsair Tiny Tim), X Midway (F8F Bearcat Tiny Tim), VIII Graf Zeppelin, and VIII Graf Zeppelin B will now climb high at the start of an attack run.

Information about rocket hit zones, together with the prolonged attack time and fixed aiming reticle position, will allow Captains of agile ships—destroyers, primarily—to reduce the chances of taking rocket damage by making evasive maneuvers.

Machine gun action time

Japan

• Tier IV-VI: 3.8 seconds
  
• Tier VIII: 3.9 seconds
  
• Tier X: 4.0 seconds

U.S.A.

Aircraft Carriers Attack Aircraft Machine Gun Action Time (s)

• IV Langley F3F Gulfhawk 3.3
  
• VI Ranger F2A Buffalo (stock) 3.3
  

F4F Wildcat (researchable) 3.6

• VIII Lexington F6F Hellcat (stock) 3.4
  

F4U-1D Corsair HVAR 127 mm (researchable) 3.4

F4U-1D Corsair Tiny Tim (researchable) 4.9

• VIII Enterprise F6F Hellcat 3.4
  
• X Midway F4U Corsair (stock) 3.5
  

F8F Bearcat HVAR 127 mm (researchable) 3.5

F8F Bearcat Tiny Tim (researchable) 5

• VIII Saipan, VIII Sanzang F8F Bearcat Tiny Tim 5
  
• X Franklin D. Roosevelt TB2D Skypirate 5
  

Great Britain

• Tier IV: 2.8 seconds
  
• Tier VI-VIII: 2.9 seconds
  
• Tier X: 3.0 seconds

Germany

• All except Graf Zep: 1.5 sec
  
• Graf Zep/B: 3.8 seconds.

Soviet

• Real Soon Now™

Recruitment Points

Recruitment Points are getting updated with the release of Update 0.10.5. They will become a more versatile resource that can be earned by participating in various activities and exchanged for various rewards.

• Recruitment Points have been renamed Community Tokens.
• These Tokens can also be earned outside of the Recruiting Station program. Watch official World of Warships streams and participate in Public Tests, as well as regional and global activities, to earn more Community Tokens, then spend them on some awesome rewards!
• The following rewards will be added to the special category of the Armory: III Katori, Premium Ship V and Premium Ship VII containers, permanent and expendable camouflages, commemorative flags, and much more!

Community Tokens

For more on Community Tokens, read this article.

Interface Changes

The display of upgrades in the Equipment tab has been updated.

• A full list of available upgrades, including special and legendary ones, is now shown in each slot.
• While browsing the Equipment tab of the Port, you can now click through to purchase special or unique upgrades from the Armory.

• A button that will take you back to the Equipment tab has been added to the purchase status pop-up window.

• Upgrade sorting has been updated: regular upgrades are displayed first, then special and legendary upgrades.

Changed the animation and display of how ribbons and achievements are received in battle. Changed the size of icons of earned achievements. They are now displayed separately from ribbons in the top-right corner.

Daily Shipments

New daily rewards will become available to you from July 1.

This section is available in the player menu of the Port and includes 24 rewards that are refreshed on a monthly basis. If you succeed in collecting all 24 rewards before the end of the month, you can receive an additional reward of 750 Free XP for each subsequent day that you enter the game until the end of the month. If you don't click the "Collect Reward" button, the reward is collected automatically at the start of a new 24-hour period.

Armory

The following new ships will become available with the release of the update:

X Druid

Druid is a destroyer armed with four dual-purpose 127 mm guns placed in two turrets on the ship's bow. They fire only AP shells with improved ricochet angles and a reduced arming threshold, so you can expect fewer overpenetrations and ricochets. While she lacks torpedoes, Druid has a wide choice of consumables at her disposal: Hydroacoustic Search, Short-Burst Smoke Generator, and Repair Party. The ship will be available in the Research Bureau for 56,000 Research Points.

VIII Tone

Tone [two syllables - ed.] is a heavy cruiser armed with eight accurate 203 mm guns that are housed in four turrets situated on the ship's bow. She participated in key battles of World War II — the Battle of Midway and the Battle of Leyte Gulf. This fast ship has decent armor and good concealment. Tone also carries a squadron of four torpedo bombers with low detectability. Each bomber is armed with two torpedoes. The ship will be available for 11,300 Doubloons.

Unique historical Commander Jerzy Świrski is now available for 175,000 Coal.

VI Gallant is now available in exchange for 48,000 Coal.

We've added the Red Fox permanent camouflage for X Plymouth — it's available for 10 Ranked Tokens.

Content Additions and Changes

Added the Independence Day permanent camouflage for VIII Constellation and Maple Leaf permanent camouflage for VII Yukon.

Added 12 football-themed patches.

Added Clan test and closed test emblems.

Ships X Ragnar and VI Repulse were added for testing by developers, volunteers, and community contributors.

The following changes were made to the Tech Tree tab.

• The following ships were removed from the Tech Trees of their nations: VII Duca degli Abruzzi and VIII Mainz.
• The following ships were added to the Tech Trees of their nations: VIII Pyotr Bagration, VIII Tirpitz and VII München.

VIII Mainz and VII Duca degli Abruzzi are still available for purchase in the Armory.

A new nation — the Netherlands (NL) — has been added. Following the addition of the new nation, IX Friesland, which was historically a ship that belonged to the Royal Netherlands Navy (RNN), will still be a ship of the European nation. However, she'll be removed from the Tech Tree and won't be available to research when Update 0.10.6 is released. In Update 0.10.7 she'll be replaced with Groningen, which is identical to Friesland. She'll be available for 1,000,000 Free XP.

Other Changes and Improvements

Changes to the "Naval Battle" competition

Added the possibility to earn an additional attempt during the Engagement stage, depending on when the stage began and the number of attempts used.

• 24 hours after the start of the Naval Battle: one additional attempt for each five used.
• 48 hours after the start of the Naval Battle: one additional attempt for each four used.

Information on how to earn additional attempts will be shown in the tooltip next to the current number of attempts.

Changes to the Ranked Battles maps

With the release of Update 0.10.5, the maps and modes for the Bronze League of the current season of Ranked Battles will be changed.

New maps

Battles on the Archipelago map will be fought in the Epicenter mode. Battles on other maps will be fought in the Domination mode. The compositions and settings for other maps won't change.

Game balance changes

We've made some changes to the parameters of certain ships based on our analysis of their battle efficiency and player feedback. These changes were required in order to carefully adjust the balance of selected warships. Further changes may follow in future updates, should they be required.

Japanese Tier VII battleship Hyūga

• Main battery reload time increased from 28 to 29 s.

U.S. Tier VII cruiser Flint

• Main battery base firing range increased from 11.9 to 12.4 km.

Italian Tier X battleship Cristoforo Colombo

• Main battery reload time reduced from 38 to 37 s.
• Main battery gun 180-degree traverse time reduced from 40 to 38.2 s.

Update installation process changes

Starting with Update 0.10.5, certain technical changes are being made to the way in which updates are delivered to players.

End of Support for FAT-32

World of Warships client updates will be downloaded to your PC as a single archive. Previously, the updates included several archives, and the size of each archive didn't exceed 4 GB. This was required to successfully install the update on drives with outdated file systems that do not support files larger than 4 GB, such as FAT32. These file systems are now only rarely used among our players, and supporting such systems creates additional technical difficulties. Because of this change, players who are using drives with the FAT32 file system won't be able to install further game client updates, starting with Update 0.10.5.

To solve this issue, we recommend that you switch to the NTFS or exFAT file systems.

Pre-installation of the update

Starting with Update 0.10.5, you can not only download the new game version to your PC beforehand, you can also install it at any convenient time before the release. To install it, click the "Update" button that's located to the right of the "Play" button in the Wargaming Game Center once the update files are downloaded.

To use the pre-install feature, activate the preloading of updates in the "Updates" section of the Wargaming Game Center.

Other changes

• Added the roar sounds of Godzilla and Kong to "National voiceover +" and to quick commands received from allies. Increased the roar volume of Godzilla and Kong.
• Added ambient sounds for islands and cities.
• Increased the catapult rotation speed that occurs on all ships when the Catapult Fighter takes off or when Spotting Aircraft is activated.
• The Junior Shipbuilder, Senior Shipbuilder, Shipbuilding Inspector, and Chief Shipbuilding Inspector achievements are now displayed in the "Achievements" section when the player earns Research Points for the first time.
• The achievements for Ranked and Clan Battles are now shown in the "Achievements" section, regardless of whether they've been earned or not.
• Fixed the armor of VII Mahan's fore-end athwartship, as well as the superstructure near her conning tower.
• Fixed an error that caused ships that were far away from islands to run aground or collide with underwater obstacles on certain maps.
• Fixed an error that prevented loaded main battery guns from firing in some cases.
• Fixed an error that caused the gun accuracy of VIII Vittorio Veneto's stock and researchable hulls to be different.
• Fixed an error that caused the main battery reload time to be displayed incorrectly when the Gun Feeder or Adrenaline Rush skills had been mastered.
• New underwater world elements have been added for some maps.
• The mouse cursor no longer appears during video playback when the game is loading.
• Achievements are no longer sorted in reverse order when the default sorting order is selected again.
• When the option to disable content on custom ships is selected, information about the change of the appearance of themed Commanders will be shown in the tooltip.
• Fixed the description of Access Level 14.
• Removed the "-" sign from the countdown timer in the Division invite window.
• Changed the color of the "Europe" nation in the "Profile" tab summary.
• Improved the geometry and textures of the following ships: Hyūga, Elbing, Lepanto, Wickes, Clemson, Irian, Erie, Novik, Friant, Duguay Trouin, Vanguard, Jaguar, Iron Duke, Le Fantasque, Vanguard, Cristoforo Colombo, Aigle, Weymouth, Black Swan, Izumo, Bajie, Alsace, Wujing, Gearing, Cheng An, Enseigne Gabolde, Sampson, Smith, Fujin, Myoko, Paolo Emilio, New York, König Albert, Ignis Purgatio, and Ragnarok.
• Fixed an error that caused the display to flicker when changing Ports or going to the post-battle statistics screen.
• Fixed an error that prevented navigation to the "Equipment" tab from the Commander window when the ship icon was double-clicked.
• Fixed an error that caused achievements with no progress to be shown before achievements with progress.
• Fixed an error that caused the "Ready" button in the Training Room to be displayed incorrectly when the game client was relaunched.
• Fixed an error that caused the tooltip that appears when attempting to thank a player in the Training Room to be displayed incorrectly.
• Fixed an error that caused the game client to terminate when clicking the "Accept the invitation to join the Division" multiple times.
• Fixed an error that caused the game client to crash when switching between shell types on a ship with mounted researchable modules.
• Fixed an error that caused the effects of the Hydroacoustic Search and Surveillance Radar consumables to be displayed incorrectly after a ship was destroyed.
• Fixed an error that caused the alternative UI mode to be enabled when exiting the game by pressing <Alt+F4> during a battle and then entering the game again.
• Fixed the display of an incorrect number of guns on Jutland in battle if the researchable hull was installed.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Spotting Aircraft icon not to follow the ship when launched.
• Fixed an error that caused ship technical specifications to be rounded off incorrectly.
• Fixed an error that sometimes made it impossible to leave a Ranked Battle.
• Fixed an incorrect tooltip for the Brawl battle type.
• Fixed an error that caused the common Clan restrictions not to be displayed above the ship carousel.
• Fixed an error that sometimes incorrectly caused shells to deal damage when they ricocheted.
• Fixed an error that caused the torpedo bombers of Ise to make a twitching movement during take-off.
• Fixed the incorrect display of tooltips on the post-battle screen when playing Max Immelmann.
• Fixed an error that caused the icons of certain camouflages not to match the camouflages in terms of their color.
• Fixed an error that prevented the contact group from collapsing when searching for a player in the chat.
• Fixed an error that prevented the free camera from stopping when Esc was pressed.
• Fixed an error that sometimes caused the Key Area capture time to change incorrectly when there was an enemy blocking it.
• Fixed an error that caused the Key Area capture time to be incorrect while the cyclone was active in Clan Battles Season 13.

For a complete list, please refer to Player Support.

[transmission ends]