Update 0.5.10

Revision as of 09:25, 27 September 2016

German Battleships

There's a new line of German battleships stretching from Tier III to Tier X, including Nassau, Kaiser, König, Bayern, Gneisenau, Bismarck, Friedrich der Große, and Großer Kurfürst. Perfect for players that love close-quarters combat. Here's what makes them distinctive:

• Inclined armored decks that make it harder to hit their citadels at close range.
• Efficient secondary armaments.
• Main guns feature a high rate of fire and quick turret traverse.
• Plenty of hit points.
• Well-protected hull sides thanks to generous armor.

Audio Improvement

• Improved sounds for bomb explosions and fires.
• Reworked sounds for the Surveillance Radar and Hydroacoustic Search consumables.
• Improved ambient sounds for the "Ocean" Port.
• Improved logic for playing enemy detection messages while in the Binocular View.
• Enhanced and reworked distant sounds.

Maps and Locations

• Improved the appearance of the "Zipangu" Port.
• Removed waterfalls on the "Estuary" map.
• Rebalanced geometry of the upper area of the "Neighbors" map.
• Moved the decorative air field on "The Atlantic" map.
• Improved the appearance of "Fault Line" and "Two Brothers" maps.

Improvements for Novice Players

As part of an ongoing effort to improve the experience for new players, we made the following changes for all tier I ships:

• Only one shell type: practice shell. Its properties are the same as HE shells.
• Removed researchable main battery modules and added researchable Gun Fire Control System modules.
• Decreased scaling amount of HP and shell damage by 50% for ships.

Divisions

In an effort to improve team balance, players in a Division will only be able to enter battle in ships within one divison of each other. For example, a division of two players in a Tier V Kirov and Tier VI Fuso would be able to enter battle, but if the Fuso player chose a Tier VII Nagato instead, the Division is blocked from entering battle.

Permanent Camouflage

Added permanent camouflage options for Bismarck, North Carolina, Benson, and Chapayev:

• Cost: 3,000 Doubloons
• -3% to detection range; +4% to maximum dispersion of shells at ship with camouflage
• -5% to the cost of the ship's post-battle repair; +50% to XP earned in the battle

Secondary Battery Mechanics

Secondary guns will no longer cause damage to allied ships.

Colorblind Mode

This adapts the color palette for colorblind players. To enable, select the option via the Settings screen. There are three options for corresponding syndromes:

• Deuteranopia (green blindness)
• Protanopia (red blindness)
• Tritanopia (blue blindness)

The intensity of effects can be customized.

Shell Normalization

Shell normalization is the number of degrees by which an armor piercing shell "turns" upon contact with armor in an attempt to reach the most advantageous angle for penetration (often 90 degrees). Before, this parameter was set up individually for each shell type depending on ballistic and other properties. However, this approach turned out to be not entirely correct within the gameplay process and added more vague aspects to the way the damage model works. Starting with this update, the normalization will be set up uniformly for all armor piercing shell types and will depend only on the shell caliber:

• Up to and including 139mm — 10 degrees.
• 140 to 152mm — 8.5 degrees.
• 153 to 240mm — 7 degrees.
• 241mm and more — 6 degrees.

The change is in a systematic manner and will slightly increase the predictability of armor penetration for players. It is not aimed at changing the efficiency of individual ships and will not have any significant impact on gameplay.

Cyclone

We made the following adjustments to cyclone parameters to increase predictability of its conditions:

• In Update 0.5.9, cyclones randomly began 4-10 minutes into a battle and lasted 4-10 minutes. As of Update 0.5.10, cyclones will begin seven minutes after a battle starts and last 5-7 minutes.

The overall chance of a cyclone when playing in a battle of the appropriate tier remains unchanged (10%).

Interface Improvements

• Added detailed information about ships player destroyed in battle, including ship type and method of destruction.
• Added the "Introductory Mission" and "Service Record" banner in Port for novice players.
• Improved the display of later-tier ships in the tech tree of the "Modules" screen.
• Increased the font size of the ships types in the "Tech Tree" tab.
• Increased the size and revised the design of icons appearing above the target when modules are damaged, making it easier to distinguish between *Incapacitated from destroyed modules.
• Increased visibility of "Update" button (for replacing Daily Mission with a new random Daily Mission).
• Added a placeholder for the in-game browser that will be displayed if YouTube cannot be accessed.

Improved Actions, Events and Challenges UI elements

Added additional information to post-battle screen, including:

• Damage and number of fires caused to enemies spotted by the player.
• Potential maximum damage from shells, bombs and torpedoes that hit the player's ship (with or without causing damage to her).
• Potential damage from shells, bombs and torpedoes that were fired/launched by the enemy at the player's ship but did not hit her.
• Number of enemy ships, squadrons and torpedoes spotted by the player.
• Capture points and defense points earned.

Added additional information the player's Profile screen, including:

• Statistics for individual ships.
• Total damage allies caused to enemies spotted by the player.
• Highest damage allies caused to enemies spotted by the player in a single battle.
• Average damage allies caused to enemies spotted by the player.
• Total number of enemy ships spotted by the player.
• Highest number of ships spotted by the player in a single battle.
• Average number of ships spotted per battle.
• Participation in capturing and defending key areas calculated as a percentage ratio (ratio of the points earned by the player to the points earned by the rest of their team).
• Total potential damage.
• Highest potential damage received per battle.
• Average potential damage received per battle.

Interface Optimization

We optimized the following actions that players can carry out via the game interface:

• Display of statistical data by pressing the "Tab" key during battle.
• Expanding ship performance characteristics panel in the Port.
• Display of the post-battle statistics screen after the end of a battle.

Other Changes and Improvements

• Fixed catapult display for Chapayev.
• Fixed some effects for the Arpeggio ships.
• Fixed the navigation light and radar models for North Carolina.
• Fixed shadow caused by radar stanchion for Texas.
• Fixed visualization errors and missing objects for Dmitri Donskoi.
• Fixed dynamic rendering of shadows for Wakatake.
• Fixed visual artifacts for Colorado.
• Improved main turret models for the Königsberg.
• Fixed radar finder for Furutaka.
• Fixed decorative objects and rigging for Marblehead.
• Fixed decorative objects at low graphics settings for New Orleans, Ibuki, Königsberg, Shokaku, Tashkent, Shchors, and Moskva.
• Fixed antennas for Svietlana.
• Fixed ropes and ladder objects for Bogatyr.
• Fixed radar model for Kirov.
• Added animation of Redut-K radar antenna for Molotov.
• Fixed shadow cast by range finder for Admiral Hipper.
• Fixed life bar positioning for Nagato.
• Introduced multicluster system in order to increase game stability and decrease server maintenance downtime.
• Compressed files for "Two Brothers" and "Fault Line" maps, plus flags and camouflage to optimize the size of the game client.
• Increased draught by 0.7m for Warspite (she now sits lower in the water).
• Added new director model for Tashkent.
• Fixed bug with the "Penetration ribbon being displayed when a shell hit torpedo protection but did not penetrate".
• Fixed incorrect description for Saipan.
• Fixed bug where the game client sometimes abnormally terminated when tracking an ally in the Spectator Mode.
• Fixed error where long user names were incorrectly displayed in pop-up hints in the post-battle statistics screen.
• Added a new start screen.
• Fixed lighting issue for islands.
• Fixed incorrect display of coat of arms under certain graphics settings for Błyskawica.
• Fixed bug where the Add to Contacts icon was displayed next to a player's own user name.