Update 0.9.0

Developer Bulletin Public Test Round 2
News article

British Cruisers: Early Access

British heavy cruisers V Hawkins, VI Devonshire, VII Surrey, and VIII Albemarle are arriving in Early Access. To obtain them, exchange the new event resource — British Tokens — in the Armory for random bundles which can drop the new ships.

With the release of Update 0.9.1, Tier V–X British heavy cruisers will become available for all players to research in the Tech Tree. What are the distinctive features of British heavy cruisers?

• Their guns can cause significant damage per salvo, but have a relatively short firing range and arching shell trajectory.
• Unlike British light cruisers, the nation’s heavy cruisers can use high-explosive shells.
• Tube-by-tube torpedo launching capabilities.
• Durable armor in the central part of their decks for Tier VI ships and higher give representatives of the new branch greater survivability in comparison to other cruisers.
• Efficient Repair Party consumable: restores 50% of citadel damage, as opposed to the standard 10% for this ship type. Starting from Tier VIII, Repair Party restores 2% of the ship’s maximum HP per second instead of the standard 0.5%.
• All researchable British heavy cruisers can choose between Hydroacoustic Search and Defensive AA Fire.

Cruisers IX Drake and X Goliath have even more powerful artillery: main guns with a caliber of 234 mm and high-explosive shells that can penetrate armor up to 58 mm thick. Additionally, their Repair Party consumables are capable of restoring 60% of non-citadel damage.

Directives

The new game event tasks you with completing 36 missions spread across four Directives. The first Directive will become available with the release of Update 0.9.0, while those that follow will be unlocked each week. Completing missions will bring you signals, expendable camouflages, and credits; completing Directives will reward you with British Tokens.

British Tokens

British Tokens can be obtained from Daily Shipments or earned by completing Directives and Daily Missions. In a new Armory section, you can exchange the Tokens for random bundles which can drop British heavy cruisers V Hawkins, VI Devonshire, VII Surrey, or VIII Albemarle. Each ship comes with the Victorian White permanent camouflage.

Random Bundles

• The contents of the currently available bundle will be visible to you.
• After each exchange, the contents of the next random bundle will be visible to you.
• Bundles that don't contain ships may appear more than once.

Apart from the ships, random bundles can drop days of Warships Premium Account, Coal, camouflages, and special signals.

Bundles that include significant hauls of desirable items are also available in exchange for doubloons in the Armory.

British Tokens can be obtained only in Update 0.9.0. With the release of Update 0.9.2, all British Tokens will be converted into credits at a rate of 1:4,500.

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Clan Battles: Sea of Fortune

Start: Wed. Jan. 22 3:30 AM PT / your local time: Wed. Jan. 22 5:30 AM
End: Sun. Mar. 08 8:30 PM PT / your local time: Sun. Mar. 08 11:30 PM

Format: Tier X ships in a 7 vs. 7 format.

Restrictions: a maximum of one battleship per team and no aircraft carriers allowed.

Rewards: up to 11,000 Steel and many additional rewards.

Maps: Hotspot, Sea of Fortune, Tears of the Desert, Crash Zone Alpha, Mountain Range, Land of Fire, and North.

Season Features: a cyclone is guaranteed to appear on each of the following maps: Mountain Range, Land of Fire, and North. Spotting range during a cyclone is 12 km instead of the usual 8 km for a Random Battle. The point in time at which a cyclone appears, as well as its duration, are strictly predetermined and don't change.

We provide you with more details about the Season here.

Unique Upgrades

As the opening move towards the changes that have been promised for unique upgrades, we've updated the way in which they are obtained. With the release of Update 0.9.2, unique upgrades will appear in the Research Bureau tab of the Armory. The challenges and combat missions for unique upgrades will also change.

• The combat missions that reward players with unique upgrades for Tier X ships can still be received until the release of Update 0.9.1, by playing one battle with the specified Tier X ship.
• Any of these combat missions already obtained prior to this point will expire on December 31, 2020.

We’re going to update the existing upgrades and add some new ones in future.

Event Content

Collaboration with Arpeggio of Blue Steel

Ships dedicated to the collaboration with Arpeggio of Blue Steel (V ARP Kongō, V ARP Kirishima, V ARP Haruna, V ARP Hiei, VII ARP Myōkō, VII ARP Nachi, VII ARP Ashigara, VII ARP Haguro, and VIII ARP Takao), as well, as the VII Southern Dragon and VII Eastern Dragon custom ships, are becoming Premium ships. They will now earn more credits and their permanent camouflages will provide economic bonuses.

A new camouflage for VIII ARP Takao has also been added.

Lunar New Year

On the occasion of Lunar New Year, we've added some flags, patches, permanent camouflages, and Commanders. Read a dedicated article to learn how to obtain them, as well as new ships VIII Wukong, IX Bajie, and VIII Siliwangi.

Other Changes

Game Balance Changes

German Tier X cruiser Hindenburg

• The reload time of her main guns has been reduced from 10.5 to 9.8 seconds.

Boosting her reload speed will improve the cruiser's combat performance.

American Tier X battleship Montana

• The amount of HP restored by her Repair Party consumable has been increased from 0.5% to 0.66% of the maximum HP pool per second.

The parameters of X Montana’s Repair Party are now equivalent to those of the same consumable on other researchable U.S. battleships.

Soviet Tier X battleship Kremlin

• The HP pool of her AA mounts has been reduced by half.

In addition to her good armor and large HP pool, X Kremlin has highly efficient AA guns that were previously too hard to destroy. This meant that the battleship was able to enjoy solid protection against aircraft for the duration of an entire battle. The change will make it easier for aircraft carriers to attack the battleship in the middle stages of a battle, at the point when some of her AA mounts have been destroyed.

European Tier VII destroyer Błyskawica

The horizontal aiming angles of her main guns have been extended on both sides:

• First turret: by 10 degrees
• Second turret: by 1 degree
• Fourth turret: by 15 degrees

The traverse angles of her torpedo tubes have been extended by:

• 8 degrees to the bow
• 2 degrees to the stern

The new angles will make shooting and torpedo launching more comfortable.

French Tier III destroyer Fusilier

• The HP pool of her standard hull has been reduced from 9,300 to 7,900.
• The HP pool of her researchable hull has been reduced from 10,900 to 9,300.

These changes will reduce the overall battle efficiency of the ship and balance it with that of other Tier III destroyers.

French Tier IX destroyer Mogador

The ship's detectability range has been increased:

• By sea: from 9.04 to 9.54 km
• By air: from 4.35 to 4.59 km
• After firing her main guns while in smoke: from 3.7 to 3.96 km
• The detectability range of her torpedoes has been increased from 1.4 to 1.8 km

French Tier X destroyer Kléber

The ship's detectability range has been increased:

• By sea: from 8.88 to 9.88 km
• By air: from 4.83 to 5.38 km
• After firing her main guns while in smoke: from 3.63 to 4.15 km
• The detectability range of her torpedoes has been increased from 1.4 to 1.8 km

Their detectability parameters and high speeds previously enabled IX Mogador and X Kléber to perform surprise attacks without giving the enemy enough time to respond. This ability, combined with the main strength of French destroyers — their efficient main guns — made these ships too powerful in comparison with other destroyers.

French Tier X cruiser Henri IV

• The time it takes for her engine to reach full power has been increased.
• The acceleration parameters with the Engine Boost consumable activated have been changed.

Due to her Engine Boost consumable and high standard speed, X Henri IV was able to avoid enemy fire by reducing or increasing her speed. Now the ship will accelerate and stop more smoothly. With Engine Boost activated, her acceleration will be approximately the same as her standard acceleration without the effects of the consumable prior to the change.

Visual and Technical Enhancements

The following maps have been reworked to accommodate the new lighting model and enhanced HDR technology: Warrior’s Path, Okinawa, Sea of Fortune, The Atlantic, and Trap.

We've also improved the water reflections and rendering of shadows cast by static objects.

We've updated the Additional Content settings. Now you can enjoy the bonuses provided by camouflages even when their display is disabled. In this case, the standard permanent camouflage or, in case a ship doesn’t have one, the Type 5 camouflage will be displayed. Under the Exterior tab, such camouflages are marked with a special icon.

We've improved the performance of the Port. Campaigns, combat missions, and other windows with multiple elements will now open faster.

The armor layout in the Port and the way that armor is displayed on a ship have been updated. More colors are now used to display elements of different thicknesses, and the Plating armor group has been divided into two sections: Ship's Ends and Torpedo Protection. Only the thicknesses and armor groups that the selected ship actually has will be displayed.

Content Additions and Changes

We’ve added a new expendable camouflage — Volunteer — to reward World of Warships volunteers.

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The following permanent camouflages, available in exchange for doubloons, have been added to the Camouflage tab in the Exterior section: Royal Navy for VIII Lightning and VI Gallant; National for VI Warspite, VI Admiral Graf Spee, VI Shinonome; and The Republic for VIII Richelieu and VIII Gascogne.

Pan-Europe ships I Gryf, II Tátra, III Romulus, IV Klas Horn, V Visby, VI Västerås, VII Skåne, VIII Öland, IX Östergötland, X Halland, X Småland have been added for testing by developers, volunteers, and community contributors.

Please remember that with the release of Update 0.9.0, all unused Mediterranean Tokens will be converted into credits at a rate of 1:22,500.

Other Changes and Improvements

• Fixed a bug which caused the shadow of the airship to disappear in the New York and Hamburg Ports.
• Added text and sound notifications for the beginning of a cyclone and reaching the minimum spotting range during a cyclone.
• Updated the display of V Émile Bertin’s main gun armor.
• Fixed a bug which caused the incorrect indication of an aircraft's engine boost reload time in the description in the Port when the presence of Commander skills or upgrades influenced the engine boost time.
• National flags are now replaced with the Halloween flag when the Infernal camouflage is used.
• Fixed a bug which caused the water-churning animation of a sinking ship to be abruptly interrupted.
• Enhanced Spectator Mode: the display of shells, torpedoes, and Surveillance Radar effects for spectators have been fixed.
• Fixed a bug which caused rudder shifting in autopilot mode when moving along a straight course.
• Made minor changes to the armor geometry of IV Imperator Nikolai I and IV Hermes.
• Fixed a bug which caused text to be typed incorrectly in the “Ship search by name” field in the Filters window.
• Subheadings have been aligned on the post-battle statistics screen. Tooltips display a shortened form of the shell types on the Detailed Report screen.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the gun shields of VII Sims B from being displayed.
• Fixed camera bugs that occurred when playing IX Alaska B, VII Scharnhorst B, VIII ARP Takao, and X Shimakaze.
• Fixed an erroneous description of the GFCS module on VII Scharnhorst and VII Poltava.
• The ship specifications block is no longer displayed in the Port if there are no ships on the account.

[transmission ends]