Build 1.1.0
Build 1.1.0 is out - the first build to add a nation. Germany is playable, 1912 joins 1905 as a start date, and the guided tutorial that missed the launch build has made a start: it walks you through the gun and turret designers, with the ship design chapter still to come.
Dockyards have also changed footing: a yard now limits a launch by loading - light displacement per length of hull - rather than by a flat tonnage cap.
A word before you load anything: new campaigns are recommended. Export any ships you want to keep out of an existing campaign first. Loading a 1905 ship into 1912 will present you with some options, and ships saved or imported under older builds may come up with errors that need fixing.
The 1.1.1 hotfix followed on 5 August; its notes are at the foot of this post.
Additions
- Germany is playable, and 1912 is available as a start date
- A tutorial: a guided opening for Britain in 1905 that works a 12in/45 up from the Mark IX, puts it in a twin barbette, and then makes a pedestal 12-pdr. The ship design chapter is still to come
- Ring balance on turrets: how the rotating mass sits over its roller path, and an unbalanced mount costs you training speed
- Importing a ship asks whether to redraw it to today’s standards or keep it as the original - hull shaped by the technology of its own day, and still fully editable
- Swap Battery, click-and-drag placement, and a per-mount gun-count toggle
- The profile view draws the underwater hull. The hull cut-away, and skegs for propellers and rudders, are still work in progress
- Room width can be set three ways: slider, metres, or share of the beam
- Save slots now show whether Historical Infrastructure Limits are on
- The gun designer gained warnings for incomplete burns and near-limit pressure
Fixes
- Every historical gun was reviewed and improved
- Swapping a gun’s propellant resized the whole mount around it, from old code
- Guns from before 1890 all carried the same technology level, which produced a broken rate of fire figure at the bottom of the scale
- Engine rooms and magazines both drew M in the profile view; they now read E and MG
Balance
- Machinery and boiler spaces are weighed against a normal, well-sized engine room rather than the minimum one a ship could be given, so most plants come out slightly lighter
- Yards limit a launch by the load per metre of hull rather than a flat tonnage
- Barrel life varies with how mature a propellant family was when the gun was designed, and single-base powders are re-graded
- Small ships get their own hull forms, machinery fit and armoured-deck clearance
Other
- Design Speed steps half a knot, matching Cruise Speed
Hotfix 1.1.1 - 5 August
A quick one: much better designer performance in both the 2D and 3D views, some fixes to bugs and casemates, and improved handling of early German powders.
Every 1.0.x and 1.1.0 save, design, gun code, mount code and design file loads. Ships with casemate batteries may see small shifts.
Additions
- Casemates can be placed up a level
- First pass of era metallurgy curves: a gun beyond what could physically be made in a given era pays a rising penalty in safe pressure, weight and dispersion, eased in gently
- Battery calibres are quoted in the owning navy’s own notation, so a German gun reads the German way
- The New Campaign panel closes with an X and with Escape
Fixes
- Casemate armour follows the structure it is in: a strake split by the belt top is drawn as two plates
- The 2D view zooms and pans smoothly, drags no longer stutter, and 3D viewer performance is significantly improved
- Removing a machinery room took the last one in the list instead of the one selected
Balance
- The early German propellant line is reworked: Early Double-Base now includes WPC/89, and Tubular Double-Base covers RP C/06 and RP C/12
- Light shells can go a little lower on the scale - a floor of 0.8 instead of 0.84
Other
- Draught is stated to the centimetre
- Machinery rooms are numbered fore to aft
Germany, 1912, and a tutorial to argue with: bring all of it to the Discord.