What's New

This week was mostly spent on polish and bugfixes. I feel like xenosea is close to having a really solid core, and I want to get that nailed down before I start fleshing out more of the world. The full details are in the patch notes, but in short a bunch of systems were improved and a bunch of bugs were sqashed.

I have seen an intermittent bug where the game crashes upon starting a new campaign. This issue isn't leaving any logs as of yet, so it's tricky to track down. If you do encounter it though, just try again.

It wasn't all bugfixes, though. I did take a day to add a new submarine. The Valiant is a civilian Novarus design that straddles the line between transport, light warship, and light carrier. It handles like a particularly sluggish brick, but it has versatility not commonly seen in Novarus designs.

Since there aren't any Novarus stations in game yet, the Valiant is currently available from the Blackreef Pirates at Port Liberation.

Patch Notes

• Fixed crash caused by current generation.
• Fixed bug where Deadeye caused a crash.
• Fixed issue with loading saves in regions with different number formatting.
• Fixed typos in Cartel and Delve faction descriptions.
• Increased wreck persistence to 2400 seconds.
• Mapscreen rebuilds globe more often.
• When hearing rumor about the great basin, a PoI maker is added to the globe.
• Bugfixes around world loading.
• Re-adding submarine throttle rates.
• Give mission waypoints a distinct name
• Adding mission waypoints to the mapscreen 
• Move navigation points closer to the seafloor
• Add more time for patrol missions.
• Made world loading more error tolerant.
• Add indicator when a sonar contact is talking.
• Hide mouse during into cinematic.
• Reduced the number of AI subs.
• Greatly reduce base noise of all subs.
• Functional settings menu.
• New bullet physics.
• Changed D12 Multi to D8 Multi, and significantly increased fire rate.
• Clean up manually set waypoints from the UI.
• Trade missions generate a waypoint at the destination.
• Don't generate patrol missions without any threat.
• Better cleanup of failed loads.
• Show error popup for failed loads.
• Apply volume to engine sounds and menu music.
• Preview volumes in settings popup.
• Allow cruising to mission waypoints, not just manual ones.
• Adding missing pirate stations.
• Fixed incorrect collisions at Northburg
• Attempt to fix minisub instability.
• Better handling of campaign game-over.
• Reduced base noise level of all stations
• Fixed problems with Hellstorm turret and Striker not firing helldarts properly
• Added new Valiant submarine, available at Port Liberation
• Better handling of divers approaching the diving hatch.

What's Next

The last major item on my polishing To Do list is a rework of sonar and detection mechanics.

Currently subs have the same sonar detection ability in every direction. This is not only unrealistic but it also removes tactical choices around maneuvering. The first step of the rework will be to change this.

In real submarines they have several different sonar arrays on different points of the hull. This gives them a different ability to detect targets depending on where they are. Most famously in the "baffles" (i.e. behind the submarine) submarines can't detect anything.

In the new system a submarine's sonar sensitivity will depend on the direction between it and the target. Targets in front will be detected with 70% base sensitivity, while targets to the side will be detected with 100% sensitivity. Submarines will no longer be able to detect targets behind themselves.

Next, submarines will get the ability to deploy a towed sonar array. These will only be deployable at low speeds, but will boost sonar sensitivity by 50% to targets to the side and rear. So to the sides submarines will have 150% sensitivity with the towed array out, and 50% sensitivity behind the submarine, where they'd normally be blind. Hard maneuvers, impacts, or high speeds will damage the towed array, requiring it to be withdrawn and repaired before it can be used again.

The "Cruise Mode" on the map screen will now have a "sneak" option. This will change cruise behavior to move at a reduced speed and deploy the towed array, making it easier to avoid hostile subs. 

AI subs now won't automatically investigate every single detected signal, they'll instead wait for the signal to be beyond a certain threshold.

Torpedoes will be tracked as sonar contacts on the minimap, map screen and HUD.

Sonar systems will periodically generate temporary "ghosts". These are false signals arising from environmental noise. Eventually the frequency of ghosts will be determined by sonar system quality, and nearby storms/weather/environmental factors (credit to Ser1ph from the discord for this suggestion).