Foreword
Greetings, fellow NA players!
This is a minor update. We have primarily focused on continuous improvements and adjustments to existing features, along with several bug fixes.
Update Frequency Adjustment To improve update efficiency and stability, we have adjusted our game update strategy. Future versions will be released through high-frequency, smaller updates, and we will open up public test branches more often. This approach aims to reduce situations where unstable new content is pushed to players due to rushed, large-scale mechanic updates. There are no new parts in this version. The introduction frequency for new parts will remain similar to older versions, at approximately once a month.
(Credit: LakV)
Damage Model Rework
Balancing high freedom in ship design with accurate damage calculation is no easy task. The new mechanics aim to further resolve and improve known damage issues, including the excessive survivability of small boats and the inability of armor to protect non-module hull parts against blast spheres.
The new calculation model includes the following features:
When calculating explosion damage per part, the system will query and collect armor layers that obstruct the explosion path to the current part, treating them as additional armor protection for that part.
Each layer of additional armor protection will apply a damage attenuation calculation to the explosion damage.
Introduced the concept of a damage immunity threshold in armor damage attenuation: thick armor can now completely immunize against and block lower amounts of damage.
Increased the explosion radius of shells, especially for small-caliber High Explosive (HE) shells.
Increased the minimum damage applied after a single part's HP is completely depleted.
(This diagram is for reference only and will not appear in-game)
Other adjustments:
Immune or already destroyed parts no longer participate in explosion damage distribution.
Module parts that have been damaged and repaired will no longer contribute full explosion damage to the hull. This prevents abnormal HP pool deductions from repeated repairs.
Increased the torpedo damage modifier against modules. In the current version, increasing the distance between the torpedo explosion point and the magazine can effectively reduce damage taken by the magazine; using thin plates and other methods to create a TDS (Torpedo Defense System) can relatively effectively reduce the total HP pool damage from direct torpedo hits.
Current known issues or intended behaviors:
Inability to determine damage when a turret is penetrated by an AP shell and the shell successfully detonates inside, leading to the inability to destroy enemy turrets/ammunition hoists.
This issue will be resolved soon.
Relatively thin armor plates (e.g., 50mm) have weak protection against high-damage blast spheres.
This is intentional; at this stage, the system cannot distinguish between thin armor plates and solid hulls.
Lack of methods to restore the total HP pool.
This situation will persist for a long time, as we have other features to prioritize.
Internalizing the main armor belt inside the hull cannot effectively resist HE shells.
Practically speaking, yes. The reality is that the vast majority of internal main armor belts are placed inside a hull made of only a single layer of cosmetic parts. As a result, the armor can only defend against the penetration path of Armor Piercing (AP) shells and offers limited resistance against HE damage. Under the current mechanics, hollowing out the hull, placing armor plates inside, and then putting HP hull blocks within will result in a more accurate damage model.
Shells hitting external main armor still deal relatively high damage.
This is highly likely caused by the spherical blast radius hitting the ship's bottom. The bottom collision box is usually quite large; as long as it is wider than the main armor belt and lacks an armor belt to shield it from the shell's explosion point, that hull part will take damage.
A more refined shell explosion range can be optimized further, such as using a conical blast radius to simulate the vectors of explosive shockwaves and shrapnel, thereby improving calculation accuracy along the X-axis. However, this is not a high priority.
Overall, after repeated revisions over several recent updates, the completion level of the current armor and damage model has seen considerable improvement. Despite encountering many difficulties and setbacks, and paying a considerable price, this is a necessary step before heading toward the official release. We shouldn't let issues be continuously delayed and pushed back, as this would severely impact the expansion of future mechanics and lead to massive problems down the line. Of course, this does not mean that armor and shell penetration adjustments are completely finished after 1.52. We still have a long way to go.
Graphics Upgrade
In this update, we have made several improvements to upgrade graphic quality:
Wave-breaking effect upgrade
Material texture upgrade
Lighting and shadow effect upgrade
Color grading adjustments
(Note: Certain weather conditions might cause overexposure or visual discomfort. If you experience this, please provide feedback to us along with the weather preset and time information.)
Level Adjustments
Prologue
Added: Completed the victory/defeat text for Prologue levels.
Adjusted: Added a mission failure condition for accidental player sinking in Prologue M1, M2, and M3.
Adjusted: Added highlighted rich text to the ceasefire prompt in Prologue M3 and optimized the Chinese localization description.
Adjusted: Optimized enemy cruiser collision avoidance detection in M5 to prevent crashes.
Adjusted: Changed the deletion guide arrow in the building tutorial to red.
Adjusted: The Prologue campaign battleship New Rubico is now issued as the end-of-level reward for M3 to prevent a bug where the reward is not given if the tutorial is skipped (may require a new save if you haven't cleared M3 previously).
Adjusted: Enlarged the lightly armored target ship in Prologue M2 to prevent it from having too little HP and sinking prematurely following the damage model rework.
Adjusted: Drastically reduced the barbette and bottom hull armor of the Command Ship in the Prologue to prevent abnormally enhanced protection under the current flawed mechanics.
Fixed: An issue where the end reward for M5 did not include the 356mm/50 Mark B naval gun.
Quick Sortie
Added Level: Hornet's nest.
As the first stealth infiltration level, players must sink a heavily guarded aircraft carrier. You can leverage absolute intelligence superiority to strike the target at close range and evacuate, or regroup with allied forces to launch a frontal assault.
Fixed: Two instances of unexpectedly missing English localization text.
Career
Added: A tutorial flow for switching Career campaigns.
Adjusted: Improved the UI/UX of the campaign selection panel to prevent players from mistakenly thinking installations failed when having more than 3 campaigns installed.
Adjusted: Reworked the uninstallation logic for Steam Workshop campaigns; any installed campaign can now be uninstalled.
Fixed: An issue in the tech tree editor where default technology names had their Chinese and English reversed.
Fixed: Missing text translation for tech rewards that pop up during levels.
(Credit: lasagnegin)
General
Dockyard Scene
Adjusted: Improved the effect of the build replay feature.
Fixed: Clarity issues in blueprint mode.
Universal
Adjusted: Developer tools are collapsed/stowed by default.
Added: Automatic random weather feature for three scenes: Career Menu, Main Menu, and Sea Trials. Weather is randomized based on historical weather weights for the Bay of Biscay West Channel.
Fixed: Missing boundary lines in the Sea Trials scene.
Adjusted: Adjusted the default times for different time nodes in the weather system to match the new atmospheric effects.
Fixed: Missing localization for wave-breaking graphics options.
Fixed: An issue where the n1580 A-5 Militia Member (Clean Configuration) was not housed under its parent part.
Adjusted: Removed placeholders in part weight information.
Fixed: Airborne torpedo hit feedback not displaying torpedo hits.
Combat
Adjusted: F2 Cinematic Camera update: Cinematic camera increased to 20 shots. The scroll wheel can now be used to adjust FOV, and handheld camera shake effects are supported.
Teaser
We will be releasing version 1.53 very soon, alongside a public test branch. In version 1.53, we will add support for multi-account Cloud Saves. We will also separate graphics options from general settings so they are no longer uploaded to the Steam Cloud. At the same time, we will update the Mod tools, allowing players to create dockyard Mods for the Main Menu scene.
(Mod support for aircraft will be opened after the aircraft rework is completed)
P.S. If you encounter a rendering issue where the sea surface turns red after switching graphics settings from Low to High in NavalArt, try setting the quality to Ultra first and then dialing it back down, or try adjusting your resolution. This issue will be fixed in a future update.
(Credit: PorkRollSandwich)
