Changelog for B126 (14 February 2020) - Part I:

Hello skippers!

We are back with the next major release - B126. This version is focused mostly on quality of life improvements, fixes and stability. It comes with multiple technical improvements in the game that should push it one step forward from Early Access title towards a full release!

While it's not mandatory, we strongly recommend to start a new campaign on this version to enjoy it fully as some of the improvements require a fresh start to have effect.

We are now going to move back to the work declared in our roadmap. We are excited about some of the next features ahead and hope that you are too!

Gameplay improvements:
- It's now possible to disband crew members to clean up the list.
- AI now tries to avoid joining battles that have too many participants already to avoid performance drops. This behaviour is moddable in the data sheets.
- Lost contacts are now using a special icon with the question mark before disappearing to let the player know that this group is no longer being actively detected.
- There is now a floating warning above nearby contacts with high radius that explains that these contacts may be inaccurate.
- Aircraft now usually won't be starting from the bases shortly before sunset until sunrise. They will also try to get back home during day. They may still occasionally stay around at night, if they already found enemy u-boat, until their fuel will start to run out. Aircraft spawn rates were increased to compensate for these changes.
- Added "Harcore aiming mode" to the gameplay settings.
- Setting torpedo speed, depth and salvo spread is now possible in the torpedo launcher screen.
- It's now possible to hide the detection hint in the gameplay settings.

Technical improvements:
- Added mouse rotation sensitivity slider to the control settings panel.
- Added additional warning that tutorial is considered obsolete.
- Bug reporting system gives a very clear warning that mods are enabled before allowing to send a report. Mod list is now also uploaded along with the bug reports.
- It's now possible to disable vignette effect and to invert mouse for the periscope view in the game's settings.
- Optimizations to saved game states size and loading speed.

Graphics:
- Small tweaks to water normals for a better look.
- Decreased noise post-processing effect intensity.
- Disk space and memory usage optimizations.
- Added night lamp lighting to all base game ports.
- Large random freighter hulls weren't receiving all damage effects used in the game.
- Improvements to maps texture in the control room.

Localization:
- New German translations by Ruby.
- New French translations by Sword.
- Added a few new Spanish translations suggested by anonymous player through the reporting tool (thank you).
- Polish localization fixes.

Fixes:
- Too many neutral freighters could spawn at certain periods.
- U-boat propellers had wrongly assigned meshes, they both had linked meshes from the other side.
- Game window would flicker after selecting regular fullscreen mode in the settings and then adjusting gamma slider.
- Game states saved near minefields and anti-submarine nets had some problems related to them after loading.
- Fixes to many automatically reported problems.
- Infinite loading when entering land areas.
- Fixes to a few problems related to diving to wrecks.
- Fixes to saving and loading game states.
- Aircraft moving very slowly on the map.
- Characters could sometimes end being incorrectly rotated, for example leading officer after vacation ended.
- Group and ship AI fixes and performance optimizations.
- Gamma settings weren't applied in menu since B125.
- There were two memory leaks per each NPC ship that were increasing memory usage with each game state save and reload.
- Objective to sink a lost u-boat couldn't be completed, if player saved a game state after receiving it and reloaded the game state before proceeding.
- Ally asking for resources was continuing to wander around, even if its enemies were shot down or they left the area.
- Aircraft that ran out of bombs could occasionally search for submarines despite that.
- War correspondent could sit on seats occupied by other characters after 2.5 hours of in-game time.
- Steers UI was overlapping with mission summary after performing certain steps.
- After zooming camera out of binoculars/periscope/hydrophone manual mode geometry of character head would be visible from the inside for a fraction of the second.
- 4th and 5th engine gears were reverting back to 3rd after submerging, surfacing or swapping the engines manually.
- Characters that had equipped a rebreather, combat helmet or any other accessory were refusing to transport cargo between cargo storage.
- Foam trail on the sea could appear in a different place than the ship after meeting NPC group or sometimes after entering land areas after experiencing a lag.
- Medical aid with a medkit wasn't working properly.
- Target group in the lost ship mission, ally help mission and sink ship mission could in rare occasions move with u-boat on the map for some time.
- Minor leak in the toilet wasn't selectable and only AI could initiate the repair.
- Game states saved while looking through the periscope weren't loading correctly.
- Increased compartment flooding tolerance for the officer working at the navigation table.
- Better physics stabilization at high time compression. It improves dinghy behavior on the max compression with enabled map and paves the way for the new travel mode that we have in the plans.
- Recruits in ports are periodically disappearing from the list, making place for the new ones.
- Sailors promoted to officers could become cloned after reloading the game state, if officer count on board was already at the limit.
- Port of Alexandria didn't had any AA guns and mission with finding their positions was being instantly completed.
- War correspondent was loosing his camera after re-loading a game state.
- Crew list is now sorted by rank, level, class and name.
- Discovered AA guns count wasn't properly restored from the saved game states.
- If player would enter and then leave a character screen of any sailor during dialogue with recruitment officer, unwanted UI elements would appear on the screen.
- Character could sometimes drop a very unusual shadow, after player entered FPP view, that was blocking a large part of the light from the flashlight.
- Level of detail on some parts of Flower-class corvettes and Illustrious carriers was fading too fast, leading to weird graphic artifacts.
- Conning towers could turn invisible after installing them, if certain steps were performed.
- Rarely, enemy NPC groups wouldn't correctly unspawn from the scene and remain permanently spawned even hundreds of kilometers away.
- NPC groups could sometimes have problems with decisively resolving encounters between themselves. That could lead in the long run to formation of many hot points on the ocean, where multiple groups would jump into battle and stay there for a long time. This was increasing game state size and affecting performance.
- It's no longer possible to add sold items to wrong warehouse tab and have them restocked there.
- Setting spawner activity to zero in the data sheets was causing problems in the game.
- Accessories equipped by the officer couldn't be removed without reloading a game state.
- Coastal patrols spawn probability decreases with each group already spawned.
- Mines in ports no longer explode when friendly ships pass above them. Historically they were being switched off by a port crew at such time.
- Spawned mines sometimes weren't fully cleaned up from the memory.
- Land passage that appears after docking in port wasn't recognized by crew pathfinding, if player installed Turm II (possibly also Turm IV) and reloaded a game state while being docked.
- War correspondent article progress was being severely set back, if player spent reputation points on any purpose when he was on board.
- Icons for detection on map could be wrong, if a few types of detection happened in a specific order and remained valid together for some time.
- Torpedo launching now cannot be performed at a depth greater than 20 meters.
- Notifications that saving a game state is not possible should be much more rare.
- Multiple fixes to saving game states during short events like character transitions, torpedo loading animations and camera transitions.
- Fix for a permanently looped audio at a spot after loading a game state saved during certain animation transitions.
- Improved animation alignment on the navigator's station, also navigator's helper now joins the officer on the station.
- Possible fix for occasional black screen after clicking "continue" on the assignment summary screen.
- Snorkel was affecting ship's visibility even, if it was hidden under the deck.
- XP bars weren't displaying correct progress, if character had a high level of experience. XP bars can be now hovered to see exact number of experience points.
- If player encountered a coastal patrol that sailed very close to the coast during encounter and then player left the area, this patrol could in rare cases travel through the land to the next patrol target.
- Potential fix for portrait rendering problems on some systems.
- Alignment fixes for skipper animations on bed.
- Occasionally contact marker could disappear, but the pulsating circle around it would still remain on the screen for some time.
- Collision sound was continuously played after laying submarine on the seabed with enabled collision damage in the settings.