Dear Destroyer fans,
The time has come to reveal our next battle variant: ‘Icefield’. In this type of battle, our convoy is attacked by U-boats while making its way through sea ice. This is a tough challenge on many levels, as not only do you have to repel the enemy, but you have to do it while surviving the extreme conditions that nature has thrown at you. First of all, icebergs constitute a deadly threat to all ships in the convoy, so you will have to be extra careful with your maneuvering. To make matters worse, you will have a tough time maintaining your radar contacts, as the radar will be giving you tons of false echoes, while also allowing the enemy to hide behind the icebergs (or below them). And if that weren’t enough, the convoy formation will, sooner or later, become compromised due to the necessary maneuvers it will need to take to navigate through this treacherous obstacle. With bigger icebergs in its intended track, the whole convoy will have to change course, even further increasing the chaos caused by the situation. Therefore, we are introducing several new mechanics here which we hope will make ‘Icefield’ an exciting and welcome addition to our growing pool of battle variants.
In the meantime, as always, we keep working on the technical side of things with the intention of rooting out all the bugs and technical issues before 1.0. One crucial mechanic that plays a large role in ‘Icefield’ is collision avoidance - a long-requested feature that we hope will allow you to hunt more effectively with other escorts. While still work in progress, we hope that you will notice that both merchants and escorts will now attempt to make evasive maneuvers when threatened with a collision, and we are confident that together with CBDR, it will eventually allow you to hunt together with other warships without the fear of ramming into them.
Other than the above, there is a ton of other small fixes we have been working on (full list below), and yes, you are right to think that there is still a lot for us to amend before 1.0. That list is still quite extensive, including not only all of the things you have reported, but also some quality of life improvements that we wanted to implement a long time ago, but have never had enough time to do so. All this while at the same time working on the campaign system.
Summing it up, we hope that you will enjoy the new things we have prepared for you. Slowly but surely, we are pushing towards the level of quality that we aimed for, and while the finish line is still far ahead, we are not laying down our arms. This convoy must, and will, reach its destination.
And, as always on behalf of the Destroyer team, I wish you many successful battles!
Artur Salwarowski
Destroyer Lead Designer
Iron Wolf Studio
Changelog:
- ‘Icefield’ battle variant
- warning messages from ice lookouts
- collision avoidance (WIP)
- depth charge camera can now be toggled on/off
- escorts beyond tactical view are now available to command
- U-boats will now fear your attacks more
- ‘crew shaken’ status added for U-boats, increasing their time on the defensive
- new cutscene variants for ‘attack’
- escorts’ sonar should no longer deviate from sectors set by the player
- torpedo warning fixes + new warning siren when threatened by a torpedo
- small performance and stability fixes
