What's New

This week focused on two major areas of improvement and a whole host of polishing and bugfixes.

Sonar Changes

As I described last week, I changed the way sonar detection works, so that facing and angles is important. You  now also have the option of travelling slowly and deploying a towed sonar array to further increase your ability to detect other submarines to the sides and rear.

The towed array only works when you are holding a steady course, and moving slowly. Moving quickly can damage the array, and the array will not function during sharp turns.

Minisub Improvements

A lot of my testing this week was around minisubs, trying to make them more effective, useful, and survivable. In addition to improving their attack behavior there is now a wider range of command options. You can order them to travel out to a point (useful for scouting), or force attack a non-hostile target (useful for starting a war from a safe distance).

Minisub health was increased across the board, as was their use of countermeasures. Also a new minisub type was added. The Finch is a variant on the Sparrow, trading one torpedo and the cannon for increased speed and range. It's a very useful scout, with only light combat ability.

Voice Acting

Xenosea now has a few voiced lines as well, Mrs Commodore has lent her voice as the XO of your submarine. She's provided some of the introductory narration and some audio hints during gameplay. Expect more in the future as well.

Patch Notes

• Add torpedoes to sonar tracking.
• Change submarine sonar sensitivity based on direction to the target.
• Don't have AI immediately investigate new contacts.
• Make stations a little louder and easier to detect.
• Prevent worldgen backup when cruising.
• Make strafe attacker subs more evasive.
• Refresh equipment vendor UI when the player buys a new sub.
• Autopilot should maintain a minimum height above the seafloor.
• When exiting autopilot, set the player's sub throttle to one of the preset values.
• AI should lead targets while shooting.
• Torpedo icon should rotate on mapscreen.
• Added towed arrays to most subs.
• Added fast / stealth cruise modes. 
• Show if subs have towed arrays when buying subs.
• Fix cruise mode switch not working. 
• Change "Ready to cruise" label while cruising
• Improved minisub controls.
• Added new finch scout minisub to Bastion, Nerva, Northburg, and Jameson Depot
• Ability to force minisubs to attack target.
• Added first voiceover parts and vocal barks (featuring the talents of Mrs Commodore)
• Centralized "in battle" detection.
• Applied sound effect volume to notification sound

What's Next

The last major feature left in the milestone of work is adding sonar ghosts, as elaborated on last week. Once that's done I plan on moving on to the next milestone, the focus of which is on fleshing out the Hudson area by adding more NPCs, dialogue, and quests. I'd also like to add some variety to the terrain and add a minisub capable of salvaging.