- Waves of Steel v1.03 patch notes - 3 March 2023
Hello! Another patch release! Gameplay: Hopefully, add support for PS5 controller icons. I don't own one of these gamepads, so please let me know! Torpedoes are substantially lighter; the first ship designer tutorial now only requires reducing the ship's armor to 4" thick. Add a new type of system, Torpedo Homing, which adds homing capability to all torpedo weapons. With Homing II (or Torpedo Homing III+), weapons no longer require target locks to fire. Add text to the pause screen to provide tech/treasure collection status. The "PT Boat (Gatling Torpedo)" enemy has a significantly reduced fire rate. Improve the behavior of homing weapons if the player has no target locked. They will now home in on the "soft locked" target, and will not change targets if the player looks at a different enemy. Fix an exploit in the ship designer that allows placing large guns (with tall belowdecks requir…
- Patch notes for Waves of Steel v1.02 - 18 February 2023
This is another patch release. Please keep your feedback coming, and thanks for playing Waves of Steel! Gameplay: The Akizuki vent's capacity has been increased from 6 to 10 to reflect its large size. 8" guns have less expansive underdecks. Some larger guns have larger underdecks. Large guns have louder firing sounds. The 5" and 6" guns have had their firing sounds swapped. The "Unlock all techs" assist can be turned off without reloading your save. Added a note to the description of the Heat Ray weapon to indicate that it multihits. The Plasma Gatling weapon deals 5x its prior damage. Changed the guaranteed tech drops from "Poking the Tiger" so that you always get Overdrive II. The Bun Laser has been added to the drop pool for "Lighting a Candle". The Super Nagato's armor is a bit lighter. Guide arrows have been added at the ends of "Running Out the Clock" and "Through Fire and Flames"…
- Waves of Steel emergency hotfix - 10 February 2023
This fixes a bug that prevents the player from being able to complete the "make a new ship" ship designer tutorial.
- Patch notes for Waves of Steel v1.01 - 10 February 2023
It's been a busy few days! Thank you everyone who has played the game, sent in feedback, and especially those of you that have written reviews! You're really helping out. This build fixes a bunch of minor but annoying issues that y'all revealed. I apologize if an issue affecting you has not been fixed in this build. I am only one person, and I am very tired. Changes in this build: Gameplay: All torpedo launchers reload twice as quickly. The "Time Bubble" special's cooldown has been halved. All hats have a wider range of motion, to fit on tall structures more easily. The engines tutorial has been updated to make it clear that your previous ship has not been lost. Mouse sensitivity can be set even lower, to accommodate players with very twitchy mouse settings. The default mouse sensitivity is now slightly lower. Added an option to invert the X movement of the camera. Added a note to the m…
- Waves of Steel exits Early Access! - 6 February 2023
After nearly four long years, we're finally here! When I started working on Waves of Steel back in 2019, it was just meant to be a relaxing project for down-time between jobs. Needless to say, things got a little out of control! But the important thing is that the game is complete. Which isn't to say that I'm done working on it! I'd love to add more game modes, translate the game into Japanese, and add DLC. I know many of you would love to have playable aircraft carriers and submarines, with their own campaigns. Whether I can afford to make all these improvements, though, now depends on you. So please, play the game! Tell your friends! Leave a review! But most importantly, have fun and be kind. The complete changelist for Waves of Steel 1.0 is at the bottom of this post. But in brief: The campaign is complete, with seven final missions. Take the battle against Jörmungandr to its triumph…
- Waves of Steel 1.0 launch in ONE WEEK! - 30 January 2023
After nearly four years of development, we're almost there! Just seven more days and Waves of Steel will finally ship. Ahem. You can help! Small indies like us need all the help we can get from fans and followers. Here's some things you can do that will really make a difference: Tell your friends. Word of mouth is critical! We can't afford the kind of advertising budget that the big companies have, so this is the best way for new people to be informed that the game exists. Wishlist the game. Steam tracks every wishlist, and is more likely to show games to new people on its store pages if they're popular. Buy the game. This goes without saying! Game purchases, especially in the first week after launch are super critical. Leave a review. Steam also tracks reviews! You don't have to say a lot. A sentence or even just a word is fine. With your help, I know we can make Waves of Steel a succe…
- Waves of Steel v0.59RC7 release notes - 23 December 2022
This is a patch release to fix the broken select-mission menu. Sorry about that! Gameplay: Add two more achievements. Missions and mods load even if the game does not have focus. The combat HUD looks a bit nicer. The ship designer looks a bit nicer. Various minor tweaks to mission dialog throughout. The "half your ammo explodes" chaos effect does not hurt you. The orbital laser chaos effect cannot be combined with the broken-engine effect or the can't-go-forwards effect. New chaos effect: enemy ship is given superpowers. Bugfixes: Fix bug causing the select-mission menu to be broken if the player has not unlocked at least 7 missions. Fix ammo displays being blacked out if the player switches weapon groups rapidly. Fix bug causing projectiles that explode on impact to do so without making any noise.
- Release notes for Waves of Steel v0.58RC6 - 22 December 2022
One last build for 2022! The big news in this one is the addition of Chaos Mode, which can be enabled via the "Custom" difficulty setting. Chaos Mode triggers various random events during combat, such as inverting your controls, changing the size of enemy ships, and much much more! Some folks may recognize it as a variant of the "crowd control" plugin for Twitch streamers...rest assured, proper Crowd Control support is coming! Gameplay: Add an extra-special treasure to the "Stress Test" mission. You'll have to be quick if you want to get it! New weapons: VLS anti-ship and anti-sub missiles Add some new loading screen tips You can cycle through loading screen tips The special icons in the HUD now visually indicate remaining duration Ship paint jobs can be loaded from an existing ship, so if you have a paint job you like you can easily re-use it across multiple ships "Stress Test" startup…
- Waves of Steel release date announcement! - 14 December 2022
Waves of Steel 1.0 will launch on February 6th, 2023! Thank you, everyone, for sticking with us during Early Access! We're nearly there! Please help spread the word! Word of mouth is critical for small indies like us. And please remember to leave a review! It's been a long road, and a lot has changed. Check out these before-and-after screenshots of what the game looked like when it entered Early Access vs. what it looks like now: I'm super proud of what we've accomplished. I look forward to seeing you in the new year!
- Patch notes for Waves of Steel v0.57RC5 - 30 November 2022
Another release candidate for you all! This one includes some balance tweaks based on feedback I've received from playtesters. Please let me know if you feel anything is over- or under-powered! I want every weapon and ship to feel good to play. Gameplay: The tutorials can all be skipped. The OST has received several new short tracks, which are used in some of the game's cinematics. Added two new achievements. Torpedo launchers now take twice as long to reload, to compensate for the massive damage boost they received in a previous patch. AI ships use torpedoes a bit less frequently. Character portraits in "The Center Cannot Hold" are a bit more varied. New flavor text for the larger naval main guns. The Flight Unit part is 100 tons lighter, and has a note in its flavor text that you may need multiple to achieve flight. Gunflashes and aircraft smoke trails are more transparent. Submarine…
- Waves of Steel v0.56RC4 patch notes - 17 November 2022
Another day, another patch! Gameplay: Added music to one of the cinematics in "Hunter, Hunted" and "Storm Descendent" A couple of bonus missions have been flagged as beta-only (i.e. inaccessible in the public build). Sorry! Added a new tech to "Hammer and Anvil" Bugfixes: Fix ship designer tutorials being completely broken. Fix paint jobs being applied to flag strands in the ship designer. Fix a bug causing autofire weapons to shoot at an invalid target in "Hunter, Hunted" Fix a small hole in the front of the Sumner hull model. Modding: Added a "heightChangesScale" property. Set it to FALSE to have parts that move up and down without stretching.
- Patch notes for Waves of Steel v0.55RC3 - 14 November 2022
This is another patch release! Nothing but patch releases from here until launch, as things get steadily more and more polished. NOTE: this build includes a change to how the game handles parts built on top of superstructure. This should make the game better at detecting whether a piece of superstructure is actually supporting other parts. However, as a side-effect, all existing ships in your save files will not track that information any more. The only consequence of this is that you'll be able to pick up your superstructure and move it out from under the parts it supports. That's not a bug! It's just a lack of backwards compatibility. Patch notes for Waves of Steel v0.55RC3: Gameplay: Add 9 more achievements (some of which rely on not-yet-public content). The "Notched Circle" cruiser superstructure is shaped slightly differently. Improved behavior when picking up small parts (e.g. Oer…
- Patch notes for Waves of Steel v0.54RC2 - 9 November 2022
This is a patch release to fix the most important issues discovered in the previ ous build. Gameplay: Most guns now have 6 smaller increments of height, instead of 3 large increments. The ship selector's layout has been tweaked a bit. More tweaks are likely in future builds. Changed the default volume level for ambient SFX from 0.5 to 0.3 Rocket PT boats have worse aim Bugfixes: Fix being able to place guns entirely off of the ship's deck Fix being able to take illegally-placed parts into the testing range Fix the tier-5 battleship hull menu being broken Fix the to-do list being confused if you fail the testing range "mission" by leaving the arena Fix the ship designer tutorials allowing the player to put parts in illegal locations Fix stretched superstructure not drawing properly in combat Fix a visual issue with the intro cinematic to "Storm Descendent" Fix most issues with the combat…
- Patch notes for Waves of Steel v0.54RC1! - 4 November 2022
Today's a big day: we're releasing Release Candidate 1 of Waves of Steel! This marks the end of "normal" development. But it's not the final release before launch! I'm sure you all will find more things that need to be fixed or improved, and I'll have my hands full. But nonetheless, this is a huge milestone. After three and a half years of hard work, the end is in sight! Patch notes for Waves of Steel v0.54RC1: Gameplay: Improved the appearance of most objects in the game. Better shadows, lighting, and colors. Most weapons can now be placed on superstructure. Parts may now be placed in invalid positions. Invalid parts will be removed when the ship is saved. Most superstructure can now be stretched vertically, giving more aux space. Most superstructure can now be rotated in 90-degree increments Add some new parts, including an ammo depot Bow drills are now available from the start of the…
- Patch notes for Waves of Steel v0.52b - 27 September 2022
This is a patch release to fix critical bugs in the previous release. Here's hoping this one's more stable! Bugfixes: Fix some missions (e.g. "The Tendency of Power") not being able to progress past the introductory cutscene. Fix those same missions having a noticeable pause at the start of combat if the player skips the introductory cutscene. Fix a bug allowing the wrong ship to be deleted when deleting ships.
- Patch notes for Waves of Steel v0.52 - 26 September 2022
This is a patch release, to fix important issues reported after the last release. Thank you to everyone who sent in feedback! Gameplay: The arrow keys (gamepad: right analog stick) can be used to move the camera in the ship designer. This can also be used to move the camera off of the centerline of the ship. The Bazel's armor mass has been reduced from 250t/inch to 180t/inch. Mission "Lost Sheep" has a larger arena, to reduce likelihood player will wander outside of it during combat. PT Boat (Rocket) and Landing Ship (Rocket) have weaker weapons. An earlier change to improve rocket aiming made them too powerful. Bugfixes: Fix game resolution resetting to 640x480, again. Fix options claiming the player was playing on Easy even if they weren't. Fix issue causing missions to claim the player had failed if they don't immediately go to debriefing on completing all objectives. Fix "Juno's Wra…
- Waves of Steel v0.51 release notes - 22 September 2022
Whoops! It's been two months since the last build. My apologies for the delay: I've been head-down focused on wrapping up the campaign. The good news is that the campaign's gameplay is now completed! The bad news is that I can't release the new missions yet. I need a good-sized package of New Content to show off when launch time comes, in early 2023, and the remaining campaign missions are that content. Believe me, I'd like nothing more than to let you all see what I've been working on. Keeping everything under wraps, not just here but on Twitter, has been killing me. But it's all part of making sure that the game's launch is a success. What I do have for you in this release is a fairly major polishing pass. Expect more of these in the coming weeks. Now that the content grind is over, I'm able to focus on fixing all those issues you've been telling me about. My to-do list is gigantic, b…
- Waves of Steel v0.50b patch notes - 21 July 2022
This is a very minor patch release. Bugfixes: Fix the flag strands button in the ship designer instead being assigned the "remove mass limit" operation. If mass limits have been disabled, the max mass display shows infinity. Fix a display bug with flag strands in the ship designer.
- Waves of Steel v0.50 release notes - 21 July 2022
This is a patch release; no new content has been added. Gameplay: The ship selection UI has been updated, to make finding ships in big save files easier. The treasure for "Poking the Tiger" has been changed to a new special ability. The previous treasure has been added to the drop list for "Hunter, Hunted" Added a treasure to "Chrysalis" The visuals for main gun projectiles have been changed Fire/smoke clouds emitted by main guns now keep moving with the ship The fading effect applied to shells based on their proximity to the player now has a larger radius Minelayer weapons (aside from the tether mine) have greatly increased fire rates and max ammo counts, to make up for the difficulty of using them. The "Miscellaneous" parts section (three dots blue button in the designer) has been subdivided into different categories. The ship designer now has a "recent items" menu (clock icon), which…
- Waves of Steel 0.49 patch notes - 13 July 2022
This is a patch release, to fix issues discovered after last weeks release. My apologies that this did not go out sooner; I was quite literally in the middle of making this build on Friday when my hard drive died. As part of recovering from this process, the version of Unity the game uses has been updated. I've gone over everything I could think of and things seem to bew orking correctly, but it's always possible that this has introduced bugs that I' ve failed to notice. Please let me know if you encounter anything odd. My thanks to everyone who sent in feedback! Detailed release notes: Gameplay: Add an indicator on the intermission screen if the player needs to go to the ship designer The ASROC anti-sub weapon deals 4 times as much damage per shot Buildings sometimes catch on fire when destroyed "Winter" should be easier to complete with unusually large ships Made the sunset time-of-da…
