Here it is:
Version 0.25 released!
Download here: http://goo.gl/eAy0BO
Changelog:- You can now save and load the game (at any time). Press S on the main menu to save, L to load. There is only one save slot currently and it will be overwritten every time you save - if you want to keep a save safe for later, copy the file "SaveFile.sav" to another directory, then copy it back when you want to load.
- Added nuclear SLBMs to the game(cruise missiles and conventional warheads are hopefully coming soon). SLBMs on your submarine are controlled from the Missile Control Panel.
- Added AI controlled ICBMs. At the moment every nation has nuclear weapons, to allow for bigger nuclear exchanges and more thorough testing of the nuclear war simulation.
- Added two new submarine classes:
- "November" - loosely based on the Soviet November-class submarines, equipped with 3 missile tubes.
- "Typhoon" - an unusual double-hull design based on the Soviet Typhoon-class submarines, equipped with 8 missile tubes.
- Added dynamic diplomacy system. Nations will now react to your actions in the game - sinking friendly or neutral ships can cause your nations to declare war on each other, for example. You can sometimes convince neutral nations to join your side by attacking their enemies.
- SIGNIFICANTLY improved the AI of ships, convoys and ground controllers. They will now respond much more aggressively to detected threats, especially torpedo and missile launches. If your submarine is detected near an enemy port they will now vector fighters and patrol aircraft to your position. AI pilots are a LOT smarter now too.
- Added ice at the North Pole.
- Ship and aircraft AI has been optimised, resulting in much faster performance on older PCs.
- Fixed an issue relating to propagation of radiation through seawater around sub.
- Increased speed of aircraft to a more realistic level.
- Fixed an annoying crew bug - if one crewman was given new orders halfway through a task, another would automatically pick up the old task where he left off. This often caused crew to jump into fires, drown themselves, or dash into the reactor room without any protection - it has now been fixed.
- Fixed several bugs relating to the ventilation system.
- Added seaports to Seoul and Pyongyang, making South Korea and North Korea playable.
- OpenGL graphics now work properly. Using OpenGL usually results in a significant performance increase on older computers, especially when your entire sub is on fire. It can (rarely) cause crashes though, and it messes with the way rectangles are drawn for some inscrutable reason - if you experience this, it can be turned off in the gameoptions.ini file.
- Numerous other small tweaks and bugfixes.
I have recently been in contact with a former US Navy submariner who has been an excellent source of ideas for new game mechanics (and new ways for things to go wrong
). With all the nuclear missiles and diplomacy I didn't get time to add the changes to this version, but you can expect a bunch of new features and realism improvements next update.
I also plan to redo the main menu and add a proper options menu, to avoid all the messing around with gameoptions.ini. If there are other features you would really like to see in 0.26, now's a good time to post 'em!