Closed beta starting soon!

[Artur Salwarowski]

Hi,

I just wanted to check whether everything is working fine for you and if you have any first impressions.

It would be best if we could get at least some early balancing feedback before the 12th of September, because after that the EA version will be released to influencers and the press.

Even more importantly, we would really appreciate the above feedback before the 19th of September, which would leave us a week to digest your feedback and introduce the necessary changes before the EA release happening on September the 28th.

Thank you very much once again for your participation.

[Halcyon]

Hi Artur,

I had enough time this morning to run through the new tutorial and start a single small battle.
I'll have more time to test in-depth later, but here are my initial impressions and findings:


- In the "Single Battle" screen, the word "Convoy" is duplicated (i.e. for Small Battle, Convoy = 9 ships and also Convoy = 2 ships). I'm assuming the 2nd instance of "Convoy" is really supposed to be "U-boat"

- The tutorial got stuck for me on the "snap the spotlight to the periscope feather" part. By the time I had read all the tutorial text and pressed the spotlight button, the u-boat was behind me but shortly after it appeared on the opposite side of the destroyer (I guess it was doing circles?). After restarting the tutorial and quickly going through all the confirmation text boxes, it worked normally. If possible, it might be beneficial to pause the sim between instructions to give the player time to read the boxes and interact with what they're being asked to push or type in

- Part of the tutorial says you can click on a "?" button next to the three auto-crew options in the settings, but I couldn't see anything next to those check boxes

- The number keys appear to change stations, but they lose that functionality if you interact with a part of the UI directly, like grabbing the ship wheel with your mouse to change the rudder. Only by pressing W,A,S, or D to bring up that mini-UI window in the lower left was I able to continue using the number keys to cycle through stations

- Having to hit the "Enter" key after using the W,A,S, or D keys to change rudder/speed isn't really friendly to the hand or wrist. Generally you shouldn't make the user have to move their hand much if you want them to use the number keys to change stations and W,A,S,D to manipulate course and speed. I'm assuming we'll get to change the keybinds later?

- Having the time, course, and speed info in the lower left across multiple stations is great, but it's missing Gun Director, Lookouts, and External View stations

- There's no way to turn off motion blur when looking around the stations. This caused my game to lag a bit if you move the camera around too quickly

- The sound of the printer in the sonar/TRR screens is a little loud. Being able to turn down that specific sound effect would be good

- The top of the screen is cut off in an ultra-wide resolution (my native resolution is 2560 x 1080), which obscures parts of important tools like the compass in the upper left of the bridge station. Switching to a 1920 x 1080 resolution fixes that, but leaves black bars on the left and right of the screen

- Switching from true/relative bearings on the sonar station doesn't make either of the compass discs rotate. They're both stuck with 000 being at the top regardless. If I remember right in the older demo, one of them would rotate to show true north.

- The U-boat still seems to be able to dive/surface too quickly. I was chasing a submerged U-boat for a while until he surfaced. I was only able to fire my guns 2 times before he was already diving again


I'll add more feedback as I get to play more.

[Furia]

Hi Artur,
I have installed it yesterday and had time to run it 3 times so far.

I plan to play more hours this weekend and then I will send you a detailled report as requested

[Onkel Neal]

Planned Release Date: September 28, 2022 Sign up here for Early Access

Been playing the beta build... yes. Yes. I've put in 2000 hours as a U-boat commander trying to outsmart the escorts, now it's the other way around.

Will be releasing a preview video sometime next week, when the dev team gives me the greenlight.

Do you remember Destroyer Command? Did you enjoy Greyhound? Have you watched The Enemy Below? I think you're gonna love this one.

[Skybird]

Pah, its just an ugrade...

[Onkel Neal]

"The board game where you match wits with a computer".

Haha, how did I miss that one?

[Sniper450]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

- The tutorial got stuck for me on the "snap the spotlight to the periscope feather" part. By the time I had read all the tutorial text and pressed the spotlight button, the u-boat was behind me but shortly after it appeared on the opposite side of the destroyer (I guess it was doing circles?). After restarting the tutorial and quickly going through all the confirmation text boxes, it worked normally. If possible, it might be beneficial to pause the sim between instructions to give the player time to read the boxes and interact with what they're being asked to push or type in

-

100% agree with this. It feels like a race to get through the text boxes. Auto Pausing until the it’s checked would be beneficial.

[Artur Salwarowski]

I would like to thank everybody for their insightful feedback. Yes, we are aware that at this point, there are a lot of little things that require polishing. This is because everything is still very fresh, and we are very happy that we have managed to get it all to work - now we are going to gather a lot of feedback, take a deep breath, and start ironing out all the creases. We would also like to introduce a couple of new things, but right now, fixing bugs and refining all the outstanding little bits is our main focus.

I've been wondering about how to prioritize all of this. Do you think we could come up with a list together, so that we could have a clear picture of which bugs and problems the community sees as the most pressing and urgent? We could then attack those issues head-on, and not worry if we are focusing on the things or not. What o you think?

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

Hi Artur,

- In the "Single Battle" screen, the word "Convoy" is duplicated (i.e. for Small Battle, Convoy = 9 ships and also Convoy = 2 ships). I'm assuming the 2nd instance of "Convoy" is really supposed to be "U-boat"

I was thinking maybe it meant Escorts = 2

- Having to hit the "Enter" key after using the W,A,S, or D keys to change rudder/speed isn't really friendly to the hand or wrist. Generally you shouldn't make the user have to move their hand much if you want them to use the number keys to change stations and W,A,S,D to manipulate course and speed. I'm assuming we'll get to change the keybinds later?

Agreed, keybinds would be great, and hotkeys for the various stations even better. Bridge, Sonar, Combat, Gun, Lookouts, external, as F1, F2, F3 etc

- Having the time, course, and speed info in the lower left across multiple stations is great, but it's missing Gun Director, Lookouts, and External View stations

Agreed.

- Switching from true/relative bearings on the sonar station doesn't make either of the compass discs rotate. They're both stuck with 000 being at the top regardless. If I remember right in the older demo, one of them would rotate to show true north

.

Confused me too.

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

I was thinking maybe it meant Escorts = 2





Agreed, keybinds would be great, and hotkeys for the various stations even better. Bridge, Sonar, Combat, Gun, Lookouts, external, as F1, F2, F3 etc



Agreed.



.

Confused me too.

A response to this W-A-S-D
Couldn't they make it so that players can use ordinary Steering Wheel..

Markus

[Onkel Neal]

You can use the steering wheel and telegraph on the Bridge. I just never go there, too busy trying to pin down those wily U-Boat commanders!

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

You can use the steering wheel and telegraph on the Bridge. I just never go there, too busy trying to pin down those wily U-Boat commanders!

It was yours and this one

- Having to hit the "Enter" key after using the W,A,S, or D keys to change rudder/speed isn't really friendly to the hand or wrist. Generally you shouldn't make the user have to move their hand much if you want them to use the number keys to change stations and W,A,S,D to manipulate course and speed. I'm assuming we'll get to change the keybinds later?

I answered..
Here a steering wheel could be handy to steer the boat and then use of some joystik/pedal to set speed.

Markus