Update 0.8.7 continues the cycle of updates focusing on French destroyers.
FRENCH DESTROYERS EVENT: PART 2
Tier II–VIII French destroyers now become available for research in the Tech Tree.
Directives
Four Directives of 11 missions each are available to players.
Start: Thu. 22 Aug. 10:00 CEST (UTC+2) / your local time: Thu. 22 Aug. 10:00
End: Fri. 13 Sep. 06:00 CEST (UTC+2) / your local time: Fri. 13 Sep. 06:00
Completing missions and Directives will bring you signals, expendable camouflage patterns, Legion of Honor containers, and a new temporary resource—French Tokens. Containers have a chance of dropping a combat mission for one of the following French ships: VI De Grasse, VI Aigle, VIII Gascogne, and VIII Le Terrible.
French Tokens
A new section has been added to the Armory—”Legion of Honor”—together with a new temporary resource—French Tokens.
These Tokens can be exchanged in the Armory for the main reward of the event—the new unique Commander, Philippe Auboyneau.
Republic Tokens, the temporary resource of the first part of the French Destroyers event, can’t be earned in Update 0.8.7, but you can exchange any remaining Tokens in the Armory.
RESEARCH BUREAU
Update 0.8.7 will introduce the Research Bureau. Players will be able to earn a new resource—Research Points—and exchange them for valuable rewards. All that’s required is to reset researchable branches of ships and progress through them anew. Research Points can be exchanged for new ships, combat signals, and bundles containing Free XP under the Research Bureau tab in the Armory.
French cruiser X Colbert will be the first ship available in the Research Bureau.
RANKED SPRINT
Prepare for a new season of Ranked Sprint! Battles will be fought in a 7 vs. 7 format in Domination mode, with a limit of one aircraft carrier per team.
There are 10 Ranks, but this time, they will all be united in a single league.
Seasons starts: Thu. 05 Sep. 08:00 CEST (UTC+2) / your local time: Thu. 05 Sep. 08:00
Season ends: Sat. 14 Sep. 08:00 CEST (UTC+2) / your local time: Sat. 14 Sep. 08:00
GAME MECHANIC IMPROVEMENTS
Matchmaker
We’re introducing strict limitations on the tiers of battles that you can be sent to. For each player, the matchmaker will take into account the number of battles they have played with ships of the same tier as theirs, as well as the number of ships one or two tiers higher.
After a short calibration period that will last up to 20 battles for each battle type and ship tier, the matchmaker will ensure that the percentage of battles with ships of the specified tier does not exceed the set limits. For example, for Tier VIII ships, the limits are expected to be 40% of battles with ships two tiers higher. This means that out of 20 battles you play with Tier VIII ships, a maximum of eight battles will include Tier X ships.
Another advantage of this change is that series of battles will be reliably interrupted because the matchmaker will analyze the last 20 battles each time. This means that when calibration is done, a long series of battles with ships of higher tiers will not occur when repeatedly using a single ship tier.
Autopilot
We’ve also enhanced the autopilot. Now, it will take into account the ship’s speed, maneuverability, and dimensions while setting the route, as well as autonomously change the ship’s speed. The ship’s movement trajectory is now displayed as a route line on the Tactical Map and the Minimap.
AA Defense Changes
The mechanics and visualization of the priority AA sector system have been updated. Now, the priority AA sector is easier to use and also more effective. It will also require more actions and activity on the player’s part.
It’s now very simple to activate AA sector reinforcement: you only need to point the battle camera in the desired direction and press the ~ or О keys.
Reinforcing the priority AA sector occurs in four phases:
- Upon activating the priority AA sector, the AA defenses will cause instantaneous damage to enemy squadrons within the ship’s AA defenses action zone, expressed as a percentage of their current HP, and try to shoot down as many aircraft as possible.
- A phase in which the ship’s continuous AA damage within the selected sector gradually increases, during which the efficiency of the opposite sector’s AA fire reduces.
- Having reached maximum efficiency, the reinforced AA sector deals damage to its full extent for a limited period of time.
- AA sector reinforcement is deactivated. To use AA sector reinforcement once again, you have to wait until the end of the cooldown period, during which the efficiency of the ship’s AA defenses returns to standard values.
In Update 0.8.7 the sector reinforcement parameters and its duration and cooldown time will depend on the ship’s type. AA sector reinforcement affects only the continuous damage by AA defenses and has no impact on the damage caused by AA explosions.
Priority Sector Characteristics
You can keep track of the priority sector’s operation or the remaining reload time with the help of the updated compass in the game interface. The visuals of the compass for carriers’ squadrons have also been updated.
Also reworked the “Manual Fire Control for AA Armament” Commander skill, renamed to “Massive AA Fire.” This skill will increase instantaneous damage while completely neutralizing both the adverse and positive effects of AA sector reinforcement on continuous damage. At the same time, the cooldown period before the next possible activation of the priority AA sector will become longer than for those without this skill.
All players will be able to reset their Commanders’ skills for free during the week following the Update’s release.
We’ve also changed how AA action zones operate and improved the balance between aircraft HP pools and the strength of AA defenses.
UI IMPROVEMENTS
Battle Chat
Players will be introduced to an updated battle chat system. We’ve improved the arrangement of the battle UI elements and added new functions.
- Players will be able to block tactical commands and text messages from specific players.
- Players will be able to enable or disable battle chat via the Game Settings menu.
- Additionally, a system limiting the number of uses for the “Attention to Square” command within a short period of time will be added into the game.
Port Interface
We regularly add new ships and entire branches to the game. Because of that, the Tech Trees of some nations have perhaps become too extensive and many players have hundreds of ships in their Ports. That’s why we decided to update the Tech Tree and the ship carousel in the Port. Now players will be able to find any desired ships more easily.
Tech Tree
- Updated the design and layout of interface elements.
- Added a background with the flag of the nation that you’re currently viewing.
- Added the ability to scroll the Tech Tree both horizontally and vertically.
Carousel
- Updated the design of ship cards in the Port.
- Improved the filter menu: a filter becomes inactive if there are no ships that fit its parameters.
- Changed the display of victory bonuses on the ship cards in the Port. If a ship has several bonuses active, only one of them will be displayed.
ARMORY
New Ships and features
- Soviet cruiser X Smolensk is available for 244,000 Coal.
- U.S. destroyer X Somers can be exchanged for 25,000 Steel.
- Patches are available for Coal and doubloons.
CONTENT ADDITIONS AND CHANGES
The Smoke Generator consumable on VI Perth, VII Haida, and VI Huanghe has been renamed to “Crawler Smoke Generator.”
European Nation
A new nation—Europe—has been introduced into the game.
Poland will become part of the new European nation, bringing its Tier VII destroyer, VII Błyskawica. Later, you can expect other ships to join.
European ships will have their national ensigns and voice-overs preserved, and their Commanders will retain their uniforms, names, and ranks.
Camouflage Patterns
The “Type 3 – Ranked” camouflage has been changed. It now includes the “+100% Commander XP” feature.
We’ve also added special permanent nation-styled camouflages for ships VI Admiral Graf Spee, VI Warspite, and VI Shinonome.
−3% to the ship’s detectability range by sea
+4% to the dispersion of shells fired by the enemy at your ship
−10% to the cost of the ship’s post-battle service
+100% XP per battle
+35% credits per battle
We’ve added Dazzling permanent camouflages for ships VI Furious, VI La Galissonnière, VIII Le Terrible, and VI Fusō, which provide standard bonuses.
How you can obtain these camouflages will be announced later.
The following ships have been added for testing by developers, supertesters, and community contributors: I Eritrea, II Nino Bixio , III Taranto, IV Alberto di Giussano, V Raimondo Montecuccoli, VI Trento, VII Zara, VIII Amalfi, IX Brindisi, X Venezia, V Genova, and X Paolo Emilio.
OTHER CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS
- Increased the normalization from 8.5 to 10 degrees for AP shells of French destroyers armed with 139 mm main guns and French cruiser III Friant. This change will make the AP shell normalization consistent with the standard normalization for this caliber, and will slightly improve their armor-penetration capabilities.
- Updated the icons of shells, rockets, and bombs.
- Improved the performance of the in-game web browser through the use of hardware acceleration.
- Fixed the wrong caliber of Japanese cruiser X Yoshino’s shells—it is now equal to 310 mm. This fix will result in a slight increase in the arming thickness and armor-penetrating capability of her AP shells.
- Fixed the visuals of VIII Z-23’s armor for the “From the Bottom of the Ocean” camouflage.
- Small fixes to the geometry and textures for the following ships: IV Hermes, IV Imperator Nikolai I, X Yamato, VIII Alabama, VIII Alabama ST, VII Gneisenau, and VII Sinop.
- The Clan Base can now be viewed in full-screen mode at resolutions higher than 2550×1440.
- Fixed an error which caused an incorrect shell trajectory when firing at close range.
- Fixed the appearance of camouflage on the main turrets of VI Fusō and X Großer Kurfürst.
- Fixed an error which caused the playing of sounds for the Q/E keys when you pressed the A/D keys while your ship was in an area of a potential collision with terrain.
- Fixed an error which made the crate with Free XP visible through the model of some containers.
- Fixed an error which caused an incorrect message about the results of a Clan Battle to be sent to the Clan chat.
- Fixed an error which caused the scale showing the number of planes on an aircraft carrier’s deck to appear not as full while the deck was in fact full.
- Fixed an error of the collision prevention system which didn’t allow players to set a straight course with Q and E keys.
- Fixed an error which caused the camera to move inside the ship when returning from the tactical map after a squadron was destroyed.
- Fixed the names of torpedo launcher modules on the following ships: V Kirov, IX Tashkent, and V Podvoisky
- Fixed an error which caused the camera to sometimes become unresponsive to mouse movements when playing on aircraft carriers.
- Fixed an error which caused the Commander tooltip to freeze when bringing up the context menu.
- Fixed an error which caused a large number of identical notifications about the selected prime time for Clan Battles.
- Fixed an error where a Clan that hadn’t constructed the first improvement for the Officers’ Club could enter a Clan Battle with the Bravo rating.
- Fixed an error which caused the reticule of torpedo bombers to be displayed on the water after switching off the interface display.
- Fixed an error which caused a neutral Key Area to be displayed on the Minimap as captured when in Spectator Mode.
- Fixed an error which caused the voice message “Fighter/spotting aircraft destroyed” to be played at the end of a battle if you had used a fighter/spotting aircraft in that battle.
- Fixed an error which caused bombs to sometimes fall outside of the reticle area.
- Fixed the torpedo tube aiming angles for destroyer VIII Le Terrible.
- Fixed an error which caused allied ship models to disappear.
- Fixed an error which caused the portrait of Commander Friedrich Bonte to change in the Armory after a player had bought this Commander.
- Сommander’s Dismissal time increased from 5 to 60 minutes.
- Now Fighters perform rush to the main group of planes instead of the attacking one, when possible.
