Development blog

Captains, Update 13.2 is just around the corner – let’s get into the details of some of the upcoming features you can expect!

Piñata Hunt

Get out your bats and get ready to smash – this year brings a new April Fools’ Day event complete with Piñatas! Available as a separate game mode, this year’s event features a specially decorated and modified version of Hotspot map, on which players will compete to bust open piñatas.

Details:

• Battles will take place with tier VIII-IX ships, with 7 players per team.
• The team that sinks the others' ships first or first to earn 1000 points wins.
• No more than one aircraft carrier, one submarine, three battleships, three cruisers, and three destroyers per team.
• A special Piñata ship, either a battleship or aircraft carrier, will also join the battle.
• Piñata ship will take one of eight predefined routes randomly during the battle.
• When the Piñata is destroyed, a shrinking Key Area will spawn on the spot of its destruction.
• Both players ships and Piñata ship will have unique explosion effect, once they are destroyed.

In the temporary Piñata Hunt battle type, players will have access to a new type of consumables with special effects, such as placing minefields, buffing their team in various different ways, and more! There will be 8 unique Tactical consumables in total, with each ship type having access to 5 of them. One consumable for each ship type will be unlocked at the start, while up to 4 others per ship type may be attained by completing missions or by purchasing with credits.

Captains will choose one of their available Tactical consumables to be brought into battle while in port; similar to other consumables, swapping between them will be free of charge. These consumables will use an additional separate slot.

One charge of the Tactical consumable will be available at the start of the battle; additional charges can be collected from interactive zones, dropped 3 times per battle by the Piñata ships at different HP thresholds. Once an interactive zone is taken by a ship (similarly to the collectable buffs in the Arms Race mode), the whole team will receive an additional charge of their selected tactical consumables.

Also there have been the following changes to the Mines since their last appearance in Concealed Maneuvers:

Upon entering battle, one of 14 event themed camouflages will be randomly applied to your ship.

During the Piñata Hunt event, players will be able to obtain Piñata Tokens for free, which they can exchange for the following rewards in the Armory: Licorice Swirl, Mint Drops and Cotton Candy event themed permanent camouflages, Dumpling permanent camouflage, Rabbit Torpedo Patch and Piñata commemorative flag.

More information about this event will be available in a later publication.

Early Access to Commonwealth Cruisers

The long awaited Commonwealth cruisers will enter Early Access in Update 13.2! In honor of the event, thematic permanent camouflages for Delhi, Auckland, and Cerberus will be added to the game. Additionally, historical commanders Harold Farncomb and Leonard Murray , Commonwealth Rockfish patch, Commonwealth Team commemorative flag, and Commonwealth Team Premium containers will be added to the game.

 

Both light and heavy cruisers are represented in this line, with low to mid tiers being armed with 152mm guns while tier VIII and above will be armed with 203mm artillery. They will have good damage per minute, but drawbacks include relatively poor ballistics and slow turret traverse. Starting from Tier III, these ships will additionally be armed with torpedoes. At Tier VII these torpedoes become long-ranged and may even be launched from stealth due to the excellent concealment of these ships. As is standard for most cruisers, the line will feature Hydroacoustic Search, available in its own slot at Tier IV and sharing a slot with Defensive AA Fire at later tiers. Starting at Tier V, the signature Commonwealth Crawling Smoke Generator will also be available in its own slot, with its long action time allowing slow movement while remaining concealed. Starting at Tier VIII, the ships will be equipped with a Repair Party of standard characteristics.

Additionally, Commonwealth cruisers have access to an enhanced Submarine Surveillance consumable with improved range starting from tier V, as well as improved characteristics of their Depth Charge Airstrike.

Permanent camouflages for Delhi and Cerberus are still in development and will be available at a later date. Additionally, we plan to update the permanent camouflage for Auckland.

Submarines Update

Multiple new features and improvements for submarines will be implemented with Update 13.2. Let's get right into the details:

Dynamic torpedoes:

• Now, all submarine torpedoes will deal reduced damage within the first few kilometers travelled. For the first 2.9km, they will only deal 10% damage, while from 2.9km to 3km, their damage will scale up to 100% linearly, avoiding scenarios where a single meter difference could result in drastically different damage. Due to the minimal damage at point blank ranges, arming distance for alternative submarine torpedoes will be reduced (approximately 400m, similar to homing torpedoes). This change will make close range "shotgun" attacks harder to execute while rewarding ships with Depth Charges in close combat engagements against submarines.

Ping indicator improvements

• When a submarine pings, a visible indicator appears on the water surface. Now, direction indicator will be improved, giving players an approximate direction of travel of the submarine at the time of pinging.

Underwater terrain visibility:

• Formerly, a submarine would have to enter binocular view or use Hydrophone to clearly see underwater terrain. Now, due to the hydrophone action time being drastically reduced as part of changes announced in this DevBlog, the sonic wave revealing underwater terrain that was previously tied to the use of this consumable will now be freely available when submerged, via the N key that activates the ship horn. Using the horn button will allow players to assess their surroundings more easily.

Improved Submarine proximity alert:

• In rare cases, due to the lack of assured detection of other submarines while underwater, submarines could collide with no warning. Now, a proximity alert with new audio and visual effects will be added to warn players when they are close to another submarine while submerged.

Submarine Upgrades Changes

As part of the improvements and overhaul to submarine mechanics, several changes will be made to submarine Upgrades.

• Submarine Steering Gears Modification 3 will be removed from the game.
• Damage Control System Modification 1 and Torpedo Lookout System will be removed from submarines, but will remain as an option for other ship classes.
• Sonar Modification 2 will be moved from slot 3 to slot 2.

All of the above-mentioned Upgrades that are mounted on submarines at the moment of the update release will be demounted at no cost, removed from players' accounts, and compensation issued according to their full prices. Additionally:

• For every instance of Sonar Modification 2 stored in a player's inventory, 250 000 credits will be added to their account (as this upgrade is being moved to a cheaper slot).
• Submarine Steering Gears Modification 3 will be removed from player's inventory and players will receive full compensation.

Additionally, all players will be granted a global 100% discount on demounting Upgrades for a week with the release of 13.2.

Additional Upgrades changes:

• Submarine Steering Gears Modification 2 is being renamed to Submarine Steering Gears and its parameters will be changed to the following:
  • Rudder shift time: -50%
  • Diving plane shift time: -50%

New Upgrades will be added for submarines:

• Damage Control System Modification 3, Slot 2 - Reduces damage from fire and floods by 5%
• Torpedo Tubes Modification 3, Slot 5 - Increases torpedo damage by 7%
• Submarine Compartment Reinforcement, Slot 5 - Reduces damage received to the submarine from Depth Charges by 15%

We will also include two Special Upgrades for consumables in the Armory:

• Reserve Battery Unit Modification 1, Slot 2 - Consumable action time +20%
• Submarine Surveillance Modification 1, Slot 3 - Consumable preparation and reload time -20%. This Special Upgrade will also be available for surface ships which have access to this consumable.

These should increase the diversity of submarine builds and allow for interesting choices within submarine Upgrades.

Submarine Balance Changes

As mentioned before in our post on World of Warships portal, in parallel with addressing issues with submarines, one of our goals was to maintain the same level of effectiveness for the ship class. Therefore:

• Balance changes have been applied to all standard torpedoes and to the acoustic torpedoes of the researchable British submarines in Tech Tree. The damage of alternative torpedoes has been increased by 15%, and that of British acoustic torpedoes by 5%.
• The range of the alternative torpedoes found on the German Tech Tree line was increased to allow for their use outside of close range engagements.

German Submarine U-190, Tier VIII

• Stock Alternative torpedo range increased from 5.5km to 7km
• Researchable Alternative torpedo range increased from 6.3km to 7.5km

German Submarine U-2501, Tier X

• Stock Alternative torpedo range increased from 6.3km to 7.5km
• Researchable Alternative torpedo range increased from 6.3km to 8km

Content Addition

New content will be added to the client with Update 13.2:

• Black Cat flag

• Plus Ultra Premium container - content of this container will be revealed in one of the future Updates.

• Added new portraits and voiceovers for standard Commonwealth commanders to reflect India, New Zealand, Australia and Canada.

That's all for now! Be on the lookout for more information on the World of Warships website.

Please note that all information in the development blog is preliminary. Announced adjustments and features may change multiple times during testing. The final information will be published on our game's website.