Union ships go live

All the Union ships are now updated and released, and the new USS Queen of the West is up for sale. If you have an older version of these or the Confederate ships please please please make sure you can update them to our new ICS3 versions. If you are having any problems getting the updates working IM MrBunwah Murakami as he handles all that.

We have noticed that during battles we still see some people using older versions of our ships even with the updates out. We have tested all the updates and we are able to get them to work, so make sure you are able to get yours to work. You just need to drop the ship on the ground and wait several seconds. If you are not sure if you have the latest version of a ship, check to see what version of ICS it uses. If you see ICS2.0 or below, you are not up to date. It needs to be ICS3.0 or above. MrBunwah can check the records to see if you purchased a ship so he can send you an update if you request one. Again, talk to MrBunwah Murakami if you are having problems with these updates!

Now that that's out of the way, We have one commission from the Imperial Navy of Steeltopia and a troop transport ship we want to finish. After that is the big sfx/pfx update, in which we update all the sound effects and particle effects as well as some other nice little upgrades. Here is a list of what we have planned for this update...

• Upgrade engine sound effects with different sound effects based on ship sizes and ship speeds

• Get water wakes to trail behind every ship, and have them differ based on speed and size of the ship

• Change the CTF effects so that the color of your smoke would actually change to the color of your team instead of the default sparkle effect

• Upgrade cannon sound effects and add more variety between guns

• Include sound effects for when you are out of ammo and try to fire a cannon

• Include progressive damage sound effects, such as straining machinery, burning, flooding, the sounds of your crew as they scream bloody murder

• Upgrade death effects so that chunks of the ship and shrapnel go flying, either by prim or particles or both. Also change the smoke and fire to water bubbles when the ship is fully underwater

• Have the ships sink more realistically, instead of going straight down
  

• Add additional sound effects like wave sounds, bells, random machinery

• Add an additional camera point that focuses on the direction a turret is facing on a monitor type ship

• May make some visual changes to the HUD again, to make it simpler to use

• Add the ability for individual components of a ship to be damaged, such as if a cannon is directly hit it may disable it. Also may have the ship take damage if you go at maximum speed for too long, or have it so some boilers explode reducing your overall speed. Of course these changes would come with their own particle and sound effects

• Iron out any last bugs we encounter

Now that may look like a huge undertaking, but it's really not that bad. It will no way take as long as our last update, due to the fact that much of the groundwork is already done. Most of it is just a matter of dropping in some new sounds and particles effects.