Today's a big day: we're releasing Release Candidate 1 of Waves of Steel! This marks the end of "normal" development. But it's not the final release before launch! I'm sure you all will find more things that need to be fixed or improved, and I'll have my hands full. But nonetheless, this is a huge milestone. After three and a half years of hard work, the end is in sight! Patch notes for Waves of Steel v0.54RC1: Gameplay:

• Improved the appearance of most objects in the game. Better shadows, lighting, and colors.
• Most weapons can now be placed on superstructure.
• Parts may now be placed in invalid positions. Invalid parts will be removed when the ship is saved.
• Most superstructure can now be stretched vertically, giving more aux space.
• Most superstructure can now be rotated in 90-degree increments
• Add some new parts, including an ammo depot
• Bow drills are now available from the start of the game
• On Hard difficulty, the player takes even more damage.
• Rocket PT boats have a worse rate of fire.
• Several niche weapons are lighter
• The Sawblade weapon has a larger hitbox
• The Sawblade and Bow Drill weapons deal 5x and 10x more damage, respectively
• Add "Melee" and "Plasma" weapon categories
• Tweaked the appearance of the dialog panel slightly
• A dock in "The Tendency of Power" has been moved, to keep the player from getting stuck if they play that mission with a large ship
• The Plasma Lance weapons are better-able to hit nearby enemies
• The "Iowa Bridge (Refit)" part has been renamed to "M-Tech Bridge"
• The ship picker layout has been improved; ship specials are now shown in the picker
• Add some extra dialog to mission "Escalation" if the player does objectives out-of-order
• Added two PT boats to the ship test range

• Fix weapons being placed into the wrong weapon groups
• Fix firing angles not updating when the designer camera is moved
• Fix muted sound effects in mission summary
• Fix bugged fadeout when leaving combat
• Fix the 100cm gun not getting proper firing angles
• The CIWS model is correctly scaled (i.e. slightly smaller)
• Matte materials (such as those used for weapon glows) are not covered by ship paint jobs
• The "ship sailing" cutscene type has better framing
• Fix portrait flicker if two characters use the same portrait slot in a single conversation
• Fix continuous-fire weapons sometimes having their effects play in the wrong direction
• Fix the flag on the Bismarck bridge being badly-oriented
• Fix the smoke on the King George V vent spawning in an odd position
• The Ratatosk now has a "water shadow" like other ships do
• Fix the Town and Tone cruisers having poorly-placed engine overdrive shockwave visuals
• It should be much harder, if not impossible, to get stuck on terrain now, due to decreased friction
• Fix various "in-universe" UI elements, like guide arrows, being drawn in post-mission screenshots
• Fix certain weapons firing backwards if mounted at a 90-degree angle
• The mission "Chrysalis" has a larger arena
• Fix modded flags/decals being shown in the ship designer UI even when those mods are disabled
• Fix missing treasure in "Taking Flight"
• Fix a bug causing autofire weapons to be unable to fire on buildings in certain circumstances
• Some weapons have more realistic stats (e.g. railguns no longer have 100k ammo)
• Fix bug causing ships to become unstable when maneuvering at high speeds
• When saving ships in the designer, the ship's name updates immediately instead of waiting until the save dialog is dismissed
• Fix a bug causing parts to be duplicated when using the Undo button
• Fix a bug causing guns to not target the true center of the target in rare circumstances
• Fix the inset target display for the Dora Volante being a cube
• Fix the flag strand placement UI being broken for gamepad users
• Fix flag strands drawing in strange locations during combat
• Fix a rare bug causing music to not change when told to by the mission script
• Fix visual bug if a ship is cut in half while it has an active shield

• Add projectileParticleEffect, projectileParticleOffset, projectileParticleSc ale so modded projectiles can have particle effects.