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The first major update for "TransOcean: The Shipping Company" is now available on Steam. Next to improvements and some smaller Bugfixes the update also contains a first set of ideas and suggestions from the community. Here is a list of the changes:

TransOcean – Patch Notes 01

1. Balancing

• Three difficulty modes have been added: easy, normal and hard. Quite a few more balancing modifications have been established. Your old game save files will be classified as “normal” by default.

2. Contracts list

• In the contracts list the ship’s route will now be displayed with a thicker line on the mini map in the upper left corner.
• The contracts list now has more space to display available missions. The number of displayed accepted missions has in turn been reduced.
• In the contracts list and cast-off screen a tooltip now explains that the information beneath the speed button indicates the maximum range.
• The messages on the right border have been moved to the layer beneath the list of assignments to prevent overlaps with displayed missions.
• The performance of the contracts list and the cast-off menu has been improved. The menus set up quicker. Scrolling is now smoother.
• The ship icon in the contracts list now displays the implemented freight improvements.

3. Mini Game

• A feature has been implemented that allows for a free mini-game camera that does not pivot automatically. It can be chosen in the options menu which is also accessible directly in the mini game. In response to many requests, this is now the default setting.
• Zooming in on the ships even closer and tilting the camera farther is now possible.
• The captain now explains how to zoom out and tilt the camera.
• In the mini game, the zoom on the mini map will now be maxed out by default.
• The set camera zoom and degree of tilting will now be saved.

4. World Map

• The export goods of a port will now be displayed when hovering over the respective port on the map with the mouse cursor.
• The ship list on the world map now displays a little icon that shows if a ship needs repairs or improvement.
• The four menus in the lower HUD-bar now display a tooltip to simplify their association during the tutorial.

5. Ports

• Two moving objects in the port of Nuuk were shown as being displaced. They were brought back down to earth ;)
• The seabed in Manila was too high, due to which large ships were prone to running aground. This has been fixed.

6. Company Contracts

• A security query has now to be confirmed when accepting a new company contract.
• After completing or failing a contract, the logo of the respective company will now be displayed.

7. Quests

• During the very last quest “The Final Hurdle”, the consultant sometimes daily gave out the advice to repay your loan. You are reminded only once a month.
• After completing the final quest the investor won’t claim her dues anymore.
• Your progress during the quest “Move With The Times”, which demanded five improvements, will now be saved in your game saves.

8. Bugfixes

• In some cases, naming a ship via keyboard was not possible, due to which a randomized name had to be chosen. This issue has been fixed.
• In some instances which occurred in connection with a fire on deck or a pirate attack, the save files were set back to 01.01.2014.
• Pirate attacks now only occur in designated areas instead of world-wide.
• The achievement “Breadwinner” was not available and has been changed: Now you have to deliver food to all 55 ports, starting from your home port or one of your subsidiaries
• The achievement “Large Contract Boss” was not available. This has been fixed.
• The achievement “Tourist (Asia)” was not available due to the fact that the special building in Hong Kong was missing in the list. It has now been added.
• The achievement “Continental Drift” had been rated wrongly, due to which it was not available.
• All achievements that required the delivery of 10.000 TEU of a particular freight featured a bug which has now been resolved.
• The destination ports of loaded contracts were not localized properly in the list of ships.
• In the contracts list, the scheduled date of accepted contracts was sometimes erroneously classified as “Deadline tight” and was therefore marked red.
• In rare cases, tooltips stuck to the mouse cursor and did not disappear again. This has been fixed.
• The available subsidiaries have been miscounted in the campaign, which led to restrictions in the choice of on which continent to build them. This happened in connection with the quest that required the player to open a subsidiary in the US. It has now been fixed.
• When choosing between two types of improvements (e.g. insulation or cooling), a bug occurred in rare cases which allowed for the slots to be equipped with two improvements of the same type. This issue will not occur anymore.
• On some ships the containers were floating a few centimeters above the deck.
• Various small bug fixes.

9. General

• The game speed will now be paused when leaving a port by using the bottom left button.
• When trying to repair or upgrade a ship, which is still in the middle of an unfinished deadline contract, the player will receive a warning. This does not apply to the hard mode.
• The quarterly finances, which can cost the company its reputation, won’t be rated as severely anymore.
• The player’s choice to manually leave a port or to call a tugboat will now be saved.
• The game will now remember the last submenu of the four main menus that had been opened (e.g. accepted company contracts or loans).

What comes next:
At first we want to thank all players for your great feedback and suggestions. We promise that we are keeping your feedback in mind and that we are doing our best to make TransOcean even better in the future. So here is a list of features that are already planned for the next patch:

• Performance improvements for the 3D harbor sceneries
• Choosable company logo
• Choosable company colour (also for ship paintings)
• Renaming of your ships will be possible
• Sortable ship list on the world map

Furthermore we are trying to fix the problems some players experience while playing under Windows 32-Bit systems with less than 4GB RAM available. First improvements are already implemented in the first patch, but we are also working on an OpenGL version of the game. The tests will show if this will be enough. Be assured that we are doing our best to solve these problems.