Last week Joel Billings supplied us with update information on Fighting Steel. Here is his update with the link to the latest patch below. (Note: torpedo splashes were already added in 1.02).

In addition to the items listed below, several other minor changes were made and several bugs that could have caused random crashes under uncommon circumstances were fixed in 1.02 and 1.03.

Plans for 1.1 which we hope to have ready by early to mid August include inserting the after battle replay feature into the game and getting the 3 and 4 player and cooperative multiplayer features into the game. In addition to these 2 major enhancements, we will take care of other bugs discovered between now and then.

Changes/Fixes in the v1.03 of Fighting Steel are as follows:

· Exiting from End-Game Victory Screen returns to Main Menu Screen (or fleet mgmt screen in campaigns). Used to occasionally crash when exiting the end game victory screen.
· AI ships now properly fire starshells.
· Improved AI logic for choosing a torpedo spread (narrow, normal, or wide).
· Torpedo hits no longer cause the game to crash in 2-player battles.
· An "Evading Torpedoes" message is displayed if a torpedo spread passes near a ship: 1000 yards for elite crews, 800 for veterans, 600 for average, and 400 for green. These distances are halved at night.
· Corrected problem of campaign difficulty level switching to default after loading a saved game.
· Starshells and illumination circles are properly displayed on 2D map.
· Gunnery modifier for turning in column applies just to ships in turn, not all ships in division.
· Added text message for enemy magazine explosions.
· Corrected problem in single-ship main and secondary gun target selection pop-ups (user no longer has to deselect current target before selecting a new one).
· Battle Difficulty Level now graphically displayed on the In-Game and End-Game Victory Screens.
· Campaign Difficulty Level now displayed on the Fleet Management Screen.
· Reform Column now sets course to nearest column heading according to port/starboard selection.

· Corrected problem of secondary guns not firing after selecting a target in single-ship panel.
· In the End-Game All Ships Screen, you can toggle between Victory Points and Mission Points (blue numbers for friendly points scored, red numbers for enemy points scored).
· Fixed problem of repeated clicking on scroll buttons in Scenario Selection Screen causing scenario to be loaded.
· Button added below ship box for a single-ship division to cancel its turn in progress.
· Increased safety margin that AI ships use in their torpedo-attack decisions, to reduce occurrence of AI torpedoing their own intervening ships.
· The division numbers on the End-Game All Ships Screen are now correct.
· All searchlights and starshells are switched off when night ends.
· When loading a saved game, the realism preferences revert to the ones you chose at the start of that battle.
· In 2-player games, if one player goes to the Briefing Screen or In-Game Victory Screen, the game pauses for the other player.

We have revised the Norway Encounter so that the four DDs in RN Division 3 may not fire torpedoes (they were fitted as minelayers for the operation but had already laid their mines). You may download the revised scenario from Divide By Zero's website: Place the file (New Norway Encounter.sch) in the Scenarios folder of your Fighting Steel directory.