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Huge update coming which includes the Indian Ocean, a ton of new missions, graphical improvements, and fresh faces to deal with at High Command depending on flotilla and port location. Looks like they've also added some in-port activities. The Type IX should be arriving as a DLC towards the end of January, and versions of it are playable from 1939 on. Info as per their Steam page announcement.

I've stopped reporting my campaign playthroughs for a bit while I try to improve my own play...

I got hooked on their 'play as skipper' first person perspective lol and given the bugginess and higher learning curve attached to same it's been quite a slog; but immersive as all get out.

You liked the 'skipper mode'?

I tried it because that's how I played Silent Hunter, but didn't like it much in UBOAT because you lose the section view and moving around gets tedious in short order. There's always a crewman coming up the ladder when you want to go down. I want to like it.

Actually let me rephrase my blather a little...I got hooked on skipper mode because I was trying to make it work; like how I like to play SHIII. Hooked on trying various ways to 'workaround' the clipping, getting stuck on a vertices, lodged behind the motors (don't ask). That said, there are moments of great immersion...kinda like a carrot on the stick...which keep me self-flagellating because...large doses of copium...

When the big patch drops and the new dlc arrives I'll just play in, what my son calls, 'The Sims Mode'. lol. Cheers

Helow Leaf85, is the big update free upgrade ? I have U2 from GOG

I believe the big update is free to owners of the game, my friend.

The Type IX U-boat DLC is paid (afaik)

Here is a link to their Steam page announcement Steam Notes

I didn't purchase U2 from Steam, purchased it from GOG, thanks for the link for Steam though.

Yeah I imagine the info on Steam will apply to the GoG version.

It does Leaf thanks.

I just saw that the devs have delayed the Type IX U-boat and DLC until April 17th 2026. Fine tuning and integration bug fixes (adding the Indian Ocean campaigns). According to my Steam news, the DLC will be priced at $16.99 USD.

Annnnnnd here's 17 April complete with a massive content update, plenty of fixes and re-jigging of old content, and the Type IX DLC. Just installing the patch and new boat now and will likely give it a go sometime this weekend.

I just got the the Type IX U-boat and DLC from GOG, will see how it works out. U-Boat is on sale at Steam for $8.34 down from $30.

Thanks for the heads up, I picked up the DLC and fired it up. I've been waiting a long time to sail to Penang haha. Had a look through the campaigns and saw one that starts in Penang, but that's no good. I want to sail there.

There's another Type IX campaign that starts in France in 1942, so I chose that one, and eventually we should get an optional mission to redeploy.

I did a few training missions and I'll give the campaign a go.

I had a quick shufti at the new stuff and they have made some nice changes/additions, and the water looks better too. Took me a few clics to run through the BDU options ingame having been so used to finding the admiralty fellows on the docks, finding them in the HQ was cool. They have a 01 Sept 1939 campaign start for the Type IX out of Wilhelmshaven. I think the new boot will be better for the 'captain view' method of play since it's more roomy than the cramped Type IIA. Having a lot of torpedoes bodes well too. I plan on testing crash dive times and comparing them to the II and the VII.

Yeah good shout Leaf. After doing all the training I cared to do I started a career, and took your route, a IX A out of Wilhelmshaven. This will give the crew the early years to become seasoned veterans, perhaps. There are two seemingly identical campaigns, U-37 and U-38, both out of Wilhelmshaven. I wonder if one was supposed to be out of Kiel, or maybe they have divergent focuses later on, with one campaign leading to Drum Beat and another to Monsun, or something. Curious what the difference might be. They both start on same date, same port and same boat right? I'll have to look again.

Set sail on my first Type IX patrol, to AM grid, which got re-assigned to AN grid enroute. First war shots on the outbound leg were against a war tanker that was overtaking us astern just hours after war was declared. The tanker was clipping along at 12 knots and we were at 9 for best fuel, so got lucky and had him sail right up our exhaust pipes. Simply submerged, turned 90 degrees and let him cross the wire. After getting recalled to the North Sea we ran straight in to a convoy and targeted and sank a town class cruiser, and got boxed in by escorts as we tried to slink away. This went on for hours and lucky to have escaped as the depth alternated between 70 and 150 meters and I kept bottoming. If it were later in the war we would have been sunk I believe. I found the Type IX to be just what we expect. A bit more clumsy and lethargic. Let me know the results of your test but it feels slower to get under, slower to turn. I removed the after 37mm gun before the first patrol. We were pinged a number of times, patterns were dropped and evaded, but it's impossible to say if we were any more susceptible than in a VII. You expect so, but difficult to quantify. It was September of '39 so it will only get harder from here.

I had picked AM grid for the first patrol so we would have deep water under us, but BdU had other plans and redirected us before we reached station. I didn't want to have the green crew subjected to this sort of strain, but none cracked so in the end that will speed it all up a bit. I'd rather pick off singles for a few patrols to train them up. Playing on 70% difficulty. Most realism stuff on but the crew stuff dialed back.

The revised port interface is better I suppose than finding the little dude in the parking lot. I think I missed research. This change to base interactions is new with this update? I hadn't played since October of '24 so didn't know if this change had been done a while back.

It's fun to give it a go again, the new boat gave me a reason. It is not a boat for the North Sea, or for the North Atlantic really, at least beyond 1940. More far-reaching objectives suit it better, so be careful in these early starts in shallow water with a green crew! Range, endurance and the loadout to make it count are what the Type IX brings, and I'll be happy once we can sail out of France and leave the North Sea behind.

GOG has been sending out quite few updates on U-Boat lately. Latest update is v2026.1 Patch 4.

I know that this forum is a U-Boat forum but I just wanted to give a plug for Cold Waters. Even better with the “ EPIC “ mod and “ DotMot Mod “.

Well, technically this thread is uboat, but the forum is naval. I'll allow it (it's my thread haha)

We returned from the first patrol, having survived and ran in to a problem selecting the next mission. The game shifted to an animation about tonnage war, then the three mission options came up and I selected one but nothing happened. I clicked it again and it auto-canceled and the exit button wouldn't work so I needed to close the program because I was stuck. Too bad as that career was off to a promising start. Maybe when I restart it will work, I don't know.

I've run into a couple of game-breaking bugs myself. The first was in the crew menu when you select who is being assigned to your boat. I like to start a campaign with my crew wearing a uniform, sailors cap or side cap, shaven. My junior officers all wear the denim battledress, officer caps, are shaven...in other words, a smart looking company. Fixed up the juniors first, including the XO, and then started in on the ratings. Crash. Repeat. Crash. Second issue I had was a 'lock-up' when I hit the "Leave Port" button, third was during a crash dive test where the view locked up. I think I'll give it a week to see if they can stabilize it a bit more. Some of that may be on my end too, as I'm running a potato (RTX3070) and I'll need to check my drivers yet. I have started to collect some dive/surface speed tests on the IX which, so far, has taken an average of 4 minutes to crash down to 150 m, 3 minutes to surface (not emergency ballast blow), at speed of 13 kts on surface, rough seas, to 4 kts on electrics. Dropping to periscope depth at similar speeds has averaged 1.10 minutes which somehow seems a bit rapid? (not a crash dive). Will re-test the numbers later this week and then do the Type II and Type VII. Might be a useful bit of info?

Ah, that's too bad, that it is buggy. Another one I had is officers getting stuck at idle. One time it seemed to be caused by a stuck hatch, between engineering and officer's country. I switched to control of a crewman and manually opened the hatch and the stuck crew could move again. But then it happened again later. I'll give it another go and maybe need to set it aside for a bit of seasoning.

Today's patch seems to have fixed the mission select issue

- Fix: Issue where selecting a new assignment was resulting in UI remaining stuck on the assignment selection screen.

I reloaded the save and tried again, second patrol of career and first after Tonnage War animation, and was able to select the new objective without issue.

Another issue I ran in to is officers stuck idling. It appears to be caused by the after control room hatch only able to be opened from the control room side. So crewmen aft of this hatch get stuck there and cannot return to compartments forward of this hatch. Type IXA. Until this is fixed you can click the hatch from the control room and it should open and the stuck crew can move forward but it can happen again. I also had an issue where the crew seemed unable to move from the electric compressor to the diesel compressor as he keeps bumping in to the machinery which resets his walking animation and he becomes stuck. You can click on the crewman and take him over to move him away.

I noticed there is a new? setting for encounters, ostensibly to spice things up a bit and give more contacts. I chose the first one above default, I forget what it is called. On the first patrol in the North Sea I had three rapid convoy contacts, with the space of probably two days, and each one my boat was in the same position, ahead on the port quarter. Ideal position, sure, but it all felt artificial and I suspect these convoys were the result of the encounters setting choice. That they were spawned in to give me more contacts. I think I will start anew with this setting on default.