Happy Holidays from the Triassic Games team!
As we approach the end of 2025, we wanted to take a moment to look back at what the team has delivered this year, introduce two new members of the development team, and provide a brief update on several major initiatives currently in progress. We are also using this opportunity to roll out a small update to Sea Power, which is described below.
This year has been a significant one for Sea Power, both in terms of feature depth and long-term foundations for the future of the game.
Throughout 2025, development focused on building upon the core mechanics of Sea Power, as well as expanding the overall scope of the game with new factions, missions, and a campaign. Major updates this year included:
New playable JMSDF and PLAN factions, each with brand new units and scenarios.
Major rework of Flight Deck operations for enhanced realism and more interesting carrier and airbase gameplay.
Introduction of save/load functionality, enabling longer and more complex scenarios to be enjoyed in more than one session.
Tacview integration, allowing players to analyze engagements in detail outside the game.
Release of the first Linear Campaign, providing a structured story-based experience with connected and branching scenarios.
New missions, weapons, and units across all factions, expanding historical scope and providing for more variety.
Ongoing AI improvements, providing for better replayability and more challenge for players.
We are excited to welcome two new team members to Triassic!
Chris (skyblazer) has joined the art team as a 3D modeler, focusing on the creation of new units. He is a long time Sea Power mod maker known for his work on the Royal Australian Navy mod pack. Chris is based in Australia and brings a strong background in 3D design and asset creation to the team.
Nick (bluedot) has joined the team as a software developer and is currently focused on performance optimization and enhancing aircraft behavior and air-to-air combat fidelity. Like Chris, Nick is an experienced mod maker with a professional background in .NET web development.
Welcome Chris and Nick!
As we move toward 2026, several major initiatives are underway. Below is a brief status update on each:
Throughout the second half of 2025, the team has introduced a variety of enhancements to the Sea Power AI. The latest on AI has been shared throughout the last few community updates, but here is a recap as we approach the end of the year:
The AI commander can now classify player ship and aircraft formations based on shared characteristics such as heading, speed, and grouping.
AI airbases and carriers automatically launch AEW&C, maintain CAP, and scramble interceptors in response to inbound strikes.
AI aircraft will prioritize attacks on detected targets more appropriately, and defend themselves against CAP effectively.
AI submarines employ wake-homing torpedoes more effectively by engaging at closer ranges.
AI capabilities under active development:
Active AI reconnaissance using available assets.
Expanding airstrike capabilities beyond bomb-only attacks.
Enabling the AI to coordinate SEAD and jammers with airstrikes.
Morale-based AI behavior and reactions.
Improved ASW tactics against player submarines.
Better AI weapon employment within appropriate engagement envelopes.
Delivery of the AI Framework to the community, allowing scriptable AI for custom missions.
Pictured: experimental AI logic built inside the scriptable AI Framework for transiting Ship A (yellow) past Threats X, Y, and Z (red) to Destination B (green). Weighted threat values (black arrows) for each detected/classified red Threat influence the pathing decisions for Ship A (yellow). Ship A (yellow) is simulated Kidd class DDG, while Threat X (top) is simulated Oslo class FF, Threat Y (top right) is simulated Belknap class CG, and Threat Z (bottom) is simulated Sovremenny class DDG. The sharp turn to the south on classification of Threat Z (Sovremenny) is due to AI understanding of the greater anti-ship threat posed by Sovremenny with its highly capable SS-N-22 missiles.
Performance of Sea Power, especially in larger scale or longer running missions, has been a consistent point of feedback from the community. The team is making a focused effort to identify performance bottlenecks and optimize where possible.
Recent improvements include:
Significant performance gains in large-scale scenarios, with Public Beta participants (and dev team profiling) showing a 50% increase in FPS in missions. These improvements stem from optimization work led by Nick, our new programmer, who continues to identify areas for improvement.
Engine- and system-level optimizations, including revised sensor line of sight checks, improved unit file referencing to reduce load times, and better handling of large unit formations.
Progress on hunting down a long-standing memory leak that would result in longer missions slowing down or crashing, preventing the need to save and restart the game to avoid crashes.
The Triassic Team expects to continue to deliver further performance improvements with each major update. Please stay tuned!
Improving the management of aircraft in Sea Power is a high priority for our team. Recently, the team conducted a special session to identify the main areas of aircraft behavior that will be addressed:
Improving the aircraft control UI to make aircraft more intuitive to operate.
Introducing more realistic missile kinematics to make real defensive/offensive air combat tactics viable.
Adding capability to draw out specific patrol/free-engagement zones for aircraft (and extending this capability to ships and other units).
Improving WTA (Weapon Target Assignment) algorithms of AI aircraft, so that fighters prioritize targets correctly.
Adding more realistic fuel elements to the aircraft simulation, including aerial refueling.
And of course, continuing to work out bugs in the flight model (especially the recalcitrant issue where aircraft will climb to 100,000' without explanation...)
Aspects of these priorities have already been delivered and are live in the latest release (please see release notes below). For the rest, please stay tuned for updates throughout the next few months.
With continued progress on Sea Power’s AI systems, the team has begun active development of the Dynamic Campaign.
As outlined in previous updates, the initial implementation will focus on a North Atlantic theater set during a Cold War–gone-hot conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in Europe. Our current efforts focus on the strategic map view and the objectives and events shown there (for which the Linear Campaign system has provided a basic framework).
As development progresses, we will share additional details with the community.
Work is underway on a major overhaul of Sea Power's terrain and environment systems, led by Ian and Mek on the art team. This effort is focused on improving the visual fidelity of terrain, vegetation, coastlines, undersea environments, and cities within the game.
Here is a first look at some of the enhancements. We expect to release the environment overhaul sometime in Q1 of 2026:
As mentioned in our roadmap (and teased on the Microprose Discord), the next faction we are releasing will the Royal Navy. The following units have been revealed so far, with more to come:
Type 21 (Amazon) class frigate
Type 42 (Sheffield) class destroyer (Batch 1)
Type 22 (Broadsword) class frigate
Lynx HAS.1 helicopter
Royal Navy faction release is currently targeting Q2 2026, and like previous faction updates, will include a variety of new units and scenarios. Nils from the art team has been hard at work on these new ships:
Pictured: Type 21 (Amazon) class frigate
Pictured: Type 42 (Sheffield) class destroyer (Batch 1)
Pictured: Type 22 (Broadsword) class frigate
Additional areas of development are outlined below. These efforts are largely focused on quality-of-life improvements and content updates, and will be delivered incrementally over the coming year.
New native language voiceovers for Chinese and Japanese
New accented English voiceovers for European powers and others
Continuous improvement of the game's Mission Editor
Continuing to update and improve the base game's original scenario set
Adding new scenarios for all factions
Adding two new Linear Campaigns, the details for which will be shared soon™️
Adding new units for all factions outside the major faction releases, with a sneak peek below:
Pictured: one of the new units in progress by Chris on the art team.
[ADDED 26 DEC]: please note, as of 26 Dec (Friday), we have ROLLED BACK this update as some users were reporting crashes and framerate issues. We are investigating these issues and will get a patch release out ASAP. Until then, please use the Public Beta if you would like to try the changes mentioned below!
Last but not least, we will be rolling out an update to Sea Power today that incorporates the same set of improvements recently tested on the Public Beta branch. These updates were mentioned in our last post, but here is a recap for those interested:
Performance optimizations across core systems, delivering faster load times and improved FPS, especially in large-scale scenarios.
Aircraft will no longer jettison external fuel tanks unless under attack.
Fighters can now perform cranking maneuvers during BVR engagements while continuing to guide missiles.
Aircraft that run out of fuel without a nearby recovery airfield will now ditch.
Many new loadout options for US aircraft (P-3C, S-3A, SH-3H, SH-2F, A-6E, and A-7E)
New Rubezh land-based Styx platform
Newly added features in this release:
Aircraft in BVR combat can now properly crank when launching long-range missiles
Aircraft without an airfield nearby will now ditch when fuel tanks are empty
Mission Editor: Heading now changes according to the first Waypoint position if present
Added USN Mark 54 depth bomb (conventional)
Added conventional depth bomb loadouts for SH-3H and S-3A
Added new wing root pylons and Sidewinder rails for P-3C
JMSDF P-3C now use ASM-1 instead of Harpoon for AntiShip loadouts
Updated all P-3C and S-3A loadouts with new capabilities
New Anti Ship Long Range loadout for A-6E based on historical Surface CAP loadouts
New SEAD Long Range loadout for A-7E based on historical loadouts
New ASW Long Range loadout for SH-2F
New Grail mounts for Shershen-E and Mol classes, enabled SA-N-5 on Mol class
South African Air Force Mirage F1 callsigns
New 4K51 Rubezh shore-based Styx launcher
Added DECM to Yak-38
Changes from previous release:
Preferred arcs now will launch weapon even if it is not possible to fully align mount with target
Performance: Drastically improved mission loading times (thanks Bluedot!)
Performance: Re-enabled Burst compile in Synthesizers for speedup
Performance: Reworked sensor and line of sight logic to improve performance
Performance: Improved performance with large formations
Mission Editor: changed waypoints so that first waypoint can properly change unit weapon status
Campaign: updated all campaign missions to accommodate new limited fuel for unbased aircraft
Scenario: updated all scenarios to accommodate new limited fuel for unbased aircraft
Scenario: Removed "Crimson Tide" unfinished/broken scenarios from NATO and WP folders; will rework and add back later on
Scenario: Updated "Dong Hoi" for new mechanics, fixed name conventions in Volga Exercise
Scenario: Moving incomplete/broken "Head of the Snake" scenario to WIP folder
Scenario: Pact/"Hunters or Hunted" - changed Il-38 to Ka-25 with buoys only for proper difficulty
MiG-23 radar parameters according to data from nuclearstonk
Updated translations
New loadouts for P-3C, S-3A, SH-2F, SH-3H
AntiShipLongRange loadout for A-6E based on historical Surface CAP example
P-3C bank angle increased for better bombing/buoy deploy performance in line with actual capabilities
Fixes from previous release:
Air units no longer drop their tanks unless trying to evade missiles
Flight Deck button is now properly hidden for units without a Flight Deck
Placing waypoints or hitting Ceasefire no longer cancels Weapons Free state
Fixed issue where new asset loading would error out when mods had incorrect ammunition types in a magazine
Fixed issue with line of sight checks clipping into ground, preventing VID
Prevented ghost objects at world origin causing low FPS at certain low sun angle
Towed arrays could sometimes exceed max allowed depth
Submarine towed sonars floated over subs if it was close enough to the bottom
Towed decoys no longer appear on the map
Fixed issue with some aircraft unable to properly turn to waypoints on landing
Aerial Depth Charges now properly collide with seabed
Nano memory leak
Ambiguous keys were used for Circle as a formation type and as a drawing tool
Mission Editor: Random spawn works now for the whole formation if specified for a formation leader
Mission Editor: Random spawn now works properly for units in a custom formation (Loose)
Mission Editor: Tracked ammunition categories for Flight Decks with Custom Air Groups were not saved properly under some loading conditions
Mission Editor: Corrected ETA time for waypoints beyond the first waypoint
Mission Editor: Fixed issue with loading missions where all aircraft were launched from an airbase
Scenario: Victory conditions for NATO/"Arctic Intercept" updated
Tutorials: Clarified it is LEFT CTRL+Right Click to skip VID in tutorials
Missing face (vertices) on Leahy model
Submarine props now rotate backwards correctly at reverse telegraph settings
Prop rotation directions for Delta III, Yankee, Victor II, Alvand, Petya II, Petya III, Virginia CGN, California CGN (thx to gmanwr from Steam!)
Incorrect system-colliders linking in S-300 battery
Su-24 aircraft kill effects fix (engines fire effect meshes were missing)
Fixed superstructure on Ticonderoga now flush with hull
Fixed new asset loading erroring out in situations where mods have incorrect ammunition types in a magazine