Simulation fans take note! On Bundle Stars we have prepared an unbeatable simulation bundle for you: At a price of 3.49 EUR there is a boatload full of exciting simulation games waiting for you. You will save 98%!

The package contains 10 games in total. Next to "TransOcean: The Shipping Company" and the thrilling ship simulation "Coast Guard" there are also games like "Firefighters 2014", "Rescue: Everyday Heroes (US Edition)", the digger simulator "DIG IT!" as well as many other simulation highlights waiting for you. The price offer is limited and will end on July 6th, 2016. So what are you waiting for?!? Grab the "Mighty Sims Bundle" and get your ticket into the world of simulators!

Here is the link to the "Mighty Sims Bundle" on Bundle Stars:
https://www.bundlestars.com/en/bundle/mighty-sims-bundle 

Nautical offer for aspiring rulers of the Seven Seas: In preparation of the upcoming release of "TransOcean 2: Rivals" from today on our exciting economic simulation "TransOcean: The Shipping Company" is available on Steam with a 50% discount for a special price of 9.99 EUR in total. The very special feature with this price offer is that the owners of the predecessor are able to get "TransOcean 2: Rivals" on Steam with a special pre-order discount of 20% in total – incl. some maritime pre-order bonuses. So who doesn't own these two games yet, shouldn't miss this unique opportunity!

Here is the link to "TransOcean: The Shipping Company" on Steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/289930

And here is the link to the "TransOcean 2: Rivals" pre-order on Steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/350110

PS: The price offer will end on May 10th, 2016.

Ship ahoy! For all who can't wait to set sail: "TransOcean 2: Rivals" is now available for pre-order here on Steam! Next to a discount of 10 percent there are also a bunch of unique pre-order bonuses waiting for you. As a loyality bonus owners of the predecessor "TransOcean: The Shipping Company" will get a special discount of additional 10 percent!

Here is an overview of the pre-order bonuses:
- 4 additional avatars
- 4 additional logos
- 1 additional vessel
- 1 alternative headquarter
- 1 variation of the shipyard backgrounds
- Digital soundtrack of the game

The pre-order phase will end on May 10th, 2016. So, take the helm and prepare yourself for this precious cargo!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/350110

[German - see below]

Dear Community,

first of all we would like to thank each of you for the tireless support and constructive feedback to "TransOcean: The Shipping Company" over the past weeks and months. We are very happy that the game is so popular and, thanks to such a vibrant community, is still on everyone's lips.

We apologize for being a little quiet lately, but be assured that we neither have abandoned the game nor have forgotten you. We used the time for an intense study of possible future development of the game. Together with the Deck13 Hamburg developer team we were thinking about your feedback and your wishes for the game and we discussed about the options for an implementation of your most desired features.

Due to the large number of suggestions and the implied work, we decided to start the development of a successor - the necessary extensions and improvements simply aren't realizable in form of a DLC for the first part of the game in a satisfactory way. The following new features of "TransOcean 2" are just an excerpt:

• Extensive multiplayer mode against real competitors (incl. live chat) which will carry competition for lucrative contracts to the next level!
  
• An even more vivid economy which will offer a lot of macro-economic challenges.
  
• Relationship management with various institutions such as ports, shipyards or tugboat-shipping companies to gain a decisive advantage over your competitors.
  
• 2 new ship classes: tankers and bulk carriers will increase the diversity of the logistics system.

The development of TransOcean 2 has already started, but of course we are still grateful for any feedback from the community. The release of the PC and Mac versions is planned for 2016.

As soon as the community hub for "TransOcean 2" opens its doors, we will keep you updated here as well.

Your teams of astragon and Deck13 Hamburg



(Concept Artwork)



[German]

Liebe Community,
zuerst einmal möchten wir uns herzlich bei jeden einzelnen von Euch für die unermüdliche Unterstützung und das konstruktive Feedback in den vergangenen Wochen und Monaten zu TransOcean: The Shipping Company bedanken. Wir freuen uns sehr, dass das Spiel sich großer Beliebtheit erfreut und dank einer derart aktiven Community weiterhin in aller Munde ist.

Euch ist sicherlich nicht entgangen, dass es in letzter Zeit rund um das Spiel etwas ruhig geworden ist. Wir möchten Euch an dieser Stelle versichern, dass wir weder das Spiel noch Euch vergessen haben. Vielmehr galt diese lange Auszeit der intensiven Auseinandersetzung mit der zukünftigen Entwicklung des Spiels. In ausführlichen Gesprächen gemeinsam mit dem Entwickler Deck13 Hamburg haben wir uns Euer Feedback zu Herzen genommen, intensiv über die Umsetzung gewünschter Features diskutiert und eine gemeinsame Linie für die Zukunft des Spiels gesucht.

Aufgrund der Vielzahl an Anregungen und den damit implizierten Arbeiten am Spiel, haben wir uns letztlich für die Entwicklung eines Nachfolgers entschieden. Die notwendigen Erweiterungen und Verbesserungen waren als DLC für den ersten Teil schlicht nicht zufriedenstellend realisierbar. Zu den Neuerungen von TransOcean 2 gehören beispielsweise folgende Features:

• Umfangreicher Multiplayer-Modus gegen reale Mitbewerber inkl. Live-Chat. Der Wettstreit um die lukrativsten Aufträge erreicht damit das nächste Level!
  
• Lebendigeres Waren- und Wirtschaftssystem mit makroökonomischen Herausforderungen.
  
• Beziehungsmanagement zu verschiedenen Institutionen wie Häfen, Werften oder Schlepper-Reedereien um einen entscheidenden Vorteil gegenüber der Konkurrenz zu erringen.
  
• Erweiterung um 2 Schiffsklassen. Tanker und Schüttgutfrachter werden die Vielfältigkeit bei den Aufträgen erhöhen.

Die Arbeiten an TransOcean 2 haben bereits begonnen und wir sind auch weiterhin für jegliches Feedback dankbar. Ein Release ist für 2016 für PC und Mac geplant.

Sobald die Community ihre Pforten öffnet, werden wir Euch hier natürlich ebenso darüber auf dem Laufenden halten.

Eure Teams von astragon und Deck13 Hamburg

We have just released the latest patch for the MAC version of "TransOcean: The Shipping Company" which fixes the crashes some users of Macs with OS X 10.10.1 partially were experiencing during gameplay. :TOwrench:

At this point once again a big THANK YOU to all the players who have eagerly participated in the open test for the patch! :TOcreditcard:

---

Wir haben soeben den neuesten Patch für die MAC-Version von "TransOcean: The Shipping Company" bereitgestellt. Die bei einigen Nutzern von Macs mit OS X 10.10.1 teilweise auftretenden Abstürze sollten damit der Vergangenheit angehören. :TOwrench:

An dieser Stelle noch einmal ein dickes DANKESCHÖN an alle Spieler, die sich eifrig am offenen Test des Patches beteiligt haben! :TOcreditcard:

TransOcean - The Shipping Company is now available on 64bit Mac systems.

Enjoy shipping!

Following languages were added to the game:

• Czech
  
• Polish
  
• Russian
  
• Traditional Chinese

TransOcean now supports a total of 10 different languages.

For the German version check the community forums!

The second update for "TransOcean - The Shipping Company" is finished and now ready for download. Here, you will find an overview of the most important changes and improvements:

TransOcean – Patch Notes v1.2

1. Worldmap

• You can now zoom into the worldmap as well as into the map in the Cast Off menu. Zoom by using the mouse wheel and drag the map by holding the left mouse button down. (The Europe map is not zoomable.)
  
• The ship list in the lower left is now sortable by some characteristics, e.g. class, name and condition.

2. Corporate Design

• On game start you can now choose your Corporate Design. In addition to the company name you can now choose a company logo and its color, and you can even use a custom logo in PNG format. For further information, please read the Readme.txt in your folder "Libraries\Documents\TransOcean\UserCompanyLogos.
  
• You can select a primary and a secondary color for the company fleet colors.
  
• During the game you can change the whole Corporate Design as well, although it costs some money according to your fleet's size.
  
  We are looking forward to see many creative designs in the community hub's screenshot area!

3. General

• All 3D harbor scenes have been reworked technically which should lead to a better performance for every player.
  
• For 32-bit Windows users the scene loading management has been changed so that every 3D harbor scene will be loaded correctly.
  
• In the mini game your own current time will now be displayed boldly in the upper-left highscore list. As soon as you cannot reach one of the highscores it will be colored in red.

4. Ships

• All ships sailing on the oceans now have a certain chance to sink. This chance varies depending on the chosen difficulty and it will be displayed at the ship's condition bar: On "Normal" a ship can sink starting from 20% or worse, and on "Hard" starting from 40% or worse. On "Easy" a ship sinks only at 0% like before.
  
• If a ship sinks a pop-up will tell you how bad the condition actually was.
  
• Ships can now be renamed if you pay a fee. This can be done in every harbor view in the "Ship status" window.
  
• Now, new ships will not be generated on the 1st of each month per subsidiary, but scattered over the month. On difficulty "Hard" there might be months without new ship offers for some classes at all. On "Normal" you will have one ship per class for certain, and on "Easy" there will always be two.

5. Random Events

• The chance to get into a Customs Control is now raised on difficulty "Hard".
  
• The reputation penalty for Customs Controls is raised strongly on "Hard" and raised slightly on "Normal".

6. Quests

• Now the investor will announce her share deduction one month in advance.
  
• In Big Contract lists there will be tooltips for every type of freight.

7. Contracts List

• In the mini map in the top-left of the Contracts List there will now be a small marker showing where the current harbor is.

8. Bugfixes

• In the mini game the ship class icon at the bottom was displayed incorrectly. Now it always shows the right ship class.
  
• Rottderdam's landmark will now be displayed correctly in its loading screen.
  
• Very rarely it could happen that upon completing a Company Contract another Company Contract was marked as completed, while the actual Company Contract is left at over 100% completion. This is fixed. Players that still have a Company Contract set to over 100% are asked to make just one more delivery for it, making the Company Contract complete at last.
  
• In Shanghai there are various ships onshore, being built in wharfs. Yet, they were marked in pink on the mini map like regular ships. This has been fixed.
  
  
  

For the German version check the community forums!

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.