Work in progress: Dreadnoughts

[Sento de Benimaclet]

On ‎26‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 12:37 PM, Alex Connor said:

It's an old game now but Battlestations Midway had an excellent blend of action and strategy

I prefer an open world like the naval action but the whole world of map. 

more ideas: few nations had important navies at international level: Great Britain, France, USA, Germany and Japan. I would not put more nations.

Ships would be handled like this?:

 

 

Without planes of course.  

[Alex Connor]

An open world would really limit playability if you want to have a global game map. 

I mean Naval Action is a beautiful game, the combat is fantastic and I have spent well over a thousand hours playing since sea trials, but in a game map that size everything takes an eternity to do (maybe that's why I have so many hours, there was a lot of semi-afk sailing). Last time I was playing was based out of Navassa attacking traffic around Port Royal/Kingston, a distance of no more than 150km in real life on a map nearly 4000km across, yet that was a 30 minute sail just to where enemies might be, then you have to find a battle and the battle itself could easily take an hour. To play Naval Action and achieve anything at all meant setting aside an entire evening. 

And that's just a map of the Caribbean, with the scale set as small as possible where you can still have recognizable landmarks.

 

My preference would be a turn based global campaign map (emphasis on map, perhaps in a style like the Ultimate Generals battlefields) which transitions into a naval action style battle map when combat is triggered, on which you would fight with 3rd person ship control and a tactical map for squadron/fleet command. The global campaign map would allow strategic elements like diplomatic relations, control of resources, shipping, convoys etc to come into play, along with things like cruiser raiding, commerce warfare and grand fleet battles. In essence players would build their fleets and fight their own Tsushimas, Jutlands, Falkland Islands instead of just refighting historical battles, which to me would be a wasted opportunity in a game that let's you design and build your own ships.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Alex Connor

[Sento de Benimaclet]

13 hours ago, Alex Connor said:

An open world would really limit playability if you want to have a global game map. 

Could not you put a time compressor like in the Silent Hunter 3, 4, 5? It would not be a problem for the map to cover the entire world. Regards!!!

[Alex Connor]

On 3/1/2018 at 10:12 AM, Sento de Benimaclet said:

Could not you put a time compressor like in the Silent Hunter 3, 4, 5? It would not be a problem for the map to cover the entire world. Regards!!!

Well, that works in a game where you command one ship (or submarine) and gameplay consists of combat and looking for combat.

However, there are a lot more uses of time here. There is combat itself, there is shipbuilding and there is also strategy.

We don't know what devs plan for strategy, but at the least there is time progression from 1880 to 1939 and a large map or world map. Quite possibly there is technology research to handle (so you cannot for example build HMS Dreadnought in 1880), along with diplomacy which is important because historical conflicts take up only very small portions of 1880 to 1939. For example playing as Britain if you started in 1880 there would be no naval conflicts until 1914 unless the player has the ability to go to war. There may also be control of resources to handle, the world's trade is carried by ships and it would make sense for players to be protecting their own shipping while hunting the enemy's with raiding cruisers and squadrons. There might even be conquest, which could be handled as escorting troops via sea (probably not conquest of nations, but at least taking remote supply points).

I'm very much looking forward to the strategy, shipbuilding and combat but don't see how a player will have time to do all that while also patrolling the seas as an individual captain.

Edit: Suppose we are all speculating while waiting for dev details, the game could turn out very different from image in my head 

Edited March 2, 2018 by Alex Connor

[Ruthless4u]

19 hours ago, Alex Connor said:

Well, that works in a game where you command one ship (or submarine) and gameplay consists of combat and looking for combat.

However, there are a lot more uses of time here. There is combat itself, there is shipbuilding and there is also strategy.

We don't know what devs plan for strategy, but at the least there is time progression from 1880 to 1939 and a large map or world map. Quite possibly there is technology research to handle (so you cannot for example build HMS Dreadnought in 1880), along with diplomacy which is important because historical conflicts take up only very small portions of 1880 to 1939. For example playing as Britain if you started in 1880 there would be no naval conflicts until 1914 unless the player has the ability to go to war. There may also be control of resources to handle, the world's trade is carried by ships and it would make sense for players to be protecting their own shipping while hunting the enemy's with raiding cruisers and squadrons. There might even be conquest, which could be handled as escorting troops via sea (probably not conquest of nations, but at least taking remote supply points).

I'm very much looking forward to the strategy, shipbuilding and combat but don't see how a player will have time to do all that while also patrolling the seas as an individual captain.

Edit: Suppose we are all speculating while waiting for dev details, the game could turn out very different from image in my head 

I'm starting to wonder if they are planning an updated version of Koei's old P.T.O game or something similar.

[Alex Connor]

On a subject we can all agree on, a functional system of commerce would be pretty awesome. 

I've played a fair number of ship titles and other strategy games and merchant ships tend to be targetable scenery whose destruction doesn't actually mean anything. If merchant ships exist at all that is, frequently you get a sea full of warships and not much else even though commerce vessels outnumbered warships by 10 to 1 or even 100 to 1.

Here there will be shipbuilding which means you need to have resources, and those resources could be tied to physical cargo ships plying the seas. Doesn't have to be too complex, each nation has a pool of shipbuilding resources like steel and oil, then you have a bunch of little AI merchant vessels running back and forth between resource points and their home nation, each time one makes it back to port you get a little uptick of resources.  

Of course, some won't make it because they ran into a warship. Which opens up commerce raiding, individual cruisers and even squadrons hunting the high seas to starve out the enemy, other squadrons hunting the raiders. Convoy systems, a check box to gather all ships from nearby ports and hold them to form a convoy which can be escorted by attached warships.

I think this would be a first among strategy games if successfully implemented.

[Ruthless4u]

16 hours ago, Alex Connor said:

On a subject we can all agree on, a functional system of commerce would be pretty awesome. 

I've played a fair number of ship titles and other strategy games and merchant ships tend to be targetable scenery whose destruction doesn't actually mean anything. If merchant ships exist at all that is, frequently you get a sea full of warships and not much else even though commerce vessels outnumbered warships by 10 to 1 or even 100 to 1.

Here there will be shipbuilding which means you need to have resources, and those resources could be tied to physical cargo ships plying the seas. Doesn't have to be too complex, each nation has a pool of shipbuilding resources like steel and oil, then you have a bunch of little AI merchant vessels running back and forth between resource points and their home nation, each time one makes it back to port you get a little uptick of resources.  

Of course, some won't make it because they ran into a warship. Which opens up commerce raiding, individual cruisers and even squadrons hunting the high seas to starve out the enemy, other squadrons hunting the raiders. Convoy systems, a check box to gather all ships from nearby ports and hold them to form a convoy which can be escorted by attached warships.

I think this would be a first among strategy games if successfully implemented.

I have no issue with commerce as long as it's not a trading game like Open world NA

[Nick Thomadis]

Thank you guys for the on going interest to follow this thread. I wish we could share more details at this moment. Before we are able to share more information about the game, we will periodically offer some 3D model images which show the art direction of the game, regarding the war ships.

Here are some early torpedo boats of 1890-1900 era.

[Alex Connor]

8 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Thank you guys for the on going interest to follow this thread. I wish we could share more details at this moment. Before we are able to share more information about the game, we will periodically offer some 3D model images which show the art direction of the game, regarding the war ships.

Here are some early torpedo boats of 1890-1900 era.

Really nice models, throw in some length of hull options and that pretty much covers early torpedo boats even into WWI.

I'm a little curious how you will handle custom designs with such detailed models though, what happens if for example I wanted to build a 3 funnel version, or put one of the torpedo tubes amidships? Do the ventilators disappear, can you move, delete or even cut in half the low piece of superstructure the funnels are sitting on? 

[Nick Thomadis]

These are WIP models, not a final product, so indeed any details how things are going to work are hard to explain at the moment  

[Alex Connor]

I understand, at this point you are more or less just building models that will be chopped up later to create assets for the shipbuilder.

Well, (surprise ) I have some ideas for how the more complex superstructure could be handled. The early battleships can be pretty simple, identification book examples from page 1 of this thread look great because early battleships looked like that, but going into WW1 superstructure gets a lot more complicated, lots of things intersecting with each other.

So for example you can build preset superstructure pieces like this, and allow players to move them around. Super-firing guns mounted into the superstructure.

 

However, IMO it's better to make superstructure and turrets/barbettes separate, so you can clip the barbette through the superstructure in any position as long as the turret itself is not inside the superstructure. That way different size turrets will all have the right barbette without any need to make different versions of the superstructure. 

 

You could also for example have no super-firing turret, and instead put a secondary weapon or rangefinder etc there without any need for a different superstructure model.

 

Another point for getting as much use as possible out of one piece of superstructure is to add extra deck levels to the same piece so it can be raised or lowered without changing the model.

 

Extra decks also allow the superstructure to fit seamlessly onto a ship that has a step in the deck of the hull.

 

And finally (), letting players clip pieces of superstructure through each other means players can create their own complex superstructure in believable looking ways.

[Fletch]

I used to play the old Burning steel games from SSI loved them

[admin]

21 hours ago, Alex Connor said:

I understand, at this point you are more or less just building models that will be chopped up later to create assets for the shipbuilder.

Well, (surprise ) I have some ideas for how the more complex superstructure could be handled. The early battleships can be pretty simple, identification book examples from page 1 of this thread look great because early battleships looked like that, but going into WW1 superstructure gets a lot more complicated, lots of things intersecting with each other.

So for example you can build preset superstructure pieces like this, and allow players to move them around. Super-firing guns mounted into the superstructure.

 

 

And finally (), letting players clip pieces of superstructure through each other means players can create their own complex superstructure in believable looking ways

Your example is easily done with blocks like you shown.
Once you start making them look good and realistic you will see the cracks in your proposal. As long as you move away from blocks to real parts you will see what we mean. But maybe its us who dont see it. I wonder if you can show it using not blocks but real superstructures

btw.. we might need volunteer modelers for parts by summer

[Alex Connor]

On 3/9/2018 at 10:13 PM, admin said:

Your example is easily done with blocks like you shown.
Once you start making them look good and realistic you will see the cracks in your proposal. As long as you move away from blocks to real parts you will see what we mean. But maybe its us who dont see it. I wonder if you can show it using not blocks but real superstructures

btw.. we might need volunteer modelers for parts by summer

Challenge accepted 

Detail is not a problem as long as you build the pieces to work together but also be able to stand on their own.

3 ships made by arranging exactly the same pieces in different ways.

 

(note, these pieces could be far more detailed/elaborate and still work together)

 

I have some ideas for a system on how to control the pieces in the shipbuilder itself (pretty much put everything on a grid, you could even use a 3D grid for machinery layout inside the ship's hull).

[Alex Connor]

I did run into some of the problems you probably found but there are definitely solutions and ways you can build/details the parts so that they work together perfectly. 

Combining detailed and accurate parts like bridges, funnels and bridges taken from real ships with preset "building-block" parts has huge potential to me, the options are almost endless (casemate guns in the superstructure, catapults for floatplanes and so on), this can work for any size or type of ship.

Currently working on a detailed proposal for how individual parts work plus a higher quality model for demonstration purposes (model above is actually a pre-dreadnought hull scaled up).

 

Edit: Really this is taking the best ideas from a wide range of games, I've played many games with modular building systems, even made some assets for one as a mod and have a good idea of what works and what doesn't work in a modular system. 

Edited March 12, 2018 by Alex Connor

[Nick Thomadis]

Hello again,

It has been quite long before we updated this thread with more information about our upcoming game. We would like to post two pictures showing our work in progress: "An armoured cruiser in shipyard".

At this time we want to announce a round description of what this game is about:

Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts or short version “Dreadnoughts” is going to be a single player game on ship design and combat covering real and fictional wars from 1890 to 1936. Like all the products from Game Labs it will give a fresh and unique look on that era with great attention to detail and realism of ship fighting.

More official information is going to be provided in the coming months in this thread. Thanks for reading!

[Hethwill]

This is great ! Thank you for the lift of the veil Nick.

[z4ys]

I really like the kind of voxel artstyle. I personal hope that this is not just for the moment. Nonetheless Ultimate Admiral: Dreanoughts looks really promising. But with UG:CW in mind I personally hope it will have some coop or MP functions.

 

Edited April 11, 2018 by z4ys

[jekct1212]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Battle of Jutland here I come! Ultimate Admiral! 

 

[jekct1212]

6 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Hello again,

It has been quite long before we updated this thread with more information about our upcoming game. We would like to post two pictures showing our work in progress: "An armoured cruiser in shipyard".

At this time we want to announce a round description of what this game is about:

Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts or short version “Dreadnoughts” is going to be a single player game on ship design and combat covering real and fictional wars from 1890 to 1936. Like all the products from Game Labs it will give a fresh and unique look on that era with great attention to detail and realism of ship fighting.

More official information is going to be provided in the coming months in this thread. Thanks for reading!

So is this a continuation of the Ultimate General games or a new entity all together?

[Nick Thomadis]

It is a completely different project entity, not having any similarity to the previous Ultimate General games which were about land combat. It is a bold project that we finally decided to make, after years of interest on this time period and the corresponding naval genre.

[Mirones]

 

Cant wait to build my own Cruisers and Großlinienschiffe.

[jekct1212]

1 hour ago, Nick Thomadis said:

It is a completely different project entity, not having any similarity to the previous Ultimate General games which were about land combat. It is a bold project that we finally decided to make, after years of interest on this time period and the corresponding naval genre.

This is great, really interesting era and topic

[Sento de Benimaclet]

Armoured cruiser in shipyard picture is simply AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Keep up the good work.  º7  Devs.

Edited April 12, 2018 by Sento de Benimaclet

[jekct1212]

Is this at style the final style? I for one really like it.