Tycondero

Tbh, I do not think the situation is (luckily) that bad atm. We got a reply by Nick last Wednesday, barely a couple of days before the Stillfront takeover announcement. I cannot imagine that all the team-lead devs were not briefed/informed earlier. Negotiations have been going on between the Game-labs CEO and Stillfront for months. You do not arrange these multi-million deals overnight. Considering that we still get a good patch, as announced in alpha 12, and that they are still committed to work on the campaign as specified in the OP should mean that the project is not abandoned. Furthermore UAD seems to be very popular compared to other Game-labs titles. At least that is my current appraisal on the situation. Getting some confirmation by the devs, Gamelabs or Stillfront would be preferred of course.

At least your comment made me laugh xD. Thanks for that, it is bad enough already. Another thing we that could have happened is that perhaps Game-labs ran out of funds/resources to finish stuff. Perhaps this is an attempt to save some games, we just do not know.

People here aren't really the ones to give everyone much hope either . It almost sounds like we need to start to arrange a funeral. I can't blame you, however I do hope that the developers soon inform us all on how Game-labs sees its own future. Judging from the lack of communication I fear they will leave us hanging without telling anything till the day we get some more info on the future of this project. My biggest fear is actually that this game will get the "fast-treatment" meaning we get some sort of buggy campaign and release it in an awful state. Also, as all shares of Game-labs were bought (100%) this means they have no say in their own future anymore whatsoever. If Stillfront decides to sell off all IP and force them to make mobile crappy games they can even do so or quit their jobs. 😭 I also feel for Nick and the other devs, it is not their fault. I do hope the situation will become clear soon though, for all of us.

https://www.stillfront.com/en/stillfront-group-acquires-game-labs-inc-and-further-strengthens-its-portfolio-of-strategy-and-action-games-and-presents-fy-2021-guidance-for-the-acquisition/ I guess we will have to see how it will play out. Could be much better than we now fear, but also cause a whole lot of issues. The fact that the CEO of Game-Labs remains within the management could be helpful, unless he wanted to cash out of course.

I don't think crappy mobile games qualify as 30+ hardcore male games. So, unless they just try to placate the reader of the press-release (which can always happen), I do not believe they would have bought this studio for making something they have no experience of in making. Also, UAD will not have multiplayer, so I think we are saved from the casuals xD.

I don't think that they will abandon or ruin the game tbh. UAD will very likely be fully supported by the new publisher. I cannot imagine that they would drop the ball on a project that has advanced this much. Not only would that be pure waste of money, but also of potential. I think Stillfront is interested in actually these type of games and the Naval Action genre, otherwise they could have likely decided to buy out another studio (there are plenty). Perhaps they (eventually) want to make a world of warships counterpart which is more hardcore and in depth. Game-labs' experience with both naval games and strategy games seems to fit that well. In addition, as @VarangianGarde also highlighted, Stillfront stated that they want to acquire the possibility for adding premium (read non-casual mobile) mid-hardcore strategy games focussed for a 30+ male audience. If this statement is true, I see no reason for Stillfront to demand Game-labs make anything else besides what they were already doing. Perhaps there will be somewhat more focus on GaaS or cross-platform compatibility in the future to get a similar business model as wargaming. I am fine with that as long as UAD is finished to a state as promised. If anything, perhaps they want to put even more resources in this game. UAD has huge potential and targets a somewhat smaller, but similar (huge) audience of naval enthusiasts like World of Warships. World of Warships and War Thunder do very well, so if anything backing UAD should be rewarding for them.

Let's hope the takeover results in more funding for ongoing projects. However, I must admit I am slightly worried judging from the portfolio of Stillfront. It seems that are mostly involved in uninteresting free play mobile games. Perhaps they want to buy more quality for their portfolio and therefore acquired Game-labs. However, to end our worries it would be great if @Nick Thomadis or another developer or company related person could at least inform us whether this will affect any of the ongoing projects.

Had the too many threads error with the following battle: Starting distance: 32 km Austria: 1 BB, 1 CA, 4 DD (1930) Italy: 2BB, 2CA, 2CL, 4DD (1932) Error happened during the battlephase. Fleets were engaging each other from 20 kilometers out. Some secondary batteries started to open up on DDs and my DD squadron was placed under AI command with a screen order.

@Nick Thomadis Thank you very much for listening to the community. I think I speak for a lot of us in saying that we do not mind if things are not happening right away (no sane person should expect that for a dev imo), but it is great to hear that we are at least heard. Just saying that you will have a look at it already makes me feel much more confident that a good balance will be achieved once you start to work on torpedoes with some more focus. I must say that this is not really the case (sadly). I have seen plenty of games where even small and nimble destroyers are just doing their thing (e.g. screening) and get hit by torpedoes that were timely spotted and easily avoided if a player would have intervened manually. They didn't even try to evade to be honest, let along "do their best". Furthermore, these unfortunate ships were not division leaders. At the moment, manual intervention disrupts the flow of the game too much for the player as usually this would require the player to detach a ship from a division formation, set an order to steer and evade, followed by either rejoining its formation to return to the status quo. Either this needs to become easier for the player to quickly realize (without requiring too many cumbersome actions) or the AI needs to be strengthened to better evade by itself if not the division leader.

Indeed, battle tactics as in requiring planning and tactical warfare (organization, formation, roles and positioning), not showing an individual subordinate captain of a ship within a division how to use the steering wheel to not drive into a friendly ship or avoid easy to avoid long spotted torpedoes (micromanagement). If the torpedoes happen to appear all the sudden due to technology (e.g. electrical) or bad weather and thus cannot be avoided by the ship because they couldn't be spotted early enough or the ship is not agile, then I would say it is perfectly fine to get hit by them. Now the subordinates in the formation just ignore them completely and drive right into them.

Very well said Cpt Hissy. You translated my thoughts very well in how I feel a game like this needs to play. This is a strategy game on the grand scale, not your Company of Heroes micromanage hell where you need to steer your tank to face the enemy all the time. We already have plenty of those awful "click and train your reflexes games". A good modern RTS should be able to avoid requiring micromanagement, or it will quickly die off like the dozens that went before it. I rather do 10 meaningful mouse clicks than dozens of micro ones that are just trying to control the situation. This should be mostly a thinking game, not a reactionary one only.

Sorry, but it is a strategy game playing from the perspective as the admiral. IRL the admiral is not supposed to constantly meddle with individual subordinate captains up to the level of baby-sitting them. You give orders on a division level. Individual ships should have some freedom to operate to avoid obvious dangers to the survival of the ship, such as a incoming torpedo. Furthermore, the devs already claimed this was their intension by having torpedo avoidance on this level (which doesn't work at all) and considering the design choices made in this game they show us that. If we follow your logic, why do they even try to implement collision avoidance. You might as well control all the ships individually. If we need to micromanage this, that would mean we need to remove the individual ship from the division, give it an order and later let it rejoin. Too much unnecessary hassle! Atm you just can't easily interfere to get them to do what you want even if you spot the dangers. You might steer the first ship of the division out of harms way only to find the the second ship in the division just drives into it.

Divisions still have major issues in avoiding incoming torpedoes. I have seen multiple times that a destroyer (mind you, should be more than nimble enough to dodge) gets hit by detected torpedoes that are avoidable by just making slight bearing adjustments. Instead the division AI of the ship did nothing and drove right into the torpedoes though they were very timely spotted. IMO, we shouldn't be required to micromanage individual members of a division up to this level. If placed under direct AI, these ships would dodge the torpedoes much better.

Also the case with the British "Modern Destroyer (standard)". Out of three options, only one tunnel can be fitted, but none of the towers! The AI is unable to build any design using this hull!

Indeed. To me it makes little sense that we improve armor over time both by making it lighter AND more effective. I do not understand this from the developers either.

This alone already makes them super OP. I raised this issue already more than once: we need dud torpedoes. Also, from a sound and graphics point of view, torpedo impacts could do with a bit more effects. Currently the impact by a torpedo is a rather dull affair, would be great if it would be a bit more dramatic both in visual and audio. I think War on the Sea does it a bitter better.

Yes, deck armor penetration values should be brought in line with historical data, meaning that we need to lower deck armor penetration overall. Currently, BBs feel very weak at distance when hit, eventhough roughly historical thickness is applied to the design. If this means we need to rebalance weight values elsewhere, I would recommend making the engines more heavy so that also BB speed comes down a bit.

I agree. Also I think that the modular hulls would help out a lot for design flexibility. That way we could make hulls longer or wider to fit certain parts. Regarding the superstructure damage. I agree, we used to have almost indestructible ships that would only sink when they lost their floatability, but now BB often sink due to losing their HP. Maybe we should reintroduce damage to compartments to such an extend a destroyed compartment does not contribute so much to the overall HP reduction when incurring more hits. A bit back to the old system. Furthermore the armor schemes are very batebones right now and need a massive overhaul.

Well, I am happy it has been fixed by now. I will remove the image to make more room for other attachments.

I like the new default rotated secondary gun positions, however the devs should really specify for each tower how the (secondary) guns should be rotated by default for each position. Currently in Alpha11 v80, there are multiple towers with internal gun placements that will get a wrong rotation if used. The guns are rotated so they do not have a correct firing zone and would have to be rotated manually. I can imagine that, especially for the AI, this could give some issues. From what I have observed this occurs for the following assets: Main towers: - Modern Tower V - Modern Tower IV - Modern Tower III Secondary towers: - Modern Sec Tower III - Modern Sec Tower II In addition, I observed that the British "modern battleship I" hull has some issues/bugs regarding the placement of barbettes. For some reason, for the rear turrets, placing a barbette smaller than the "huge superimposed barbette" doesn't fit/work, whereas the huge barbette itself can fit. Doesn't make any sense.

Great to read about all the plans for the year. Looking forward to the patches and gameplay involved. @Cptbarney Thanks for the notification!

Exactly this as well! The game seems to be very forgiving for designing ships that are above 32 knots. Going beyond 32 knots really requires a lot of extra engine power, so I am pretty sure that the engine room and weight of the engines should escalate massively. For every 4 knots extra speed, the amount of power to be generated should roughly double, and so should the weight requirement for engines too.

Maybe UAD should use only hand made designs then. That way the devs can spend more time to improve the game in other areas, such as implementing new features and the campaign/tactical AI. I am pretty sure that the community would be happy to make plenty of good designs to be added as a library for the AI to use. However, before this can be done the designer should need to be in its final state.

I am 100% in favor of expanding the designer to the level as displayed in the trailer prior to the public alpha. Furthermore, I still believe this can be easily done if designed right. Putting in different hull sections should not be much different from placing a superstructure, actually it is likely more simple as there are fewer variables. The thing the devs are clearly having issues with is AI and AI design. The more variables and with that degrees of freedom you introduce the more complex AI programming becomes. Especially considering the limited resources this indy developer faces, we cannot overreach our demands/expectations. Some of the wishes displayed in this thread are very likely to be out of reach for this project. Of course this saddens me a lot, but at some point we also have to start thinking what do we really really want? IMO, we should focus on getting a playable campaign done and making sure that we get more items to play with. Ideally an improved designer would get implemented before or during this process as well. However, ask yourself the question: what feature will add the most for gameplay? I am pretty sure most of you would reply the campaign and not designating engine spaces etc. Again, would I like to be able to have more freedom to design. Of course, I would, but also please look at the bigger picture. We need to get a campaign and the AI should be able to handle the variables the ship designer offers. It is a single player game after all.

I hope for two things, either one would make me very happy: - First limited version of the campaign - New armor/citadel model