Shiki

Both Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War and the tabular records of movement of the Imperial Japanese Navy's fleet assets mention it, the former with doctrine/usage and the latter with actual deployment. The focus with the floatplanes was on scouting: the carriers didn't carry any scout aircraft or dual-purpose scout/attack units, so the accompanying cruisers were given that role. However, Japanese cruisers consistently ran ASW patrols with their floatplanes when assigned to area fleets and the former book also includes a specific reference to Takao and Maya assisting the airstrikes on the Aleutians during the MI operation (invasion of Midway & a diversionary attack on Kiska) with their floatplanes acting as light bombers, specifically the two-seater Type 95s.

It's funny you should mention that, because I and a few others got so fed up with UA:D that we... are...

But it's not "58 new hulls", nor is it particularly time-intensive. It's changing numbers on a datasheet - or copy-pasting them from another hull - and putting new attachment points on. It's tedium, nothing more. It's 58 copy-pasted hulls of varying sizes that use copy-pasted statistics. I fail to see why I should shill for this team, as you do, when they have done very little worth shilling for.

This has just completely missed the point entirely. It's so far off the mark it's landed in the next time zone.

By "new hulls" you mean "rescaled old hulls". It's not "new" hulls that I would like- it's "unique" hulls, i.e. the ones they specifically name (such as Danton with this new update).

I do wish they would focus on adding more unique hulls to the game. It's unfortunate that they seem to believe that just one per update is enough- when updates take 3-4 months to come out and the game rapidly becomes dull when you have to create the same ships over and over again.

I would like to hold this up with a "but": Japanese cruiser- and battleship-launched floatplanes regularly undertook ASW missions and bombing missions, and were equipped to do so as part of their role. Artillery spotting and scouting are the cream of the job but it's important to note that these things did happen, and happened relatively often- particularly when carriers weren't available or otherwise occupied, and land-based aircraft were out of reach.

I disagree with this statement on all levels, fundamental or otherwise. They have failed to meet community expectations and continually under-delivered. ...And they still haven't changed their trailer to reflect how the game actually is, which can get them slapped for false advertising if they don't do something about it. This is the Age of the Karen. Someone's gonna do it.

Alright, I'll bite. Why this thread wasn't created six months ago, when we were in closed testing, I don't know. Your Steam reviews must be more important to you than the initial playerbase... which is, by and large, the body making the Steam reviews. I wonder about the foresight afforded to this game. On to the suggestions. 1 — As I've mentioned before, we are in need of particularly the following: A — Better divisional organization—if we are not allowed to pre-determine the divisions and their heading prior to entry into combat, then precious time is wasted assembling that fleet in a fit-to-fight formation (not precisely optimal for what are mostly randomized missions which have some sort of time limitation added, whether that be the enemy escaping your superior force or theirs running to engage yours while you attempt to sink transports). The ideal solution for the long term would be a 'pre-battle' phase (perhaps a naval chart aesthetic, as mentioned before). Simple slide-and-drop controls would be all that's needed to make sure that each ship is in its proper division and set to screening, line, or escorting roles—fleets always broke up from cruising into battle formations before accepting battle, whenever possible. Addendum: the ability to select more than one ship and/or do block selection in the Fleet tab of the campaign when setting ships to Sea Control or In Being. It is extremely tedious, time-consuming, and irritating to manually select over one hundred and eighty torpedo boats and destroyers individually. A simple checkbox beside each name will do. B — Guns of the same calibre should lock to the slowest loading cycle among them once the range has been found on an enemy: if you have two quads and a twin turret for 14"/356 mm artillery, the twin should fire at the same rate as the quads (done historically to improve salvo patterns, though oftentimes they couldn't fire faster anyways due to errors in drill or mechanisms). Compensation might be that loading cycle differences are less noticeable. Ideally, of course, all main battery turrets should be treated as such, rather than continuing to treat wing mounts and/or turrets with different numbers of guns as a secondary battery. C — Failure-to-fire: a low-priority event which will cause any number of guns and/or turrets to salvo improperly or fail in some manner. Errors in drill and errors in machinery were the most common cause of failure-to-fire and this happened frighteningly often during real naval battles: note Prince of Wales's (admittedly, not a wholly typical example) abysmal performance at Denmark Strait, where just one gun was in action at times. This will not affect any other guns or turrets, and chances of errors should decrease with each Mark obtained and additionally scaling to the training level of the crew. D — Casemate animations. It is exceedingly jarring from the visual perspective to have all turrets and open mounts elevating and depressing to their loading angles with each salvo while casemates remain at a flat 0-degree elevation, no matter the range. 2 — Again, as I've mentioned before, we are in need of specifically more cruiser hulls: they are the most common type of large auxiliary surface combatant that you will build in a campaign, they represent the majority of your fleet's offensive ability against enemy shipping and warships, and it is exceedingly hard to immerse (and enjoy) the game when all of the campaign's cruisers are either pre-1919 German or downscaled pre-dreadnought & Bismarck hulls with Trento's towers. At the very least, the following are needed (prioritized over my more extensive list): Britain — 'C' (Caroline, Calliope, Cambrian, etc.) classes, Town class (1930s). The former will give ample ability to branch out into a variety of early period British styles—the 'C's can be variously rebuilt to be earlier types (of which they are a culmination) or some later types depending on how liberal the number of towers can be, while an enlarged hull—and we all know how much the 3D modelers like rescaling their hulls—works for many of the 'Atlantic cruiser' concepts. The latter gives Britain a viable CA/CL hull to work off of for both historical classes and also create things like the 'Admirals' (15,500-ton CA, really a Town trading 12x 6in for 9x 8in) and smaller cruiser studies. As an aside, while I would love to request the County class for British CAs in the 1920s onwards until replacement by an enlarged 'Gloucester' or 'Southampton' (personally I prefer Birmingham and Sheffield), for the sake of brevity I'm not going to include them. Their aesthetically pleasing funnels, on the other hand, are an absolute must. United States — Pensacola class, Brooklyn class. While the former will give us a viable early-style hull for various smaller cruisers of both the light and heavy variety, the latter is where the sun really begins to shine: Brooklyn is the basis for every American cruiser after her until the Des Moines class, the last U.S. heavy gun cruisers. With differently modeled towers, one can recreate Brooklyn (CL), St. Louis (CL), Wichita (CA), Cleveland (CL), Baltimore (CA), Fargo (CL) or Oregon City (CA)—without taking into account imagination or any number of historical plans. Japan — Takao class, Yūbari. Yūbari—a hull actually modeled after her, not just a short Sendai hull—forms the basis of every single Japanese warship after her. Moreover, her design can be flexible enough to use for any number of small CL hulls if a modern arrangement is wished for. Takao, of course, is the CA that one needs—Mogami aside, an earlier hull which is capable of reproducing more closely a larger variety of designs for a greater number of eras is better for current needs. Germany — Emden (1920s), Leipzig (1930s), Type 1936A (1930s). We currently possess a dearth of German light cruisers: adding the post-WWI Emden and the modern light cruiser Leipzig would go a long way towards bridging the gap between the enlarged Emden (WWI) hull we currently possess up until the modified and downscaled Bismarck hull we currently have. One could also enlarge the Leipzig hull and towers in order to simulate things such as Motorkreuzer 1938. Aside from these, we can also include the Type 1936A cruiser-destroyers, which were armed with between four and five 15 cm guns depending upon the year and configuration, and can serve as the 'Small Light Cruiser' hull. France — Lamotte-Picquet / Duguay-Trouin, Algérie, La Galissonnière, Le Fantasque. France needs a lot of work in the cruiser and 'large destroyer' departments: fortunately, derivatives to make other (larger and heavier) designs can be done on their hulls, particularly with their modern light cruisers. Lamotte-Picquet (of the pre-WWI design) and Duguay Trouin would certainly serve to fill the roles of the French light cruiser class for WWI, with the latter serving as interwar until being supplanted and replaced by La Gal and derivatives in the 1930s onward. Le Fantasque - or Mogador - can take over the 'Small Light Cruiser' role. Italy — Duca d'Aosta, Capitani Romani, Comandanti Medaglie d'Oro. Italy doesn't actually need too much in the way of cruiser hulls: just Duca d'Aosta to simulate post-war and interwar designs up to Abruzzi (which ought to also be added), and Capitani Romani to simulate the most famous class of small cruisers. Comandanti Medaglie d'Oro isn't a cruiser—it actually falls outside of the purview of this discussion, being a destroyer— but deserves addition nonetheless thanks to its easily changeable configurations. It would easily fill the gap for Italian destroyers until further additions can be made. Russian Empire / Soviet Russia — Svetlana, Kirov, Sverdlov. Svetlana represents the 'typical' Imperial Russian light cruiser design (technically the only?) and therefore fills the role from pre-WWI onwards into the 1920s with modernizations, soldiering on despite age. Kirov is, of course, the most famous period gun cruiser of the Russian fleet and therefore cannot be omitted: aside from that, it provides an excellent balance between Svetlana's archaic mix of open mounts and casemates and the high-efficiency layout of later ships. Lastly, from the 1930s onward, we have Sverdlov: I am definitely not biased here (but Sverdlov is definitely one of my top three cutest cruisers of all time) when I say that she is an absolute must for post-1930 Russian cruiser hulls, particularly since you could upscale the hull and towers for any of the larger heavy cruiser designs the Soviets considered in the 40s and 50s. Spain — I don't actually have anything to include for Spain. All of their post-1890s designs were heavily influenced by British and/or Italian practice—there was even a Spanish 'Littorio' design, pitched by Ansaldo, along with multiple cruisers armed variously with 203 mm and 152 mm guns. China — Ning Hai and Ping Hai. China's only new-build cruisers of this era. Not including them is a no. 3 — I will restate the link's purpose: Gun Designer. It would infinitely expand the playability of this game and the possibilities, as well as allow us to more closely recreate historical designs (or even just do our own personal—or French—wacky gun calibres). It is extremely limiting to play with only whole inches when not one nation did so. Examples abound: British 4.5" (114 mm), 4.7" (120 mm—an extremely common calibre), 5.25" (133 mm), 7.5" (190 mm) and 9.4" (234 mm) are a brief overview of these non-rounded calibres for just one nation. It would require slightly more effort to code a gun designer but the tradeoffs would be more than worth the cost. Aside from these, which I cannot state enough, most of my points have already been made in the above posts. I do hope you will take them into serious consideration—I have made them with your well-being in mind. Replayability is the crux upon which single-player games rest and these have all been calculated with that in mind. By giving the game options to be more in-depth and to actively engage the player more, we can avoid burnout and also help along those more hardcore players who wish to be able to fully customize their ships as has been advertised.

In the sense that they attempt to cater to the same base of "naval history enthusiasts", yes, they are competitors.

Frankly, I don't see any reason to be optimistic in the slightest. The reality of the situation is that barely anything has changed content-wise and nothing has changed communication wise- the latter of which being the sore point with those people you deride as loud. Yes, we are loud. We're loud because of the human tendency to shout when they're not being heard. I wish the developers the best of health, I really do. COVID has been difficult on everyone. But no amount of COVID can excuse the lack of regard for the concerns being pointed out regarding their radio silence. They're game developers- it's not as if they don't have access to the internet, or this forum. Five minutes a week- hell, five minutes a month of their time is what we're asking for. Five minutes of writing a brief "this is what we've been doing this month, please make sure to support us as we progress through future development" wouldn't be so hard, would it? To restate: I refuse to shill for people who demand to be patted on the back for a good job that hasn't been done yet. I especially refuse to shill for people who can't even take the time to shill for themselves.

Unfortunately, outside of games like [insert anthropomorphized warship fighting game here, take your pick] - and even in those games - neither of those types receive much, if any recognition. Outside of Azur Lane's Atago, I don't think there are most people who could get beyond the Takao class's one-line description in Wikipedia, for example. Mogami is generally treated with a fair bit of (undeserved) recognition due to her 'breaking' the London Naval Treaty (she didn't, not really, and even if she did, the Americans are just as guilty with the up-gunning of the North Carolinas) as well as her perceived 'superiority' as the last of the 10-gun cruiser types completed for the Imperial Japanese Navy before the outbreak of the Pacific War (she wasn't, Takao and Co. take that prize). This is even more apparent when we take a look at competing games to UA:D, like World of Warships and War Thunder: Naval Forces, where the former treats Mogami as a god amongst mortals and the latter has consistently only added the Mogami class for modern Japanese cruisers... Incidentally, the parallels also draw a line between development of those games and Ultimate Admiral's choices of ships to be added. stares at specifically California, for one blatantly obvious example It's an interesting thought line to go down. The unmitigated pedantry will continue until my criticisms about this game development's total blackout on communications has been addressed. There is no Iron Curtain to hide behind and we're not here to eat you alive. All we want is someone to talk to us occasionally. Not just "here's a new patch that we spent months doing nothing about and then hastily added everything in the last two weeks of crunch time", but some evidence even that you're just alive and well. People will be slightly more understanding of your circumstances if you talk about them.

For the moment, I'll choose to leave aside my so-called "toxicity, drama, and aggressiveness" - to use such grand words of wisdom from the mouth of one more than a year behind their own schedule, charitably. Instead, I'll focus on a realistic assessment of this update. Let's see... Campaign Yay!... I guess. Six months is quite a long time to rip apart an old campaign with bare-bones functionality and put together... another one with bare-bones functionality. My only positive to this is that it's stable. Probably. Hulls One - probably butchered - Japanese 'large light cruiser'. Mogami seems to be the posterchild of Japanese construction when it comes to portrayals, despite the majority (2/3rds) of Japanese 8in-gun cruiser types having a much different (and, as borne out by wartime service, more successful) arrangement of their topsides. One wonders why you would do this- reusing assets is more y'all's style and both preceding types (Myōkō and Takao) are practically identical in hullform characteristics. Oh well... at least it's not a baby Hood hull, I guess. One... two... three... eight copy-pasted hulls. Until I see it, I won't choose to doubt my conviction that the so-called "California" (why does everyone choose California and not Idaho?) is simply a rescaled version of the Standard type already present in game with some resized Iowa structures to go with it, not to mention the new French battleship. One wonders why you have a warship photos thread when you seem content to reuse the same assets. Mechanics, Graphics, and other Misc. Progress! Actual... progress! Crossdeck firing is now maybe, possibly, just slightly possible. The AI, in its infinite wisdom, can apparently tell when our destroyers have run out of torpedoes, but hopefully they're not quite as wise as Gamelabs or they'd forgive us for being toxic while they blow them out of the water. Everything else is probably needed. Future Developments I guess it'll be nice to have a few hotels and maybe Courbet. But then again, Courbet misses that strike zone by being a product of the 1910s, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Analysis Nothing's really changed. My unmitigated pedantry of your life choices and game decisions will continue, since you evidently have no PR or Community Management personnel to... well, interact with your community. If you do, you should fire them, because they aren't doing their job. Do a monthly devblog. Open a thread where you post a picture of an incomplete model once every few weeks. Do something to hold people's attention in a good way. Because all your silence is breeding is resentment and mistrust. I refuse to shill for you. If you expect a smile and a pat on the back for a job well done, you may as well look elsewhere, because I - and all those other "toxic, dramatic, and aggressive" players - constitute the majority opinion.

As noted in another post, we are sorely lacking in new, unique hull models for the majority of what is possibly the most important and diverse type of ships one can represent in this game: cruisers. Whether heavy or light, armoured or protected, semi-armoured or scout, we have practically nothing for this important type of warship (for the sake of convenience we're ignoring the battle- prefix). They are your fleet screeners, your reconnaissance, your commerce escorts and their raiders, your destroyer leaders and the ones responsible for driving them off. This following list is what I believe to be the absolute minimum necessary to bring this class some sorely-needed life. Note that most of these would go into the 'CA' category, thanks to the 'CL' category in UA:D being mostly relegated to pre-1929 European-type light cruisers and later-era destroyer leaders. I've prioritized historical ships that can be be rebuilt as class members or derivatives in order to make the most use of the proposed hulls and their respective towers. I will include eras of availability where I feel it's necessary. Honestly, this post could be seen as a companion for this shameless plug, since it would make it much easier on the developers to leave the gun designing and balance to the player - "balancing" in a single player game? Really? - and moreover would make some of these more possible. Imperial Russia / USSR Svetlana — Available from 1910-1920. Kirov — Available from 1925-1935. Sverdlov — Available in 1936 onward. "Super-Sverdlov" — Slightly up-sized variant of the hull and towers which can take 8in / 203 mm artillery mounts. Available in 1936 onward. USA One of the best things about the U.S.'s cruisers in regards to UA:D is how most classes are similar to or directly derived from one another- for instance, all of their wartime cruisers derived directly from the Treaty-era Brooklyn type, with Wichita being a direct offshoot of their general design and Baltimore being an 'improved Wichita', and Cleveland being a St. Louis (a subclass of Brooklyn) with one of the turrets deleted in favor of moving the superstructure slightly forward and accommodating two more 5"/38 twins. Omaha — Available from 1912 onward. Pensacola — Available from 1920 onward. Generic Treaty CA (Northampton through New Orleans all look the same) — Available from 1930 onward. Brooklyn / Wichita — Available from 1936 onward. Cleveland / Baltimore — Available from 1938 onward. Japan Yūbari (the original- not the abomination we have currently) — Available in the CL category from 1920 onward. Myōkō — Available from 1920-1934. Takao — Available from 1930 onward. Takao Kai — Slightly enlarged variant of the hull for the proposed "Takao Kai" variant, cancelled by the 1930 London treaty. Available from 1936 onward. Mogami (you can make Tone off Mogami's hull, but not Mogami off Tone) — Available from 1936 onward. Agano — Available from 1936 onward. France Lamotte-Picquet — Available from 1910-1920. Suffren — Available from 1925 onward. Algérie — Available from 1930 onward. La Galissonnière — Available from 1936 onward. 'Enlarged La Gal' — Representative of the De Grasse & C5-class cruisers cancelled due to the German invasion, available from 1936 onward. Germany Emden (1920s) — Available from 1920-1935. Königsberg — Available from 1925 onward. Admiral Hipper — Available from 1936 onward. Great Britain E (Emerald) class — Available from 1914-1922. Hawkins — Available from 1920-1928. County (Kent through Northampton) — Available from 1925 onward. Leander / Arethusa — Available from 1930 onward. Town (Gloucester through Edinburgh) — Available from 1936 onward. "Admiral class" — Slightly enlarged Town hull to be able to accept heavy cruiser-calibre artillery. China Ning Hai & Ping Hai — Available from 1925 onward in the CL category. While many of these are early-to-late interwar or WWII-era cruisers, unfortunately, I don't have much in the way of documentation and photographs for WWI-era cruisers that hasn't already been shared. If you feel like there are valuable additions to these proposals that I've missed, feel free to comment on them.

Usually these updates occur between 2 and 3 weeks after they post patch notes. Usually.