Masonator

...What? Destroyers are easily the single most useful class of ship in vanilla. Their balance presents a very engaging choice between the torpedo-sled and gunboat design styles (as was the case historically). My complaint is that NAR's changes to destroyer durability have utterly destroyed the gunboat concept and made torpedo sleds the only viable design, which is not fun or historical. This used to be my strategy too, until NAR's accuracy changes made the "auto-hit vessels directly between shooter and target" bug even worse than in vanilla, which already necessitated micromanaging your screen to avoid taking bullshit losses to "stray" shells. This in particular is a minor issue, sure, but one badly exacerbated by the lack of smokescreens to add artificial survivability in the face of artificial accuracy. It's risky, yes, but at least that risk comes with rewards in vanilla. A properly handled line of destroyers can put down a super-battleship, which is both fun and historical. NAR heavily nerfs speed-tanking, making it far, far too easy to hit maneuvering destroyers - which wouldn't be a problem, if they could either conceal themselves (smoke) or take a hit or two during the run-in (durability). At present they can do neither, and genuinely suck. There's virtually no point to even building them, which is not fun or historical. Using what should be your most micro-intensive, risk-reward ships as passive firestarters and fleet screens is a colossal waste of tonnage, and not fun or historical. It takes the very real and historical Jeune Ecole and Risk Fleet strategies out behind the woodshed and shoots them, which is not fun or historical. These jobs are literally what torpedo boats are made for, and the mod goes out of its' way to keep them relevant into the 1950s. I just resent that it comes at the expense of destroyers, because it doesn't have to. In short, NAR's changes to fundamental aspects of destroyer design make the class as a whole an unhistorical chore to use. I should not have to explain why this is a bad decision. Nowhere am I "blaming" this mod. Furthermore, my criticism isn't even directed at any of the broken mechanics you've mentioned, and I completely agree that NAR is a night-and-day improvement on the vanilla game. That doesn't mean it's somehow perfect, or beyond reproach and criticism, for the very valid problems it creates on its' own. Just because it genuinely improves many areas of the game doesn't mean it can't make others worse - which yes, it absolutely does, see above. Needlessly hostile and condescending as hell, check your tone please. I have over 1,200 hours on this game and have been playing since the initial Xsolla beta release. In my humble opinion the game has actively gotten worse since then as more and more new features get piled on top of an underdeveloped, buggy-ass foundation, and while NAR certainly goes a long way towards rectifying this, as I said, it's far from perfect, and is actively a step backwards in certain areas - like destroyers. I too have read the changelog and wholeheartedly disagree with this concept. Smokescreens are a core part of the game, and absolutely critical to overcome the unreal amounts of jank within the gunnery, target-selection, and torpedo-firing mechanics without losing ships that otherwise would've survived were it not for that jank. On a game-theory level, I think taking a tool away from the player just because the AI can't use it efficiently is a fundamentally bad decision that actively hurts the gameplay, and is the single most ahistorical change in a mod whose entire concept is to increase historical accuracy. It's a flawed decision following flawed logic, and I'd reverse it myself if I knew how. If Baron had rewritten the entire gunnery system to remove the random guaranteed-hit guided missile shell dispersion, or hadn't nerfed both destroyer durability and the Target Fast Speed penalty into the ground, I'd agree with removing smoke. As things stand, it's a necessary band-aid solution to nearly a decade of unaddressed technical debt in the core gunplay mechanics, which seems to be a monumental task for even the actual developers, let alone a solo community modder. Anyway, I refuse to derail this thread any further by continuing to entertain such obvious bait, but suffice to say I found your entire reply unnecessarily provocative and frankly childish. At least present an opinion of your own if you're going to come out swinging like that.

@o Barão Destroyers seem far too fragile in the latest patch. My DDs use RP C/38 powder, Amatol bursters, Electro-Hydro II traverse gear, Anti-Flash V, Anti-Flood III, Bulkheads II, and triple bottoms (read: maximum resistance and 0% flash fire chance), and are still being completely crippled or detonated outright by single 203mm hits. Earlier today I had one take 48,000 damage, two floods, and engine and steering gear crits from a single 283mm hit, barely managing to limp away at 5kts with 3% structure and 1% floatability remaining. I've now played three campaigns using NAR, and in my experience the changes to DDs (particularly disabling smokescreens which are absolutely critical to their survivability) have rendered them completely ineffective as fleet vessels. Large Tribal/Porter-style gunboats are now suicidal to use, as the weight of the guns demands that they be both big and slow, resulting in a huge target signature that makes them atrocious at spotting and very easy to hit and leaving them utterly incapable of "speed-tanking" as smaller 40kt destroyers can. Combined with the substantially increased fragility inherent to NAR means that these ships die en masse when presented with anything larger than another, smaller destroyer. The broader changes to HE have also made such gunboats virtually useless as gunboats, since their guns are universally too small to deal effective AP damage despite now also having terrible firestarting ability (unless built as floating bombs with Cordite, Picric, and Super-Heavies), all of which results in destroyers as a class being relegated to disposable one-shot torpedo sleds or small ASW/minesweeping pickets - which isn't particularly fun, engaging, or realistic. Destroyers were not just big torpedo boats, and were probably the single most important ships of WWII. As it stands, the only thing they bring to the table over a small light cruiser is the ability to minesweep. A flat 25-50% increase in surivability - closer to the vanilla figures - would make them a lot more useful, in my opinion.

re: the Queen Elizabeths - I think StrikerDanger hit the nail on the head with their bow shape/hullform theory. The QEs were essentially just slightly stretched Iron Dukes in form, which as a class failed to meet their 21.5kt design speed. Benbow and Emperor of India were still fitting out when the war began and so did not undergo full sea trials, but both Iron Duke and Marlborough did, and both could only make 21.25kts at trials load and more like 19-20 under wartime conditions, so there's certainly some evidence to the idea that the hull form is a fundamentally inefficient shape. Perhaps this was solved during the development of the Rs; smaller powerplant aside, they were somewhat more advanced than the QEs - adopting the all-or-nothing armour scheme vs. distributed protection in the QEs, both fire directors had 15ft rangefinders vs. 1x 15ft and 1x 9ft in the QEs, rearranged casemate battery for improved workability, etc - so maybe part of the improvements included a sleeker, more efficient hull form below the waterline, explaining their better speed curve.

The Queen Elizabeths were the first British battleships designed with oil-fired boilers - nobody knew quite how heavy a structure was required to adequately support oil tanks (which, spoiler alert, was equivalent to or less than that needed for coal bunkers - oops!), and they were very heavily overbuilt. They were more than 300t overweight upon completion and sat very low in the water (the installation of torpedo bulges in the 1920s partially mitigated this, but widened the ship in the process, nullifying any speed dividends), and none of the class ever achieved their design speed of 25kts, topping out at around 23-24kts instead. After Jutland, where Beatty and his battlecruisers charged off on their own and left 5th BS to the wolves on two separate occasions, Jellicoe ordered that they not be jeopardised on detached operations away from the rest of the Grand Fleet, as the squadron speed was limited by Warspite to only 23kts - not significantly faster than the 21kt main battleline, and far too slow to skirmish with the German battlecruisers in advance of the main fleet action as initially envisioned. Warspite was the slowest of the class by about half a knot as built, but ended up roughly a knot faster than her sisters after her 1934 rebuild - she received the same 80,000shp Parsons plant as Queen Elizabeth and Valiant, but her somewhat less extensive above-waterline changes left her several hundred tonnes lighter than the others, raising her waterline by a few feet. The interwar rebuilds more than halved their machinery weight and gave them an extra 5,000shp to play with, but those savings were almost immediately reinvested into increased protection, meaning they essentially broke even in terms of speed. Barham and Malaya were much less extensively rebuilt and retained their as-completed 24x Yarrow boilers and single-reduction turbines, and could only make about 22kts by 1940 as a result. So, to answer your question: yes, it was an issue with their basic, fundamental construction principles. All five were badly overweight for essentially their entire careers and were rebuilt several times in a slew of attempts to correct their myriad of flaws.

Can the US Fast Scout Cruiser and Modern Destroyer (Leader) hulls also be given to the British from 1937-1940, as stand-ins for the Dido-class cruisers and Tribal-class/W.E.P. destroyers, respectively? The British hulls haven't been updated in ages, and these parts would go a long way in historical builds. Cheers. Also, the shelter deck gun mounts on the Battlecruiser V/HMS Hood parts still haven't been fixed after something like four years. Seriously...?

Even I don't know what you mean by this, and I wrote the OP. I've been modding video games for about the past 20 years now, including this one without issue. Posting a simple disclaimer and ignoring reports caused by user error has worked for literally every other moddable game that has ever existed; this very series itself evolved from a Total War mod, ffs. I don't see why UA:D should be any different, and it definitely isn't just because you want it to be. From your earlier post in this thread, your problem seems to be that you don't like it when users break their own game by poking around under the hood and, to paraphrase, "offload [the fixing work] to the devs" by making bug reports (lmao). As I said earlier, if the concern is a slew of bogus reports being generated by changing settings you're not supposed to change, just ignore those bogus reports because they're not representative of the intended user experience. If the game only breaks when used in such an obviously unintended manner and I have to deliberately go out of my way to do it, I don't think it's remotely fair to expect the devs to fix that, and so I don't. That said, I also think it's just as unfair to entirely restrict user access to those features because of the extreme edge case of people who get it wrong. On the other hand, it's not even remotely the end-user's job to do the developers' QA for them, and maybe - just maybe - they shouldn't release a product that can be bricked by simply editing a plaintext config file? If your file system is that flimsy, design a new file system. It's not my job as a user (nor is it yours) to do that for them, and completely removing the ability to make those changes in the first place doesn't solve the problem, it only hides it and prevents users from reporting it as one. It's a quality-of-life change for the devs, not for the game, and one that severely restricts user freedom and interaction in the process. It's a bad change and I want to see it reverted. This is explicitly a feedback thread, and I have no idea what the hell you're doing here if all you're going to do is deflect user complaints with the same tired old arguments about end-user responsibility that we've been hearing for decades. You don't seem to be providing any feedback yourself, just replying to others with useless statements of developer support and ivory-tower admonishment about the dangers of modifying software that we've paid to own and are free to use however we see fit. Care to elaborate, buds?

+1. If you edit game files and brick your game, that is 100% on you. If the devs don't want to deal with user-error bug reports, put out a boilerplate disclaimer about editing saves (which they've done), and ignore those reports. Don't change the damn file structure so only you and your dev tools can edit them ffs, that's literally the opposite of what you should be doing about it.

German hulls too. The new gun mechanics must've changed the colliders, because the Bismarck superstructure barbettes can't hold anything larger than a 16" now. Tried making an H-44 to fight my Lion-class, but couldn't fit the 18" turrets onto the ship.

A few points I've noticed after playing pretty much all weekend: German Mk3/4 15" turret and all turrets using that model are scaling the gunhouse, not the guns. Dud torps are far too common (frequently seeing 2-3 duds per salvo, with undamaged Mk4 torpedo tubes!!!). Torpedo bearing deviation is far too strong (torpedoes deflecting >30 degrees at random points in their run) and occurs far too often. These features have made torpedoes even less reliable for player vessels than they already were (which is saying something), which I can only assume is the opposite of the intended effect. The "invalid ship design/no hull of selected type available" bug has returned with a vengeance in Custom Battles. The game is currently bricked for me outside of Campaign Mode and the Naval Academy (not fun ). Gun calibre makes a massive difference on performance, which is fantastic, but please for the love of god let us select which models we want to use. The new Mk4 2/3" guns for the Allies are ugly as sin and don't remotely match the tech era they're placed in. We're finally reaching a point where historical builds are properly possible - aesthetics matter! Detailed citadel armour doesn't seem to make a huge difference on ship performance. The interior armour zones are also incredibly vaguely-named and don't have any visual representation whatsoever, either on the 3D model or in the new citadel plan view, leading to a distinct and frustrating sense of futility/lack of player feedback. Very disappointed in this feature; I was expecting an overlay-based system similar to World of Warships/War Thunder's armour viewers. What we got just... Sucks. New ballistics and damage mechanics are satisfying, especially when paired with the new custom calibres. Guns perform much more reliably in this patch and I like it. The ability to see additional stats like turret rotation rate is nice, but we still need an ammo breakdown between HE/AP. Currently the stat panel still only shows the total ammo for the mount. Additionally, the amount of information presented on the stat panel causes the panel to be partially pushed off the screen in the battle UI. Currently gun calibre, barrel length, and several other stats are cut off. Text wrapping, the ability to pin and drag the panel, or locking the vertical position of the stat panel to the center of the display would be hugely beneficial. Overall, this update was a huge step in the right direction, but it still needs a lot of work. I'll refrain from passing any harsher judgement than this, but UA:D is going back on the shelf until some or all of this is fixed. These are game-breaking issues that severely detract from the user experience, in my opinion.

My favourite feature of this patch is the Exit Battle and Auto-Resolve buttons outright deleting my ships. Not miscalculating and sinking them, no - correctly reporting them as having survived with damage, only to fail to re-add them to the Fleet screen afterwards. Really fun losing campaigns over and over again because my battleships spontaneously combust as soon as the battle ends. Really engaging game that I'm so glad I spent $80 on. @Nick Thomadis Play your own goddamn game for hello kitty sake, you clearly aren't playtesting any of this shit before it goes live

Received and activated. Cheers Nick. Know that the increased communication over the last several weeks is noticed and much appreciated.

Personally, I'd love to see the "target area" system from Age of Sail. It's not the most realistic thing for 1930s treaty battleships, but makes total sense for the dreadnought and pre-dreadnought era.

>trade two protected cruisers and half a torpedo boat for a first-class armoured cruiser and a battleship >only retreat when you run out of torpedoes >"Outcome: UNDECIDED" The battle outcome should be heavily weighted in favour of tonnage destroyed. It currently seems to be primarily evaluating % of crew lost.

Why do I have to play the Naval Academy before being ever so graciously granted access to the campaign? I've beaten it twice already. Let me play the fun mode please.

@Nick Thomadis My immediate first impression is that your optimisation efforts have been extremely well-spent. I haven't done any benchmarking yet, but the game instantly feels lighter, faster, and more responsive across the board. Well done. Edit: I forgot to mention, certain late-tier technologies such as Diesels, Gas Turbines, and Anti-Torp V have become unavailable in 1940 Custom Battles, presumably due to the new campaign progression system.

You always miss me with these posts.

A maneuverable ship with 16" guns is more than capable of killing a slab with 20"ers. Damage is irrelevant if you don't take a hit. Also, someone clearly isn't using their torpedoes...

12 x 15" guns on 85,000t is "really undergunned" now? ...What? The only issues I see with that design are the oversized barbette for the secondary turret aft and the sub-optimal gunnery arrangement (I would've gone with an all-forward or A-B-X design, but I hate midships turrets in general). It's otherwise fine. Anyone complaining about the current AI designer is clearly forgetting when it would regularly give you ships like this godawful monstrosity, or this unholy abomination, or Jackie Fisher's wet dream. Back to the topic, here's to Fuso as Queen Elizabeth was to Iron Duke. 8x15" guns, 28kts, 14" Krupp III belt, max bulkheads.

uber buttmad it is, i suppose

The way I see it, there are two practical choices for everyone bored waiting: Understand that there's a global pandemic going on that's disrupting everybody's work at the moment, take what you can get, civilly nudge the development team in the right direction, and play a different game while you wait; or Continue getting uber-buttmad every other month when the patch doesn't drop exactly when you expected it and discourage and alienate the people working on it in the process. I don't know about you guys, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to keep putting what is doubtlessly mountains of effort into my passion project if thousands of people I've never met before are relentlessly shitting on every decision I make with it. I'm pretty sure this game is only being worked on by one person, so cut them a little slack. It's entirely possible that your particular make-or-break issue isn't even being tracked yet. There's a Bug Reports section on the forums that nobody ever uses and even a reporting tool built right into the game. Use them. Slow development isn't the primary issue, slow development without communicating, is. Whether or not "passion project" is the acceptable development cycle for a product that costs $60 up-front is a separate debate that 100% needs to be had, just not in 30+ pages of incoherent screeching on the patch announcement thread. Please.

Everyone mad that there isn't a lot of new content this version needs to re-read the OP again. Not only are we finally getting the first iteration of the campaign, but they essentially had to completely remake this build from scratch to do it. That's 100% a justified reason to delay a patch in my book - y'all need to chill out a little. Thanks, Nick. New hulls are always appreciated and I can't fkin wait for the new French components. This kind of post is exactly what I'm personally looking for, just a little more frequently - that's all.

Thanks to the ability to save your Custom Battles designs in v0.5, you can use hulls from other nations without needing to enable Unlocked mode during the battle, allowing you to make use of the feature without letting the AI designer do the same. Simply enable Unlocked mode, design the ship you want (ie, using the modern US destroyer hulls and towers to make an accurate Tribal-class for the British, or recreating Prinz Eugen's time in the USN), save the design, leave the shipyard, disable Unlocked mode, and load your new design normally. A historical Tribal-class destroyer I made using the US Modern Destroyer (Leader) hull. On a related note, can the British please get these tower and funnel parts on their own destroyers in the next patch?

I'd just like to take a second to point out that this thread is now on Page #35 of people waiting for patches. This game has the development cycle of free-to-play Steam Greenlight flipware. This game costs $60. I said this in an earlier thread (actually, it might've just been really early in this thread, come to think of it), but I'll say it again: "EARLY ACCESS" IS. YOUR. RELEASE. From the moment you ask for money, you are selling a product, regardless of how much early-access set dressing you cover it with. Your product is broken, your product is not being fixed, promises you've made about your product are going unfulfilled almost a year later, the people selling the product are completely silent about it, and paying customers are wondering what the goddamn issue is. So, as a paying customer, I ask you: What the hell is going on? Not "where is the patch". Just "what the actual hello kitty is the reason behind the hold-up". There's absolutely zero communication and it's pissing everybody off. Everyone understands that shit happens, but it seems like it's just delay after delay for literally no reason when you don't tell anybody why you're delaying it. On a related note, Ultimate Admiral: Age of Sail is a great game that's actually worth its' asking price, for anyone bored as hell waiting for the Dreadnoughts patch.

Now that we have the ability to individually design every ship type in our fleet, which is fantastic, I'd like to see this feature extended to individual ships. For example, 2 BBs + 3 BBs, instead of 5 BBs. I think the cleanest way to implement this would be as a drop-down menu/slider on the Custom Battles screen, underneath the given ship type. Simply have it take the desired amount of ships selected and let the player split it up however they'd like, and give their chosen groups individual slots in the Ship Designer. I made some mock-up images describing this in further detail, but the forum upload limit is preventing me from posting them.

nerds arguing and fishposting again already patch when