Aceituna

This photo might answer your questions about UI and research. Also I would like to know more about politics and submarine design.

It's probably a silly question but if you are only waiting for Valve approval then what takes so long? According to official website: (https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/review_process) Such process should take 5-8 days...

I know it would be quite poor compromise but how about this: We would be able to build ships that use both sails and steam engine while sails would have affect only at strategic map and in battle such ship would remain without sails and use only engine. If we use this solution there wouldn't have to be new mechanic for wind and sails.

I am for as big diversification among playable nations as possible. But I think that we shouldn't change physics (it doesnt matter if there's 100 mm of steel plate on british ship or on the japanese ship in both cases it's still 100 mm of steel plate), also UK already has biggest funds among all navies in game so it will be huge challenge to face it but if UK would also get faster construction over others it would become totally impossible. But when you mentioned the UK naval tradition there might be bonus for crews. Altrough I am not sure about the morale but it might be easier to get fresh recruits. I think there are better ways to make playing as each country unique (as i mentioned in other posts). It could be done through unique political events (fighting over influence with army as Japan, fight bolshevik mutinies as Russia etc.)

Well, of course it's up to you when you decide that campaing is ready but I think that the only thing most of us expect from the campaing right now is to be startable.

Sorry gentlemen This was a really bad typo xd.

I am sorry but I just have to ask: What about the campaing?

I also believe that it should be in 2-3 week (until end of june) because devs said that they plan to fulfill their promise and release the game in the first half of 2020. On the other hand they promised announcement for last week which didn't happen so who knows... PS: It might be 40.5 days between updates on average. But it's kind of scary to me when i realize that there was 2 months between Alpha 3 and 4.

I would like to see auxiliary cruiser in game but I think that if we want to use them the same way as Germany did (as raiders) it should work the same way as submarines (they wouldn't be present in battles but their score would be auto-calculated) because they were supposed to (if possible) force the enemy merchant ships to surrender without fight instead of just sinking them.

Yeah as you wrote there were sailors on watch at the masts. Which were reporting smoke, light and (i don't know how to say it in english but that thing when sun shines at something polished it makes that visible affect), and about the identification from what i read: during time of peace captain knew exactly what ship will he meat long before he actually meet her. He knew it from radio communication and from usual seiling schedule. During war when watch sightes unknown vessel, captain might know what ship it is because he received report about this ship being located in this area (he might get this report from other ships, planes or from intelligence and radio interception) For example: If captain receives massage that there is enemy BC raiding in the area and he knows that there Is no friendly capital ship in area and he spottes big warship it's quite easy for him to identify it. When you asked if ships carried some ,,encyklopedia''. Ships (i don't know if all of them) carried Lloyd register which includes all merchant ships. I don't know if there was something similar for warships. About identifiying warships: watch/captain can't really identify the ship by the flag because you have to be quite close to actually see the flag even if weather Is good. Ships Are usually identified by characteristics these ships have (captains were usually familiar with how enemy ships look like from pictures or friendly visits etc.) One example: Raider 16 (Atlantis-German auxiliary cruiser) was raiding in Indian ocean in 1941 and one day watch spotted big unknown warship. There was a panic on-board because they thought it's british warship and anything besides merchant is almost invincible to auxiliary cruiser. But they calmed down quite quickly because they didn't have to wait until they could see the flag but they only had to get close enought to see that the ship has 2 turrets with 3 cannons each which is spesific only for Deutschland-class (it was Admiral Scheer) By the way: the identifiying ships by their characteristics is not always reliable. For example: In 1940 US Navy selled some destroyers to Royal Navy and then german ships (eslecially submarines) couldn't really say if it's british or neutral American destroyer until they could see the flag.

1. I would like to see the possibility to design submarines. I started a topic where I asked about this but there wasn't any official answer. When we talk about this, i have a three theories of how their design could look like. 1. Designing them the same way as surface vessels.-Which Is the way i would like the most. 2. We would't be able to actually place parts at them. But only move stats-like we do with displacement, speed, range and bulkheads. So we would just have a hull and we could just regulátor stuff like: range, strenght of torpedo armament, artillery, stealth, etc.- -Which would be ok for mě altrought I would prefer the first option. 3. Or we could just unlock certain historical hulls through research which would have fixed stats.-Which I think would be the worst possibility. About the second question(s):yes we can choose their position and yes we can choose how they will act. It's described here: https://www.dreadnoughts.ultimateadmiral.com/the-playing-modes And the third one: It would be nice because (at least to me) earlier destroyer hulls seems quite empty when I design them so anything se can put at them is welcomed. But i think that we won't be able to put ASW at them because at newer hulls there are already there as cosmetical thing.

This might be a pointless topic because we still don't know how exactly will crew work but I would like to suggest it anyway. Transport ships are not controllable by player so I assume that we will not be able to build them neither train their crews. So i guess that transports will have some fixed crew stats that will be same for every transport in-game. This brings me to my point: Few months ago i read two books about German auxiliary cruisers (one about all active german auxiliary cruisers in both world wars while each of them received own long chapter and the second one was specifically abou Raider 16-Atlantis). Both these books mentioned that when allied merchant ship refused to surrender (and in-case it was armed) their crews shoot their weapons terribly unaccurate. They were so inaccurate that thay could barely hit the auxiliary cruiser which is big and quite slow (althrough it was very close). Not to mention that orders for the cannon crews often came to them misrepresented. So i think that transport ships should get a huge debuff for accuracy.

Sure it's not essential and there are other much more important work to do in the game development at the moment. I only say that because we are already able to build H-class it would be nice if we could put correct guns at it someday.

I understand your argument that 508 mm (20 inch) weren't used in real historical battleships. But we are able to design H-class in-game (which was only planned). And for H-44, 508mm guns were really planned (they were supposed to be in double mounts). So i think that it would be nice if we get them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-class_battleship_proposals#H-42_through_H-44

I assume that blockage of gibraltar strait could only happen if spain is at war with Britain. And here comes the question: how will be army presented in-game? Because if the army works well in-game it should be able to conquer it. Yes if we include only major nations but there will be even minor nations present. So if we want to play offensively i think it would be much better (and safer) to first try to defeat some minor nations. For example greece or turkey or if we manage to hold our colonies than some south american countries.

I don't think that only good designs wood be enough but if you would boost yourself by beating some minor nations before than probably yes. Actually in the time campaing starts Austrian navy was stronger than the japanese. (not to mention that japan is more vulnerable to convoy raids) japanese navy became stronger over austrian around the beginning of dreadnought era. So during earlier stages of the campaing i would for sure prefer war with japan over war with austria. Also austria can quite easily hit your home waters (spain mediterranean coast) while the only spain possession japanese can hit are Philippines.

I really don't like when people underestimate Austro-Hungarian navy. In fact it really wasn't ,,weak'' as a lot of people think. During ww1 it was considered major naval power which Spain wasn't.

May I ask you upon what score do you assume this? I thought that it's gonna be june. For following reasons: Nick mentioned ,,upcoming first campaing version'' in the Alpha-6 thread. There is a question in the support forum if the game is going to be released in the first half of 2020 (as promised on steam) and he was answered that probably yes and steam release is tied with campaing, am i right? There was an promised announcement of the campaing and steam releasefor last week. (hopefully they will make the announcement this week) and why would they make announcement now if it should come in 2 months?

If there is not campaing in the next update (even thinking about it is painful) we might restore the noble tradition of defenestration... Just for the record: it's just a joke

These two points are important for sure. But I think that the limitation of the size of the fleet as a whole is equally important. Especially as part of peace treaties. So we are able to pacify enemy fleet that could become serious treat in the future.

I think that they shouldn't be allowed to do so. But the exceeding of treaty limits might look different for different regimes. For example: in autocracy this would mean rise of tensions, diplomatic problems etc. while in democracy (and some monarchies) you would get these affects too but you would additionaly get penalty for your personal prestige (which is promised in blog).

Yes this might happen but player could prevent this by using the influence he has.

Player will only control navy. Shouldn't this be rather up to government? (Altrough player should have some influence over this)

I like it too. Anyway i got an idea: This might be connected with the inteligence feature that was discussed before-if your spies would discover that some country is cheating on treaties you could choose to reveal this information (to hurt it's prestiege etc.) or keep this information for yourself if you wouldn't like to rise tension. Also probability of somebody noticing might differ by how much you violate this treaty (it would be different if you extend limit about 1000 tons or about 10000 tons.

That depends on the hull you choose. There are some hulls that Are unique for one nation (shimakaze for example). But there Are also generic hulls.