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PongoDeMer

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  1. f the makers of Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts are planning the inclusion of HG Wells' torpedo ram HMS Thunderchild, the attached video may help. šŸ˜‰ Pongo de Mer. HMS Thunderchild - A bad day to be a Tripod - YouTube
  2. The sea 1) Sometimes, the waves are in long straight lines, especially when viewed from a high angle. Is there any way to randomise them? 2) Ships with low freeboard (especially destroyers and torpedo boat destroyers) look as if they are semi-submerged. I think that the problem is that there are insufficient graphics for foam. If more was added, especially when waves broke over the bows of a ship, the visual improvement would be dramatic. Other stuff a) When smoke is reported on the horizon, could we please see some smoke? Coal burning ships kicked out massive amounts of it, and it aided sighting considerably. b) When the difficulty setting has been sorted out, could we please lose the structural graphics for the enemy ships? Currently, they give us far more information than would be available to us in real life. The only indications we should get are fires, listing, loss of speed and (if close enough) visible battle damage, which leads onto my next point. c) Could we please have a telescope or/and a binocular magnified view with an appropriately shaped filter? I'm having great fun with this. Keep up the good work. Pongo de Mer
  3. Given that even wargames with accurate ORBATS and dispositions are most unlikely to achieve exactly the same result in a battle or campaign - especially at sea - it can be fairly stated that all wargames are historically based, as opposed to being historically accurate. However, judging by some of the comments on these forums, there is a very real demand for historic ships and battles to be included. It would certainly be easy enough for you to do. I take your point that in a game of this sort, precise accuracy is impossible. However, that really wouldn't be needed as long as the appearance and performance of the computer models were reasonably close to the originals, and that the result of any battle fought was plausible. For the record, I have fought the battle of Savo Island many times using the Fighting Steel program, and the only result I have NOT achieved is the historical one. However, I digress. 3) One essential requirement I missed in my original post, was for a scenario editor to be included. This certainly needn't be as detailed as the Fighting Steel editor, which is the best I have ever come across for a naval wargame, however, I would recommend that it should model training levels, ditto ammo, damage from previous actions and also weather. I don't know whether it would be practical to model lack of stability in rough weather or due to battle damage. However, it would be huge fun attempting to command some of those French tumblehome pre-Dreadnought monstrosities, and it would really take the cake if they could be induced to capsize!! Again, I digress. Most importantly of all, the game should include a database of SOME historical warships which our own designs - historical, ahistorical or fictitious - can be added to. I fully realise that Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts was never created to rival (say) Jim Rose and Norm Koger's Jutland as an accurate depiction, but as a fast, furious and fun naval wargame, I submit that it should go far, PROVIDED that it pays a bit more attention to historical simulation than it does at present.
  4. Okay, I have these warships, each of which has a number of strengths and weaknesses. According to best intelligence, the enemy has (or is likely to have) those warships, with a different number of strengths and weaknesses. All I have to do is to come up with a plan to defeat the enemy, right? Ermā€¦ no. Not only does this particular game let me select the ships I need, but it also allows me to build each one from the keel up. letā€™s start with what I like about the game. Designing ships and then testing them in battle is a wonderful selling point; moreover, one which should attract naval wargamers like a moth to a candle. The game is also easy to learn and enormous fun to play. It is clear that an awful lot of research has gone into developing a realistic depiction of naval combat during the pre-Dreadnought Dreadnought and Battleship eras. The developers are not resting on their laurels either as they are taking note of feedback and are continuing to improve the game so it will be as good as it can be before final release. Now, letā€™s take a look at what needs improving. First and foremost, there is not a single historical warship in the game. Every ship is either created by the player or the artificial intelligence which makes it impossible to see how the ships you have designed would have fared in real-life against authentic opposition. If the makers included ironclad technology for the Royal Navy, a player could come away with the impression that a ship like HMS Captain was a truly wonderful design. All you have to do is to Google HMS Captain to find out how utterly misleading this would be. As the saying goes, ā€œWhen you are up to your ass in alligators, it is difficult to remember that the original object of the exercise is to drain the swamp.ā€ The simple fact that there is all this wonderful stuff going on with nary a real warship in sight leads me to the unavoidable conclusion that the developers have somehow lost their way. Donā€™t get me wrong, fantasy Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts would be fine, but if that is the goal, then perhaps they should go the whole hog and include the means to create HG Wellsā€™ torpedo ram Thunderchild plus the tripods from Mars. Iā€™m afraid that the bottom line is that wargamers want wargames that are grounded in history, and for a naval game, that must include a decent selection of historical warships and battle scenarios. Were the makers to include these, I am confident that their highly original concept would be transformed into a world beater. I for one, would (for example) love fighting the Battle of the Denmark Straits with realistic computer depictions of the ships that were there and then to have a rematch with modified Hood and KGV class BBs, or some of my own original creations, to see if they fared any better. And now, onto some of the nuts and bolts of the game. The makers really need to go firm on what the rationale is behind the Naval Academy scenarios. At the last count, there were fifty-one, FIFTY-ONE of these. At the time of writing, I have completed nine. Not only did the ā€˜First Casematesā€™ scenario completely flummox me, but going by the comments on this forum, it had pretty much the same effect on everyone else. The only way I ended up winning it was to design an absolute abortion of a ship (christened the USS Captain) with massive 10ā€ cannons perched outside on the very top deck. These would have made her so top-heavy that if she had set sail in conditions any choppier than the average mill-pond, it is a racing cert that she would have suffered exactly the same fate as her namesake. What is the purpose of a scenario like this? If it was included for tutorial purposes, what does it teach, apart from how to design the most freakish vessel imaginable? If it was historical, then surely it should have taken the form of the Battle of Hampton Roads, complete with authentic Monitor plus an equally authentic Virginia. Ship design is a separate subject and, in this writer's opinion, it would clearly be much better handled by scenarios from a later period. This of course, leads me on to the sheer scope of the game, running from the 1860s until the1950s. This is so vast that were an acceptable amount of detail included, it would seem unlikely that the game would be released for another five years. It seems to me that the makers should focus on a much narrower timeframe, covering ā€“ say ā€“ the pre-Dreadnought and Dreadnought eras. Other periods and wars could be dealt with by later modules or DLCs, which would include real warships, real battles and real campaigns, with of course, the ahistorical option of researching technologies and building your own vessels from the keel up. It strikes me that this would likely result in some pretty healthy repeat business. I for one, would gladly part with my money for an American Civil War or a Russo-Japanese module, with all the related vessels and technologies included. So which way is this project going? Will it be American Civil War to Korean War, or is it going to be War of the Worlds to Star Trek? Either way, I will follow developments with interest. Pongo de Mer
  5. Ink, Thanks for replying. What confused me was the 1940 latest date on the custom battle screen. A lot of modern stuff is now available, with more in the pipeline, such as 19 and 20" uber-ordnance, but the game makers haven't got around to upping the date by a few years which would surely reflect the technology better. HMS Vanguard was the last British BB and she was put on the reserve list in 1955. Would (say) 1948 be a better cut-off date? My testing continues. Pongo de Mer
  6. I am running v 2.44 of the game. I have checked out the blog and YouTube and discovered that there are later versions of the game. What I cannot find is where to download them from. Can anyone send me the link? Thanks in advance, Pongo de Mer.
  7. Shaitan, I finally nailed the Monitor, and it was something similar to your floating monstrosity that did it. Thanks, Pongo de Mer
  8. It's not just me who's had trouble with the mission then!! šŸ˜®
  9. I have fought this mission close up with 8" guns in the casemates. I have fought it at range with plunging fire using 2 x 10" guns, 8" bow chasers and 5" popguns in the casemates. I have fought with standard and heavy shells and I have experimented with the propellents available to me. None of this has done any good at all. About the only thing I haven't tried is ramming. Can anyone tell me how to win this battle? Thanks in advance, Pongo de Mer
  10. It is impossible to change the difficulty level back from difficult to normal. After reporting the problem, I uninstalled the game completely and reinstalled the game from scratch. It made no difference. I think that my game details must be on an external server because I deleted every file and folder connected with the game. When I reinstalled it, the record of the tutorial scenarios I had played were still there. Can anybody help? Pongo de Mer
  11. Panic over. I turned off my PC and restarted it. Everything now works fine. Many thanks, Pongo De Mer
  12. Hello everyone, I bought the game yesterday, and this is my first post on this forum. Could the designers please add a slider to reduce/eliminate the shell flight graphics in the Options/Graphics screen? In my opinion (only) the existing shell flight graphics are a bit too arcade-like. No doubt, I will have more suggestions for the team to accept or discard as I progress with the game. Having said that, please accept my congratulations. Ranging from the first ironclads to the final post WW2 BBs, this has to be the most versatile game on the market. I look forward to many hours getting to grips with and playing it. Pongo De Mer
  13. When I attempt to start the game, I get an error message saying 'Another instance of launcher client already exist.' Please tell me what to do to get the game to run. I am running Naval Action on Steam, but that shouldn't be causing the problem should it? Thanks in advance.
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