Captain Vlad

Just two things real quick. 1> Noticed that the depth charge racks on some destroyer hulls no longer mask gun firing arcs. Great change. 2> British Mark 4 six inch guns can't currently be mounted in superfiring arrangement using the control towers with integral barbettes on some RN light cruiser hulls as the A turret is too tall and will obscure the B turret. Problem exists with some of the single barbettes too. This was noted in campaign when I was using Mark 4 guns; didn't have the problem before I got to that research stage.

These are some thoughts from my ongoing Spanish campaign. Please be advised that I have not reviewed the thread. 1: I am really enjoying the new hulls, especially the cruisers as they've really helped add some more nation specific vibes to the ships you can build. However, in some cases, I think they age out a little too quickly. In the Spanish campaign, I felt like I barely had the small scout cruiser and fast armored cruiser as options before they became obsolete, with the scout cruiser especially seeming to have potential beyond the point where you lose it. I personally would like it if some of these newer hulls had their available timeframes extended. 2: The newer hulls mostly seem to have better balance characteristics than the older hulls, which I presume is due to the changes to weights, etc. being in place when they were designed. I feel like some of the older hulls need to be looked at to make balancing them out a bit more viable than it is currently, to bring them into line with the new hulls. 3: Maximum armor on hulls is a great idea, but there are some hulls I feel like the limits are set a bit too low on, especially battlecruisers. While yeah, IRL, most BCs had less than 10 inches of main belt armor, prior to 1.4 it was very possible to use a BC hull as an early fast battleship if you were willing to sacrifice some firepower or speed for armor. This in turn allowed nations that had lower shipyard capacity and/or money to develop them to use the BC hulls as smaller "good enough" battleships or more traditional BCs as the player chose. This had great utility, and since ships that fudged the line between BC and Battleship (HMS Hood, for example) certainly existed IRL, I feel like we ought to have the option. 4: Some of the towers with integral barbettes on some of the cruiser hulls aren't sized in a way to allow the use of the full spectrum of guns available to the hull, yet there are no towers with no integral barbettes as an alternative. I'm at work and can't check the game directly, but one case that springs to mind is the Spanish Experimental Heavy Cruiser hull (IIRC). 5: In a similar vein to the above, some hulls are arranged in a way where it's practically impossible to use most of the secondary tower options available to them. It's possible I was just sleepy, but I was having a hell of a time fitting the larger aft towers onto a Spanish modern CL hull. 6: Small obstructions blocking fire arcs for main gun turrets really ought to be looked at. The depth charge racks on a lot of later destroyer hulls have had this problem for awhile even if the ship in question doesn't actually have depth charges. Some of the small gun tubs for 2-3 inchers don't seem like they would realistically mask the big guns firing arcs either, and on some hulls they do, and some they don't. 7. It may just been my perception, but tactically the AI seems to be noticeably better in the most recent patch and I'm enjoying it. It's especially been more competent in trying to keep the range open when it has bigger/longer range guns than you.

Greatly enjoying the changes to the campaign/zones of control, etc. Some suggestions for the future are as follows, some of which may be repeated from my previous posts. 1> Additional hulls and/or components would be nice, as always. To my perception, light cruiser-sized vessels, especially later era, could really use some diversification, even after the Atlanta was added. I really like the Modern Light Cruiser Hull, but there's no more "national flavor" alternative for several nations. Despite me talking about modern CLs above, in general I think the early game needs the most help here. 2>I really feel like the tonnage build limit for cruisers needs to be separate from cruiser hull types. As is, it can be really difficult to build something like, say, HMS Powerful or the Jeanne D'Arc during the era they were actually built due to the way the cruiser tech tree currently works. 3>Larger secondaries on at least some CL hulls, especially earlier Armored/Protected cruisers, for similar reasons to the above. Larger main batteries on older protected cruiser hulls would be welcome as well. 4>Have to echo other suggestions to have open/closed mount options for gun types to help prevent improving gun tech from screwing up designs. The option to use older guns would work too, but I would prefer being able to use the higher tech guns in smaller-footprint open mounts. There are already quad-mount open turrets in late game as a progression from triple turrets for some nations; seems like the models for the guns could be adapted from those? 5>Greater interaction with minor nations, including wooing them into becoming my ally, would be great. Being able to play as some of the minor nations would also be great, especially some that only appear if a major government collapses, such as India. The South American countries would be great as further player nations especially considering the South American Dreadnought race. 6>Still feel being able to build hulls smaller than destroyers after torpedo boats become obsolete would be welcome. Dedicated convoy escorts/ASW ships would be most welcome, and small minelayers/minesweepers would be a great alternative for play-throughs where you've decided not to worry about submarines. 7>Would still love some hull painting options/skins so I could get my Great White Fleet/Dazzle Camo/French Grey-Blue style on. 8>A small thing, but for those of us who love convoy raiding, it'd be nice to have an estimate of just how many transport ships your adversaries have and maybe estimations of how many you'd have to take out to start seeing effects.

I would love an 1860 start date DLC. I love the late-era ships, but I feel like the early pre-dreadnoughts get little representation in other games, and that one of UAD's neatest features is the ability to build and use them.

And it turns out that also works on changing ship's duty status, which has changed my life, so thank you. Deeply. So I guess change my request for those features to "maybe give more tooltips for those of us who used a campaign as their tutorial'.

Recently finished my first campaign, started a new one, and have some additional thoughts, mostly UI related. 1. A button to change the duty status (limited, in being, etc.) of all ships, or all ships of a selected type, all at once. My new campaign is Italy and the hordes of torpedo boats make dropping to peacetime status very tedious. 2. An option on the campaign ship design screen to show how many ships of that class (or refit) level that you current have or are building. By the same token, letting us select multiple ships to refit simultaneously instead of having to do each one at a time. 3. When you have allies in battle, putting an indicator on which of their ships are low on fuel on the battle acceptance/withdraw menu would be great; I'm sure the Ottoman Empire is very proud of their new French battleship and is eager to fight the Soviets with me, but their overenthusiasm won't fill their coal bunkers. 4. The ability to directly produce ships of a class with refits already applied without the 'save as a new design' workaround. 5. I know others have suggested it, but I would sorely love to be able to upgrade individual port's capacity. If you don't want us going too willy-nilly with it, maybe make it cost naval prestige in addition to money, or limit how many times you can use it in a set period of time or something. 6. I would thin down the cruiser research tree a bit, but that's me. 7. I must reiterate my suggestion in my previous post about keeping torpedo boat hulls, or at least hulls in that size category, available past their real-life heyday. I'd really love to build some small ships to assist the fleet with them, namely minelayers, though continuing to use them as fast attack craft would be great too and subchasers would also be great. 8. Probably not 'on camera', but tender ships to extend the range of torpedo boats or submarines. That said, having them be able to be hunted down/menaced/sunk/taken as a prize (okay, wrong game on the last one) and thus on-camera would be a neat mission type. 9. If this is in the game already, someone please tell me, but the ability to look at your weapon's fire arcs when in a battle sequence would be great. Also on the little sub screen of all your weapons, indicating which is on what side would be nice (I assume it's bottom = port, top = starboard, but I don't actually know). 10: In the ship designer, a good improvement would be it showing me which guns have poor firing arcs.

Many thanks.

Just started playing about a week ago. I am obsessed, and damn you all for taking away things like sleep and other games or forms of media. My suggestions are as follows. 1. I would love some improvements to the information given by the game so far as the direction of the enemy is concerned before they're in direct visual range. At the moment it tells us a rough direction the enemy's smoke is in; I don't know how difficult it would be to let us see the smoke for ourselves, but if that's not practical I would suggest that the game give you both more precise directions towards the smoke (north-northeast or south-southeast, as examples, though what I'd really like is a relative bearing) and what direction the smoke seems to be moving. This would make intercepts of enemies trying to escape easier, but not automatic, in my opinion. 2. I would like to add my voice to the calls for something like a pre-generated ship list for AI countries, though I appreciate with varying levels of research that might be difficult while maintaining the ability to develop better tech than your opponent's or make use of what you have more effectively. I feel it could work if there was a variation of the same designs with varying grades of armor, engines, etc, but I'm not a game designer. 3. I know the focus is on the Navy, the ships and blowing up fleets, but more options for national diplomacy would be awesome, especially where minor nations are concerned. In the game, I would be willing to spend money or involve myself in conflicts if it meant keeping certain minor nation allies on my side, for example, and would love to have the option. 4. I believe I read that some UI improvements are coming. I would suggest the ability to view all ships of a certain design from the design page, with their refit status, age, damage levels, etc. be included in this. I also feel like the mothballing process should be more obvious. 5. The ability to use maritime camouflage patterns, different peacetime paint schemes, decorative flags, etc. would be fun. Not a huge priority, but I love customization and that'd just add to the fun of designing your own ships. 6. Let us manually rename our own existing ships. 7. I also feel like the ability to keep producing ships smaller than destroyers as the game progresses would be a nice addition. Patrol boats, minelayers, mine hunters, torpedo, destroyer escorts, corvettes, frigate, etc. all existed well past the heyday of the torpedo boat, and could make for fun scenarios where, for example, you have to fight off enemy convoy raiders with them. My thanks to your team for this game.