Nick Thomadis

Hello, I am sorry, but I am personally very very busy to follow and respond to all questions. I want to inform you that the build, today, will enter closed testing. We will inform the usual testers in our closed forum when it becomes available. If all is ok, we will release at the start of next week.

It might have been a neglected process from our side to update the plan which we have announced here: But if you notice what we promised and what is going to be given within the year is literally 3 core patches into one. If we had delivered Core Patch 1 in September/October it would be having unwanted bugs and you would all argue about the game's stability and quality. Instead, we decided to give a large update with Custom Battles Saves and a whole lot of new features so that you have a good working game, until we finalize the campaign with as many features as possible and without the stress of providing patch after patch to fix all the minor bugs. I suggest you and others calm down and keep your strength for any future criticism until we release the patch. Then you can review what we will give and maybe aid us with your critique to improve further.

Hello everyone, The work for the next major update continues. We would like to offer you the changelog that mentions all the new features of the upcoming Core Patch. The campaign version of the game has been remade from scratch, replacing fully the test version which was partially working internally for some time. Despite working almost solely for the campaign, the game has been improved further with new very important features and has been polished in several aspects. You can read below everything that has been readied so far. *==============================* *Core Patch 1* *==============================* The very first version of the Campaign The following information describes in a few words the first playable campaign. It may have a limited functionality, but it should be fully playable and enjoyable. It presents the following main aspects: The campaign involves only two Major Nations: *Britain* and *Germany*. You can select and play both of them in different starting years spanning from 1890 to 1940 which you unlock as you win campaigns (in the first build you will be allowed to unlock years up to 1910). The different starting years do not feature different historical map conditions but only represent the respective technology era, in which you can quickly jump in. There is currently no peacetime and no diplomacy & alliance mechanics. Your goal is to survive and beat your opponent in an endless brawl against the rival nation. The economy is working at a minimum level due to the limited nature of the first campaign version. So, for example, economic growth or other related financial factors are not yet simulated. There are, though, various decisions which you have to take regarding the shipyard development, crew training, technology funds and transport capacity, which are detrimental for financing and continuing the war. The technology mechanics are not finalized but they work sufficiently for the most important aspects. The technology advancements would matter more during peacetime while you prepare for war, so now they are gained in a rather fast manner, aiding more distinctively the nation which chooses to invest funds for gaining a technological advantage. The Map is limited graphically and in functionality, while the ship movement mechanics are disabled. However, a mission generation system will assess various strategic aspects, data from your active ships and their sea control orders, and will automatically create battles in the various sea regions. Some battles can be avoided, for example defending a small convoy against enemy ships and this would only cost you the loss of some transports - if you choose to not risk your valuable ships. But some key battles will require you to take a mandatory action. This first version of the campaign is provided as a stable test version for you, while we continue to develop it. We will very much appreciate your feedback and suggestions not only for the current working state of the campaign but for the future features you would like to see. Most work for this patch was allocated for the special functions of the campaign, but there are several new improvements which you can read below. 9x NEW HULLS The Japanese “Mogami-class Heavy Cruiser" is the new detailed ship model of the game. You can find the new hull for Japan after 1930 with a displacement between 10,400 tons and 16,600 tons with the name “Heavy Cruiser III”. New Japanese “Heavy Cruiser IV” especially suited for torpedo armament that is available after 1930 and has a displacement between 13,400 and 18,600 tons. New Japanese “Modern Light Cruiser II” available after 1930 with a displacement between 10,200 and 13,600 tons. New Japanese “Scout Cruiser”, a light cruiser which is especially stealthy and fast, available after 1930 with a displacement between 9,000 and 11,600 tons. New Japanese “Heavy Scout Cruiser”, a heavy cruiser which is particularly effective in distant fighting is available after 1930 and has a displacement between 10,600 and 13,600 tons. New Japanese “Experimental Cruiser” which is essentially a small battlecruiser with a displacement between 24,000 and 27,600 tons that is exceptionally stealthy and fast. This hull is available after 1935. New German “Modern Battleship I” which is a smaller variant of the Bismarck-class having a displacement between 42,500 and 54,500 tons and is available after 1927. New USA “Modernized Dreadnought” based on the famous California-class that was rebuilt in the 1940s. It has a displacement spanning from 34,500 and 38,500 tons and is available after 1927. New French “Experimental Battleship” a hull that is better suited for a fast battleship is available after 1929 and has a displacement between 45,500 and 67,500 tons. *Additionally:* Many new ship parts became available in previous hulls, following the new progression system of the campaign. NEW FEATURES New AI personalities: Adopting the new campaign mechanics, the AI opponent fleets now behave differently according to the nation. Some nations are very aggressive, others are balanced, and others especially cautious. All the AI personalities are now using a more effective system to decide when, how and at which distance to attack, due to the new AI which received an overall improvement. New After-Battle Statistics: Now you are able to examine detailed battle statistics for any ship that participated in a battle. New Steering gear component: You are now able to choose between various different steering options which affect the ship maneuverability. More engine components enriching the available technology tree: Multiple Expansion Steam Engine II, Turbo Electric Drive, Gas Turbines are the new engine types. Due to having now the option of a Turbo Electric Drive system, the respective previous Aux systems were rebalanced and renamed. New improved weight/offset mechanics: The new system allows the design of ships with cross deck guns and no side weight offset (previously it was impossible to have cross deck guns without instability problems). Another noticeable improvement is that you can find a perfect weight balance, if you use the CTRL while moving ship objects (previously this could be achieved much harder and sometimes it was impossible). BALANCES & GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS Various ship weight balances, especially in armor and engine aspects, allowing to make more realistic ship designs. Ship rotation mechanics are adjusted so that ships have realistic turning rates at all situations. You should notice ships to turn more naturally according to their weight and length. Smoke interference became more significant in earlier technology years and depended more on fuel type and engines. Overpenetration mechanics adjustments cause now more frequent overpens on small or lightly armored ships. Rescaled some small guns of the Pre-Dreadnought, Dreadnought era. They now match better to their caliber size. Initial deployment of ships became improved so that BB and BC types are always placed into battle lines that cannot merge with each other (previously some battle lines could be too close to each other creating inevitable ship collisions. Ships no longer automatically lose speed according to formation spread. This was helping them to maintain the formation but players usually removed the ships from formation to achieve the top speed. Now the ships will still be effective overall in keeping the formation but you will have to adjust their speed if they lose cohesion. Added in Battle Statistics damage details for ramming. Increased Naval Academy funds by about +15% as compensation for the money needs of the latest components and features. AI The AI, as mentioned already, has received a significant improvement. You will notice AI to become more aggressive when it clearly has the advantage. For example, if the AI notices that your Destroyers are out of torpedoes, then it will stop behaving defensively and will close in to destroy them. Another noticeable improvement is that it generally keeps a more effective firing distance and maneuvers more sharply and promptly, trying to adapt to player actions. Optimized the Auto-Design system. Ships of the AI should be generated in much less time and be much more effective according to their technology generation. Division AI logic improved in general, to be more responsive and help to maintain the formation. BUGS & OTHER FIXES Fixed various minor issues of the Graphical Interface. Fixed collider issues of some Russian guns, which made them overlap with other guns. Fixed bug that caused the showing of wrong information of min/max armor value in ship details info. Fixed issue with a few funnels not fitting in some hulls. Fixed issues with the shell dispersion mechanics which could make shell shots fall at much wider range than they should at close distances. Now you will notice much more realistic shell trajectories at all ranges. Various small fixes to some hulls. GRAPHICS & OPTIONS The Ship Designer interface became improved by organizing the various parts into scrollable windows. Previously the excessive number of parts could overload the interface or become very small due to downscaling. Battle FPS performance became improved due to the AI code optimization. Fixed some issues that could cause lag in the design interface. Note: Due to all the new changes and improvements, your saved designs in Naval Academy will not work. The patch is almost ready to release. We are narrowing down the last bug fixes and finishing the progression of the many new ship parts (various Towers and Funnels) which will be all available in Custom Battles and Naval Academy but will gradually unlock in campaign as new technologies are researched. Within the week we will inform you again about when we are going to release the patch. Thank you for reading! The Game-Labs Team PS. Since a lot of players ask us, we are working constantly for new ship 3D models and more ships of the pre-dreadnought era. The next main models will be based on French battleships and cruisers of the 1890s and 1900s.

No problem

Hello all, We understand your anticipation for the campaign and it is welcome. The last patch which you all play has revealed very few remaining issues that we already sort out to fix in the next patch, including the optimization of auto-design (which is very important for the campaign). The next patch will include the campaign, finally. The campaign is now receiving a major development to make the AI a sufficient opponent, on how to respond to player actions, generate strong fleets and pose a constant threat. Visuals of the campaign are currently of low priority and will not delay the development, as we focus mostly on gameplay elements. We will let you know more, once we finish with the last important stages of development and the campaign is in good shape to release.

I am sorry but how did you take photos on steam?

I am not sure I understand. Shells that have angle of fall 41 degrees (nearly the maximum that is practically possible, because we cannot have completely vertical falls) how much side/deck hit probability they should have according to your own fantasy?

Many players might do that but place their turrets very much in front or rear so they are virtually unprotected. When we improve the citadel system, it is going to be clearer for all players how it works.

Your ship vs the H-class of almost 125,000 is much smaller. Your opponent is almost 64.5% bigger! The H-Class is a very expensive Battleship that in the campaign will be very difficult to construct and not the best solution to guard all your water borders. In Custom Battles you can build anything and test out things, but you should not expect to have symmetrical results against Super Battleships. PS. Additionally, your complete "All or Nothing" armor scheme has weaknesses, compared to the much more complete armor scheme of your opponent. You save weight, but you do not make your ship impervious. When we implement a more detailed Citadel, you will be able to design your ship more coherently faithful to the all or nothing principle.

You mean bulkheads that separate the ship from side to side (via longitudinal frames). This was considered as an extra detail, but if you think about it, counterflooding was done always automatically in the era we examine, in order to not have a ship to capsize, so it is not something major missing, but still it is a level of detail that can have a tactical effect during battle, so that if damage is too serious on one side, it can affect the counterflooding measurements. Thank you for the clarification.

@HistoricalAccuracyMan When we improve the fire control system, we will group guns in a better way than now. Currently the unified battery is simulated in a large extend, because many guns of the same type aim much better than fewer guns. You can try to make a ship with mixed main gun caliber and compare how it shoots vs a ship with a unified main battery to understand how it works. Indeed, we should group side guns and different barrel turrets if they are of the same caliber, but again, such a fire control system should have a small penalty to aiming, because the varied position of the guns and the different barrels, should slightly affect their ballistics. The most benefited aiming system, should be for guns of the same caliber, with the same barrels per turret, that are placed on the same height level, if we want to be more faithful to realism.

@DougToss I am sorry but still I do not understand exactly what you mean. The image shows in a very brief manner how damage is dealt on warships. Can you elaborate what you think it is exactly missing in relation to bulkheads? You said we do not have longitudinal bulkheads in your first post. Where exactly are they missing? If they work 100% as in full reality simulation, it is a different matter, there is always room for improvements and new features. But where are they missing? Ships are not destroyed by hitpoints (as you also said) unless their structural integrity is reduced so much that they cannot function anymore as a floating vessel. So please explain what you think we need as a feature desperately in order to prioritize, if possible.

We already model subdivisions... a ship can be sunk with 100% structural health due to flooding alone. Strong torpedoes damage compartments more and cause more flooding that spreads to nearby sections. Engines become disabled due to flooding in the sections they work. Arguably, more detail can be added, but we must be accurate when we speak on the internet. We have a very detailed damage model already, that can be improved but not laughed upon.

Can you share please your system specs? Additionally, it would help to fully re-install the game (Uninstall, Restart PC, Install again).

Can you try the following solution? Go to the windows folder which holds settings and saves for the game. For example, it will be here: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Game Labs\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts On this folder find the "settings.json" file and delete it. Launch the game and this file should be auto-generated again with proper settings for your system. You can then go to "Settings" and tune the graphics more if needed.

If you have this issue then you can go to "settings" and switch graphics to a more appropriate setting. In particular, the buttons will show blurred if "Textures" is at the lowest setting.

Nothing major to mention specifically. Collider fixes should affect all hulls though, positively. If there are any major problems with hulls, you can post in forum or with the report button and we will look to fix.

Hello admirals, As promised yesterday, we just deployed a new update which brings major fixes and improvements. The most important is the refactoring of the Auto-Design code. Please read all about the update in the following list: *Hotfix v90* - Refactoring of the Auto-Design code, addressing various issues that could cause errors and delays in the process. Most, if not all, problems regarding freezes, delays, unbuildable ships, should be fixed. - Improved the overpen mechanics, so now you will be able to see full penetrations on the smallest craft such as the Torpedo Boats. - Increased the torpedo damage (due to latest changes in ship section density, damage could be small in large warships). - Fixed bug that caused operational range to become reset when loading a custom battle saved design. - Fixed bug of custom battle saves which included Transport ships, making them disappear when loaded. - Fixed some other bugs related to battle saves. - Some minor UI issues with overlapping buttons in 16:10 resolution have been resolved. - Fixed bug of Bug reporter not allowing to use the Enter key. - Fixed bug making graphical settings to reset. This could have been a source of graphical bugs, depending on player’s system. - Fixed bug on smoke screen becoming available to BB, BC, CA if they were on the same division with DD or CL. - Minor fixes in some hulls. Your feedback on the new improvements will be much appreciated!

Hello all, Tomorrow a new hotfix patch will become available. It will include the following: *Hotfix v90* (30/9/2021) - Refactoring of the Auto-Design code, addressing various issues that could cause errors and delays in the process. Most, if not all, problems regarding freezes, delays, unbuildable ships, should be fixed. - Improved the overpen mechanics, so now you will be able to see full penetrations on the smallest craft such as the Torpedo Boats. - Increased the torpedo damage (due to latest changes in ship section density, damage could be small in large warships). - Fixed bug that caused operational range to become reset when loading a custom battle saved design. - Fixed bug of custom battle saves which included Transport ships, making them disappear when loaded. - Fixed some other bugs related to battle saves. - Some minor UI issues with overlapping buttons in 16:10 resolution have been resolved. - Fixed bug of Bug reporter not allowing to use the Enter key. - Fixed bug making graphical settings to reset. This could have been a source of graphical bugs, depending on player’s system. - Fixed bug on smoke screen becoming available to BB, BC, CA if they were on the same division with DD or CL. - Minor fixes in some hulls. The main issue we wanted to fix was the serious issues in auto-design, and it appears we have accomplished that with this new upcoming update. The work on the campaign continues, finalizing technology mechanics and Campaign AI. More news will arrive on next week.

The saves use a different file system, so any old save cannot work. From now on, the saves will use the current format and should be stable, at least for the Naval Academy unlocked missions.

We have uploaded a hotfix addressing this very serious issue. Please check it out and advise if it has fixed the problem for you.

New hotfix has just become available, admirals! The freeze issue while loading should be gone now. *Hotfix v89* (20/9/2021 UPDATE) - Fixed various bugs of auto-design, which were also responsible for freezes while loading battles. - Fixed gun collider issues. You should be able to mount guns with more flexibility, especially in towers. - Fixed bug in gun selection when it was placed on a tower. - Fixes on other minors you reported.

Unpacker uses a standalone 7zip exe. Can you try to install 7zip in your system (it is free) and see if this helps with the problem?

Hello all, A hotfix has just been uploaded which includes the following: *Hotfix v88* (17/9/2021 UPDATE) - Fixed major bug of gun armor resetting for saved designs, when trying to apply new gun armor settings. - Fixed major bug of armor penetration, incorrectly evaluating the armor thickness of guns and causing too many detonations and flash fires. - Fixed issue with part selection in ship design, that could become overly big and inaccurate. - Fixed bug that caused keyboard edit of gun armor to use only inches measurement. - Fixed bugs of Auto-Design which could cause building delays, overweight or overcost ships. - Reduced about -5% Belt/Deck armor and about 10% the superstructure armor. Designs should now be more consistent with historical values. - Increased crew damage from penetrating hits +10%. - Various inconsistencies for hulls and stats fixed according to your feedback. PS. We will optimize further the auto-design code so that it does not cause delays in loading. If you click buttons during a battle load, and you anticipate a freeze, you may let the application to continue, it should continue and successfully load.

Can you go to C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Game Labs\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts and delete all saves and settings?