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G'day folks. Yet more suggestions for yet better gameplay. Enjoy, and let the good times roll. * Duplex rangefinders should be available; options for whether main guns also have rangefinders to minimise the loss of accuracy when main rangefinder(s) are hit. Number and sizes of rangefinders should have rudimentary options- none, one, few, moderate, many, maximum options. Rangefinders could also be a placeable structure, assuming implementation of the structures system indicated earlier, instead of abstracted options, with each rangefinder being individually modeled and it's effect on accuracy individually tracked. Also would be nice to include rangefinder blind spots. * All turrets should be individually searching for targets when set to aggressive fire-mode; including main and secondary turrets, so we can get all our guns blazing when surrounded, as I prefer to be. * Battleship ambush defence should not include merchant ships. If it does, that's a very unfair convoy defence, as even a maxed-out battleship ain't killing that many light ships before they drop torpedoes and ruin your defenceless and ignorant transports. * Save tabs- at the top of the saved designs window, an extra button to switch into your universal saves would be appreciated. This would preserve function and cleanliness of current saves window but permit persistent saving of designs. I'd also like filter controls to filter by type, weight, modernity, etcetera as I plan on creating large libraries of designs. Now, this final part might be controversial, but I would like this tab to allow me to construct other nation's ships, assuming none of their components would be unavailable to me from a technology perspective. Again: if I want to build ships that look the same as my enemy's that's my prerogative as the ultimate fleet admiral. Some nations just get plain screwed with their available designs... * Near miss damage: large-calibre HE should cause some shrapnel/splash damage, and AP that falls short on trajectory to hit the hull below the waterline should be modeled. * We should be able to click the "some guns have poor sectors of fire" warning and be brought to the offending turret and have it blink for us a couple of times. This is so we can actually know what turret is causing the issue. * The new turrets with little gunnery nests on them are quite nice. Now can I please have an option to not use them, so I can use the old generic ones so they'll fit with barbettes? Better yet, a simple option to remove the nest so I can properly put a superfiring turret over it would be ideal. * Please set all armour preset values to balanced figures so I don't spend ten minutes getting the weight balance perfect only to find that the ship has 500% more aft deck armour than fore deck armour, requiring a complete redesign *after* I think I'm nearly done. * In the Fleet tab, the tooltip keeps getting in the way of what statistics you're trying to look at. Redesigning it so that information is displayed in a dedicated window to the side would be ideal. * In the shipyard for ship design, there's a large dead space where the keyboard move buttons and the mouse movements are all ignored. Please increase the bounding box in which these functions work. Suggest making all space that isn't a button or sidebar accept these inputs. On the sidebars up/down buttons should scroll the sidebar we're mouse-overing. * Speaking of the shipyard, it would save me a lot of effort if the engine efficiency and pitch/roll values all displayed the same tooltip as the sidebar provides. Please. * Aim high and aim low settings would be appreciated so we can exploit poor superstructure armour or aim to hole the targeted ship. * When about to initiate a battle, the window that opens causes the countries, warscore and fleet dispositions tab to fade into inscrutability. Respectfully, don't do that. There's no reason for it and in the current build there may be several consecutive battles scheduled for me by the AI between which I cannot check this tab. In fact, stop making those tabs impossible to close; I may want to order new ships or adjust my spending as a result of the battle I just finished and there's no mechanical reason to stop me. * Convoy escort missions are just not acceptable in current build if you want your game enjoyed or sold. It is literally impossible to protect your convoy from long-range torpedoes, even if your whole force is immediately sent out to meet the attackers, along any relative bearing, the AIs super-torpedo ships are going to fire on your escort force with the rapidity of a machinegun and as you evade you'll inevitably attract salvos that can go on to hit your convoy ships. The crux of the matter is detection range and initial force placement. RADAR is supposed to detect things in plenty of time to respond to it, and even if not (or not available)you're going to have a far more satisfying game if these battles are remotely under your control to win- maybe lengthening the distance between the starting would help, as might reducing the range of torpedoes to nearer their indicated maximum range, or PUTTING THOSE CONVOYS UNDER PLAYER CONTROL and ADDING AUDIO AND VISUAL CUES THAT A SHIP IS ON COURSE TO TAKE A TORPEDO, that latter two being highlighted as they alone will fix this issue without making every convoy defence mission a drudgery of waiting to make contact. Also, if the convoy ships are going to be under AI control, whether we set them to it or you force us to use that alone, then they should follow Mr. Piccolo's advice and DODGE! 'Coz trust me, we're begging them to. I reiterate: all ships under AI control should be using AI dodge-hacks, a term which will be replaced with AI evasion when it becomes more accurate than the former. * Related to the former: please stop letting the AI build super-torpedo ships with literally a hundred or more torpedoes on them each, ESPECIALLY in historical build mode. No-one actually did that. Just we armchair admiral wondered about doing it. Even the Japanese didn't go that far with their most outrageous designs... * Make AI dodge-hacks less noticeable. It's immersion-breaking. Reduce all values that they exceed the limits imposed on a player ship by at least 50% of the difference, preferably 100%. This is a priority concern. * Fleet tags in campaign are way too big to function right, both for ports and ships. Interface is messy and unwieldy; I don't feel very in control of my ships... * Fleet tags could use the silhouette from the designer's plan to show us the heaviest ship in a given force, thus communicating considerably more information than they do now. It would also be comparatively simple to do, too. * I'ma repeat myself: light ship spotting mechanics are not sufficient. Being fired at by ghosts also isn't sufficient. Most other games mitigate this by having the ship that fires balloon out it's detection range by up to 50%, but my primary desire is to get RADAR and SONAR mounts to exist and have more realistic ranges regardless of what they're mounted to, except a slight range buff *for free* by being mounted higher- say, on a BB mast. This bonus should not be *that* high, as it isn't in reality. No more than 100%. Again free from a weight perspective- same RADAR module, same weight- but it should be a roll concern as in reality. After all, that weight is very high up on the superstructure and that's how you get roll. * The dispersion of guns in the current patch is so poor as to be offensive to the Youtubers playing the game (though admittedly, I never really paid it much heed, understanding how the math behind this system works and that the displayed rounds are merely a visual representation of that math). Anyhow, relatively easy fix: reduce the maximum dispersion of the shells being animated by say 30-50%, especially at short ranges, just to improve the aesthetic, if not affect the performance which seems adequate for this stage of development. Nice work making the fall of shot from the same turret look realistic, though; even War Thunder couldn't pull that off. * Please have speed stat display to two decimal places, as it already actually accepts inputs down that far and adjusts the ship's weight and stats accordingly but doesn't actually show the difference (except by the altered stats). * I think we need a mini-map. I am having severe trouble tracking all the ships involved in larger encounters... * Would like an "assist ship" order; for when a ship is critically damaged. Allow us to send another vessel to rescue survivors (adding them back to the trained crew pool after battle) and attempt to stabilize the ship in trouble, at the risk of potentially losing the rescue craft. This will add a new dynamic for damaged capital ships and give us an organic objective mid-battle; we may find ourselves trying to fend off attacks while we complete a rescue or salvage operation. Dedicated salvage ships also appreciated as a long-term stretch goal. * Flagships suffer a -15% accuracy malus due to being out of range of the flagship. Hilarious, but better removed. Okay then, as ever feel free to cite both liked and disliked ideas to allow the devs to better understand our wants. Happy hunting, Admirals. o7

I got to thinking and something id like to see is being able to decide the AI behavior. In campaign and academy the enemies AI should be sorta random but in a custom battle you should be able to set the enemy AI to say 'Aggressive' 'Defensive' or 'Balanced' in a way. Obviously an aggressive AI will fight at closer ranges, try for torp runs, and in general try to sink you fast and try to start engagements. Defensive AI would fight at longer range and try to be more careful. I think in general the AI needs to try and stick to a range where gun hits will be reliable. Id like to set the same for your own AI you can assign your ships to in battle. Right now your player AI fights kinda like a coward. Often running out of ammo without even hurting the enemy.

Why do division captains not take evasive action on their own discretion when they come under a torpedo attack? I have seen countless times that subordinate (division) captains mindlessly continue their path even if torpedoes are sighted. I can understand that they have to follow the orders set by the division's lead ship, but some sort of own discretion would be great if they come under torpedo attack. It is for example quite annoying that I manage to dodge some torpedoes with the lead ship only to see that the ship following gets torped. Imo, in this game you are the admiral, not a captain. The priority of the captain is the well being of the ship, whereas the admiral's priority is to set out and complete tactical or strategic orders. Therefore the captains of all the ships in the game should always be able to temporarily act on their own discretion if an immediate danger to ship is detected. We already have collision avoidance, which is done on a ship to ship basis. Here the captain (AI) does take action. Also, if the lead ship of a division is hit severely it will also automatically swap places the ship next in line of the division. Would it be possible for the devs to perhaps add a bit more freedom to operate when a subordinate ship (maybe even lead/flag ship) comes under direct threat, such as during a torpedo attack. Just like with swapping places when the lead ship is too severely damaged, the ship that would conduct evasive manouvres would at the end fall back to the line formation. Just like in the Ultimate General series I feel that this micromanage avoidance fits the idea of a more tactical/strategic game well. At least I rather praise the Ultimate General series for offering a more tactical/strategic battle rather than a micromanage one as found in too many games anyway. I hope Ultimate Admiral can inherit these aspects as well.

When player start a new campaign, game will load ships templates to the AI memory, that player have used in the academy missions (maybe not every template... yes, I'm looking at you Accipiter!), or even from the previous campaigns. If the AI has both technology and resources, it can use these templates created by the player and use them against him!

Preface. I am not the kind of player who can remain engaged for very long with static missions such as offered in the Naval Academy. However, give me a custom battle setup with AI controllable forces and a spreadsheet, and days will fly by. Thus recently with release of the latest Alpha update (Alpha 4 v67) I have been spending a fair amount of time smashing fleets of AI ships together while I patiently await the arrival of the campaign mode. During this time I have observed some behaviours that I feel it would be useful to begin a discussion on. Unfortunately this means a wall of text of incoming, but hopefully someone will find the time to read it and perhaps some useful points to engage with and discuss as development of this fine game continues. Perceived desirable traits. As of the time of writing, this will be a single player game. As such, the AI opponents needs to provide a challenging and engaging game play experience whilst not being so complex as to be to computationally heavy and bogging down the simulation. To my mind, providing this engagement can be done in two complementing fashions. The first of these is verisimilitude. The AI should exhibit behaviours that mimic real world/human behaviours, to provide the illusion that hidden away behind your screen an enemy Beatty or Scheer is directing the opposing forces and doing their damndest to prevail against you. The second element is to provide a challenge. The AI should understand the systems inherent in the game it is playing. It should utilise those systems at the least in a competent manner in order to provide the greatest tactical challenge to a competent player. This includes at least giving the illusion of pursuing a coherent tactical battle plan, with some variety of overall approaches roughly appropriate to a given engagements strategic/tactical considerations. With these traits in mind, I will now highlight what I think are the largest negative factors presented by the AI admirals as currently implemented. Target selection. I have observed ships of all classes primarily engaging the lightest visible opposing elements with all available weaponry unless engaged at very close ranges. This results in some very spectacular explosions when a battleships main battery lands a square blow on a torpedo boat, but is perhaps not entirely desirable and certainly challenges perceptions of verisimilitude with the games gunnery model. I believe that a ships primary and secondary batteries should engage opposing forces with respect to the vessels role within the fleet. Ideally ships primary weaponry should be engaging their opposing class first, engaging down only when no ideal target presents itself, and only engaging up as a last resort. Secondary weaponry should prefer to engage down, although certain classes of secondary weaponry may be optimised for other targets. This assumes relatively historical ship design considerations, although given the design flexibility inherent in this title, perhaps prioritising targets dependent on the calibre of the individual battery would be more appropriate? As a suggestion, perhaps a useful guideline for weapon based target selection would be: 2-5” weaponry would prioritise torpedo boats and destroyers 4-7” would prioritise light / protected Cruisers 6-9” would prioritise armoured / heavy Cruisers, possibly lightly armoured battlecruisers 10”+ should be engaging enemy battleships and battlecruisers as priority. Torpedoes should be prioritised as engaging the heaviest viable targets, though as a weapon of opportunity they should be used against any target that presents itself. Perhaps the margin of allowable error should be judged much more strictly when choosing to engage light manouverable elements such as opposing torpedo boats. Currently an entire fleet will engage a single enemy vessel until its destruction. While probably the correct choice for the damage model as currently implemented, as more gradual reduction in fighting ability from accrued impacts is implemented (through crew casualties and the like), it should become viable to implement a more historically accurate tactic of each ship with in a line engaging its opposing number in the enemy line, only beginning to double up when friendly forces maintain numerical superiority. Formation Keeping. This mostly comes up when a unit tries to fall out of line due to battle damage. Currently a unit seeking to fall back to the end of their squadrons battle line will do a full 180 turn to achieve this via the shortest path for their current relative position (often coming to a complete stop in front of the enemy gun line and disrupting the formation of following friendly elements, also causing them to come to a complete stop). However, ships of the era -should- be aiming to maintain constant speed. The correct course of action for a ship unable to keep pace with their squadron is to pull out of line -away- from opposing forces, before settling into a parallel course allowing friendly units to pass between themselves and the enemy. Similarly, when formations are disrupted, the lead ship should reduce speed to allow the rest of their squadron to catch up, currently once disrupted any lead element that missed the blockage will quickly become isolated and find itself facing enemy forces alone and distant from supporting friendlies. Position selection for supporting units: when given the supporting role (as opposed to follow), squadrons seek to position themselves between the supported formations and the enemy fleet. While this is the correct choice for scouting units before the main battle lines become engaged, this positioning is suicidal once heavier enemy forces are within firing range. Ideally supporting forces should be withdrawing to a position behind the primary gun line once battle is joined, only sallying back through the line should it become necessary to fend off enemy destroyer/torpedo boat attacks. These attacks should also not be the default behaviour for destroyers and torpedo boat, these forces should be held in reserve until such times as the battle lines close to a short distance or to finish off vessels already crippled by gunfire. Supporting units manouvering around primary gun line. This remains problematic and causes many of the formation issues mentioned above. When mixed category fleets are manouvering together, the heavier elements at most should hold their course when approached by lighter elements. A single torpedo boat trying to reach the other side of a battle line should not disrupt an entire squadron of battleships. Heavier elements should hold their course and allow the lighter units to perform the bulk of the evasive manouvering. Similarly, when selecting an appropriate path, unless capable of performing a well timed turn between gaps in a battle line (probably a bit complex to ask of an AI tracking many constantly changing variables of speed, position and tactical situation), the AI needs to be aware of all ships in a formation it is trying to manouver past. Ideally, instead of just trying to avoid the lead ship in a formation and disrupting all vessels trying to follow it, a formation should choose to reduce speed and allow the interceding formation to pass before cutting behind them to reach their intended position. Fleet manouver. Probably the lowest priority to adjust/implement as current, as addressing all previous issues will drastically change the conditions in which the current implementation is working and possibly produce different outcomes. Current observation seems to indicate 3 broad class of AI/AI engagements. The first, and most aesthetic, is when the lead element of each fleet chooses to make their initial turn onto parallel courses, forming something of a classic battle line IF the majority of supporting elements have been set to follow and thus falling out of the engagement envelope of the leading gun line, allowing the classic gun duel to develop. If lighter elements are supporting and thus interposed between the gun lines however, the second type of engagement evolves in which battleships seeking to engage light elements end up clashing at a 90 degree angle at close range, the initial stages of this engagement are often slightly farcical with Battleships within spitting distance of each other engaging distant torpedo boats with everything they have, and as lighter elements succumb finally devolving into a close range slugging match, if one side fit torpedoes they tend to win at 1890s tech, if both side fit torpedoes, everybody dies. The third engagement resolves when lead elements turn onto opposing courses, resulting in a circling engagement that will first slaughter supporting light elements caught in the middle (who often find themselves entangled with their opposing numbers), before falling onto the following support elements at the tail of each fleet, the battleships only finally engaging their opposing numbers when all lighter shipping has been eradicated. Closing Remarks. I understand that at this stage of development, many of the core mechanical systems the AI must utilise and work around are still very much in flux. Thus until the game systems themselves stabilise at some closer to a releasable state, to much work on the AI can be seen as a waste of developer time and effort. However, as we approach the time in which the campaign mode is released to the public for testing and comment, having a functional and satisfying AI opponent will go a long way towards showing the systems in place in their best possible light and allow current and future players to remain engaged with the games future development. This engagement would generate further interest with the titles progress and hopefully contribute towards the success of the final product. All errors and misunderstandings of the systems currently on show are my own and no fault of the development team. Finally, full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes.

Are there any plans to make ai on pve server more active or, at least less passive? I don't know another game with ai,enemy completely ignoring player.

Have been replaying those missions that relies heavily on the use of torpedoes. Noticed one thing. If you hand over the control of your fleet to AI or group sevral ships up as a flotilla it usually works pretty decent for gunnery-focused warships in regards of maneuver and positioning, I'll give it that. That's much less the case for torpedo-focus warship types though, such as TB, DD or CL. They still try to behave as a gunship and rush to the face of the enemy regardless of their current torpedo tube reload status. Also they just sail in small circles near the enemy around themselves after dropping off their torpedo payload, which looks pretty stupid. Is it possible to have an adaptive AI system that, depending on the how important torpedoes are on the current ship type, uses different behavior and methods of approach against enemy fleet? For example, when facing enemy capital ship in a flotilla, if total torpedo weight is above x% of the displacement, after dropping all torpedoes in one broadside, the flagships automatically turns back to the last place of the flotilla(like how flagship behaves after taking substantial damage), and when (control given to AI) all of the ships in the flotilla had their (single broadside) torpedoes dropped, the entire flotilla tries to disengage, wait for torpedo reload, then reengage in the same manner. In my opinion this is a more reasonable manner of behavior for those screen ships which feature torpedo as their main armament.

I've lost two ships because of this bug. It's a major game-breaking bug. The two ships that were deleted by the AI were: Hercules from the Final Exam - deleted approx. 30/01/19. Purple Endymion purchased from another player - deleted yesterday. Both instances occurred when I tried to sell lesser ships. I captured traders and tried to sell them on the Navy screen. I clicked sell trader and the computer responded by listing the name and sale price of the trader and then asked to confirm. I clicked ok. When I looked at my fleet again the computer had sold my main ship, and the trader was still in my fleet. Normally, this is not supposed to happen, because the AI will prompt you to remove all guns, upgrades and items from the hold. In both cases, the ships were filled with guns, upgrades and items in their hold. I even tried to replicate the bug by selling one ship instead of my main, however it didn't work. On the Hercules I lost the clock from the final battle, upgrades, repairs, rum and doubloons. The same issue happened on my Endymion. All guns and repairs were sold as well as upgrades, and doubloons captured from other vessels. ... I've attached photos of my trader's vessel directly after the main ship was sold. As you can see the guns were transferred to the warehouse and the ship is empty. After my main ship was deleted by the AI, another ship was replaced as my main ship - an LGV. This is the second time this has happened; and on both instances, I filed a bug report but I still have not heard back or received compensation. Profile: Andrew Maldovard - PVE server - Revision: 45664.CleanOWProd.x64

I know that cannon loadout, mods, and build quality (color) are not reflected in your AI fleet ships' combat capabilities but what about wood choice and regional trim?

AI fleet members are necessary for trading, but have limited utility in combat. I have two ideas regarding more versatile commands. 1. A command for AI fleet members to loot Since a major source of permanent upgrades (and the only source for some) is looting ships, it would be a fantastic addition to command AI fleet members to loot wrecks. Implementation could be simple, as in you tell an AI to loot a specific wreck, and he's programmed to approach and then some mechanic exists for looting. 2. A general "move to here" set of commands. There's lots of situations where you'd like an AI to perform an action, but have a preference of the route he takes to do so. As in you can tell him to flee, but he just automatically goes to his fastest point of sail, even if that's straight into a group of AI. We should be able to set waypoints that end on the desired action. Combining with my first suggestion, tell him to move to point x before moving to loot a wreck at point y.

I am a new player on the PvE server and am attempting to buy a resource in a port that produces it. It is identified on the shop screen under "Allows production" but none currently appears. My understanding is that the production port will fill a contract immediately for 4 times the production value of 1 quantity of the resource. My question. Where do I find the production value? I've looked at at the trader tool on the map and it is not clear to me how this applies.

So I went out for a quick mission in my Santisma today unknowing it would be my last. I was doing my normal 1st rate mission Santi vs Santi. Everything was going as planned and he boarded me. After three rounds winning against him, something went horribly wrong. My timer said there were 10 seconds left, then it immediately went to 2 seconds left. Thus, I could not properly coordinate my attack rounds and lost 150 of my crew. Then the next round came and it was even worse. If I remember correctly, it went from 10 seconds to 3 then back to 5. I was doing all I could to select the appropriate defense moves, but I could not work against the clock this time. While I could just very well be bad at boarding action, I know not to counter-attack into an attack, but nothing like this has happened to me before. I have no idea whether this will happen again or how to correct it, as the issue makes sailing too dangerous to try. Needless to say, this is a large loss to my fleet and I and others experiencing the issue find it hard to sail out of port again in fear of this issue happening again. Thank you for any ideas and help!

Just a thought, if AI ships/fleets could report sightings of players to their respective Nations, in an "AI Reporter" a similar chat box to Combat News. So say a Spanish AI is sailing along and a French player is within its sight, the AI reports something like, "French ship 20 k's SE of Turneffe" to the Spanish Nation. This would open up a whole new way to play and add to content in my opinion. Thoughts?

So i ve been leveling my avatar with combat missions (as it is common) and i managed to get to 5th rates. I know basic and some advanced tactics in battle but when it comes to balance of the missions, AI gets a stupid amount of "help" in order to fight back the human. I had cases of me haveing a snow (6th rate) and a triple (3) armada of snows apear in battle as within the level of my mission guessed i could take em head on... well that was not the case. other time had my Cerberus (5th rate) and a frigate fully armed with carronades and stuff got my hull breached like a swiss cheese. Even with a pal i found to help me we totaly got owned (he had a cerberus too). i find this extremely hard for a new or even a somewhat experienced player to deal with such early firepower and hull to get through.. Dont get me wrong the first levels are easy but when i went to second and first lieutenent i had really bad spawns (i dont know if they are fixed or random spanws but thats what i had to fight) anyway hope you guys get what i mean, good luck and keep up the good work!

Greetings, Closer to case - we have fast and heartless AI wich need 0 seconds to aim and 0 seconds to count the angle/speed/distance/waves/penetration. Moreover ai is incredibly overpowered on 200+ m distance. Even though AI is bad at a close range - it is good at shooting on a big one. Thread is not about sailing or tactics, cuz tactics against AI is always the same atm. Get as close as you can, dodge and shoot. We should make ai less accurate. Cuz 23 hits out of 23 on 200 m. are too many. Very good aim. Add some time to aim(bot aim is 0 secs atm) at least 2 secs or more. Good day there, <3 may the Northern seas bless you. Harsh Winter

Is there any relation between what AI traders are carrying and the ports they are near? If not, @admin, there should be. AI traders seem to mainly be making short hauls. It would make sense if they were carrying goods consumed or produced at the nearby ports. I apologize if this is already in game and I just haven't noticed it.

With all due respect to Darth for the amazing game, I must say that the AI's weapon scaling is implemented badly and ruins immersion. With a high enough recon stat, you can see that : All of the AI's infantry will share the same the same gun, all of the AI's artillery will share the same gun, all of the AI's skirmishers will share the same gun , and all of the AI's cavalry share the same gun. This is very unhistorical and unrealistic : units were issued different weapons throughout the war, on both sides--especially the Confederate side. Confederate units in the Army of Northern Virginia used everything from smoothbore muskets to stolen Springfields to imported Enfields. So, when playing as Union, facing an army of Confederate brigades equipped with M1855s and ONLY M1855s is extremely instantly breaks immersion. Likewise, when playing as Confederates, it is unsettling to face a Union army with 108,000 M1861s and not a single other type of rifle. Historically, Union brigades were outfitted with everything from Sharps rifles, to M1861s, to Enfields and Spencers) This is also very evident with artillery batteries : an AI army will only have ONE TYPE of cannon. So, when I played as Confederates at Chancellorsville, I had to face 311 10pd ordnance rifles from the Union. That's ridiculous from a historical standpoint : a Union army would have multiple rifles issued to its brigades and multiple types of cannons issued to its artillery. Proposed solution : I am not a game designer, so I do not know how difficult it would be to implement weapon variation, but here's my idea : Ideally, the weapons scaling system averages the "quality" of your army's rifles and then formulaically (taking into account unit "eliteness", historical availability and prevalence) generates/assigns guns to your opponents' army's brigades, keeping a lower/similar/higher average weapon "quality" depending on difficulty.

I'd like to see attrition of the AI "player" somehow built into the game. I think it's a bit inaccurate for the AI "player" to come back healthy and well armed after suffering defeat after defeat. You (the human player) can only rebuild depleted units so much. Why not make this the case for the AI?

Hi there, Would it be possible to create a mechanic by which AI ships (particularly traders) choose to surrender to a vastly overmatching foe rather than fight? Parameters could be how many times greater the enemy is in size/weight of broadside/crew, proximity, and speed. Merchant sailors weren't keen on getting slaughtered to no end in hopeless fights in the 18th century; creating an AI surrender mechanism would be vastly more realistic than having to force a small merchantman up into the wind to be boarded and its crew cut to pieces in a single round. Thanks--

If you issue the Demast command to your AI fleet, is he chaining the sails or going in close trying to kill the mast with ball shot?

well the thing is i see no use for is AI-driven Battleships in OW (there are already epic events) the cargo fleet can stay reason : *they are always to big to attack (and even do not attack you as an enemy) *they are in the way at PB (tagged in, and counted as well) *they are to big for a single ship to attack (ai 3000 br vs player 120br ) *they are everywhere they can be, for example: in the vicinity of a ow fort or tower what makes no sense (the fort is not attacking in ow) and the ai fleet is even not attacking other enemys it just makes no sense *because i HATE AI driven things ( @i love them in missions btw) *they have no use as a escorte ,they are to slow moving and also stear the other way ,so no use for that to. * if you see an enemy fleet it always looks like this : 6 victorys 6 pavel 6 bellona 6 santismo 6 nukes or whatever,, you get my point.!! REMOVE THEM PLEASE......... ps:...The cargo AI vessel can stay ... greetings.

I have followed Nick's work since Total War and have put a decent amount of time into UG:G. As soon as I saw UG:CW, I had to pick it up. Even in Early Access, it's a fantastic game, with tons of replay-ability. However, I have seen some issues that I thought warranted a post. 1) The auto-shifting and alignment of brigades. Sometimes the brigades just move, or charge or don't shoot. No explanation, no warning. I'll set my lines and shift to another part of the battlefield, only to come back with a unit routing because it charged into the open or decided to move laterally down the line. This was a problem and UG:G that I think needs to be fixed here. The same goes for how the brigades rotate. 2) RETREATING This one is so incredibly frustrating. My units retreat behind their lines or vice-versa. This becomes "game-breaking" in the larger battles when you're literally stretched paper thin on every front. You rout a brigade and it retreats to YOUR rear. Another problem from UG:G that needs to be readdressed. 3) "Mob Firing" I think the reason that point 1 happens is because of units not wanting to fire through their own or enemy units. Therefore, someone needs to move. However, sometimes I have units fire from behind other units and other times I do not. Sometimes they just charge instead of firing. The computer seems to have none of these problems though. At Antietam, thousands of Yanks occupied the same field and fired continuously, without shifting or charging or rotating awkwardly. 4) MELEE! Melee is fine for the most part. The frustrating part lies in what happens after they've won. Sometimes they fallback well, sometimes they get tangled and stay in melee perpetually, and sometimes they just follow the retreating units back until they are obliterated by it's friends. I want to end on a high note, so... Game-Labs, you have brought me a piece of my childhood back, and for that I will support your work always. The Sid Meiers and Sierra Games were favorites of mine, and you have made them so much more enjoyable 20 years later. Cheers!

Hey! At present, we have random AI traders and fleets sailing around, with no real purpose other than floating targets. I'd like to suggest that rather than having random fleets and traders, or perhaps in tandem with those, the fleets sailing around are actually carrying items for the nation- If a player collects from his/her resource buildings in a given location, but is unable/unwilling to sail that cargo to it's destination themselves, they could hire AI traders to make the sail for them; like deliveries to/from free ports currently; in the open world, able to be attacked by players of another nation. This would mean that attacking enemy traders on the open water would serve a real, tangible purpose, as it would be likely that those traders are carrying materials essential to the economy of your enemy. Perhaps if a player pays more for the contracted ship (or based on the value of the cargo?), the number of escort ships increases, meaning that taking a more valuable prize would take more coordination between the individuals making the attack. Thoughts?

So, people were discussing the NPC capture issue, with one side saying it created less demand for crafters and encouraged a suicidal playstyle, while the other side made the argument that capturing ships is what this game is all about for a lot of people, crafting wasn't impacted THAT much, cheaper ships means people would be willing to stay and fight more often, etc. What came into my head while reading this is that both sides have legitimate points, and that if AI capture was disallowed again, it would make the AI fleets like robots in a disney boat ride....pretty to look at but not something you wanna go up and interact with. So...how can we have the best of both worlds? How can we let people have the satisfaction of going out and capturing NPCs for a purpose OTHER than gold, while satisfying the #crafterslivesmatter crowd? (joke, I craft). Also, how do we make NPC fleets still relevant if NPC ships cannot be owned by players? Oh, and what about that admiralty thing? Thus the (somewhat poorly written) idea above. Let's expand and improve upon that. Feel free to expand upon, modify, disagree with, etc, anything here. As I delve into and combine several different topics and mechanics into one working idea, there wasn't a good place to put this and it was suggested I make it its own thread. Correct me if I am wrong. What is the Admiralty? The Admiralty is made up of and controlled by all of the Lord Protectors of a nation. (To see more about Lord Protectors, see the Developer's "Such is a lord" thread) Each Lord Protector can control AI fleets based out of his port, as described in the quote above. AI fleets are built out of the ships that players sell to the admiralty at that port. Player captured or crafted ships sold to the Admiralty retain their upgrades, quality, stats, etc. This would create another demand source for player crafted ships, and allow players who aren't Lord Protector's a way to support the people they agree with and reasons not to sell to the admiralty in ports ruled by people they disagree with. CAPTURED NPC SHIPS CAN NEVER BE KEPT BY A PLAYER, as was done historically, they are sold to the Admiralty for prize money at a port, or they are sunk for significantly less prize money at sea. Lord Protectors also have most of the control over port defenses, public buildings, port resources, etc, etc, while keeping his character's money and assets separate from the port's assets. Thus, I will sometimes refer to the Lord Protector of a port as the Admiralty as to distinguish between Player assets and Port assets. (I will almost exclusively be talking about Lord Protector controlled port assets throughout this discussion. If my nouns and proper nouns are ever unclear, please let me know so I can fix it) If there are more levels to the hierarchy, (Lords Protector of Shallow Ports, Deep Ports, Regional Capitals, and Capitals, as an example), then Lords Protector higher up in the chain could give instruction to Lords Protector below them. These would not be mandatory, but perhaps there could be incentives provided to encourage people to follow the instructions, perhaps in the way of more money for harbor defenses, fleets, trade, public building improvements, etc. These incentives could be automatic game rewards for following an order given by a Regional Lord, or perhaps the Regional Lord has control over an automatically generated source of desirable port improvements that he can distribute as he sees fit If a Lord Protector does not agree with what his chain of command is telling him to do with his AI fleets, he could simply not do it, which means he wouldn't get the incentives for doing it either. These incentives aren't personal to the Lord Protector, they are benefits to the port he rules. These incentives would be credited to the "Admiralty Account," "Admiralty Warehouse," or "Admiralty Docks" of the port, depending on what they are. This would provide interesting options in a Civil War scenario, as 2 different sides fight for control of a faction. Perhaps there could be an option for a Lord Protector to change allegiance to a different Regional Lord in his area, bringing all his assets with him to the other side (AI fleets, public buildings, strategic harbor defenses, etc) How are AI fleets generated? The main way AI fleets are constructed is through players capturing enemy NPCs and player ships, and selling them to the admiralty, as well as any ship that a player decides to sell to the admiralty/port. These ships would be added to the available ship pool in the port in which they were sold. The Lord Protector then assembles a fleet with the available ships in his pool. Fleets can be specialized for specific purposes by the Lord. The Lord selects the ships he wants, makes them a fleet, then chooses a role, an area of operations, and ensures the fleet is provisioned. Depending on fleet size and mission duration, fleets require provisions, repair materials, and crew. The Lord Protector would have to have available AI crew, repair materials, and enough provisions for that crew to last for the duration of the mission. These provisions and repair materials can be crafted, traded, and captured, and could be the exact same provisions players use. People would have an option to sell their provisions to the Admiralty, which means that if the Lord Protector wants to send out lots of fleets for really long periods of time, he needs to be able to afford all the provisions necessary to do so. The Lord Protector can buy ships for the Admiralty through the current Player ship market as well. Again, these ships would retain their upgrades and quality. The AI crew comes from player captured and AI captured AI or Player ships. When a player captures a ship, they assign a prize crew to sail it back, This prize crew historically also guarded prisoners on the trip back to port. The player can impress as many crew as he can, then sell the ship to the admiralty. The remaining prisoners that were not impressed would go with the ship to the admiralty. These prisoners would then be impressed by the Admiralty and put into the respective Lord Protector's available crew pool. The Admiralty can only get crew through this method, and cannot access the same crew hire pools as players can. Perhaps Lord Protectors can trade crew, moving crew on "Prisoner Transports" to newer ports on the front lines, as the cost of sending a fleet from Puerto de Espania to attack fleets near Pedro Cay would be prohibitive (provisions, maintenance requirements, crew readiness, etc) compared to a fleet sent from Tiburon or Jacmel. Boarding and capturing usually involves the loss of crew. Historically, the majority of crew loss was from incapacitating injury, rather than death, so, having a good amount of medical equipment, a good surgeon as an officer, crew recovery upgrades, etc, can be used to simulate the treatment of these wounds and enable the restoration of a large portion of the lost crew on both sides of the engagement. What can AI fleets be ordered to do? Basic options are Defense (stay in port, exit port to attack enemy fleet that sails past) and Patrol (Go from point A , to point B, to point C, D, then A, engage X type of target). They can be directed to attack/hunt NPCs, and, with certain restrictions, players. A fleet that hunts players will attack players on the open ocean, but only if their BR is comparable. The logic behind this is that the Lord built the fleet a certain size for a reason, and the AI commanders will not waste themselves attacking a player fleet that is too powerful or waste time attacking small fleets and single ships. This would prevent massive amounts of AI ganking a smaller group of players. Fleets can be directed to operate in certain areas at certain times to raise or lower hostility. (see updated port battle mechanics thread) For example, a nation that isn't online during the time an enemy is trying to raise hostility in an area can attempt to reduce the possibility of a port battle at that time by sending a fleet to do things to lower hostility. The attacker can respond by having their fleets go hunt the defender's fleets, or go hunt them themselves to sink them. Where does the Admiralty's money come from? Ports as they stand today already buy ships (in the form of players selling ships on the homepage), albeit at noncompetitive prices. These prices will remain unchanged and will not draw on the admiralty account directly. Similar NPC money dumps within the scope of the Admiralty will remain unchanged. One way the Admiralty account can make money is through commissions on buy/sell contracts. The Lord Protector can set the commission percentage required. This will provide interesting options for traders and will encourage players to explore other possibilities besides buying/selling everything at the nation's capital. Again, none of this money can be used for the Lord Protector's personal account, however, the Admiralty (controlled by Lord Protector) can buy and place buy contracts for the materials and resources it uses, and only those. The rules for buy/sell contracts remain unchanged, which means that the Lord Protector has to be competitive. Players will always have the option to sell to the Admiralty's contract if they want to, to support the Lord Protector's efforts. Allowing the Admiralty (Controlled by Lord Protector) to place sell contracts is something I am not so sure about. Another source of the Admiralty's money can be a from "European" sources, and based on the Lord Protector's management. If the Lord Protector does well, the Admiralty coffers receive a bonus. If he is doing poorly, the income is reduced. AI trade fleets to friendly, neutral, and allied ports would work as they do today, with a trade ship escorted by Warships or sailing alone. They would be filled with similar amounts of resources as the ones currently on the OW today. They would be assembled and supplied the same way as warship fleets are, with the same requirements scaled down appropriately to account for less crew. No resources are actually being taken or delivered to any port, these resources are randomly generated in the hold and only affect the economy if a player captures the ship and keeps the goods. If these trade ships reach their destination, the goods are "sold," and in order for the Lord Protector's admiralty coffers to receive money, the ships now have to successfully return to home port. Knowing that all those enemy trade ships are making money for enemy ports will encourage people to hunt them, and others to defend them. AI Trade Convoys to Europe is another option. These convoys would be constructed by the Lord Protector on the same principle as the other AI fleet, in that they would require provisions, repair materials, and crew sufficient for their trip across the Atlantic. They would be expensive to build, but if they successfully "reach Europe" the Admiralty account is richly rewarded well beyond what it cost to assemble the convoy. Convoys would be assembled from the trade ships sold to the Admiralty in the port. Once they leave port, a message would be broadcast to all players of its approximate location and route. These AI fleets would automatically be filled with full holds of each of the goods a port produces, and would not be attackable by the players of the same nation as the convoy, or the allies of the nation, unless a civil war exists. These convoys would generate lots of combat as players escort them and other players come to capture all those resources...an indiaman full of Silver, for example, would be hard to resist. If desired, instead of the Admiralty Coffers automatically receiving the money, in an appropriate span of in game days, Europe could send an escorted courier ship back with the money. The Lord Protector of the port would have an "estimate" of when the courier ship is showing up, so he can plan to have players escort it, and when it arrives, all players would be notified of its approximate location and destination to allow them the chance to intercept it and get all that cash for themselves. Questions? Important details I failed to explain? Bits that I missed? Suggestions? Comments? Please post them!

I'm playing on US PVP2 and was sailing into Bensalem when I spotted 2 trader AI ships sailing through the land mass, managed to take a screenshot. Its the island left of the town and they would have been heading South East. Thanks for the great game