>>>"Alpha-1 v.60+" General Feedback<<< [LATEST UPDATE: v61, 10/10/2019]

[Nick Thomadis]

Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts has been released in its first playable version on 3/10/2019.
This "Limited Edition" gives you access to the current development build.
Read the news!

Here you can share your first impressions and feedback.
We hope you enjoy the game!

 

UPDATES
Hotfix 10/10/2019:  https://www.dreadnoughts.ultimateadmiral.com/post/thank-you-and-small-hotfix

[TBRSIM]

The game is already quite polished and a blast of an experience, lengths above everything in the genre but RTW/RTW2. Really appreciate your work!

However:

Weights seem off. I cannot seem to be able to build a "standard" predreadnought within 14-15kton (2x2x12in, 10-12x 1x6in, 10-12x 1x3in, 4-6 underwater torpedo tubes, 18kn speed). Heavy gun turrets seem light but everything else exceedingly heavy, so that any design I create comes in heavier than it "feels" it should be. I do not want to be free of weight restrictions but at the moment it feels overly restrictive. Something like 10-15% less "weight" in general would help to stay within the expected weight/ship fit range.

In general the game feels less simulation and more arcade in comparison with RTW/RTW2. The AI and the "fleet command" UI need work. The RTW UI is obtuse but offers options the current UA:D does not.

Quick betterments I would like to see:

Ability to spread/concentrate fire of a division among the enemy targets, separate for primary and secondary/tertiary guns.

Better formation orders.

Distinc torpedo firing order capability

For all of the above TFighting Steel|s UI should provide very good inspiration.

[Nick Thomadis]

Hello and thanks for the first feedback!

The weight balance is going to function much better in campaign, where technologies are not restricted as in missions. In missions, tech boosts might provide access to heavier guns while other weight savings are not yet researched. This is done deliberately in some scenarios to emphasize the importance of indicated tech boosts. 

When we unlock the campaign, you will have full freedom to explore the benefits of the many technologies and their impact to the ships. 

[fremen]

Hello.

My first impression:

1-Great look, awesome indeed. 

2-Great options at building but as TBRSIM says, i think the weight is a little up limits. Few hull options, imagine this would be better in future.

3-IMHO very confussed and caothic fleet orders. No real sensation to my ships accomplish orders. A few minutes after going into combat with multiple ships (a battleship two division with five ships total) my ships get into total disorder. Order follow, order simply continue ahead, no order solution the problem. Unable to get ships to form a single line to cut T of the enemy. Imagine i lost something, i dont know.

4-IMHO excessive speed in game, everything happens very fast. (of course i mean without use the compress time) 

5-Would be great name the ships.

6-Would be great a map to see the fleets and correct course in fleets accordingly. In battle i think this is a must.

Great work. 

[TBRSIM]

15 minutes ago, fremen said:

3-IMHO very confussed and caothic fleet orders. No real sensation to my ships accomplish orders. A few minutes after going into combat with multiple ships (a battleship two division with five ships total) my ships get into total disorder. Order follow, order simply continue ahead, no order solution the problem. Unable to get ships to form a single line to cut T of the enemy. Imagine i lost something, i dont know.

4-IMHO excessive speed in game, everything happens very fast. (of course i mean without use the compress time)

3 - Yes, that is part of what I meant with "AI". In RTW every ship in your fleet "knows" what to do. The full fleet formation "works" and there are tech tree aspects that evolve it over time. The player is not concerned with what specifically a destroýer/TB divisionj among more than a hundred ships in the fleet does, it starts the scenario in formation with a correct role (screen/support for a BB/CA/CL diviion usually) and positions itself and actsa accordingly, including charging the enemy fleet when the flagship orders a torpedo attack. The beauty of this system is that you can really play as you like, with full micro of every ship or just by commanding speed/course for the flagship and assgning/reassigning roles and positioning of divisions in the fleet (e.g. switching a BC division from scouting to tag along at the end of the battleline).

4 - Yes, speed as in "base time"  in combat currently "feels" too fast. It is not as bad as it was initially with Victory in the Pacific but it still "feels" like the interrelationships between ship speed, combat range and every thing else "timed" is off. Sorry I cannot speifiy more but at the moment combat "feels" rushed. This might appeal to more casual gamers but us grognards would most likely all prefer the more relaxed pace (of course that means more time accel options are needed).

[Nick Thomadis]

It is a known issue (pending to optimize) that friendly ships evade each other too "sharply" causing sometimes conflicts in dense formations. We will fix that as soon as possible.

You can  try the following control schemes:
- Screen: Choose a division and right click on another. Then your division will try to protect the second division and engage nearby threats. For example, you can choose DD divisions to screen a battleship division. In this manner you can have only a central flagship formation to control while ordering all other divisions to screen it. 
- Make line:  Multi-select ships and order them to go somewhere. They will automatically form a line.

With the evasion mechanic optimized, the above controls will work more intuitively.

 

Regarding speed:
We use realistic speed for ships. Making the game slower or faster would make gameplay less realistic.

 

[Wurstsalat]

First of all: I really like how the game looks/plays even in this early stage of development. Combat seems reasonably paced to me.

1.The UI clearly needs some work but you guys already know that and i assume that neither the inbattle nor the ship designer Ui are final.

2.I hope that we will have more hulls within the same tech (maybe techgroups or at the same time) that pose differences but are all viable. Just a gradual supply of new hulls can become stale pretty quickly.

3.How do you plan to make nations ships stand out from eachother ? Or will all nations use the same Hulls and Techs ?

[fremen]

Continue to fight new battles and bravo, great game.

However....😁

In my last battle was fighting a huge enemy fleet (several ships, half battleships with 9 16" i think).

I was with six "simple" battleships, does mean ships with only main guns, not secondary, to save weight.

The game give me warning that the enemy was aproaching from south and order my ships go south. After that, the enemy start to puncture my ships with heavy fire. In this moment i cannot see nor select, any of the enemy ships. This was strange but imagine the cause was the enemy guns are heavy than mine and for that reason had more range. 

But wait...the enemy can SEE my ships and me NOT??? 

Lost something? 

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

I am loving this game!

• Target Practice - first ship was sleek with accurate 10" guns and failed. Second ship was slow, mounted 12" guns, and had virtually no armor. We used HE to set the enemy BB on fire, while she burned we used AP to hammer her hull. She sank like a stone. 
• Gun Basics I - Light cruiser sunk on first try using same tactics from previous build. HUGE UPGRADE are the visuals on the left of the screen, things work much more fluidly and seem to behave as one would expect. 
• Gun basics II - built first ship for speed and got whacked. Second ship was heavily armored, carried torpedos and accurate 10" guns with explosives upgrade. Burned him down, immoblized him, finished him with torpedoes. 
• Speed Basics, overtook the DD on the first by maximizing propulsion and discarding armor and weaponry 
• Speed Basics II, built a wicked fast light cruiser mounting a 5" gun that burned down the DD from behind. It was a sleek vessel and fun to design. 

• Torpedo boats - am not doing well. I figured  out how to separate the ships into separate groups, but in three tries have maybe gotten 1 torpedo hit on the BB and not close to bringing it down - suggestions? 

  • Quote

    Per Darth:

    Try to make TBs fast and maneuverable, so that they can safely approach the BB. If you overload them and their acceleration is poor, they will be destroyed.

• Torpedo Boats, Part Deaux: extra funds, 3x Torpedo Boats carrying 3x 18" torpedos each capable of doing 30.5 Knots. One torpedo boat lost, one damage, BB sunk by two hits and some time to allow water to do its thing. (You would almost think Darth knows what he is talking about, no?)
• To be continued. 

Early results: It's fun. And it will be a lot more fun as time goes by!

 

[Yuubari_]

I really like the game and am looking forward to future updates, especially looking forward to the campain!

A only really have 2 things I noticed while playing.

1. Rotation in the ship builder is really annoying since it resets if you move the gun around after rotating

2. The Japanese transports don't have "Maru" in their name (not 100% sure if it is necessary no expert on that)

Edit: and something I noticed was that some guns you can use on certain scenarios look way too modern for what they are mounted on and the performance seem to be pretty alright if you don't have the "stats" of a damaged ship open

Edited October 5, 2019 by Yuubari_

[Jatzi]

18 hours ago, fremen said:

Continue to fight new battles and bravo, great game.

However....😁

In my last battle was fighting a huge enemy fleet (several ships, half battleships with 9 16" i think).

I was with six "simple" battleships, does mean ships with only main guns, not secondary, to save weight.

The game give me warning that the enemy was aproaching from south and order my ships go south. After that, the enemy start to puncture my ships with heavy fire. In this moment i cannot see nor select, any of the enemy ships. This was strange but imagine the cause was the enemy guns are heavy than mine and for that reason had more range. 

But wait...the enemy can SEE my ships and me NOT??? 

Lost something? 

 

Maybe they had radar. I haven't played the game since that stupid second verification small charge thing isn't showing up for me but I watched a stream by tortuga and he put radar on a battleship and it allowed him to fire "blind" as it were. The enemy had two BB's with 16 and 17 inch guns while he had 18 in guns so I don't think he out ranged them but since he had radar he could fire over the horizon so to speak. 

[akd]

There can also be very big differences in how far a ship can "see" depending on the main tower selection.  My personal opinion is that the differences in distance a target can be seen and engaged should vary much less within a broad class of ships, with tower technology driving the ability to effectively engage a target.  A pre-dreadnought should probably be able to see just as far as an advanced dreadnought, with visual range driven by conditions, not technology.  What it can't do is shoot effectively even if it's guns can reach to or beyond visual range.  Radar is, of course, a game changer, but the advantage here should be more in the ability to ignore restricted visual conditions, not such an absolute bonus to the ability to see at all.

[fremen]

46 minutes ago, Jatzi said:

Maybe they had radar. I haven't played the game since that stupid second verification small charge thing isn't showing up for me but I watched a stream by tortuga and he put radar on a battleship and it allowed him to fire "blind" as it were. The enemy had two BB's with 16 and 17 inch guns while he had 18 in guns so I don't think he out ranged them but since he had radar he could fire over the horizon so to speak. 

Mmm, interesting. I don't know really if this was the cause. The AI also use "imaginary" ships so it's difficult indentify if they carry radars. 

[Conan121171]

23 hours ago, fremen said:

Continue to fight new battles and bravo, great game.

However....😁

In my last battle was fighting a huge enemy fleet (several ships, half battleships with 9 16" i think).

I was with six "simple" battleships, does mean ships with only main guns, not secondary, to save weight.

The game give me warning that the enemy was aproaching from south and order my ships go south. After that, the enemy start to puncture my ships with heavy fire. In this moment i cannot see nor select, any of the enemy ships. This was strange but imagine the cause was the enemy guns are heavy than mine and for that reason had more range. 

But wait...the enemy can SEE my ships and me NOT??? 

Lost something? 

 

I think they had Radar installed and you propably not. I had in the last Mission only one ship, maxed out with the biggest Guns, Rangefinder and Radar, and was able to locate enemy ships far away and start firing long before they could shoot back...

[Conan121171]

All in all a great game so far, have a lot of fun with it.

A huge plus compared to RtW is that you can create new Divisions, add or detach divisions. I hatetd all the Divisions in RTW Big Battles with only one or two  BB, CA etc. when you had half a dozen of these ships...

I would agrree with TBRSIM about:

"Ability to spread/concentrate fire of a division among the enemy targets, separate for primary and secondary/tertiary guns."

Also the Overview Map would be great when it comes to Big Battles.

The speed of the Game is OK for me, it can even so take a lot of time to sink an enemy Battleship...maybe a pause function were you can give Orders to your divisions would be good.

Kepp on your good work, can´t wait the Campaign mode....

 

[akd]

You can issue all orders, including changing division assignments, while paused.

[Betoe]

I think that it would be great to have a sandbox mode. The naval academy is very guided and a sandbox mode with no limits would be great.

[Rick W]

I've spent about 6 hours with the game so far. My initial impressions is that you have the basis for a truly outstanding series. Thank you for the early release and the invitation to add player input...

I fully realize that this is in a very early devlopment stage and as such the following are in no way criticisms, merely initial thoughts...

VERY Early Observations:

1. Stunning ship/environmental modeling in 'fantastic' mode

2. Excessivly (very excessively IMHO) fussy and rather confusing ship/division (particularly division) navagational orders system. Far more complex than needed. I would much rather see a basic down-view 360 compass with the simple ability to click on the desired ship or divisional leading ship heading with an added single click for Line Ahead, Line Abreast or Line Staggered aft of the lead ship port or starboard. This aspect of the game is so far the only one I genuinely dislike.

3. AI Auto Targeting is highly questionable. BB/BC Main battery guns should be engaging the nearest similar large 'threat' type vessels, while seconday batteries and terrtiary weapons should engage the nearest smaller threats. So far I am seeing Auto Targeting turning ALL a ships armarment on the nearest enemy vessel, regardless of size, more often than not. Ships do not seem to be 'dividing their fire' at the appropriate targets.... ie. Main armarment at BB/BC targets, secondary armament to closer CA/CL/DD targets... As a further observation to this, ships weaponsry seems to remain on a target until it is devestated into oblivion rather than shifting to more dangerous and less damaged ships.

4. Large caliber shell splashes could be taller and of greater 'water volume'.

5. The initial damage model seems too forgiving with regard to ship systems continuing to operate. I have noted ships that are blazing end to end, flooding and essentially devestated still firing consitent salvos and scoring hits. This seems to be not in keeping with naval battle after action reports from the 1890's pre-dreadnaughts right up through WWII. Turrets seem extremely resilient, but were in fact, quite easy to disable even when not destroyed.

I won't make any suggestions as to what features you are probably already working on that are as yet not present. Suffice it to say I am thrilled with what you have done so far and will await each new build with anticipation!

Thank you for bring back a genre of sim that has been brutally ignored over the past 20 years since 1999's SSI 'Fighting Steel' (a wonderful, fully featured, well designed, yet simple sim that captured naval surface combat almost perfectly).

Rick West

[Nick Thomadis]

On 10/4/2019 at 11:40 PM, Wurstsalat said:

2.I hope that we will have more hulls within the same tech (maybe techgroups or at the same time) that pose differences but are all viable. Just a gradual supply of new hulls can become stale pretty quickly.

3.How do you plan to make nations ships stand out from eachother ? Or will all nations use the same Hulls and Techs ?

At the moment we have 80+ different hull types that with all the combination design offer countless different ships. These hulls are available in campaign (not all of them in Naval Academy). We will offer many more hull types, some of them special per nation, that should be more than enough, in the final game.

On 10/5/2019 at 12:32 AM, fremen said:

The game give me warning that the enemy was approaching from south and order my ships go south. After that, the enemy start to puncture my ships with heavy fire. In this moment i cannot see nor select, any of the enemy ships. This was strange but imagine the cause was the enemy guns are heavy than mine and for that reason had more range. 

But wait...the enemy can SEE my ships and me NOT??? 

Lost something? 

It could be because of radar or better fire control/spotting systems offered by their towers. Additionally, your ship's targeting signature increases according to the size of objects you mount on your ships. Big guns, towers, funnels contribute a lot to your ship's final detection range.

15 hours ago, Conan121171 said:

Also the Overview Map would be great when it comes to Big Battles.

It is working in beta, internally for us. We may offer much later, when other priorities are fulfilled, since it still needs a lot of development work.

12 hours ago, Betoe said:

I think that it would be great to have a sandbox mode. The naval academy is very guided and a sandbox mode with no limits would be great.

The campaign will offer the sandbox mode you desire. Campaign will be available as soon as possible, when we finish some needed features that are essential for making the campaign interesting.

8 hours ago, Rick W said:

3. AI Auto Targeting is highly questionable. BB/BC Main battery guns should be engaging the nearest similar large 'threat' type vessels, while seconday batteries and terrtiary weapons should engage the nearest smaller threats. So far I am seeing Auto Targeting turning ALL a ships armarment on the nearest enemy vessel, regardless of size, more often than not. Ships do not seem to be 'dividing their fire' at the appropriate targets.... ie. Main armarment at BB/BC targets, secondary armament to closer CA/CL/DD targets... As a further observation to this, ships weaponsry seems to remain on a target until it is devestated into oblivion rather than shifting to more dangerous and less damaged ships.

We will check to improve in next update.

8 hours ago, Rick W said:

4. Large caliber shell splashes could be taller and of greater 'water volume'.

Effects are WIP. Will be improved further in next updates.

8 hours ago, Rick W said:

5. The initial damage model seems too forgiving with regard to ship systems continuing to operate. I have noted ships that are blazing end to end, flooding and essentially devestated still firing consitent salvos and scoring hits. This seems to be not in keeping with naval battle after action reports from the 1890's pre-dreadnaughts right up through WWII. Turrets seem extremely resilient, but were in fact, quite easy to disable even when not destroyed.

True and temporary, since we are going to implement crew mechanics, and these will affect a lot targeting and reload effectiveness according to damage. At the moment it is not feeling right, you are right We will fix.

[Nick Thomadis]

21 hours ago, Yuubari_ said:

2. The Japanese transports don't have "Maru" in their name (not 100% sure if it is necessary no expert on that)

We have a Kamikawa Maru as a possible name but not to every transport. Can you elaborate on that matter?

[lethrington]

14 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

We have a Kamikawa Maru as a possible name but not to every transport. Can you elaborate on that matter?

"Maru" was very often used as a suffix on Japanese mercantile class ships, such as transports and convoys.  The word essentially means 'circle' and it was used on civilian ships for a kind of 'bon voyage' sentiment.  The word was attached to a mercantile ships named effectively to ensure it would have a 'round trip' and make it back in one piece.  

[wulfgang]

loving the game so far its great and can't wait to see more! Just a few things Ive found so far.

 

I'd like to be able to mount smaller guns to the upper platforms of the front and rear tower there is space for them just you cant place them on the towers.

Triple mounted main guns in various caliper sizes only fire two shells rather than three? only happens sometimes I have noticed.

would be nice to have more realistic sinking animations as ive seen ships listing heavly then sit bolt up right when they do sink although im sure thats more an alpha thing than anything.

 

 

[TBRSIM]

Something I did triggered the development console while loading combat. How do you close it? It is annoying...

[YE51CAN]

On 10/5/2019 at 12:45 AM, Andre Bolkonsky said:

I am loving this game!

• Target Practice - first ship was sleek with accurate 10" guns and failed. Second ship was slow, mounted 12" guns, and had virtually no armor. We used HE to set the enemy BB on fire, while she burned we used AP to hammer her hull. She sank like a stone. 
• Gun Basics I - Light cruiser sunk on first try using same tactics from previous build. HUGE UPGRADE are the visuals on the left of the screen, things work much more fluidly and seem to behave as one would expect. 
• Gun basics II - built first ship for speed and got whacked. Second ship was heavily armored, carried torpedos and accurate 10" guns with explosives upgrade. Burned him down, immoblized him, finished him with torpedoes. 
• Speed Basics, overtook the DD on the first by maximizing propulsion and discarding armor and weaponry 
• Speed Basics II, built a wicked fast light cruiser mounting a 5" gun that burned down the DD from behind. It was a sleek vessel and fun to design. 

• Torpedo boats - am not doing well. I figured  out how to separate the ships into separate groups, but in three tries have maybe gotten 1 torpedo hit on the BB and not close to bringing it down - suggestions? 
  •  
• Torpedo Boats, Part Deaux: extra funds, 3x Torpedo Boats carrying 3x 18" torpedos each capable of doing 30.5 Knots. One torpedo boat lost, one damage, BB sunk by two hits and some time to allow water to do its thing. (You would almost think Darth knows what he is talking about, no?)
• To be continued. 

Early results: It's fun. And it will be a lot more fun as time goes by!

 

At my 3rd attempt sunk the BB, lost my lead TB (out of 3) at about the same time, at least 6 torps missed the BB while it was dead in the water, only needed one hit to finish it off.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

12 hours ago, TBRSIM said:

Something I did triggered the development console while loading combat. How do you close it? It is annoying...

Aye, it is. 

Look for a little bitty check box at the top right corner, iirc.