A Fleet Review by Absolute0CA

[Guest]

 

 

Dear Ultimate Admirals: Dreadnoughts Dev Team

I recently bit the bullet and spent the money for the early Alpha access to your game. Overall the game play is engaging and has tons of replay value as you give yourself self imposed restrictions or lack thereof.

I understand the UA:D is in extremely early alpha so I will be taking all included features and issues objectively and with a grain of salt.

P.S. I haven’t read any other reviews or change suggestions so please keep that in mind if someone has already covered something.

First off will be the ship designer:

User Interface:

>Overall it’s not bad though I would change some portions of it.

>Problem: The Right hand scroll menu overlaps with the buttons in the top right hand corner of the screen, and as a result can make both hard to use.
>Solution: make the scroll menu’s upper bound so that it don’t overlap with the buttons.
>Reference Image: Reference Image 1

>Problem: Main gun selection should use the same system as for secondaries rather than the redundant centerline/side system.
>Solution: Copy the system used by secondaries it’s a much cleaner and easy to use system that doesn’t introduce extra complexity.

>Problem: Data Entry in general. Armor values, speed, tonnage, etc. It’s slow, clunky and makes my pointer finger hurt something fierce after I make several hundred clicks in rapid succession trying to make a ship.
>Solution: Make all of the above enter able via text, scroll shell on mouse, and current up/down buttons.

>Problem: Ship preview in bottom left with stats is covered by the central component buttons when the left side menu is open.
>Solution: Allow it to be scrolled up so it can clear it.
Reference Image: Reference Image 3

>Problem: In the ship information car the data is covering the ships top down and side on profiles.
>Solution: Make it so the information is displayed below these profiles
>Reference Image: See Reference Image 3

>Problem: Component interface is very bland and uninteresting with only text differentiating components. This is a chronic issue with the current version of the game. As seen in Reference Images 4 and 5 below. Reference Images 6 and 7 is something that would be more representative of what you should have. Obviously done up in you games art style.
Reference Images:
Reference Image 4

Reference Image 5

Reference Image 6

Reference Image 7

>Suggestion: Add in a cinematic mode for those glorious shots.

Building:

>Problem: Torpedoes, Where’s the Japanese Oxygen Torpedoes?
>Solution: Add Oxygen Torpedoes.
>Reference Image: Reference Image 2

>Problem: Lack of freedom with creating guns
>Solution: Let us have exact control over…
Bore size, ex. 16”/406.4 mm
Barrel length, ex. 50 Calibers long (50 x bore)
Shell weight, ex. 2700 lbs/1225 kg
Muzzle velocity, ex 2500 ft/s /762m/s
Separate Propellant and Shell fillers
Rifling: type and twist rate
Breech block mechanism
Allow us to pick gun construction, Wire wound vs Built up. Replaceable Liners vs Having to replace the gun. Chromium plated bore vs not.

>Problem: Lack of freedom choosing/modifying gun mounts
>Solution: Allow us to chose the following…
Common cradle or Independent Mounting, ex Twin/Triple/Quad vs. Two/Three/Four gun mounts, also the French “Two Twin Quad turret.”
Make the size of the mount correspond with the size/number/length:loading mechanism of guns.
Allow us to pick loading systems. Manual, Power assisted, and Automatic. (I would recommend 3-4 degrees of power assisted loaders.)
Allow us to place turrets anywhere regardless of blast effects from firing. 
Fix that changing orientation of guns can limit gun placement in same location
Possibly Eventually include some of the more wacky historical gun layouts, planned or otherwise, but for now stick to the bog standard gun mounts.

>Problem: Barbettes Nothing much to say here besides placement and sizing.
>Solution: Allow is the following.
Allow Barbette size to match turret size so we aren’t wasting weight on an 18” Three gun turret’s barbette for a 16” Twin gun.
Allow placement of Barbettes anywhere.
Allow All sizes of barbettes on all ships for main guns and secondaries
Allow us to choose barbette height with turrets giving specifications for how tall a Barbette needs to be to allow super firing.
>Reference Image: Reference Image 9

>Problem: Boilers, Engines, and Transmissions are not the same thing, and shouldn’t necessarily be paired together.
>Solution: Allow the players to chose the following…
Boiler type, large tube/small tube and low/medium/high pressure.
Engine type, Piston, Multiple expansion piston, Turbine (I would make 3 to 4 qualities of Turbines.)
Transmission, I would call these gear boxes but some lack gears so… Direct Drive, Hydraulic, Electric, Geared, Double Geared.
Diesel is in a class of its own and would Be considered an Engine but totally removes the need for boilers.
Fuels are Coal and Oil and you should allow us to chose %fuel coal/oil
Should also allow us to mix propulsion types.

>Problem: Lack of control over armor thickness for…
Forward and Aft Transverse Bulkheads
Barbettes
Turret sides and Back (They often didn’t match the thickness of the face plates or the roof.)
Secondaries (Same case as main guns)
Torpedo Bulkheads
Upper belts found on Dreadnoughts/Pre-Dreadnoughts
>Solution: Allow is full control over all these areas.

>Problem: Lack of control over Armor length and location of coverage. Many ships used differential thickness over their magazines, machinery and fore/stern belts/decks.
>Solution: Allow control over fore and aft belts and decks, separately. Along with independent control over belts and decks over main battery magazines and machinery

>Problem: Lack of control over Length, Beam, Draft, and Free board.
>Solution: Give us limited control over this, but make it so that every change effects tonnage and vice versa. With us being able to lock any 2 dimensions with in reason.
>Note: This will also correct your wildly incorrect draft stats.

>Problem: Where do you find how many funnels you need.
>Solution: Put this somewhere obvious its important, perhaps on the funnel information card.
>Reference Image: Reference Image 8

>Problem: Lack of Save Function in ship builder.
>Solution: Add it!

>Problem: Rotating guns and the like is annoying and painful because it reverts to default orientation every time you wiggle.
>Solution: Make it so rotation doesn’t revert itself.

>Suggestion: Separate Radar into Search and Range Finding

>Suggestion: Add in targeting aids, like to begin with range tables, but later on mechanical targeting computers and the line. I think this will be exceptionally important for the campaign.

Game play and Balancing:

>Problem: Torpedoes are too hard to spot even on the best of graphical settings.
>Solution: Add in some kind of visual aid for the player to know where they are.

>Problem: Twin and Triple mounts suck badly due to their accuracy, and reload debuffs, especially triples.
>Solution: Historically weapons of all calibers with few exceptions for cramped or poorly designed mounts usually didn’t have rate of fire issues. That being said some triple and quad mounts had issues due to blast interference affecting neighboring shells as they leave the muzzle. Also give guns their historical fire rates please what you currently have not is worthless.
>Suggestion: Add in Technology Interrupter coils.

>Suggestion: I am aware you are possibly making UA:D multiplayer I would recommend not balancing the single player game for this. The reason why is because the biggest group of people you are going to be attracting to UA:D are historical enthusiasts that want to play a game with historical ships and weapons or at least historical feeling. For example the 16” Triple Mark I takes 

Problem: Certain missions crash but you were already aware of this.

>Suggestion: Small ships especially torpedo boats and destroyers seem to be a challenge to engage and im finding the best way to counter them is to use my main battery rather than my smaller secondaries. This is because they quite simply do not seem to die under secondary fire.

End notes:

I’m getting tired and I'm certain there is more that I can find but right now I can’t be bothered and I’ll revisit this later with each patch, or at least try to.

Thank you for this wonderful experience and have yourselves a wonderful future.

This was a fleet Review by Absolute0CA
 

[Niomedes]

3 hours ago, Absolute0CA said:

>Problem: Where do you find how many funnels you need.

It's in the top down menu on the right under funnel capacity.

[Pedroig]

The centerline/side distinction for main guns is there due to technology limits which will most likely be seen in the campaign.  "Wing turrets" came well before 3+ centerline turrets historically.

Torpedoes are pretty easy to spot, IF they are steam, if they are electric, good luck...

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Niomedes said:

It's in the top down menu on the right under funnel capacity.

I found it like an hour after I posted this thank you though.

 

1 hour ago, Pedroig said:

The centerline/side distinction for main guns is there due to technology limits which will most likely be seen in the campaign.  "Wing turrets" came well before 3+ centerline turrets historically.

Torpedoes are pretty easy to spot, IF they are steam, if they are electric, good luck...

I get that, but there’s better ways to do this like a software check to see number of centreline turrets and number of wing turrets. The current method is needlessly clunky and inefficient.

[Pedroig]

You designing your own game?  The current method could use some tweaks, but is a far cry from clunky and inefficient.  Software checks are memory bloat...

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Pedroig said:

You designing your own game?  The current method could use some tweaks, but is a far cry from clunky and inefficient.  Software checks are memory bloat...

It’s one tiny function, it is on centerline? Y/N. if your computer can’t handle that in this fairly lightweight designer I don’t know what to say that wouldn’t make me sound like an ass so I’m not going to say anything.

[Nick Thomadis]

11 hours ago, Absolute0CA said:

User Interface:

>Overall it’s not bad though I would change some portions of it.

Thank you for the notices, we are fully aware of all those issues and we are going to solve gradually.

11 hours ago, Absolute0CA said:

>Problem: Lack of freedom with creating guns
>Solution: Let us have exact control over…
Bore size, ex. 16”/406.4 mm
Barrel length, ex. 50 Calibers long (50 x bore)
Shell weight, ex. 2700 lbs/1225 kg
Muzzle velocity, ex 2500 ft/s /762m/s
Separate Propellant and Shell fillers
Rifling: type and twist rate
Breech block mechanism
Allow us to pick gun construction, Wire wound vs Built up. Replaceable Liners vs Having to replace the gun. Chromium plated bore vs not.

We already cover the most important.

You pick guns with calibers from 2 to 18-inches (adding more custom caliber might be considered for later)

Shell weights, muzzle velocity, Explosive charges covered. Further moddability can be prioritized later, when we implement more important things.

11 hours ago, Absolute0CA said:

>Problem: Lack of control over armor thickness for…
Forward and Aft Transverse Bulkheads
Barbettes
Turret sides and Back (They often didn’t match the thickness of the face plates or the roof.)
Secondaries (Same case as main guns)
Torpedo Bulkheads
Upper belts found on Dreadnoughts/Pre-Dreadnoughts
>Solution: Allow is full control over all these areas.

Secondaries/Casemate armor is planned.

Bulkheads planned.

Several other armor details, will be added asap.

11 hours ago, Absolute0CA said:

>Problem: Lack of Save Function in ship builder.
>Solution: Add it!

Many times said, we shall in due time

11 hours ago, Absolute0CA said:

>Problem: Torpedoes are too hard to spot even on the best of graphical settings.
>Solution: Add in some kind of visual aid for the player to know where they are.

>Problem: Twin and Triple mounts suck badly due to their accuracy, and reload debuffs, especially triples.
>Solution: Historically weapons of all calibers with few exceptions for cramped or poorly designed mounts usually didn’t have rate of fire issues. That being said some triple and quad mounts had issues due to blast interference affecting neighboring shells as they leave the muzzle. Also give guns their historical fire rates please what you currently have not is worthless.
>Suggestion: Add in Technology Interrupter coils.

Part of the game is to trace yourself the torpedoes not add visual aids. Did real captains use birds eye view? Let's compromise on some minimum sense of difficulty for the player.

Twin/Triple guns penalties are progressively reduced via techs only visible in the campaign. But you can notice them in practice in several late missions.

11 hours ago, Absolute0CA said:

>Suggestion: Small ships especially torpedo boats and destroyers seem to be a challenge to engage and im finding the best way to counter them is to use my main battery rather than my smaller secondaries. This is because they quite simply do not seem to die under secondary fire.

Addressed in upcoming patch.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Addressed

Thanks for the reply. I don’t agree with everything you said but I’m not making the game so I can’t be too picky. Also you need to give ships reverse.

[Nick Thomadis]

Yes, reverse is going to be available.

[Faolind]

On 10/18/2019 at 10:19 AM, Nick Thomadis said:

Part of the game is to trace yourself the torpedoes not add visual aids. Did real captains use birds eye view? Let's compromise on some minimum sense of difficulty for the player.

 

But the towers have torpedo spotting stats. Shouldn't we be notified when out towers spot torpedoes? Maybe not even show their location but at least *tell us*

 

Nice review Absolute! I dont agree with everything but it was comprehensive and well thought out.

[SiWi]

36 minutes ago, Faolind said:

 

But the towers have torpedo spotting stats. Shouldn't we be notified when out towers spot torpedoes? Maybe not even show their location but at least *tell us*

 

Nice review Absolute! I dont agree with everything but it was comprehensive and well thought out.

in theory you can simply click on the enemy ships and see if the torps are on cooldown.

If yes, then look for torps.

 

thou personal I would like a drawing tool that would allow one to draw red lines (similar how TW does in COOP multiplayer) to show to yourself where the torps you just saw will go.

Edited October 19, 2019 by SiWi

[Faolind]

On 10/19/2019 at 4:20 PM, SiWi said:

in theory you can simply click on the enemy ships and see if the torps are on cooldown.

If yes, then look for torps.

 

thou personal I would like a drawing tool that would allow one to draw red lines (similar how TW does in COOP multiplayer) to show to yourself where the torps you just saw will go.

I think youre missing the point. Our towers have torpedo spotting stats.

That's useless unless they tell us they spotted them.

 

If that's the range they appear on screen- that's dumb. Because if they've been spotted then the ships captain has been notified. Which means *I* have been notified.

[SomeNewGuy]

13 hours ago, Faolind said:

I think youre missing the point. Our towers have torpedo spotting stats.

That's useless unless they tell us they spotted them.

 

If that's the range they appear on screen- that's dumb. Because if they've been spotted then the ships captain has been notified. Which means *I* have been notified.

 I'm with the idea that we have to track them with our own two eyes, however a nice exclamation point in their vicinity for the first say 5 sends after they have been spotted plus an audio cue would add to the immersion and at least draw my attention to them for a second so i know to keep an eye in that area. currently it is a bit of a pain as the only way i see them is when they hit something, its even hard to find my own and follow them in!