Planning of next updates

[arkhangelsk]

1 hour ago, Teckelmaster said:

This thread says „What do you wish?“ ...

It's a tangent but let me discuss this part a little - I don't think it really says "What do you wish".

I wonder if you notice that about the only two people who did not put in a massive wish list were me and RamJB. From my perspective, this thread is turning into the regular old wish list, which I don't think is the goal of this thread. From the OP:

Quote

Meanwhile, we need your help in understanding what is absolutely important to develop for the game, besides the campaign. Please mention anything you consider critical - more important than campaign - that would make you much happier when playing Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts.

When people start putting in wishes for everything down to the color of the sea, I just wonder if they really read this part.

I should remind everyone that this game is due out in summer. Which is in about 30 weeks. And remember these things are always late, so if we plan for 30 weeks of work, we might just have the game out for Christmas. And while I do remember you saying something about you not minding extensions (and indeed, we are already playing the game, if in an early version), at some point the devs would want to start really selling this thing. The point being we have a finite number of weeks.

The campaign is a core part of the game. It'll need a lot of tuning and we hadn't even seen a draft of it yet. Every wish on everyone's wishlists that get granted will mean less time working on the campaign, and you can only reduce the development time of that by so much before its quality at launch suffers.

So I think the intent of this thread is that posters should be putting in only things that are so utterly important to them they are willing to sign off on a hit to the quality of the campaign.

[DougToss]

1 hour ago, Teckelmaster said:

Good.

My point is:

This thread is: „what do you want?“ not: „argue stuff others want“

I appreciate your vast knowledge, but this thread is by definition not the place to argue the wishes of others. And not even on the best knowledge about history.

I suggest we leave it at that or start a „how much realism is necessary or too much“ thread.

 

Respectfully, I disagree with your premise. 

"Who cares about realism" and "it's just a game" are used to support requests that fundamentally alter the stated purpose of the game from that put fourth by the designers and supported by much of the community. So whereas people who support the realistic nature of the game, as proposed by the devs, and widely acclaimed by the community (Case in point from today's article on Wargaming.com : " Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts is the latest entry into this series of tactical, real time wargames [...]." ) are calling for adjusted arcs of fire on cross-firing turrets, the "just have fun" party are proposing 200k ton ships and sextuple turrets. 

Those cannot exist in the same game. A game that cares about the blast effects of cross-firing turrets on decks and superstructures would also make six-gun turrets an impossibility for a myriad of reasons.  So they are not just wishing for different things, they are wishing for a fundamentally different kind of game. 

RAMJB's commentary, based as you say on a vast knowledge of the technical and historical factors of warship design are inherently useful in shaping community discussions on a game about the historical and technical factors of warship design!  These conversations are very useful for any wargame. Look at the discussions proceeding a patch for a Combat Mission or Gary Grigsby title and you will see members of the community sharing insights with the devs and the community about say when 6th South African Armoured Division received Sherman Ib's and how many per troop and squadron by month rather than "It's just a game, let's give them Abrams to make the gameplay a little more fun". 

Finally, while there are plenty of arcade naval games, some even with ship design (Stormworks, NavalArt, From the Depths, WOWS), the wargaming community has for years lacked for major releases. Silent Hunter 4 and 5 have been heavily modded by the subsim community over the past decade and those innovations, all in the name of immersion and realism drove the recent early access titles UBoat and Wolfpack which have been wildly acclaimed. The painstakingly realistic ship design and naval tactical/campaign title Rule the Waves was widely praised (and sold!) and that success lead to Rule the Waves 2 (and some might say this game 😉). To find 3D surface warfare games about this time period though, you have to go back 12 years to Jutland Pro or to the niche Totem Games Clad in Iron series. This is something of a dream project for the wargaming community (and wargaming press) so of course there is an interest in aiding the devs make it all happen. It may seem like unfun rivet counting but that's the demographic - people who don't particularly care which divisions fought in Normandy aren't buying War in The West in the first place. 

For your consideration I humbly submit the recent RPS article on the design of an absolutely brilliant (and well selling to both hardcore grogs and the public) Unity of Command 2: How Unity Of Command 2 balances game design with military history: Where abstraction meets accuracy

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by DougToss

[Teckelmaster]

I admit, that i assumed it was meant as a kind of wishlist for alpha 4 content, so devs can fish out the most common and see if it fits in their development plans.

And now you say it that way, i might be wrong.

Apologies if i was wrong. 

Though Nick‘s latest intervention appears to tip the scale in favor of wishlist.

This comment will be my last to this topic, so we can get back on it again.

@RAMJB @arkhangelsk  and @Nick Thomadis

i found this dispute pretty civilised, considering what happens in other places. By all differences that says a lot about this community.

@DougToss

i think it is just a matter of a simple slider in the options menu to actually be both games. that is the wrong place for this discussion in my oppinion though.

Maybe devs simply should kill this conversation by saying „wishlist“ or „matter of discussion“ and as i said, i could be victim of my own misunderstanding.

Edited January 9, 2020 by Teckelmaster

[akd]

1 hour ago, DougToss said:

you will see members of the community sharing insights with the devs and the community about say when 6th South African Armoured Division received Sherman Ib's and how many per troop and squadron by month

Hey, I resemble that comment! (hi Doug 😜)

 

[Nick Thomadis]

55 minutes ago, Teckelmaster said:

I admit, that i assumed it was meant as a kind of wishlist for alpha 4 content, so devs can fish out the most common and see if it fits in their development plans.

It is not only for alpha-4 but in general a wish-list for future updates. We will try to satisfy these requests, depending on our development priorities.
It is indeed a very healthy community we have here. I may  intervene sometimes to help keeping the threads in topic, but I do not want to discourage RamJB, you and everyone else to discuss historical topics, not only because they interest me personally  but because they help us greatly in our game development.

[Johnnyquest_2]

First , I would like to say that I love this game! 
 

Mainly, I love the creativity that this game gives the player. 
 

That being said, There are some things that I would like to see in the game in the future.

- I would like all hulls to be available during custom battles for the year chosen and all previous years. I know it sounds weird , but I would really like to see a modernized pre- dreadnought. Just for fun I attached an image of an 18 inch gun fitted to WW1 monitor ship  . Here is a link to the image if anyone is interested .(https://www.wikiwand.com/en/BL_18-inch_Mk_I_naval_gun)

- I would like to see more unique skins for weapons and turrets. Some turrets , take for instance a triple barreled mark III 8 inch gun , look like a miniature version  of a mark 3 triple barrel 14 inch gun. I don’t know if this is how it was historically, but it would be cool to see slight differences. On top of this, it would be cool to see weapon skins very by nation.

- lastly ,  I would like to see the visuals of the ship change when I add equipment like radios , radar, and range finders. These components are large enough so that someone can tell if a ship has it equipped or not. Not to mention that range finders and radar antenna move when the ship is in action.

i want to thank the developers for all their hard work. Your game is great and has great potential! I hope my input is valuable.

[DougToss]

Regarding the campaign, here is a fantastic write up of the strategic problems each nation faces in RTW. I'd like to see those problems also presented in the campaign for this title, whatever the specific mechanics may be. 

[roachbeef]

This will probably use a lot of RAM and increase save file sizes, but

1. Crew and officer experience and training as well as a "reserve" pool should be part of the game
2. Nations should have limits in armor quality/production capacity as well as number of shipyards for repairing and building, with shipyards closing or downsizing after misuse
3. Having to deal with the politics of naval construction including
   • elected officials wanting you to build ships you don't want or can't afford to keep jobs in their district
   • Having limited tonnage due to naval treaties
   • Some sort of global tension scale that is affected by your defense spending
   • Being forced to refit older ships you don't want or cannibalize older ships you like for parts for new construction
4. Regardless of whether aircraft are in the real-time portion of the game, have ships require investment in AA unless they want to get sunk by land-based or carrier-based aircraft.

On the first point, crew experience, obviously they shouldn't affect range, armor, or penetration. However, accuracy, radar detection in poor visibility, spotting of enemies and torpedoes, fire rate, etc. should be affected by how experienced and well-trained the crew is. Training would cost resources (either have separate variables for fuel, ammunition, and spare parts, or abstract them into $$). This should penalize players for trying to cheese the game and saving up money for better ships later on. It also prevents a sudden buildup of naval forces unless the AI or player has a pool of reserves or a cadre to train up sailors. It also should allow for a greater feeling of ownership over the ships and crew. Customization like CV (not carriers but curriculum vitae), bios, and use of pools of historical figures would be a nice cherry on top but not necessary.

The second point should also prevent cheesing by forcing players to maintain something like the US Navy's two-ship classes (Pennsylvania and Tennessee) and mean that small navies are limited in the number of battleships or carriers they can build in the war. Meaning that even if you want to wait for better technology, you might be forced to build less-than-desired ships in order to keep shipyards running. Maybe have civilian shipyards and government ones react differently to misuse.

The third point is probably implemented to some degree, but I'd love to see more about the political side of building and maintaining navies. You can't have huge ships without everybody else reacting, and if you try to use cheat the naval treaties too much somebody might find out and outbuild you. This should hopefully prevent older players from going on roflstomps and keep things interesting on subsequent playthroughs. If people want to do so then maybe have the political stuff able to be turned off in the options.

The fourth point is self-explanatory. Currently there's nothing stopping you from going all big guns and have zero AA, making ships seem too clean when considering the "if there's space let's put an AA gun there" philosophy that was present in USN and RN ships during WWII.

Edited January 10, 2020 by roachbeef

[Hellstrike]

The thing about this thread is that while it asks for things we consider important to be implemented BEFORE the Campaign, that does not mean that they have to be more crucial to the overall shape of the game but rather a prerequisite to get some suitable feedback from an eventual campaign. And that's why I've asked for more light cruiser hulls of various sizes and technology standards and that's why destroyer hulls were also requested.

Because simply put, without some choices there it will be very difficult to judge the balance of the later years. Without light cruiser hulls, it will be difficult to keep destroyers away from your main fleet body and that will distort the effectiveness of various elements in the game. People won't demand laser accurate secondaries if they can bring effective screens. And getting accurate results from the existing destroyer hulls will be tricky as well since there's no superstructure where you can place turrets on, forcing you into using double mounts, inefficient placements, or, if unavailable, reduce the overall number of guns you bring, again distorting our perception of balance.

Edited January 10, 2020 by Hellstrike

[Skeksis]

(excluding the premise of either or. And assuming the original intention of the following statement/function was to build all ships).

13 of 29 academy missions have "You will build:" 'more than one ship'.  

So I add to the list: completing (or develop) this ability/function to build all ships for these missions. 

Edited January 10, 2020 by Skeksis

[AML]

My main issue is that the ship designer feels pretty constricting and kinda cookie cutter to me. Basically the game already has decided what can more or less go where and I'm working around that. Now more hulls will certainly alleviate this problem but I'm not sure will totally fix it

For example the pre-dread battleship 1 hull has a line of casemates that are only good for 4" guns. I don't want to only mount 4" guns, I want to try mounting other stuff and have a design thats more my own. Just because that original design pictured 4" pieces doesn't mean I should be so restricted (within reason- not asking to put a 12" casemate). As long as the displacement is fine and there is sufficient space players should be free to mount what they want (again with the limits of plausibility).

 

[subnorminalnt]

I would really like to be able to make custom hulls, and more towers would be nice.

I would also get rid of the snap points and just put a line in the middle that things can snap to.

Lastly, being able to save designs for custom battles.

 

Edited January 10, 2020 by subnorminalnt

[DougToss]

22 minutes ago, AML said:

My main issue is that the ship designer feels pretty constricting and kinda cookie cutter to me. Basically the game already has decided what can more or less go where and I'm working around that. Now more hulls will certainly alleviate this problem but I'm not sure will totally fix it

For example the pre-dread battleship 1 hull has a line of casemates that are only good for 4" guns. I don't want to only mount 4" guns, I want to try mounting other stuff and have a design thats more my own. Just because that original design pictured 4" pieces doesn't mean I should be so restricted (within reason- not asking to put a 12" casemate). As long as the displacement is fine and there is sufficient space players should be free to mount what they want (again with the limits of plausibility).

 

I agree wholeheartedly, but would go on to say that ideally we would be able to build a pre-dread with 12" casemated guns, and suffer the compromises and drawbacks from that design accordingly (I would guess you could still probably only fit 4 within the same displacement, I have no idea how the armour arrangement or shell handling would work, and you would halve your broadside and lose the ability to fire end-on with main caliber guns).

I think the placement of turrets, barbettes and casemates is going to be one of the biggest things that could really open up ship design for some interesting designs that weren't tried in reality. 

Edited January 10, 2020 by DougToss

[Cptbarney]

9 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

It's a tangent but let me discuss this part a little - I don't think it really says "What do you wish".

I wonder if you notice that about the only two people who did not put in a massive wish list were me and RamJB. From my perspective, this thread is turning into the regular old wish list, which I don't think is the goal of this thread. From the OP:

When people start putting in wishes for everything down to the color of the sea, I just wonder if they really read this part.

I should remind everyone that this game is due out in summer. Which is in about 30 weeks. And remember these things are always late, so if we plan for 30 weeks of work, we might just have the game out for Christmas. And while I do remember you saying something about you not minding extensions (and indeed, we are already playing the game, if in an early version), at some point the devs would want to start really selling this thing. The point being we have a finite number of weeks.

The campaign is a core part of the game. It'll need a lot of tuning and we hadn't even seen a draft of it yet. Every wish on everyone's wishlists that get granted will mean less time working on the campaign, and you can only reduce the development time of that by so much before its quality at launch suffers.

So I think the intent of this thread is that posters should be putting in only things that are so utterly important to them they are willing to sign off on a hit to the quality of the campaign.

Well its obvious the devs will focus on the campaign hense why they said anything else that people want that isn't the campaign, signifying that they will add this stuff in small numbers while also dedicating most of their time to the campaign, mechanics and immersion (the big three i think are the most vital). Otherwise what everyone has said so far is fine and solid, this is just a reference list for the devs to come back to if they run out of ideas or get writers block or creators wall.

So yes we read this part, theres nothing wrong with the suggestions so far as i would be surprised if the devs focuses solely on these suggestions and not 70-90% of their time on the campaign getting it ready, fixing bugs, fine tuning, adding more features to make it more intuitive and also to make it look pretty too!

Im pretty sure they are working on the campaign now, and will release a lite version or maybe the current iteration of it (since this is an closed alpha after all) so we can poke and prod it and send relevant feedback, which then they can take maybe 1-6 of these suggestions (depending on workload and feedback workload) that they can then add to the game as they go along.

 

[Hangar18]

On 1/6/2020 at 2:29 PM, Nick Thomadis said:

what is absolutely important to develop for the game, besides the campaign.

I believe the ship builder to be the game greatest asset, and so that should be as polished as possible.

1. Killing snap points off for towers, and barbettes would be a major improvement. I can't stress enough how important this is.
2. A separate category for propellants and explosive fillers.
3. sometimes snaps exist on towers, but dont accommodate something that historically fit that tower.

However, thats all for nothing if balance isnt correct. currently armor/gun interaction is very strange. Please consider using historical penetration values as a baseline. using straight historical values may prove difficult in some cases. because some shells may already be on the heavy/light side, 

[Hangar18]

8 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

It is not only for alpha-4 but in general a wish-list for future updates. We will try to satisfy these requests, depending on our development priorities.
It is indeed a very healthy community we have here. I may  intervene sometimes to help keeping the threads in topic, but I do not want to discourage RamJB, you and everyone else to discuss historical topics, not only because they interest me personally  but because they help us greatly in our game development.

for being alpha 3.5 you have done an amazing job so far. For a dev team that i imagine consist of 5 guys, and a dog, even more so.

[Squatter]

Thanks for your thoughts RAMJB. 

I'm curious as to which of the wish-list I've espoused you actually disagree with: 

-Fleet Formation.
-Fleet Maneuver.
-Better enemy AI.
-Crew and crew morale.

-independent main/secondary/torp targeting

-manual torpedo fire mode

-more refined individual ship/division targeting options, perhaps affected by radio/signalling tech

 

[RAMJB]

I don't necessarily disagree with any point in your wishlist (though I somehow really don't see why manual torpedo fire should be a thing in a game where you're the admiral or captain, not the dude crewing the torpedo tubes...torpedos should be automated for the same reason you don't aim the guns yourself: it's not your task to aim your weapons, but to tell your crew what to fire at).

What I disagreed with was with the opening statement you made, and the argument it was based on. Completely different things .

[Squatter]

You disagree that this is a game? Interesting position. 

[RAMJB]

I don't want to furthen the offtopic. I don't disagree that this is a game. I completely disagree that this being a game means it automatically shouldn't bother at all with being loyal and faithful to history, when it's historically realistic and immersive gameplay what it intends to portray.

For further understanding exactly what I disagree with, you can re-read my first answer to your post. No need to repeat what was clearly stated there.

Edited January 10, 2020 by RAMJB

[Squatter]

Perhaps what you would please you RAMJB in this game (serious suggestion) is a game mode that restricts the player to a fixed camera just above the flagship to simulate the admiral's physical position. No deviating from this camera position. I would welcome this as an option for those that wished it. 

[RAMJB]

It actually would make for a very interesting experience indeed. But we'd need some kind of in-battle minimap for that kind of thing first (AFAIK there's none yet in the game?). In fact in one of the very first naval wargames I played on a computer ,called "Dreadnoughts" , that was pretty much what you had to do- guide your fleet from your flagship. With communication mistakes accounted for, the problems of not being able to give any real commands if you were transferring your flag to another ship, etc. Quite the experience, but if the game enforced something like that I'm sure there'd be riots here XDDDDDD.

I also don't think that something like that warrants the inevitable distraction of development time to implement it, with as much work the game needs in far more urgent areas, to ask for something like that now. Maybe in a more or less far future, who knows.

Edited January 10, 2020 by RAMJB

[Teckelmaster]

Since i actually love to swim in both oceans i have another wish for the game to develop into:

a: make it as realistic as possible, in terms of how it is right now. BUT please give us 

b: the option to freak out, by having options.

I, again, suggest a difficulty system similar to that of silent hunter III.

That means, when starting a battle or campaign, give us the option to make a few values realistic or easy, i will simply list, what i would love to see:

option 1 a lot of money vs more realistic start

option 2 productivity awesome vs realistic (in campaign, like having an incredible industrial power vs the realistic national counterpart)

option 3 make guns accurate or realistic

option 4 chuck norris your ships vs realistic ships (in terms of hp)

option 5 give a technology boost vs realistic technology

option 6 free camera roaming vs camera fixed to own ships (which obviously would be more realistic)

option 7 Ninja crew vs realistic training states (once crews become a thing)

Of course these „cheats“ could apply only to the player, to prevent a mess.

I think that would not take away from any group, not the hardcorerealism fans and not from the casual arcaders. The game would, from my perspective, win in replayability and meet so many more desires. 
I, in expectation of discussion, do actually like both, super realistic AND arcade, i would love both modes in this game and i think it can not be THAT difficult to implement such difficulty options to the game, as hotfix 66 has shown. Therefor it takes a reasonable time programming. 

And please add modding support, so i can some day have my plasma guns, photon torpedoes and railguns. This is for the final version though. Currently modding support would not make sense. Obviously.
 

I want to add, that i want the game as a platform to be realistic, but the little devil in me also wants ridiculously overpowered superweapons to crush the enemy and rule by brute force.

Edited January 10, 2020 by Teckelmaster

[akd]

5 hours ago, Squatter said:

-manual torpedo fire mode

I would replace this with better feedback on what is happening with your torpedoes and more realistic torpedo systems, not increased micro management.  Some of that would depend on having a crew / morale system implemented.  One thing I think people don't understand is that the range ring for torpedo is the the simple mechanical range of the torpedoes.  Their range against any target other than a stationary ship is actually dynamic, and this needs to be communicated better somehow.

Edited January 10, 2020 by akd

[arkhangelsk]

On 1/10/2020 at 10:32 AM, Hellstrike said:

a prerequisite to get some suitable feedback from an eventual campaign.

Certainly, I agree that this would qualify as something very suitable for inserting into this thread. 

Quote

And that's why I've asked for more light cruiser hulls of various sizes and technology standards and that's why destroyer hulls were also requested.

Because simply put, without some choices there it will be very difficult to judge the balance of the later years. Without light cruiser hulls, it will be difficult to keep destroyers away from your main fleet body and that will distort the effectiveness of various elements in the game. People won't demand laser accurate secondaries if they can bring effective screens. And getting accurate results from the existing destroyer hulls will be tricky as well since there's no superstructure where you can place turrets on, forcing you into using double mounts, inefficient placements, or, if unavailable, reduce the overall number of guns you bring, again distorting our perception of balance.

I went to check out what kind of things you could more or less build now, not counting aesthetics.

First, if you want Mogamis, you can have them. Just use the heavy cruiser hull and plop the guns on. Sure, so it's C turret (or whatever) that's superfiring instead of B turret. That's not a big deal. USS Fargo shouldn't be that much harder. Yes, OK it isn't as pretty as the real Mogami, but it works.

 

Second, you can't have every destroyer design, but you can have Shimakaze easily:

 

Granted, you can't have Sumner with its two bow turret configuration. On the other hand, since you can use triples, you can have roughly 75% and you can have more guns overall. You are trading off a small loss of bow firepower for quite a firepower boost in other aspects. Overall you may well not be missing out.

And OK, so the light cruiser hulls are a bit underwhelming, but you can still build Arethusa. True, you can't have three turrets, but you can have the correct overall number of guns pretty easily. And you can have Leander - just choose the heavy cruiser hull, swipe it to the smallest size, don't insist on the best towers and you'll make it.

 

So my thinking is that while we can't build replicas of real life ships all the time, we can get ships that are broadly speaking of comparable combat coefficients and basic equipment. (Not that you should use that design - it's pretty obvious you should try and exploit the hull better than just copying the stats off the real world...) That should be enough to begin testing the campaign.

And also, the solution to at least some of your gripes does not need to extend to a time-consuming new ship hull. All you need is for them to unlock barbettes for light ships and let you stick them onto the hull so you can have a platform to plop the guns on.

Edited April 5, 2020 by arkhangelsk
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