Upcoming Alpha-5

[Nick Thomadis]

Hello Admirals,

We would like to share information about the upcoming major update of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts. Here is what is included:

Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts Alpha-5
SPECIAL NEW FEATURES

• Major improvements in ballistics: Repaired issues that made shells to travel at unusual wide arcs or at inconsistent speeds. Shells now can hit other vessels except the ship you target, making cluttered ship formations more vulnerable to shell fire. Friendly fire can happen if ships fire too close to each other.
  
  Previous ballistic system  had some omissions that were needed to save game performance. After latest game optimizations we added more calculations into the model addressing the following:
  
  - Shells fly-through other ships: Completely fixed. Please report inconsistencies if you face them in battle.
  - Unusual wide arcs from guns of the same turret: Not completely fixed, but it should be barely noticeable now and very rare.
  - Shells that seem to follow targets during evasive maneuvers: It should be completely fixed and more improvements will follow to address any related issue.
  - Even more detailed calculations for effective armor thickness, based on heel/trim motions, hull sections, belt wideness etc:  Improved but still work in progress.
   
• Improved damage system: Damage is now using a more natural probabilistic model, causing less random and more consistent damage to ships according to the damage power of shells and torpedoes. This new system will simulate better the rare critical hits that happened in history. 
• Gun visual variance: Guns differ in appearance,depending on gun technology, nation and class of the ships. Britain, USA, Germany, Austria, Italy and Japan have currently the more diverse visualization. As we add more 3D model assets, more special visual characteristics for each nation will become available. (Note: All previously saved designs will be incompatible due to this new feature and it is advised to clean them up. Nation flag will be saved for any newly created design in Naval Academy.)
• Ramming damage: Finally, ships receive damage when they collide with each other. There is not a special visual effect yet but you will hear a distinctive sound effect after the collision. Known issues of inconsistent ramming damage will be addressed in a next update. (Note: Damage will happen against hostile ships only).
• Influx of new ship models: Many new ship types are now available in the custom battle system and Naval Academy, covering a wide range of cruisers of the World War I and later era, as well as several new modern battleships and battlecruisers. In particular the following are added:
  
  - Detailed model of the Italian Heavy cruiser “Trento” of the 1920s. 
  - Detailed model of the British Armored cruiser “Warrior”.
  - 2 new light cruisers of the dreadnought era, special for Germany, based on the Light Cruiser “Emden”.
  - 7 new heavy cruisers distributed for all nations.
  - 5 new modern light cruisers distributed for all nations.
  - 1 French super battleship.
  - 1 French modern battleship. 
  - 1 new USA Battleship hull type: a smaller version of modern BB that can represent South Carolina and South Dakota battleships.
  - 1 new Italian Modern Battleship hull type.
  - 1 new UK Battleship hull type: It can represent a variant of HMS Nelson and generally the N3/G3 class.
  - 6 new Battlecruisers designated as "Large Cruisers" distributed for all nations except Britain. 
  - Improved a late UK Battleship with modern towers (The model that appears in mission “German Pride”).
  - 1 new Russian modernized Battleship. 
  - 1 new generic modernized Battleship. 

NEW NAVAL ACADEMY MISSIONS

• German Raiding Squadron: Your light cruisers must sink several cargo ships defended by a British armored cruiser. An enemy Battlecruiser approaches so you need to act fast.
• Dreadnought vs Modern Cruisers: Powerful modern cruisers with state of the art fire control and devastating torpedoes should have no problem sinking a dreadnought of older technology. You can prove the opposite, either by enhancing your battleships with equipment of advanced technology, or investing more money for building more ships.
• Wounded Beast: Your German battleship is damaged from a previous engagement and is hunted by the British fleet. Reinforcements are on their way to help you out.
• Cruisers needed: An Italian Battleship is chased by a French Super-Battleship and your cruisers must rescue it.

SHIP DESIGNER IMPROVEMENTS

• Operational Range is locked in “Medium” for Naval Academy (it will work fully in campaign). The player will no longer exploit the system by setting it at minimum range and create overpowered ships versus the AI.
• Several improvements/fixes in weights/costs of ship assets.
• AI will design more effectively the ships allocating weights for guns and speed in a more balanced manner. AI will increase Turret armor over technology era and this will be a necessity for player too, for reducing the chance of ammo detonations and main gun destruction. (Note: in late era battles, the maximum armor setting will usually correspond to the turret armor now. We will improve UI to be more specific).
• Auto-Design (for player and AI) is now smarter, since it realizes which technologies are better to use according to year. For example, you will no longer see ships auto-designed with full coal engines in the 1920s or with weak torpedoes. PS.The initial technologies will be set up according to tech era, so that player designs the ship from scratch with less micromanagement.
• Various improvements/fixes to hulls according to player reports.
• Deceleration of ship is now properly affected from various ship design decisions. (Previously it was only affected by ship’s size and weight).
• Turbo Electric Drive auxiliary engines now offer a significant boost to acceleration/deceleration, making them really effective for initiating sharp maneuvers and dodging torpedoes. One more upgrade (Turbo Electric Drive II) is available with stronger effects.
• Light Cruisers’ maximum gun size is now 7-inches (from 8-inches) so that we reflect better the class distinction between Light and Heavy Cruisers.

BALANCES/COMBAT IMPROVEMENT

• Damage fine tuning according to the new ballistics/damage model.
• Smoke from funnels obstructs directionally the gun aiming. Accuracy penalty is received if the smoke emitted from the ship’s funnels interferes with the target at some angle.
• Reduced target signature of guns. It is now more balanced the effect of ship size and targeting, while player should no longer be able to exploit Naval Academy battles by over-reducing the target signature with less secondary guns.
• Torpedoes can now cause ammo detonation, if they penetrate the hull. Torpedoes of large diameter will be extremely dangerous, even to large and well protected battleships.
• White powder shells rebalanced (removed shell weight loss, because it made shells too ineffective with bad ballistics at medium range).
• Lyddite I shells penetration penalty reduced (They could become too weak).

BUG FIXES

• Fixed a rare crash issue after exiting battle.
• Fixed a sound bug (it caused only a console report during battle).
• Fixed bug not allowing to set up target for individual ship of a division.
• Fixed an issue that could cause lag after exiting a custom battle.
• Fixed bug that could desync damage of gun & barbette, making them become destroyed independently. 

OTHER

• Transport ships became available in custom battles. You can now set up convoy missions as you please (Note: Transports will still be uncontrollable).
• Improved ship floatation motions. Ships should not pitch/roll so much as before, especially the heavier ships.
   

 

[Entropy Avatar]

The ballistics and damage model changes sound great!

Does the game model hitting the front and rear armoured bulkheads or is a shot from the front and rear of the ship treated as an extreme-angle hit on the armour?

[Nick Thomadis]

It is handled. First we examine the angle of hit at the belt/deck section, and if there is a penetration, we examine the penetration angle on internal barbettes/bulkheads (hard coded at the moment, but we can add specific design options for those later).

 

[HusariuS]

" - 1 new Russian modernized Battleship. "

The only Russian modernized Battleship i can think of are one of the Gangut-class battleships that were refited at some point of their service or canceled Project 23 Battleships...

 

Edited March 5, 2020 by HusariuS

[Steeltrap]

Looks very promising. Thanks for the more in-depth explanation of the consequences of the changes, too, as I think it's really helpful.

Have you given up on enabling the ability to use the "penetration pop-up" from an enemy ship so as to get an idea of your armour profile from their perspective?

Any chance we can get some ability to stop the AI changing targets? Make it selectable for divisions or individual ships? Ideally even down to main v secondary guns, too, but I suppose that might be a bit much (or perhaps not).

Only other thing I have in mind is the ability to set different ammo selection for main v secondary guns. I still have situations where the AI will use AP for secondary guns where HE would be better, especially when targets present steep angles as the so often do.

Cheers

Edited March 5, 2020 by Steeltrap
added comment about AI switching targets

[Cptbarney]

17 minutes ago, HusariuS said:

" - 1 new Russian modernized Battleship. "

The only Russian modernized Battleship i can think of are one of the Gangut-class battleships that were refited at some point of their serive or canceled Project 23 Battleships...

 

Ahh! miss kremlin will soon arrive! ere comes da balans!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDQ7hXMLxGc

Also i nice to see that idea for turbo electric engines become a thing, wasn't expecting french or italian BB's and also was about to report ships bobbing up and down like mad lol, but that seems to be addressed (oh and sometimes the odd random torp tube that floats in mid air but i very if ever see that consistently).

Lovely to see new light cruiser and heavy cruiser designs, just need dem dd's now.

Also interesting to see the generic modern bb i have a guess thats for the nations without specific bb's or never getting their navy off the ground entirely.

Also, love the sound of those new missions very interesting indeed and a good step in the right direction as well, judging from the post about turret armour does that mean we are getting different sections to armour up rather than the whole thing? Probs not but if so sounds good either way.

Can't wait for this patch lol.

Edited March 5, 2020 by Cptbarney

[Nick Thomadis]

45 minutes ago, Steeltrap said:

Any chance we can get some ability to stop the AI changing targets? Make it selectable for divisions or individual ships? Ideally even down to main v secondary guns, too, but I suppose that might be a bit much (or perhaps not).

Target switching should be more effective overall, as the AI adapts to the damage model too.

45 minutes ago, Steeltrap said:

Only other thing I have in mind is the ability to set different ammo selection for main v secondary guns. I still have situations where the AI will use AP for secondary guns where HE would be better, especially when targets present steep angles as the so often do.

For much later, we can do.

31 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

just need dem dd's now.

In next update 🙂

[Cptbarney]

I like how quick the game has grown over the past 5-6months or so. Also i don't mind the fleshing out of base game mechanics and such since its better to get those done before we start anything with the campaign just yet.

also neeeeeeeeewwwwwww dd hulls yes!!!

surprised how quick this will be patched but ill be a patient barney regardless.

[AML]

Any changes to wing turrets being treated as secondary guns instead of as part of the primary battery planned? 

[Nick Thomadis]

Just now, AML said:

Any changes to wing turrets being treated as secondary guns instead of as part of the primary battery planned? 

Not yet, a minor issue that will be fixed.

[Shaftoe]

I must say, I totally expected to find some picture showing new stuff there, like the one with the Hood last patch. I guess I'm just spoiled. Lol.

Edited March 5, 2020 by Shaftoe

[Skeksis]

5 minutes ago, Shaftoe said:

I must some, I totally expected to find some picture showing new stuff there, like the one with the Hood last patch. 

On Monday (that's only 3 days away) you’ll be able to take as many pictures as you like! 😁

[nimbalo500]

With the recent inclusion of nation specific ship hulls and turrets I would expect the ability to select nation in the missions would be included.

[Shaftoe]

16 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

On Monday (that's only 3 days away) you’ll be able to take as many pictures as you like! 😁

 

That is IF there won't be any delays. 

I sure hope it will be delivered on Monday. I really want to use those new hulls...

Edited March 5, 2020 by Shaftoe

[Zak MacKay]

Looks good. Incoming argument about are large cruisers battlecruisers? But that is probably the most fitting place for them in terms of game play.

I am looking forward to seeing the difference between heavy and light modern cruisers.

[RedParadize]

Can we have some pics for the hype?

[RedParadize]

@Nick Thomadis

Oh, reducing the effect of roll would also greatly increase the validity of secondary battery, specially for casemate guns. Atm its almost as punishing as targets visibility. 

[Purgato]

8 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Ramming damage:

YES, my dream of a massively fast, heavily armored and nearly unarmed BATTLE RAMMER can come to fruition!

In all seriousness, this update looks like it'll shape up to be a very good quality of life change to combat and ship design. And I hope the game will only get better.

[roachbeef]

Can't wait to have 9-inch-armed battleships and ram the poor AI

[skg02]

Great news and thanks for all the work so far with so few resources. Haven't had this much fun with ships since Fighting Steel.

Some critical questions to custom battle options, in the category, how many alphas to/how hard to accomplish:

1. Saving custom battle designs, for future pull up.

2. Designing more than one ship on your side, same thing for other sides. . . . So we can actually fight Hood verses Bismarck.

3. Picking intial conditions - including night, and positions, not just distance for battle start.

[Bluishdoor76]

- 1 French super battleship.
- 1 French modern battleship.

- 1 new Italian Modern Battleship hull type.

me:

[Bluishdoor76]

uh with french ships coming in, can we expect quad turrets to finally make their debut?

[Donluca95]

Good News even if i'm a bit disappointed

I do not understand how much longer you guys will have to take to implement some BASIC feature.

1. Saving custom battle designs, for not having to make them all over again and lose a great amount of time

2. Designing more than one ship on your side and also been able to design the enemy fleet and ships

3. Setting weather and time for each battle.

I'm sorry i do not want to seem rude or ungrateful but i really do not understand why you guys are not givin priority to such Basic and Fundamental feature, when i bought the game in Octomber i will not have never imagine that till now we would not have yet such simple and fundamental feature. For sure i would not have bought the preorder.

 

Edited March 6, 2020 by Donluca95

[monbvol]

Most interesting.

Though I find myself having a bit of a thought, something that I think will help for the campaign.

To make the Operational Range setting more meaningful for Naval Academy and maybe even Custom Battles have the setting alter the time limit and maybe even impact starting range, the later obviously more for Naval Academy missions.

Something to consider for Alpha 6 or maybe even 7.

Other than that I am hoping I will finally be able to re-create many treaty heavy cruisers that I currently can't.

The Light Cruiser hulls I most certainly look forward to trying out and seeing what can be done with them.

[Hangar18]

14 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

"Large Cruisers"

Men of true culture I see!

14 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

• Torpedoes can now cause ammo detonation, if they penetrate the hull. Torpedoes of large diameter will be extremely dangerous, even to large and well protected battleships.
• Various improvements/fixes to hulls according to player reports.
• 5 new modern light cruisers distributed for all nations.

Aside from that these are all things i was really looking forward to. But the under the hood stuff is super important too.

 

Any chance on seeing propellants and fillers separated?