<<<Alpha-6 News>>>

[Nick Thomadis]

Hello everyone,

We hope you are all fine, healthy, strong and enjoy whatever makes you happy. We would like to share the content of the upcoming next update of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts. Here is all the info:

Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts Alpha-6

SPECIAL NEW FEATURES

• Flash Fires: If the main guns (or the sections below them containing the magazines) are penetrated then uncontrollable flash fires may swiftly spread, ignite the propellant containers and cause catastrophic explosions, blowing away one or more turrets of the ship with a spectacular new visual effect.
  
  So, now detonations will not only occur after a direct penetrating hit reaching to the ammo storage but also due to the impact of flash fires, just as it happened for the British Battlecruisers in the Battle of Jutland.
  
  In consequence, you must now be extra careful when you design your ships, especially your battleships and battlecruisers which carry heavy armament, because if they lack the necessary armor protection or other safety measures, they will be very vulnerable to flash fires that can blow them apart. 
   
• Detailed Combat Statistics: Now you can evaluate with precision the combat effectiveness of your ships by monitoring their hit percentage, damage and penetration power against the enemy ships. By selecting your own ships you have access to their detailed logs of damage, either in summary or per gun type.
  
  When your targets are identified, you can also select them to view their combat stats, while the fleet damage statistics are accessible as previously at the top right corner with increased information when you hover on each icon.
   
• Epic Combat Music: Many new music soundtracks enrich the combat experience during or after a battle. Immerse yourself by hearing the new atmospheric music that switches according to the tension of combat. 
  
  Note: YouTubers must read the terms of using the game’s music in their videos. If you have any issue, please turn off the music while recording.
   
• 33x New Destroyers: Complete revamp of the Destroyer hulls. OId models have been optimized. Many new models have been added for all nations. Here is the list of changes:
  
  - 4x Japanese special looking Destroyer models, available till the 1920s, making the Destroyers of Japan unique compared to other nations, having lighter, longer hulls that make them stealthier, faster, deadlier.
  
  - 4x Modern Japanese Destroyer models available after the 1920s, following the unique design concepts of Japan, favouring speed and torpedo armament. These models are based on the detailed hull of the “Akizuki” Destroyer and several variants that can reproduce faithfully all late Destroyers of the Japanese Fleet, including the experimental design of “Shimakaze”.
  
  - 13x Modern Destroyer models distributed to all nations with a selection of “Standard” and “Leader” type of destroyers. These destroyers are rather unique for each nation. For example, you are able to design and build very fast and powerful Destroyers similar to the French “Le Fantasque” and “Mogador” classes with role to overwhelm enemy Destroyers.
  
  - 12x hull variants of Destroyers distributed for all nations from the 1900s till the 1920s. Most of those early ships are slight modifications with different hull size ratios, guns, funnels etc. 
   
• 4x Modern Cruisers: Some special cruisers have been added for Spain and Japan. These are:
  - 1x Japanese Light Cruiser, inspired by the “Kuma-class” cruiser, a typical type of cruiser that serviced Japan from the 1920s till the 2nd World War.
  
  - 1x Japanese Light Cruiser, inspired by the “Yubari-class” cruiser, a unique hybrid design that featured aspects of a Destroyer and a Cruiser.
  
  - 2x Spanish Cruisers, inspired by the “Navarra” and “Canarias” classes, ships of the 1920s with a long active service till the Spanish Civil War.

==All the existing, hundreds of hull variants accompanied by the new destroyers should be more than enough to cover the needs of the upcoming first campaign version, but we will continue to add more models in our next updates.==

NEW MISSIONS

• Near Jutland: The British and Germans are concentrating their forces in the vicinity of Jutland and prepare for a major battle. Your task force led by two British battlecruisers has spotted three German capital ships heading to the location and plans to ambush them using the destroyers as spearhead of the attack.
• Modern vs Old Destroyers: Design modern destroyers and combat versus numerous, less advanced rivals. The enemy force is commanded by an advanced ship, a type of “Destroyer Leader” which is particularly effective against smaller destroyers.
• Torpedo Banzai: Feel the power of Japanese destroyers by leading an all-out torpedo attack against a large USA fleet. Your possible destroyer designs include a wide range of hull types and two specials: An experimental destroyer, which can achieve very high speeds and an experimental cruiser, which combines the benefits of a destroyer at a size of a cruiser.
• Mission Impossible: A powerful Japanese battleship and its escorts attacks one of your convoys. The only defense are your destroyers. The most sensible action would be to escape while you can. But the High Command decided that you should stand and find an opportunity to sink the enemy battleship with your torpedoes. Only the best designed destroyers can succeed in such a mission.... with a bit of luck.
• Battle of Destroyers: You will command a squadron of French destroyers against a Japanese destroyer squadron. The enemy force is led by a flotilla leader, a fast cruiser with many small guns and heavy torpedo armament that you should not try to confront at close range.
• Contest in the Black Sea: The German naval forces in the Black Sea are scarce and do not include any battleships. The Russians possess more and heavier ships. Two of the remaining German cruisers need the support of your destroyers to attack and destroy the commanding Russian ships in the area, a refitted dreadnought and a modern battlecruiser. 

COMBAT BALANCES

• Further improvements in ballistic trajectories. Shells follow a steeper, more realistic curve. Additionally, wave motion now affects the distribution of hits between deck and belt.
• Horizontal penetration over very long distances is reduced. Previously, in certain circumstances, it could become overpowered against any deck armor, especially when using 18-inch Lyddite shells.
• Lyddite and Cordite shells cause slightly more damage. Due to the new Flash Fire mechanics, these shells are even more risky to use but if your ship has adequate protection they will offer a distinct advantage.
• Torpedoes will not cause so frequent ammo detonations, as previously, versus well protected ships. However, Flash fires may be ignited by an underwater fire caused by a torpedo hit.
• AI is much more effective in aiming and keeping distance against its targets.
• Maneuvering is now playing more dynamic role in targeting. You cannot make swift turns without significant loss of aim. Ships that make zig zags are more effective in avoiding shots. Ranging shots is easier against static or very slow targets.

SHIP DESIGN

• Weight limitations of all ship types rebalanced, so that ship speeds are more realistic according to technology era. You may still make an overly fast ship but it would be very weak in protection and armament. All ship saves are affected due to this change.
• Turbine engine horse power is more pronounced according to type, so that early dreadnoughts and battlecruisers are not so fast compared to more advanced ships.
• Diesel engines rebalanced to reflect better their bonuses. Diesel engines will be more important in campaign, but now can be useful in missions too, offering more reliable and cost-effective power plants.
• New Hull Variant that can replicate accurately the HMS Invincible. It is a British Battlecruiser found in Custom battles between 1907-1917.
• Optimized a Battlecruiser variant that is available for Britain, USA, France, in the period of 1912-1919.
• Various hull fixes/improvements based on player reports.
• Light Cruisers’ maximum belt armor is now 6 inches.
• New visuals for the Japanese 3'', 4'', 5'' inch Mark 4/5 guns, found on their Destroyers and Light Cruisers.
• New visuals for the USA/British 3'', 4'', 5'' inch Mark 4/5 guns, found on their Destroyers.
• New visuals for Mark 4/5 8'' guns for British Battleships and Battlecruisers.

SOUND EFFECTS

• Major improvement in sound mechanics. Issues of sound interruptions when there were many guns firing should not occur at all or can happen very rarely.
• Various combat sound enhancements. Impacts should be heard louder and clearer. Partial penetration sounds improved, trails better synchronized and many other.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed an error of calculating Course Change Time, showing opposite effect (for example when you added auxiliary engines, the Rudder could steer more slowly). Now ships will steer even more realistically.
• Fixed serious errors with gun rotations and overlapping of ship objects, that created unbuildable ships with the known error “Some parts are badly placed” or made guns not rotating during battle.
• Fixed bug that -sometimes-  stopped torpedo tubes from firing, although they were fully reloaded.
• Fixed issue that caused torpedoes to hit your own ship.
• Fixed bug that made -sometimes- Radar Generation 2 to not function during battle.
• Fixed bug that did not update UI information about accuracy when we selected different rangefinders and other related components.
• Fixed bug that made the secondary tower of a modern French Battleship to hang in the air, behind the stern.
• Fixed issue that made big guns of smaller caliber to be grouped with secondary guns when player selected targets manually.

OTHER

• Memory optimizations: The error “Too many threads” should now be fixed or happen very rarely.
• You are now able to observe the penetration power of enemies vs your ship. Select an identified enemy ship and hover the cursor over one of your own ships to open up the penetration tooltip.
• Subtle new visual effect for over penetrations: The shell passes through the ship from the other side.
• Battle UI improved by providing more information for the selected ship in a more compact window. When you hover on the respective icons you can see useful ship details, such as the armor zone protection scheme, components installed and various other.
• Now you can click on any recent battle log report (bottom left corner) to zoom in to the affected ship.

The test build is already in closed testing. The release is scheduled for next week, on Monday, if all is well. Update: Update will come when ready. Thank you all for the ongoing feedback!
 

[Alcar]

🙌

Can't wait!

[Shaftoe]

35 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

 

• 33x New Destroyers: Complete revamp of the Destroyer hulls. OId models have been optimized. Many new models have been added for all nations. Here is the list of changes:
  
  - 4x Japanese special looking Destroyer models, available till the 1920s, making the Destroyers of Japan unique compared to other nations, having lighter, longer hulls that make them stealthier, faster, deadlier.
  
  - 4x Modern Japanese Destroyer models available after the 1920s, following the unique design concepts of Japan, favouring speed and torpedo armament. These models are based on the detailed hull of the “Akizuki” Destroyer and several variants that can reproduce faithfully all late Destroyers of the Japanese Fleet, including the experimental design of “Shimakaze”.
  
  - 13x Modern Destroyer models distributed to all nations with a selection of “Standard” and “Leader” type of destroyers. These destroyers are rather unique for each nation. For example, you are able to design and build very fast and powerful Destroyers similar to the French “Le Fantasque” and “Mogador” classes with role to overwhelm enemy Destroyers.
  
  - 12x hull variants of Destroyers distributed for all nations from the 1900s till the 1920s. Most of those early ships are slight modifications with different hull size ratios, guns, funnels etc. 

Ah, finally

. 

[BlaineS99]

Awesome! It'll be nice to have some variety with destroyers but 33 new hulls!? Wow good job guys. 

[Cptbarney]

@HusariuS @Fuems @KiltedKey @Bluishdoor76 @Latur Husky @Illya von Einzbern

 

ayyy ladz news about alpha 6! lots of DD hulls (33 dam lol wish i could model that fast).

[Hangar18]

47 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

catastrophic explosions, blowing away one or more turrets of the ship with a spectacular new visual effect.

Your ammo detonations are already fantastic looking, so I'm actually interested to see what you've cooked up here.

Question: Do secondary batteries have magazines that can be detonated, and does this new mechanic apply?

[Nick Thomadis]

6 minutes ago, Hangar18 said:

Your ammo detonations are already fantastic looking, so I'm actually interested to see what you've cooked up here.

Question: Do secondary batteries have magazines that can be detonated, and does this new mechanic apply?

Current ammo detonations work for any caliber and can vary in magnitude. They can be catastrophic or less harmful if small ammo storage of secondary guns is ignited. The flash fires though will be much more lethal on average, because they can be triggered when main turrets or sections below them are penetrated and they expand quickly to the interconnected central magazine stores, exploding the main gun and, sometimes, with a chain reaction they gradually spread to the whole ship, meaning guaranteed destruction.

[roachbeef]

For Alpha 7, we need to have better formation-keeping AI. Currently a squadron of ships won't turn in formation but start crashing into each other. Even if they're sailing in a straight line, if the lead ship isn't at full speed the rear ships will often decelerate to late and crash into the forward ship.

[DerRichtigeArzt]

You save my life devs! You are the best! Can't wait to try all the new stuff out! Stay safe and continue to be awesome! 

[Cptbarney]

43 minutes ago, roachbeef said:

For Alpha 7, we need to have better formation-keeping AI. Currently a squadron of ships won't turn in formation but start crashing into each other. Even if they're sailing in a straight line, if the lead ship isn't at full speed the rear ships will often decelerate to late and crash into the forward ship.

Hopefully as thats the start of the campaign i think. But dam 33 dd hulls thats mental. I cant even do 6 sodding realistic buildings in 3 months xD (on top of two other projects).

[Nick Thomadis]

Just to clarify, the 33x ships are not all completely new models. As you know, we have a smart system that takes base models and generates variants. So the system is effective to make more ship variants from less unique models.

[Cptbarney]

2 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Just to clarify, the 33x ships are not all completely new models. As you know, we have a smart system that takes base models and generates variants. So the system is effective to make more ship variants from less unique models.

*nudges* try'in to make you look gud 'w'

Well at least we got new DD's which is the last class (i think) to get new hulls before any other major updates.

[Aceituna]

8 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Well at least we got new DD's which is the last clas

Well actually torpedo boats didn't get any new hulls so far.

[Nick Thomadis]

1 minute ago, Aceituna said:

Well actually torpedo boats didn't get any new hulls so far.

Germany and Austro-Hungary will get a variant "Large Torpedo Boat" which are classified as DD, but are at the size of torpedo boats.

[Cptbarney]

Noice torpedo boats. Would be funny to see smoll boutes with machine guns fly around doe. Could make for some funny vids with the physics.

[Latur Husky]

Nice one! I knew it would be big... 33 new hulls means many new cool designs of DD's. I can feel those crazy DD only battles now

 

 

1 hour ago, roachbeef said:

For Alpha 7, we need to have better formation-keeping AI. Currently a squadron of ships won't turn in formation but start crashing into each other. Even if they're sailing in a straight line, if the lead ship isn't at full speed the rear ships will often decelerate to late and crash into the forward ship.

You'd be surprised but even historically ships in formations often collided with each other... Game seems to perfectly reflect that.

Edited May 7, 2020 by Latur Husky

[HusariuS]

[madham82]

Great news @Nick Thomadis! So many great fixes and additions. Glad to see the new Flash Fire mechanic get implemented so quickly. Looking forward to testing it out! 

[Shaftoe]

3 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

The test build is already in closed testing. The release is scheduled for next week, on Monday, if all is well. Thank you all for the ongoing feedback!
 

Oh, and let's not forget this priceless meme. Another release "next week, on Monday". Place your bets, lads. Do you think this time they'll hit the mark? Lol.

[Cptbarney]

13 minutes ago, Shaftoe said:

Oh, and let's not forget this priceless meme. Another release "next week, on Monday". Place your bets, lads. Do you think this time they'll hit the mark? Lol.

I hope it is next week, but i gib about 1 week and 3 days extra from next week on monday.

[madham82]

13 minutes ago, Shaftoe said:

Oh, and let's not forget this priceless meme. Another release "next week, on Monday". Place your bets, lads. Do you think this time they'll hit the mark? Lol.

With as much going into this as listed, would not surprise me to see a delay. 

[Dan Dare]

17 minutes ago, Shaftoe said:

... Do you think this time they'll hit the mark? Lol.

Don´t know and I don´t care...this time they have hit my heart...Navarra and Canarias!!!

[Cptbarney]

hmm i wonder if we will get moar older ships next alpha?

[Fuems]

4 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

• Flash Fires: If the main guns (or the sections below them containing the magazines) are penetrated then uncontrollable flash fires may swiftly spread, ignite the propellant containers and cause catastrophic explosions, blowing away one or more turrets of the ship with a spectacular new visual effect.
  
  So, now detonations will not only occur after a direct penetrating hit reaching to the ammo storage but also due to the impact of flash fires, just as it happened for the British Battlecruisers in the Battle of Jutland.
  
  In consequence, you must now be extra careful when you design your ships, especially your battleships and battlecruisers which carry heavy armament, because if they lack the necessary armor protection or other safety measures, they will be very vulnerable to flash fires that can blow them apart.

[Shaftoe]

1 hour ago, Cptbarney said:

hmm i wonder if we will get moar older ships next alpha?

To be honest, I am more concerned about getting newer ships and appropriate components for them.