Alpha-9 Final Changelog (News Update)

[Nick Thomadis]

Hello admirals,

The patch has been completed and is now in its final testing phases. It is scheduled to be released on Monday 16/11/2020. A further small delay might happen if we find anything urgent to fix. Here is the final changelog:

Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts Alpha-9

FORMATIONS
The formation system of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts received an overhaul of its mechanics, making the control of large fleets much easier and realistic. First of all, we fixed all bugs that were the cause of division lines to become mixed up and make ineffective evade maneuvers, especially when the fleet included many ships. Except of those bug fixes we offer the following:

Drag & Drop Division cards: You can multi-select divisions or ships and drag them into any division via the division card interface. If you wish, you can merge several ships of any type into one division (previously there was a limit of 5 ships and only one type was allowed). In this way, you can create your own ship organization during battle with more freedom and flexibility.

Make battle lines with ease: With the more flexible division groups, you will be able to create a group of any ship type and merge into one single formation, which will be controllable as one unit (selectable from the unit cards). This formation group, ideally a number of large capital ships, can then be used as a main battle formation, which you can control with a single movement order, while your lighter ships follow it in screen or scout formation.

Formation spread really matters: Ships will keep their maximum speed according to their allowed formation spread. By default the following ship types will use the following spreads:
- BB: Tight
- BC, CA: Normal
- CL, DD, TB, Other: Loose

Tight spread will allow a lower top speed, but the ships will operate in closer, stricter formation and, thus, will be easier to keep an effective firing line and maintain a cruising speed. When ships become damaged, they will not break the formation (as before) but the formation will slow down accordingly unless those ships become extremely slow, so they will gradually follow the formation at the back. Normal spread makes this system less strict, while the Loose spread makes the ships move at the highest speed possible, with no attention to formation cohesion, which can be useful if your ships need the maximum speed in order to withdraw or just survive a battle.

Note: Previous artificial bonuses/penalties in accuracy of division spread modes were removed, because they are no longer needed. Ships already can receive collateral damage due to their concentration in an area. So by using tight formations you receive firing bonuses naturally, due to keeping a steady cruising speed, but you might become hit with more probability from indirect fire.

Revamped “Screen” command: The functionality of the screen command received major changes. Previously, each division was placed in compact formation at a distance around the lead ship of the screened division. In the new screen mode, the ships become distributed and operate independently around the center of a single division or a larger grouped formation, creating a much more realistic and versatile formation, covering all flanks with less amount of ships.

New “Scout” command: The previous functionality of the screen command will resemble the new “Scout” order that you can give to ships classes CL, DD, TB. With this command, the divisions will move around a very large distance around the scouted division or grouped formation, so they will be able to trace enemies sooner.

NEW HULLS
“Battleship Richelieu” is the new addition in the game’s database of realistic hulls. The new hull and its assets can produce the following new ship variants:

• A French Modern Battleship of 45,000 to 65,000 tons, which can faithfully recreate the historical Battleship Richelieu.
• A French Super Battleship with displacement between 70,000 to 85,000 tons.
• A French Battlecruiser with displacement between 35,000 to 45,000 tons, inspired by the Battleship “Dunkerque”.
• Two French Experimental Battlecruisers available in custom battles from 1935.
• A French Large Cruiser of 28,000 to 32,500 tons.
• A French Heavy Cruiser of 12,000 to 14,900 tons.

Furthermore, various new assets and guns became available to several other hulls. 

NEW MISSIONS

• Conflict in the Tsushima strait: A battle that resembles the historical battle of Tsushima featuring large fleets for both sides. You take the side of the Japanese fleet vs a large Russian fleet composed of many but rather outdated battleships.  Will you reinforce your fleet with advanced battleships or will you invest on numerous fast cruisers, in order to defeat the stronger -in numbers- enemy?
• German wrath at North Sea: It is 1913 and the powerful British fleet amasses near the vicinity of the German ports at North Sea. As the British are divided into two groups, you decide to attack and gain a temporary territorial advantage. You will have to choose whether to build Battleships, Battlecruisers or Heavy Cruisers to reinforce your attacking fleet, utilizing a rather limited budget. The British fleet is superior but your own forces can triumph via better tactics and by investing in the most suitable technologies.
• Prevail in the Mediterranean: It is 1941, near the cape Matapan, south of Greece, where a British and an Italian fleet prepare to fight each other. You are in command of the Italian fleet and you must defeat the enemy without taking heavy losses. Your fleet of cruisers and destroyers can be reinforced either by a few strong battleships, or multiple cruisers of various types, that you will design.
• France vs Germany: Create a successful striking force made of French modern ships of the 1940s and defeat a strong German fleet which has as a flagship a humongous super battleship of the H-class.

GUNS & OTHER
The improvements on formations will consist the biggest part of our next update, but there are more to be included. Here is the planned list:

• Quad guns: Quadruple turrets of large caliber become available and are separated into two main visual types. Type-1 has its four guns distributed evenly on the turret, while Type-2 has two dual guns (Similar to the French Battleship “Richelieu”).
• 19-inch and 20-inch guns: You are now able to design ships with the most powerful armament, which was never actually implemented on any warship, but was used in various planned designs. These guns will be available only on specific large hulls, such as those of the super battleships. Designing ships with so large guns should be a challenge due to their extreme weight that could be used for increasing ship protection and speed.
• New British Guns: New special looking late-tech guns are available for Britain.
• New French Guns: New special looking late-tech guns are available for France.
• Damage Saturation fix: Previously there was no damage to ships if we hit destroyed sections, making ships indestructible when hit at red areas. With the improved damage system, a small amount of damage will spread out to nearby sections. A damage rebalance will be needed to fine tune the result.
• Hull & Auto-Design fixes: Some remaining issues that were many times reported were addressed, including secondary gun inconsistencies on Iowa hull, overlapping guns with Bismarck towers and many others.
• Mk5 8-inch guns available in the 1940s: It has been corrected so that the latest technology of 8-inch guns are available in the late tech era of custom battles.
• Fixed bug that caused turrets to not fire with all their gun barrels: Triple turrets and the new quad guns could, sometimes, not use all their gun barrels while firing. This was happening quite often at large distance aiming but now it is fixed.
• Turrets will no longer use only two gun barrels for aiming: Previously the triple turrets (and now the new quad guns) fired only a dual salvo per turret for bracketing salvoes (something that was commonly conceived as a bug). Now all guns will be used and turrets will fire successive bracketing salvoes with more efficiency.
• Various sound improvements including the addition of the new sounds for 19-inch and 20-inch guns.
• Fixed Naval Academy bug that did not allow the nation randomization of player ships hulls in missions that did not have any nation restriction. The result of this bug was that missions were played once with a random nation and in any future playout with new designs it was not possible to change the nation to your liking.

BALANCES
A few balances were made based on the player feedback we received on our last patch.

• Accuracy balance: Maneuverable ships, such as Destroyers, will be harder to hit, so they will be more comfortable to control them at a safe distance. Average Accuracy is less at long range but will be significantly higher at very short ranges, creating more decisive engagements when ships approach very near to each other.
• Triple and Quad Guns are distinctively heavier: Making ships with many heavy guns will need more trade offs. This was especially needed now, that we added quad guns and the huge guns of 19-inch and 20-inch caliber.
• More resilient Destroyers and Torpedo Boats: The hull damage that DD and TB can receive is increased, so they are not so rapidly destroyed in gun fights.
• Increased weight of torpedo tubes: It should be much harder to create functional ships that can host too many torpedo launchers.
• Increased weight of bulkheads: Making ships with full bulkheads will need more design sacrifices. Additionally, AI will try to make ships with more bulkheads.
• Increased weight of guns of 9-inch and smaller caliber: Now the weights of ships should be more balanced and AI should not spam with guns when auto-designing.
• Balanced damage of guns below 11-inch so they do meaningful damage to battleships or other larger ships. This was needed with the update of the damage model.
• Flash Fire chance balance: Flash fire should happen less often for small caliber guns.
• AI more effective: The AI will keep a more effective distance according to battle situation. Battleships will try to keep a safer distance, especially against Destroyers, while Destroyers will find a more suitable approach direction to launch their torpedoes.

 

[Marshall99]

@Cptbarney@Fishyfish@Aceituna@RxmRolla

And lots of others (sorry, i am bad at remembering names)

Here we go! Finally!!! YEEEEEEEY

Thank you very much!  @Nick Thomadis

[Aceituna]

Oh, finally. I just hope there won't be any delayes again.

And now, how about top this moment of joy with some news about campaing?

Edited November 13, 2020 by Aceituna

[Cptbarney]

@HusariuS @Airzerg @TotalRampage @Bluishdoor76 @Koogus @CapnAvont1015 @IronKaputt@Shiki @1MajorKoenig @WiselessOwl @madham82 @Skeksis @Worry_Rock @SonicB @Skyguy1944

[Cptbarney]

Also forum bugged out but i wasn't able to type more after skyguy for some reason not that i can remember too many peeps anyways.

Ye, finally. My guess it will be out on a tuesday or wednesday cus im more pessimistic and to be ready for foreseen circumstances.

[HusariuS]

Can't wait to hear those 19/20-inch guns firing 

[nimbalo500]

And here i was super close to saying that i expected some news around the 16th, turns out my gut was right.

[DerRichtigeArzt]

most of us were reforging the scythes so you are just in time Nick 

[Fishyfish]

Huh, well, the content just as expected. I'll direct the curious to a post I made in the locked thread as to why I'm not hype. I'm looking forward to the balances, the "Guns and Other" and the formation revamp, as well as the Battle of Tsushima mission, but really about it. It will be neat to futz around with the french hulls but modren just doesn't do it for me... Here's hoping it's a nice patch regardless. 

[IronKaputt]

1 hour ago, Nick Thomadis said:

while Type-2 has two dual guns

I wonder how elevation is animated, since Richelieu had full-fledged four-barreled turrets

Edited November 13, 2020 by IronKaputt

[CapnAvont1015]

2 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Hello admirals,

The patch has been completed and is now in its final testing phases. It is scheduled to be released on Monday 16/11/2020. A further small delay might happen if we find anything urgent to fix. Here is the final changelog:

Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts Alpha-9

FORMATIONS
The formation system of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts received an overhaul of its mechanics, making the control of large fleets much easier and realistic. First of all, we fixed all bugs that were the cause of division lines to become mixed up and make ineffective evade maneuvers, especially when the fleet included many ships. Except of those bug fixes we offer the following:

Drag & Drop Division cards: You can multi-select divisions or ships and drag them into any division via the division card interface. If you wish, you can merge several ships of any type into one division (previously there was a limit of 5 ships and only one type was allowed). In this way, you can create your own ship organization during battle with more freedom and flexibility.

Make battle lines with ease: With the more flexible division groups, you will be able to create a group of any ship type and merge into one single formation, which will be controllable as one unit (selectable from the unit cards). This formation group, ideally a number of large capital ships, can then be used as a main battle formation, which you can control with a single movement order, while your lighter ships follow it in screen or scout formation.

Formation spread really matters: Ships will keep their maximum speed according to their allowed formation spread. By default the following ship types will use the following spreads:
- BB: Tight
- BC, CA: Normal
- CL, DD, TB, Other: Loose

Tight spread will allow a lower top speed, but the ships will operate in closer, stricter formation and, thus, will be easier to keep an effective firing line and maintain a cruising speed. When ships become damaged, they will not break the formation (as before) but the formation will slow down accordingly unless those ships become extremely slow, so they will gradually follow the formation at the back. Normal spread makes this system less strict, while the Loose spread makes the ships move at the highest speed possible, with no attention to formation cohesion, which can be useful if your ships need the maximum speed in order to withdraw or just survive a battle.

Note: Previous artificial bonuses/penalties in accuracy of division spread modes were removed, because they are no longer needed. Ships already can receive collateral damage due to their concentration in an area. So by using tight formations you receive firing bonuses naturally, due to keeping a steady cruising speed, but you might become hit with more probability from indirect fire

Revamped “Screen” command: The functionality of the screen command received major changes. Previously, each division was placed in compact formation at a distance around the lead ship of the screened division. In the new screen mode, the ships become distributed and operate independently around the center of a single division or a larger grouped formation, creating a much more realistic and versatile formation, covering all flanks with less amount of ships.

New “Scout” command: The previous functionality of the screen command will resemble the new “Scout” order that you can give to ships classes CL, DD, TB. With this command, the divisions will move around a very large distance around the scouted division or grouped formation, so they will be able to trace enemies sooner.

NEW HULLS
“Battleship Richelieu” is the new addition in the game’s database of realistic hulls. The new hull and its assets can produce the following new ship variants:

• A French Modern Battleship of 45,000 to 65,000 tons, which can faithfully recreate the historical Battleship Richelieu.
• A French Super Battleship with displacement between 70,000 to 85,000 tons.
• A French Battlecruiser with displacement between 35,000 to 45,000 tons, inspired by the Battleship “Dunkerque”.
• Two French Experimental Battlecruisers available in custom battles from 1935.
• A French Large Cruiser of 28,000 to 32,500 tons.
• A French Heavy Cruiser of 12,000 to 14,900 tons.

Furthermore, various new assets and guns became available to several other hulls. 

NEW MISSIONS

• Conflict in the Tsushima strait: A battle that resembles the historical battle of Tsushima featuring large fleets for both sides. You take the side of the Japanese fleet vs a large Russian fleet composed of many but rather outdated battleships.  Will you reinforce your fleet with advanced battleships or will you invest on numerous fast cruisers, in order to defeat the stronger -in numbers- enemy?
• German wrath at North Sea: It is 1913 and the powerful British fleet amasses near the vicinity of the German ports at North Sea. As the British are divided into two groups, you decide to attack and gain a temporary territorial advantage. You will have to choose whether to build Battleships, Battlecruisers or Heavy Cruisers to reinforce your attacking fleet, utilizing a rather limited budget. The British fleet is superior but your own forces can triumph via better tactics and by investing in the most suitable technologies.
• Prevail in the Mediterranean: It is 1941, near the cape Matapan, south of Greece, where a British and an Italian fleet prepare to fight each other. You are in command of the Italian fleet and you must defeat the enemy without taking heavy losses. Your fleet of cruisers and destroyers can be reinforced either by a few strong battleships, or multiple cruisers of various types, that you will design.
• France vs Germany: Create a successful striking force made of French modern ships of the 1940s and defeat a strong German fleet which has as a flagship a humongous super battleship of the H-class.

GUNS & OTHER
The improvements on formations will consist the biggest part of our next update, but there are more to be included. Here is the planned list:

• Quad guns: Quadruple turrets of large caliber become available and are separated into two main visual types. Type-1 has its four guns distributed evenly on the turret, while Type-2 has two dual guns (Similar to the French Battleship “Richelieu”).
• 19-inch and 20-inch guns: You are now able to design ships with the most powerful armament, which was never actually implemented on any warship, but was used in various planned designs. These guns will be available only on specific large hulls, such as those of the super battleships. Designing ships with so large guns should be a challenge due to their extreme weight that could be used for increasing ship protection and speed.
• New British Guns: New special looking late-tech guns are available for Britain.
• New French Guns: New special looking late-tech guns are available for France.
• Damage Saturation fix: Previously there was no damage to ships if we hit destroyed sections, making ships indestructible when hit at red areas. With the improved damage system, a small amount of damage will spread out to nearby sections. A damage rebalance will be needed to fine tune the result.
• Hull & Auto-Design fixes: Some remaining issues that were many times reported were addressed, including secondary gun inconsistencies on Iowa hull, overlapping guns with Bismarck towers and many others.
• Mk5 8-inch guns available in the 1940s: It has been corrected so that the latest technology of 8-inch guns are available in the late tech era of custom battles.
• Fixed bug that caused turrets to not fire with all their gun barrels: Triple turrets and the new quad guns could, sometimes, not use all their gun barrels while firing. This was happening quite often at large distance aiming but now it is fixed.
• Turrets will no longer use only two gun barrels for aiming: Previously the triple turrets (and now the new quad guns) fired only a dual salvo per turret for bracketing salvoes (something that was commonly conceived as a bug). Now all guns will be used and turrets will fire successive bracketing salvoes with more efficiency.
• Various sound improvements including the addition of the new sounds for 19-inch and 20-inch guns.
• Fixed Naval Academy bug that did not allow the nation randomization of player ships hulls in missions that did not have any nation restriction. The result of this bug was that missions were played once with a random nation and in any future playout with new designs it was not possible to change the nation to your liking.

BALANCES
A few balances were made based on the player feedback we received on our last patch.

• Accuracy balance: Maneuverable ships, such as Destroyers, will be harder to hit, so they will be more comfortable to control them at a safe distance. Average Accuracy is less at long range but will be significantly higher at very short ranges, creating more decisive engagements when ships approach very near to each other.
• Triple and Quad Guns are distinctively heavier: Making ships with many heavy guns will need more trade offs. This was especially needed now, that we added quad guns and the huge guns of 19-inch and 20-inch caliber.
• More resilient Destroyers and Torpedo Boats: The hull damage that DD and TB can receive is increased, so they are not so rapidly destroyed in gun fights.
• Increased weight of torpedo tubes: It should be much harder to create functional ships that can host too many torpedo launchers.
• Increased weight of bulkheads: Making ships with full bulkheads will need more design sacrifices. Additionally, AI will try to make ships with more bulkheads.
• Increased weight of guns of 9-inch and smaller caliber: Now the weights of ships should be more balanced and AI should not spam with guns when auto-designing.
• Balanced damage of guns below 11-inch so they do meaningful damage to battleships or other larger ships. This was needed with the update of the damage model.
• Flash Fire chance balance: Flash fire should happen less often for small caliber guns.
• AI more effective: The AI will keep a more effective distance according to battle situation. Battleships will try to keep a safer distance, especially against Destroyers, while Destroyers will find a more suitable approach direction to launch their torpedoes.

 

[SonicB]

Thanks for the update - as ever, we appreciate it.

Initial reaction is as expected, looks like a lot of small positive changes with a few question marks about how the formations will work in practice.

Given the time taken I had hoped for a little more fundamental reworking of the armour model, the ship designer, or both, but fingers crossed those are on the roadmap. (Seriously though, just take those damn fixed turret/tower/funnel hardpoints away and I'll be a happy man.)

Still love the game, still hoping to love the end result even more. Keep up the good work guys, and please keep your supporters in the loop.

[Bluishdoor76]

Omg the wait is finally over, I am glad that there are multiple issues being addressed besides just adding the new hulls, turrets and new formations. 

Here hoping next alpha will focus on addressing the issues with the designer, specifically the remaining generic hulls that are still far too restrictive compared to the newer hulls. As well as the other multiple issues such as armor and bulkheads. But for now this will fill my French ships loving heart for a while!

[Worry_Rock]

I will now create the Tillman designs, and furthermore rule the world!

[1MajorKoenig]

1 hour ago, Cptbarney said:

@HusariuS @Airzerg @TotalRampage @Bluishdoor76 @Koogus @CapnAvont1015 @IronKaputt@Shiki @1MajorKoenig @WiselessOwl @madham82 @Skeksis @Worry_Rock @SonicB @Skyguy1944

Thanks for pinging! Will most definitely sign in again and give these a try! 

[IronKaputt]

7 minutes ago, Bluishdoor76 said:

Omg the wait is finally over

Well, there's always place for "I have altered the deal" "A further small delay might happen if we find anything urgent to fix"

[CapnAvont1015]

13 minutes ago, Bluishdoor76 said:

Omg the wait is finally over, I am glad that there are multiple issues being addressed besides just adding the new hulls, turrets and new formations. 

Here hoping next alpha will focus on addressing the issues with the designer, specifically the remaining generic hulls that are still far too restrictive compared to the newer hulls. As well as the other multiple issues such as armor and bulkheads. But for now this will fill my French ships loving heart for a while!

Hey....you got to love the French and if the French are in the campaign you can make them kick ass in it.

[Worry_Rock]

I'm going to recreating a certain new wacky Italian battleship with Quad turrets being added to wows

[Cptbarney]

47 minutes ago, Worry_Rock said:

I'm going to recreating a certain new wacky Italian battleship with Quad turrets being added to wows

ahh miss colombo, i like the look of her and now i want Italian bb's as well lol. Although older ladies and mechanics first doe.

[Worry_Rock]

Honestly, over the years I’ve slowly fallen in love with the Italian refit superstructures and I hope they’re something we get in the future 

[RxmRolla]

Wonderful, i'm glad it's finally coming out and im excited to try the new hulls. im very happy that the damage saturation and the formations were changed, But I just wish that in the future you guys would give us weekly, bi weekly or even monthly updates instead of having large gaps. But thanks for this update and im excited to try it out

[Cptbarney]

3 hours ago, Bluishdoor76 said:

Omg the wait is finally over, I am glad that there are multiple issues being addressed besides just adding the new hulls, turrets and new formations. 

Here hoping next alpha will focus on addressing the issues with the designer, specifically the remaining generic hulls that are still far too restrictive compared to the newer hulls. As well as the other multiple issues such as armor and bulkheads. But for now this will fill my French ships loving heart for a while!

Think they added a few more hulls as i swear it was only one french supercruiser/battlecruiser hull.

Im guessing alpha 10 will be the campaign but if not, they should focus on ships from 1875-1920, also deal with bulkheads and armour scheme and armour layout problems, the designer being far too restrictive and also a bit buggy and also adding a ship library saver to custom battles and also a name library as well.

Plus they could add more turret designs for existing calibers and maybe add weather effects like rain, snow, sleet, hail, wind etc. (visual effects along with codey stuff).

Cherry on top will be fuzes and propellants for shells and maybe a few new shell types as well.

[TotalRampage]

Awesome thanks for the update guys

[Bluishdoor76]

18 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Think they added a few more hulls as i swear it was only one french supercruiser/battlecruiser hull.

Im guessing alpha 10 will be the campaign but if not, they should focus on ships from 1875-1920, also deal with bulkheads and armour scheme and armour layout problems, the designer being far too restrictive and also a bit buggy and also adding a ship library saver to custom battles and also a name library as well.

Plus they could add more turret designs for existing calibers and maybe add weather effects like rain, snow, sleet, hail, wind etc. (visual effects along with codey stuff).

Cherry on top will be fuzes and propellants for shells and maybe a few new shell types as well.

I do hope they add weather effects, would love some North sea and Arctic seabattles. Specially when playing as the Russians.

Edited November 13, 2020 by Bluishdoor76

[SonicB]

8 minutes ago, Bluishdoor76 said:

I do hope they add weather effects, would love some North sea and Arctic seas battles. Specially when playing as the Russians.

Agreed, some more variety in sea state would be great. Mostly on the calmer side though I have to say. 'Calm seas' bonuses in what looks like a sea state 4-5 where small ships would even struggle to fight is... weird.