Alpha-11 Arriving!

[Nick Thomadis]

Dear Admirals,

Our progress on the campaign and the first core patch is steady. Our team is also growing and is able to work faster and more effectively. Until we deliver our planned major patch, we wanted to update the game for you with more content and various improvements that you have asked for. Here is what we are preparing to deliver with the upcoming Alpha-11 version of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts.

NEW HULL & MODELS

• New hull which allows to recreate the King George V-class battleship for the British Empire. You can find this hull with the name “Modern Battleship I” in custom battles after the year 1929.
• New British Modern Battleship II variant with displacement between 55,500 and 75,500 tons, available after 1936, which can reproduce ships similar to HMS Vanguard or larger speculative designs.
• New British Modernized Dreadnought variant with displacement between 32,000 and 39,000 tons, available after 1927, which can produce ships similar to HMS Warspite.
• New British Modernized Battlecruiser variant with displacement between 40,000 and 53,000 tons, available after 1935, which can produce speculative improved versions of HMS Hood.
• New British Super Battlecruiser variant with displacement between 67,500 and 82,500 tons, available after 1935. This hull can produce battlecruiser designs that never existed but will test the limits of the battlecruiser concept, offering very high speed, large firepower and protection.
• New British Large Cruiser variant with displacement between 30,500 and 36,000 tons, available after 1935, which can produce medium size capital ships with large firepower.
• New British Heavy Cruiser III variant with displacement between 16,500 and 19,500 tons, available after 1925. This type of hull has a low freeboard and can produce ships which combine speed, stealth and decent firepower.
• New British Heavy Cruiser II variant with displacement between 12,500 and 16,900 tons, available after 1925. This strong hull with high freeboard can offer cruiser designs with powerful armament at a reasonable cost.
• New Spanish Heavy Cruiser II variant with displacement between 18,500 and 21,500 tons, available after 1925. This type of hull is a hybrid between a modern battlecruiser and a heavy cruiser, so it can produce quite strong ships at an affordable cost.
• New Spanish Small Dreadnought variant with displacement between 15,500 and 17,500 tons, available after 1906 for Spain and also for China. This hull, which is similar to the Spanish Dreadnought Espana, offers the design of cheap, rather cumbersome ships which, though, can be quite powerful as gun platforms.
• New Armoured Cruiser variant with displacement between 8,500 and 10,500 tons, available after 1903 for Italy and China.
• Improvements in late Spanish cruisers with new parts and hull fixes.
• New towers and other parts for several older hull types.

NEW GUNS & IMPROVEMENTS

• Various new gun models for the British late techs.
• Update of Spain’s late guns with new models.
• Quadruple 13-inch guns only available for the French.
• Quadruple secondary guns (2,3 and 4 inches) for the French. 
• Gun scale fixes according to feedback.

SHIP DESIGN IMPROVEMENTS/FIXES

• Fixed old bug which sometimes caused the AI to design ships with unoccupied barbettes or place very small guns on huge barbettes. 
• New feature that stops you placing Secondary Towers or Funnels in front of Main Towers. Such designs will produce an error which you must fix. This new feature also repairs the bug of AI which could design unrealistic ships with funnels or secondary towers misplaced in front of a main tower.
• Increased the flexibility for all mount types. For every hull, you will notice much larger freedom in placing the various ship parts. Moreover, you can override the mount snap points by pressing the CTRL button so you can add the part (Towers, Funnels, Barbettes etc.) in a continuous area between the allowed space.
• Armor and Bulkheads weight rebalance. Heavily armored ships will have significant weight demands. Ships with maximum bulkheads will weigh more. Ships with minimum bulkheads will weigh slightly less, so the trade off between bulkhead protection and other ship assets will be more pronounced.
• The guns mounted in free mode are now placed in proper forward/rear alignment according to position, instead of facing always at the sides.
• Fixed various issues with boat decor (boats overlapping with other parts) and enriched the areas where boats can appear on deck or on ship parts.
• Various Auto-Design improvements aid the AI to build successful ship designs consistently.

AI IMPROVEMENT

• Further AI improvement makes AI ships to keep a more effective firing distance at all circumstances. 
• Fixed issue which caused ships on scout/screen mode to fight at very large, extreme ranges, causing them to stall their movement too often. 

NAVAL ACADEMY

New mission: “Enforce the British Rule”:

Germany has prevailed in World War II and has ultimately conquered Europe. France remains a client state and contributes with her naval facilities in the construction of a new, more powerful German Navy. Although weakened, Britain remains a potent naval force and aims to meet, engage and decisively defeat the growing German fleet. With scarce resources you are called to build the main force of your fleet, either focusing on battleships or by building more numerous advanced cruisers. Smaller cruisers and destroyers will supplement your attacking fleet.

OTHER

• Improved gun splash dispersion at close range. Shells that miss should not fly so wide against the target as before.
• Various text fixes for loading screens.
• Removed Naval Academy difficulty options, which were not working.
• Repaired graphics issues at lowest settings (Fast, Fastest) that made visuals completely broken and also caused torpedo trails to not be visible.

We hope this patch will make you enjoy the game even more! We will notify you very soon about the date of its release.

Thank you for reading,

The Game-Labs Team

[Rak1445]

Outstanding work!

[Cptbarney]

Yay, wasnt expecting a patch before the first core patch. Very noice too see new british hulls but also the old ladies getting some appearance, hope we can see more in that department as well.

Like the fact that we can effectively ignore the snap points essentially a good step in my opinion, although i hope the modular design case is still viable for designing ships with even if the AI has to use the legacy version.

Noice lil patch.

@Marshall99 @HusariuS @IronKaputt @Aceituna @Shiki @BobRoss0902 @Airzerg @CapnAvont1015 @Gangut @Koogus @TotalRampage @1MajorKoenig soz to dah rest that i may have missed.

[Cptbarney]

@Bluishdoor76 @KiltedKey Almost forgot you two lol.

 

@Tousansonsshhh 'w'

Edited February 23, 2021 by Cptbarney

[1MajorKoenig]

37 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Yay, wasnt expecting a patch before the first core patch. Very noice too see new british hulls but also the old ladies getting some appearance, hope we can see more in that department as well.

Like the fact that we can effectively ignore the snap points essentially a good step in my opinion, although i hope the modular design case is still viable for designing ships with even if the AI has to use the legacy version.

Noice lil patch.

@Marshall99 @HusariuS @IronKaputt @Aceituna @Shiki @BobRoss0902 @Airzerg @CapnAvont1015 @Gangut @Koogus @TotalRampage @1MajorKoenig soz to dah rest that i may have missed.

Thanks for pinging!
 

Great news - looking forward to more flexibility and hulls!

[Cptbarney]

Just now, 1MajorKoenig said:

Thanks for pinging!
 

Great news - looking forward to more flexibility and hulls!

Me thinks we will see a fat load of german hulls next, dunno which other nations might get paired up with germany. Maybe italy and austria-hungary? Also nice too see some old ladies appear as well.

[Zuikaku]

Have you considered adding some '80s ironclad hulls and predreadnoughts? 

 

[Cptbarney]

9 minutes ago, Zuikaku said:

Have you considered adding some '80s ironclad hulls and predreadnoughts? 

 

@Nick ThomadisSorry to bug you, but i also like to know if the old ladies will be making any appearances from 1875-1900? Maybe 1-3 hulls per patch or something?

[Gangut]

2 hours ago, Cptbarney said:

Yay, wasnt expecting a patch before the first core patch. Very noice too see new british hulls but also the old ladies getting some appearance, hope we can see more in that department as well.

Like the fact that we can effectively ignore the snap points essentially a good step in my opinion, although i hope the modular design case is still viable for designing ships with even if the AI has to use the legacy version.

Noice lil patch.

@Marshall99 @HusariuS @IronKaputt @Aceituna @Shiki @BobRoss0902 @Airzerg @CapnAvont1015 @Gangut @Koogus @TotalRampage @1MajorKoenig soz to dah rest that i may have missed.

Cheers for the ping.

That's some great stuff, and I'm looking forward to the removal of snapping points, mainly because it now means I can optimise my designs a bit more. When the campaign comes round in full form I think it'll be cool to play as a minor nation like Spain or China, and try and match one of the major navies in some way. Although china would be one hell of a challenge.

[coalminer]

2 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

*Edited and snipped to reduce clutter*

 

NEW HULL & MODELS

• New British Heavy Cruiser III variant with displacement between 16,500 and 19,500 tons, available after 1925. This type of hull has a low freeboard and can produce ships which combine speed, stealth and decent firepower.

• New British Heavy Cruiser II variant with displacement between 12,500 and 16,900 tons, available after 1925. This strong hull with high freeboard can offer cruiser designs with powerful armament at a reasonable cost.

 

NEW GUNS & IMPROVEMENTS

• Quadruple secondary guns (2,3 and 4 inches) for the French. 

SHIP DESIGN IMPROVEMENTS/FIXES

• Increased the flexibility for all mount types. For every hull, you will notice much larger freedom in placing the various ship parts. Moreover, you can override the mount snap points by pressing the CTRL button so you can add the part (Towers, Funnels, Barbettes etc.) in a continuous area between the allowed space.

• Armor and Bulkheads weight rebalance. Heavily armored ships will have significant weight demands. Ships with maximum bulkheads will weigh more. Ships with minimum bulkheads will weigh slightly less, so the trade off between bulkhead protection and other ship assets will be more pronounced.

We hope this patch will make you enjoy the game even more! We will notify you very soon about the date of its release.

First off, good work on the new patch and on the designer changes. Heres hoping for more parts in the future.

Secondly, this is going to sound nitpicky but some points to consider:

1. The claim of low/high freeboard offering more design choices is not appropriate. Armour is not accurately modeled to factor in coverage of belt/decks/below waterline nor does the weather/sea interact with the hull. Besides visual choice, freeboard does not matter at all (short of stat tweaking which is not at all related to the claimed freeboard difference) and i have not noticed any significant difference for existing hulls which do have some form of difference in freeboard. If freeboard affects damage calculations (e.g. impact angles due to larger belt area) then we must be given the ability to tweak freeboard values (even if its just between low, normal and high) with the respective impacts to flooding survivability and stability.
2. Linked to the first point but it demonstrates clearly why the armour system needs a rework. Weight rebalanced against what? what historic data is there to back the rebalance? is it yet again another arbitrary change to armour effectiveness against X calibres because they offer the best balance of firepower/weight/cost? can we have the rationales and what has been changed in the armour numbers?
3. Could we also explore 7" secondaries on armoured cruisers to allow accurate modelling of certain prewar designs where its all about slapping on the most variety of guns everywhere? (e.g. minotaur class, SMS Scharnhorst, etc.)

Here's hoping to more future patches to address the points the community has brought up.

[Cptbarney]

8 minutes ago, coalminer said:

First off, good work on the new patch and on the designer changes. Heres hoping for more parts in the future.

Secondly, this is going to sound nitpicky but some points to consider:

1. The claim of low/high freeboard offering more design choices is not appropriate. Armour is not accurately modeled to factor in coverage of belt/decks/below waterline nor does the weather/sea interact with the hull. Besides visual choice, freeboard does not matter at all (short of stat tweaking which is not at all related to the claimed freeboard difference) and i have not noticed any significant difference for existing hulls which do have some form of difference in freeboard. If freeboard affects damage calculations (e.g. impact angles due to larger belt area) then we must be given the ability to tweak freeboard values (even if its just between low, normal and high) with the respective impacts to flooding survivability and stability.
2. Linked to the first point but it demonstrates clearly why the armour system needs a rework. Weight rebalanced against what? what historic data is there to back the rebalance? is it yet again another arbitrary change to armour effectiveness against X calibres because they offer the best balance of firepower/weight/cost? can we have the rationales and what has been changed in the armour numbers?
3. Could we also explore 7" secondaries on armoured cruisers to allow accurate modelling of certain prewar designs where its all about slapping on the most variety of guns everywhere? (e.g. minotaur class, SMS Scharnhorst, etc.)

Here's hoping to more future patches to address the points the community has brought up.

Hopefully we see a armour rework, along with internal pieces too and a gunnery system based less on RNG as well. And more of the old ladies of course.

Otherwise its a good step regardless, we still have the core patch as well to come out soon after this one. Makes me wonder what we will see there.

[Fishyfish]

Oh my, well goodness gracious great fish a floppin look at this. 

So, ahem. The Spanish Dreadnought Espana.. she had.. en echelon turrets.. does that mean? Could it be? No.. no it couldn't be. But none the less, a lovely little dreadnought, the smallest true dreadnought battleships ever built if I'm not mistaken. 

Only the Espana and the new armored cruiser hull speak to me, an armored cruiser for Italy and China you say? Hrum.. maybe something influenced by the Giuseppe Garibaldi class?

Those ship design improvements are exciting! All of that section is very interesting and I eagerly look forward to seeing these improvements. 

 

Some good stuff here, I'm very interested to see how it goes. Cheers to you gentlemen, keep up the hard work.  

[CapnAvont1015]

Welp! I know what I'm doing when this patch drops.

Time to bring out Captain Broken.

[Cptbarney]

3 minutes ago, CapnAvont1015 said:

Welp! I know what I'm doing when this patch drops.

Time to bring out Captain Broken.

you can gib her quads too!

[1MajorKoenig]

25 minutes ago, coalminer said:

The claim of low/high freeboard

Where did you find freeboard?

[CapnAvont1015]

1 minute ago, Cptbarney said:

you can gib her quads too!

Woah mate that's going way to far! Still might though.

[Cptbarney]

1 hour ago, CapnAvont1015 said:

Woah mate that's going way to far! Still might though.

20inch quads lol.

And i can finally make miss monarch too.

[Fishyfish]

All these new modern hulls, eh. 

 

There's only one set of modern hulls I want, and I'm sure I'll just set off the weebs when I admit this, but I want me some Japanese heavy cruisers. I'd love a Tone, a myoko, a takao, an aoba.. a furutaka,.. but mostly that Tone. 

 

After that no more modern hulls please. Heaps and heaps of old hulls please. 

[Jatzi]

2 hours ago, coalminer said:

First off, good work on the new patch and on the designer changes. Heres hoping for more parts in the future.

Secondly, this is going to sound nitpicky but some points to consider:

1. The claim of low/high freeboard offering more design choices is not appropriate. Armour is not accurately modeled to factor in coverage of belt/decks/below waterline nor does the weather/sea interact with the hull. Besides visual choice, freeboard does not matter at all (short of stat tweaking which is not at all related to the claimed freeboard difference) and i have not noticed any significant difference for existing hulls which do have some form of difference in freeboard. If freeboard affects damage calculations (e.g. impact angles due to larger belt area) then we must be given the ability to tweak freeboard values (even if its just between low, normal and high) with the respective impacts to flooding survivability and stability.
2. Linked to the first point but it demonstrates clearly why the armour system needs a rework. Weight rebalanced against what? what historic data is there to back the rebalance? is it yet again another arbitrary change to armour effectiveness against X calibres because they offer the best balance of firepower/weight/cost? can we have the rationales and what has been changed in the armour numbers?
3. Could we also explore 7" secondaries on armoured cruisers to allow accurate modelling of certain prewar designs where its all about slapping on the most variety of guns everywhere? (e.g. minotaur class, SMS Scharnhorst, etc.)

Here's hoping to more future patches to address the points the community has brought up.

I want 8" secondary options for early armored cruisers. I really enjoy using heavy secondaries on my predreads and early CA's to create kind of early pocket battlecruisers in RTW 2. 10 or 11" main battery with 8in casemates on like 13 or 14k tons, 22-24 knots, 5-6in main belt. They've always performed rather well, even standing in my main battle line against pre-dreadnoughts and in one case sinking one in a 2v1 fight. Or even 8in main battery with more 8 in guns in casemates, an interesting arrangement that I have rarely tried in RTW before but want to use more often. Not even close to being possible here even though it was a thing, the Omaha class CL's being a clear example with 4 6in twin turrets and 8 casemates making up it's main battery. It's effectiveness leaves something to be questioned most likely but I want the option

[SonicB]

5 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Increased the flexibility for all mount types. For every hull, you will notice much larger freedom in placing the various ship parts. Moreover, you can override the mount snap points by pressing the CTRL button so you can add the part (Towers, Funnels, Barbettes etc.) in a continuous area between the allowed space.

Superb. Thank you so much for listening to everyone who was asking for this change.

Looks like a great patch and hope to see it soon - I'm glad to hear integrating the new team is going well.

[Shiki]

6 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

• New British Large Cruiser variant with displacement between 30,500 and 36,000 tons, available after 1935, which can produce medium size capital ships with large firepower.

• New British Heavy Cruiser III variant with displacement between 16,500 and 19,500 tons, available after 1925. This type of hull has a low freeboard and can produce ships which combine speed, stealth and decent firepower.

• New British Heavy Cruiser II variant with displacement between 12,500 and 16,900 tons, available after 1925. This strong hull with high freeboard can offer cruiser designs with powerful armament at a reasonable cost.

@Nick Thomadis If you can provide the information, what base will these new cruiser hulls be using? Will they be using existing assets or will we be obtaining hulls modeled on the County class vessels and potentially the Town-class light cruisers? The latter were the basis for several heavy cruiser studies in the 1930s, so I'm curious about the visual aspects of these new ships.

Additionally, I'm curious if it would be possible to add variants with a displacement of 9,500 to 11,500 tons, to simulate Treaty-bound cruisers, available from 1920 onward.

Edited February 23, 2021 by Shiki

[James Cornelius]

I would like to see the ability to change paint schemes on the ship - either in the pre-dreadnought era of painted hulls (like the US Great White Fleet or other navies aesthetic choices) or the ability to put dazzle or other schemes on in the WWI/WWII era.

[CapnAvont1015]

3 minutes ago, James Cornelius said:

I would like to see the ability to change paint schemes on the ship - either in the pre-dreadnought era of painted hulls (like the US Great White Fleet or other navies aesthetic choices) or the ability to put dazzle or other schemes on in the WWI/WWII era.

A cosmetic update would most likely come after we get campaign and other important stuff out of the way.

[Skeksis]

Quote

Removed Naval Academy difficulty options, which were not working.

This is not good.

Is this for academy only and/or is it going to be revisited. Will the campaign still have such setting. What is actually going wrong, could we brainstorm idea’s to solve easy/hard mode issues, like where/how/what could be done to achieve different playing levels from a players point of view.  

Many questions, I just can’t think of any game that I’ve played where there isn’t different playing levels. 😟

Edited February 23, 2021 by Skeksis

[madham82]

26 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

This is not good.

Is this for academy only and/or is it going to be revisited. Will the campaign still have such setting. What is actually going wrong, could we brainstorm idea’s to solve easy/hard mode issues, like where/how/what could be done to achieve different playing levels from a players point of view.  

Many questions, I just can’t think of any game that I’ve played where there isn’t different playing levels. 😟

I don't read that it is being abandoned, but that they are removing the option b/c of the confusion it was causing. Since the option was added in a previous alpha, but no changes in actual difficulty were being made.