Alpha-11 Arriving!

[coalminer 69]

5 hours ago, HistoricalAccuracyMan said:

I'm glad to hear that more older era models will be coming eventually! Definitely can't wait to see those!

However, I'm curious @Nick Thomadis when will the next round of cruiser hulls/superstructures be released (such as the USS Brooklyn, USS Atlanta, IJN Takao/Myoko and other cruisers that sported unique layouts)? Or are those kinds of ships/superstructures not going to be seen for a while/if ever? Apologies for the extra ping

On the unique layouts i would prefer if the team built generic hulls (either with a stepped or flush hull) and through the use of barbette placement freedom, allow us to build such layouts. The integrated barbette and towers are quite restrictive and has been rather unpopular in the past.

[SonicB 415]

On 2/25/2021 at 3:50 AM, coalminer said:

On the unique layouts i would prefer if the team built generic hulls (either with a stepped or flush hull) and through the use of barbette placement freedom, allow us to build such layouts. The integrated barbette and towers are quite restrictive and has been rather unpopular in the past.

This! I feel a better option would have been to create a few generic hulls that could then be customised to approximate almost every historical design by adding more varied cosmetic elements and superstructure placement options.

This is opposed to the current approach where we are creating many exact replicas of very specific ships and then playing mix-and-match, allowing such themetic absurdities as a Yamato pagoda mast in front of a Richelieu aft superstructure.

[James Cornelius 498]

On 2/23/2021 at 2:13 PM, CapnAvont1015 said:

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

It's absolutely a lower priority than that stuff, sure. However I would wager it would be much easier to implement than, say, the campaign.

[Maty83 20]

I quite like this idea, although I'll note that having a specific gun model only available for a single nation (13" quads) seems like a concept not worth looking at.

While the very large BC hull is interesting, any chance we get some ship breaching 100k tons for the Royal Navy the patch after this one? Even with this improvement British battleships still decisively remain the lowest displacement of the major navies with Japanese and German designs being ones no British ship can match if both are designed competetively.

All in all though, I've been waiting for proper British hulls for a long time, so I'm happy to see those.

Edited February 27 by Maty83

[Shiki 154]

@Nick ThomadisWill there be any possibility of seeing previews of the new hulls (like those shown in previous patch announcements) over the next few days?

[Koogus 82]

I am really excited to see how much more freedom we are going to get with part placements now

[SPANISH_AVENGER 69]

Amazing! Thank you for your work, looking forward to this update, specially all the ship designer changes and additions!

 

Also glad to see a hull based on the España class battleships coming, and the Spanish cosmetic upgrades!

Edited February 28 by SPANISH_AVENGER

[kineuhansen 7]

i asume i can choose these new british ships in era 1940

[DerRichtigeArzt 109]

This fixes so much, I'll be testing it as soon as it comes out, if no major gamebreaking bugs appear this will be the biggest update yet. And it makes the game playable if not for the battles yet, just for the designer alone. Cant wait for design saving so I can start creating my fleet. 

[DerRichtigeArzt 109]

On 2/23/2021 at 7:05 PM, Fishyfish said:

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. 

I want more jap hulls because my 1st campaign playthrough will most likely be them due to beeing kinda weak so there is much to build upon. same witch china, spain, aus-hung, italy to some extent and also russia seem to be the most interesting.

[werwaz 37]

here's some of my thoughts about the announced update:

On 2/23/2021 at 7:55 AM, Nick Thomadis said:

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

• New hulls- I am all for new hulls, especially since the British currently have the smallest battleships by a large margin.
• Better placement- I never had much of a problem with the old system, but a welcome change nonetheless.
• Bulkheads and armor nerf- Bulkheads and armor have already been nerfed into the ground, and if anything, they ought to be buffed. At this rate, ships in this game are gonna become glass cannons that get 1 shotted. I understand that maybe earlier and smaller ships shouldn't be running around with max bulkheads and thick armor. Perhaps a solution that could make the currently planned arrangement work is if there was a significant weight reduction bonus (maybe 10 to 20 percent) to armor and bulkheads on the Turtleback and All-or-nothing citadels when applied to advanced battleships, or a new hull construction module that would provide the above mentioned bonuses. Of course, in order to preserve balance, both of these options would add extra cost to compensate for the weight bonus.
• AI improvements- AI ships have always seemed a bit ugly. Hopefully I will have some worthy opponents and legendary battles.

here's some other things that I think could be improved with the current game:

• The American SHBB hull has an abysmal resistance for its size, at only 81 when most tanky SHBBs have a resistance of 100+. Please at least increase the resistance to at least 100.
• Triple and quad gun turrets weigh entirely too much. As demonstrated in a previous post, the weight per gun in a triple or quad is more than a dual, which defeats the entire purpose of the triple and quad turrets, which are to save weight while using the same number of barrels. 
• More modernized super dreadnoughts like the Chinese and Austrian ones cause those are extremely fun to build on.
• Perhaps mark 4 16 and 17 inch guns in the future to emulate the 16"/50 caliber guns.

[goodsoohe 0]

Is optimization planned? (After implementation of all the core features?)

[Shiki 154]

3 hours ago, werwaz said:

Triple and quad gun turrets weigh entirely too much. As demonstrated in a previous post, the weight per gun in a triple or quad is more than a dual, which defeats the entire purpose of the triple and quad turrets, which are to save weight while using the same number of barrels. 

The weight of triple and quadruple turrets is necessarily more than a twin: after all, you have a much larger turret, with presumably similar (or thicker) armour, a larger barbette (which also needs armour) and heftier mechanisms for moving that greater weight. The weight savings lie in the arrangement of those guns: two triple turrets will weigh less overall than three twin turrets of equivalent calibre and mount protection, because the citadel - the amount of armour in the hull devoted towards the protection of the vitals - is commensurately shorter, and all of the mechanisms of a separate turret, and everything that turret needs to function, have been removed. The same principle applies to three triples or two quads vs. four or five twins, and the distinction becomes only clearer as time goes on and the amount of protection devoted to the citadel increases.

Now, I guess it ought to be said that UA:D doesn't currently model any of this: how hull armour is currently done corresponds to an extremely simplified version of a pre-dreadnought's scheme. But the equivalent weight savings of not adding an entirely separate turret or two still exist, albeit in smaller distinctions than what they might be otherwise.

[madham82 430]

6 hours ago, werwaz said:

here's some of my thoughts about the announced update:

• Bulkheads and armor nerf- Bulkheads and armor have already been nerfed into the ground, and if anything, they ought to be buffed. At this rate, ships in this game are gonna become glass cannons that get 1 shotted. I understand that maybe earlier and smaller ships shouldn't be running around with max bulkheads and thick armor. 

I've seen no evidence to support this. In fact, I've played several test engagements (BB vs DDs) where one DD would have max bulkheads and other minimal. The minimal is sunk within 2 or 3 BB caliber HE shells, whereas the max one takes 10 or more (usually thanks to miraculous recovery from flooding at least twice).  Other times it seems structural will get under 10% then never really reduce despite big (1000+ damage) hits. 

It definitely is not as bad as it was, but something is still clearly wrong with the implementation. 

[DeadlyWalrus 22]

7 hours ago, Shiki said:

The weight of triple and quadruple turrets is necessarily more than a twin: after all, you have a much larger turret, with presumably similar (or thicker) armour, a larger barbette (which also needs armour) and heftier mechanisms for moving that greater weight. The weight savings lie in the arrangement of those guns: two triple turrets will weigh less overall than three twin turrets of equivalent calibre and mount protection, because the citadel - the amount of armour in the hull devoted towards the protection of the vitals - is commensurately shorter, and all of the mechanisms of a separate turret, and everything that turret needs to function, have been removed. The same principle applies to three triples or two quads vs. four or five twins, and the distinction becomes only clearer as time goes on and the amount of protection devoted to the citadel increases.

Now, I guess it ought to be said that UA:D doesn't currently model any of this: how hull armour is currently done corresponds to an extremely simplified version of a pre-dreadnought's scheme. But the equivalent weight savings of not adding an entirely separate turret or two still exist, albeit in smaller distinctions than what they might be otherwise.

So, you're not wrong that being able to fit a reduced number of turrets for a given number of guns does result in considerable weight savings, however, there could also be substantial weight savings just in the turret itself.  If you look at the Nevada-class, for instance, the two-gun turret was 618 tons while the triple turret was 748 tons... a pretty small increase for the addition of an extra gun.  Now there are some differences between the two designs so it's not a direct 1:1 comparison, but considering we're looking at the exact same tech level it does appear that you could get significant per-gun weight savings just be putting more guns in one turret.

Edited March 3 by DeadlyWalrus

[CapnAvont1015 354]

Although I highly doubt this but I really hope that the patch drops before or during the weekend so I can melt my brain with the new content until five in the morning. Again I doubt it's gonna drop this week.

[Steeltrap 700]

On 2/27/2021 at 3:49 AM, SonicB said:

This! I feel a better option would have been to create a few generic hulls that could then be customised to approximate almost every historical design by adding more varied cosmetic elements and superstructure placement options.

This is opposed to the current approach where we are creating many exact replicas of very specific ships and then playing mix-and-match, allowing such themetic absurdities as a Yamato pagoda mast in front of a Richelieu aft superstructure.

I wrote a post quite some time ago now where I said were I doing this from scratch I'd have done what the designers were known to do.

Which was? Well, they were given parameters such as:

- maximum dimensions (such as the 'famous' 108ft beam for USN BBs so they could fit through the Panama Canal, a rule USS Montana was in fact going to drop)

- a required maximum speed, sometimes a specific number other times a range

- endurance (i.e. how far can you go and at what speeds?)

- main armament calibre, which typically also had implications for...

- armour thicknesses on vital areas plus the scheme (distributed v all or nothing, for example)

...and then they give a few options.

You'd expect a planned higher speed to require more powerful engineering plant and/or different hull shape. You can make the case the Iowa's are essentially "stretched" South Dakota class ships to achieve the 33kt top speed while the armour largely didn't change.

What this would have done is encourage the player to think about the very real compromises and shifting of priorities that resulted in the ships that historically WERE built. An obvious example would be something like the London and Washington naval treaties that put specific limits on armament and tonnage. Thus you'd think if it were in the game you'd be taking some sort of risk of meaningful penalties were you to decide to cheat, if not outright abandon, the treaty limits.

Building THAT system would have had much better long term prospects IMO, as it would result in hulls being produced that are a direct consequence of the choices being made, exactly as tended to happen.

As it is the devs have to spend time churning out hulls one at a time vs building a system that would do THAT for them were they to build the underlying logic that leads to them.

But they didn't, aren't about to, so I'm probably wasting my time repeating it, not to mention that of anyone who reads it, LOL.

It DOES make me wonder why choices are made in so many games that don't seem to start with the "what do we know about XYZ historically" and take it from there, or if they DO they end up producing something so far removed from it that they might as well have not asked the question for all that it's apparent to the player.

Cheers

😜

[Hangar18 156]

On 2/23/2021 at 1:05 PM, Fishyfish said:

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. 

I feel like a baltimore, and a takao hull would be beneficial. past that it seems redundant.

On 2/23/2021 at 8:58 PM, Nick Thomadis said:

We will make beam/draught configurable soon, to allow more flexibility on those design choices.

That'll be a pretty huge thing to do. Look forward to seeing how thats all done.

 

Still holding on to hope all crusier variants will get some 5" secondary snap points for their towers

[Shiki 154]

47 minutes ago, Hangar18 said:

I feel like a Baltimore, and a Takao hull would be beneficial. past that it seems redundant.

A Baltimore - or more specifically, Wichita - based hull would be optimal, since all of the major prewar and wartime U.S. designs (Brooklyn, St. Louis, Cleveland, Wichita, Baltimore, Oregon City, etc.) used that same basic hullform: only the dimensions tended to change in regards to the hull (which works for UA:D since many hulls are upscaled/downscaled versions of one another anyway).

For the Japanese, it's not quite as straightforward. The Myōkō class, for example, share a similar hullform: practically everything is identical across the two '10,000-tonner' designs, except for the fact that Takao's widest point is just amidships, whereas Myōkō's is more aft (you will note that this is where the torpedo rooms, workshop, oxygen generators, and reserve torpedoes are placed, as well as the laundry rooms in Takao's case, so they need that extra space). Unfortunately, the way UA:D has chosen to go with its hulls means that you need two separate hulls in this case (as well as a separate hull for Mogami and the 7,600-tonners, Furutaka and Aoba, since none of those are identical to the two 'Washington cruiser' types either), since the superstructures wouldn't match.

My wishlist for hulls is:
US -

Heavy Cruiser (IV?) - Baltimore / Oregon City / Cleveland / Fargo.

Heavy Cruiser (III?) - Wichita / St. Louis / Brooklyn.

Heavy Cruiser (II?) - Representative of U.S. heavy cruisers between Northampton and New Orleans.

Heavy Cruiser (I?) - Pepsi. Pepsican. Pensacan. Pensacola. Colacan. Many names exist for this 10-gun aluminum death trap.

Light Cruiser (IV?) - Small Brooklyn (there were studies about 9- and 8-gun CLs).

Light Cruiser (III?) - Atlanta / Oakland.

Light Cruiser (II?) - Omaha.

Japan -

Heavy Cruiser (VI?) - Takao Kai (14,500 to 17,500 t?)

Heavy Cruiser (V?) - Mogami / Ibuki / Tone.

Heavy Cruiser (IV?) - Takao (& Atago) (1937) / Chōkai (1929) / Maya (1944).

Heavy Cruiser (III?) - Myōkō (1922) & Myōkō (1941). Maybe Haguro could be used instead for the slightly simpler superstructure.

Heavy Cruiser (II?) - Furutaka (1927) / Aoba (1940).

Edited March 3 by Shiki

[Hangar18 156]

10 minutes ago, Shiki said:

A Baltimore - or more specifically, Wichita - based hull would be optimal, since all of the major prewar and wartime U.S. designs (Brooklyn, St. Louis, Cleveland, Wichita, Baltimore, Oregon City, etc.) used that same basic hullform: only the dimensions tended to change in regards to the hull (which works for UA:D since many hulls are upscaled/downscaled versions of one another anyway).

For the Japanese, it's not quite as straightforward. The Myōkō class, for example, share a similar hullform: practically everything is identical across the two '10,000-tonner' designs, except for the fact that Takao's widest point is just amidships, whereas Myōkō's is more aft (you will note that this is where the torpedo rooms, workshop, oxygen generators, and reserve torpedoes are placed, as well as the laundry rooms in Takao's case, so they need that extra space). Unfortunately, the way UA:D has chosen to go with its hulls means that you need two separate hulls in this case (as well as a separate hull for Mogami and the 7,600-tonners, Furutaka and Aoba, since none of those are identical to the two 'Washington cruiser' types either), since the superstructures wouldn't match.

My wishlist for hulls is:
US -

Heavy Cruiser (IV?) - Baltimore / Oregon City / Cleveland / Fargo.

Heavy Cruiser (III?) - Wichita / St. Louis / Brooklyn.

Heavy Cruiser (II?) - Representative of U.S. heavy cruisers between Northampton and New Orleans.

Heavy Cruiser (I?) - Pepsi. Pepsican. Pensacan. Pensacola. Colacan. Many names exist for this 10-gun aluminum death trap.

Light Cruiser (IV?) - Small Brooklyn (there were studies about 9- and 8-gun CLs).

Light Cruiser (III?) - Atlanta / Oakland.

Light Cruiser (II?) - Omaha.

Japan -

Heavy Cruiser (VI?) - Takao Kai (14,500 to 17,500 t?)

Heavy Cruiser (V?) - Mogami / Ibuki / Tone.

Heavy Cruiser (IV?) - Takao.

Heavy Cruiser (III?) - Myōkō.

Heavy Cruiser (II?) - Furutaka / Aoba.

I dont think we need that many hulls. but your point about hull forms being similar is exactly why i pointed out those few.

[Shiki 154]

Just now, Hangar18 said:

I dont think we need that many hulls. but your point about hull forms being similar is exactly why i pointed out those few.

Unfortunately, we do need precisely that many hulls if UA:D continues on the path of adding specific ships and then allowing you to deviate from that basic design. Since all of these ships differed appreciably from one another, they have to be added, and sooner rather than later- after all, even in a game about dreadnoughts, cruiser battles are going to be far more common and you'll have to spend a lot more time on them.

[Cptbarney 2,772]

1 hour ago, Shiki said:

Unfortunately, we do need precisely that many hulls if UA:D continues on the path of adding specific ships and then allowing you to deviate from that basic design. Since all of these ships differed appreciably from one another, they have to be added, and sooner rather than later- after all, even in a game about dreadnoughts, cruiser battles are going to be far more common and you'll have to spend a lot more time on them.

Im hoping we still get somekind of modular hull system even if its only just swapping the front and the rear with other hulls that are very similar and somewhat similar (not sure how meshes would react to both being very different). But seems like we will probs just get full non-modular sets.

Be ye im dying to get my hands on a Baltimore maybe des memes if we get lucky hull, so i can make miss pitty pittsburgh. 

[Cptbarney 2,772]

12 hours ago, CapnAvont1015 said:

Although I highly doubt this but I really hope that the patch drops before or during the weekend so I can melt my brain with the new content until five in the morning. Again I doubt it's gonna drop this week.

Barneh sprinkles dust to make it appear this week. 

'w'

[Skeksis 580]

20 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Im hoping we still get somekind of modular hull system even if its only just swapping the front and the rear with other hulls that are very similar and somewhat similar (not sure how meshes would react to both being very different). But seems like we will probs just get full non-modular sets.

They’ll probably change that steam video just before v1.0 release, when things are close to finalizing and they have time.

[Cptbarney 2,772]

Just now, Skeksis said:

They’ll probably change that steam video just before v1.0 release, when things are close to finalizing and they have time.

Ye, make sense. I reckon we got 2-3 years before then. Which would be more than enough time to get the designer up to speed, whether its a non-modular system, limited-modular or full-modular.

AI will have to settle with smoll designer forevah.