>>>Beta Feedback December 21'<<<

[akd]

5 hours ago, Grayknight said:

Over all i will say when it comes to french in early years they are very fun. Their ships can be very very very powerfull especially CA with alot of torpedo underwater placment. In fact i would say that those CAs are the most powerfull ships when it comes to ships that are not bb in this time span.

The new French Armoured Cruiser II and III are the only pre-dreadnought Armoured Cruisers in game that can mount anything near a proper battery of 6-inch guns (I think; definitely can't on Brit and German armoured cruisers as I've found in the campaigns so far), like almost all armoured cruisers carried historically, which is ironic because the French were one of the few not to consistently mount 6-inch batteries on their armoured cruisers (although 6-inch in game is probably the best equivalent to the 5.5-inch guns the early French ships did typically carry before they moved to 6.4-inch batteries on ACs).  That alone makes them much more powerful in their intended role compared to the others, but the super-firing main turrets put them quite literally far into the future compared to their contemporaries.  Still under-armed with 6- to 8-inch guns compared to their historical counterparts, however.

Edited December 25, 2021 by akd

[T_the_ferret]

Main thing is for some reason on the french armored cruiser the life boats count as collision model unlike on every other ship, which means you can't put the front and rear tower where they should be

[Grayknight]

I finished my test with those new hulls when it comes to CL you can create very potent destroyer leades, convoy raiders and over all gunships.

 

When it comes to CA you can create most powerfull early ships in the game i just in 1898 took down (with 3 CAs tho one was eliminated from the battle due to engine destroying torpedo hit early on (it was 100% my mistake) 1BB 2CA 2 CL and 2 TBs

AI fought competently but it couldent withstand amount of torpedoes i was throwing at it.

Main down side and only weaknes of those hulls are turning circles which are not such a big probllems since with a bit of planing you can prevent torpedo damage on your side and if you cannot then 1-2 torpedo hits vs 6torpedo thrown in to water by you... it is still a good trade.

 

In my testing i also found out that this CA is more powerfull when it comes to broadsight weight and potential armor/speed then many BBs

 

I with 23 knots of spee was able to mount 10.2 inches of main belt armor (Harvey) 7 inches coaning tower. Maximum bulkheads

My broad side was: 1x2 10inch; 2x2 7inch; 8x2 5inch guns (4 pers side) 38x1 2inch guns (14 per gun) one random 1x2 2inch gun for fun with por fireing angle oh and you know 1 forward and aft torpedo and 8 torpedo launchers per side

 

IT is far more powerfull then enemy BB that had 2x2 11 inch; 4x1 6 inch 8x1 4 inch 2x1 3 inch standard bulkheads and 18 knots up to 13 inch in thickest armor

[Darth Khyron]

In convoy raid missions, the enemy is so often keen to sink your raiders at all costs, they fire devastating torpedo salvoes (wich in most cases comprise of twelve to 20 torpedoes per enemy cruiser) that they often take their own transports down. I have now repeatedly seen (and used to my advantage).

[KV128]

Hi,

I started a new 1890 German campaign to test out a challenge using the 1.01 BETA and notice the Hard Random AI is able to build 14 BB, 34 CA, 5CL, and 6TB.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2696102635

1890 German

Difficulty: Hard

AI Behavior: Random

I know this does not happen often; so please add the option to skew the starting campaign AI fleet composition. I really want to see more BB battle in later campaign years.

Also when starting the new campaign, please add options to give the AI Unrest and Prestige Bonus so they can cope with losing BB. 

[AurumCorvus]

I had an odd bug of losing control of my CLs.

To set up the situation: This was a 1940s campaign, 4v4 CLs. To avoid the initial wave of torpedoes, I gave my ships the new 'avoid torpedoes' command. While this was happening, my leading ship got hit by a pair of torpedoes. Second ship became leading ship.

At this point, despite turning off the torpedo command, my leading ship was locked into a hard (not full rudder, but what you can order by clicking) port turn. Despite giving a new "Steady" command, cycling through the 'avoid torpedo' command, and giving another "Steady" command my leading ship continued going around and around.

I'm not sure if it'll happen again so I can pin it down ever further, but we'll see.

Editted: Yep, just had the same bug occur again. Same situation, this time with a 2 CL division (convoy raid). Turn on 'avoid torpedo', lose control of leading ship, second ship still has a rogue 'avoid torpedo' no matter what I do.

Edited December 27, 2021 by AurumCorvus
Moar data

[Phelidai]

Uhhh... what? Tower takes away 36 smoke interference and tech adds 54. What tech? The tower is the ONLY thing changed in this ship since the editor was opened. No funnels. No engine tech changes. Nothing. Tower somehow emits 54 smoke. Germany campaign, 1910, initial fleet.

If you were looking with bugs in the beta, I can say I've never encountered anything like this until i switched on the beta mode.

Edit: Confirmed that this bug persists with other towers, and on other hulls/classes. Also persists when campaign was competely restarted, same with the entire game.
Experimented a bit and figured out that adding funnels reduces smoke interference... to a point. Then it starts going back up like normal.

Edited December 27, 2021 by Phelidai
New bug info.

[Grayknight]

This is very strange. Look at the VP numbers their CLs are half the price of mine and roughly the same displacment

[Norbert Sattler]

Since the last patch I had several instances where the collision avoidance system got stuck.

Ships would keep toodling along at a minimum course, according to the green lines trying to change course, but because both ships tried to turn toward each other, they'd just keep driving in a straight line.

So I untangled them myself, but even with multiple kilometers sometimes one and sometimes both ships would keep trying to "avoid" something that wasn't there and thus kept turning in circles on the spot. Using the manual rudder control means I can still somewhat streer them, but not in an effective manner.

I tried switching torpedo avoidance mode on and off, I tried detaching and attaching the ship(s) to formation, but nothing seems to work. Once they are stuck like that, they will be to the end of the mission.

I also noticed that letting faster ships follow slower ones can be a bit hazardous, because the faster ship will sometimes speed up to the point of getting so close to the slower ship that they both will get stuck in exactly such a situation, where they get so close that their collision avoidance kicks in, but they are both trying to turn toward each other and thus are stuck driving in a line... with the added potential of getting stuck in collision avoidance mode permanently like described above.

On that note, it'd be nice if collision avoidance could be completely turned off at will, just in case it is doing something I don't want it to do... not just bugging out.

[Grayknight]

Enemy CA just torpedoes another enemy CA my CA almost torpedoed my CA... i will call it a bug

[TAKTCOM]

I'm kind of confused - is this a new bug or an old one?

Client: beta
Mode: custom
Hulls: all
Countries: all
Years: 1918-1919

[Littorio]

9 hours ago, Grayknight said:

This is very strange. Look at the VP numbers their CLs are half the price of mine and roughly the same displacment

Known critical issues

• The custom battle may not allow you to use a saved design (false "Invalid Design") if you exit the Design interface and re-enter for various known reasons.
• The Victory Point calculations are very buggy in battles that include TR. Especially when you sink TR in combat they can cause extreme victory points count and cause the end of a campaign.

[Grayknight]

17 minutes ago, Littorio said:

• The custom battle may not allow you to use a saved design (false "Invalid Design") if you exit the Design interface and re-enter for various known reasons.
• The Victory Point calculations are very buggy in battles that include TR. Especially when you sink TR in combat they can cause extreme victory points count and cause the end of a campaign.

Ah true forgot about it... I have noticed AI geting constantly more VP and got annoyed by it, but i cannot remember if this heapened only with and maybe without transports.

Over all i think that it is something that is a bit buged over all. I am preaty sure that AI simply get more VP across the board but i am willing to admit that i may be wrong. Thanks for pointing that out

 

[AurumCorvus]

Maybe I haven't made enough designs yet, but the later French hulls seem to get worse as time goes on. While this is probably a historical limitation, it feels really odd gameplay-wise. This is mainly due to the weirdly-sized lower deck at the aft of the ship that gets added, and the fact that French designs get a lot more 'stuff' on their hulls (like lifeboat cranes and stuff) as time goes on.

Like with Ironclad BB I, I can fit in 3x 11" turrets. For II & III, I can fit 4x 12" turrets on either hulls. And these ships can be well-made to the point that they'd give a dreadnought a run for its money (though much slower, obviously).

Then, when I unlock the true BB hulls, it feels like I get worse hulls. On the BB I, I can fit 2x 11" turrets. While this is certainly historical, it feels really odd having built ironclad battleships that could fit a much better main battery.

On the BB II hull, I either have to fit 10" guns (and just two of them) due to the weird size of the lower deck (and the fact that the secondary tower *must* be where an "X" turret kinda would be) or I have to mismatch the main battery to take advantage of the greater fore space.

Either Ironclad hulls should be nerfed, or BB hulls should get some greater flexibility. Not sure which.

Also, the basic problems seem to exist with the cruiser hulls as well, but I've barely played around with them except to just see how they look.

On the other hand, I really love the fact that greater turret secondaries are being incorporated into the pre-dread designs. And pre-dread designs in general.

[Grayknight]

18 minutes ago, AurumCorvus said:

aybe I haven't made enough designs yet, but the later French hulls seem to get worse as time goes on. While this is probably a historical limitation, it feels really odd gameplay-wise. This is mainly due to the weirdly-sized lower deck at the aft of the ship that gets added, and the fact that French designs get a lot more 'stuff' on their hulls (like lifeboat cranes and stuff) as time goes on.

It is my impression that more powerfull and over all "braver" hulls will come. Right now in many cases they are bare-bones.

Also I have to point out to dev that while enemy is some times incapable of using its BBs and BCs they over all proved to be a very good designs, easly being a threat to my ships. Some times they are really good looking too  

 

Also we really need to have option to force confrontation or atleast atempt it with enemy having needing to respond or face consequences. I spent nearly a year of my campaign with no battle whatsoever. 

[Nick Thomadis]

Hello Admirals,

The beta build has been updated and is considered a release candidate. Thank you for your reports. Things that were actual issues and were possible to fix where addressed. I am sorry that I was not able to respond to everyone. You can read the full, final changelog of the upcoming patch and you can play it now!

27/12/2021 Update

*==v1.0 Update==*

*NEW HULLS*

• New *"French “Ironclad Battleship I”* available from 1890 to 1906 with a displacement between 8,050 and 10,600 tons.
• New *"French “Ironclad Battleship II”* available from 1890 to 1906 with a displacement between 8,250 and 10,900 tons.
• New *"French “Ironclad Battleship III”* available from 1890 to 1906 with a displacement between 8,400 and 11,800 tons. This hull type can faithfully recreate the French Battleship “Massena”.
• New *"French “Battleship I”* available from 1891 to 1906 with a displacement between 8,100 and 11,500 tons.
• New *"French “Battleship II”* available from 1892 to 1906 with a displacement between 9,000 and 16,000 tons. This hull type can faithfully recreate the French Battleship “Bouvet”.
• New *"French “Battleship III”* available from 1895 to 1906 with a displacement between 9,500 and 16,500 tons.
• New *"French “Battleship IV”* which can be considered a semi-dreadnought, available from 1895 to 1906 with a displacement between 17,000 and 21,500 tons.
• New *"French “Light Cruiser II”* available from 1892 to 1920 with a displacement between 3,500 and 4,500 tons.
• New *"French “Light Cruiser III”* available from 1896 to 1920 with a displacement between 5,500 and 8,500 tons.
• New *"French “Light Cruiser IV”* available from 1903 to 1920 with a displacement between 7,500 and 10,500 tons.
• New *"French “Armored Cruiser I”* available from 1890 to 1920 with a displacement between 3,500 and 7,600 tons.
• New *"French “Armored Cruiser II”* available from 1894 to 1920 with a displacement between 7,800 and 11,500 tons.
• New *"French “Armored Cruiser III”* available from 1898 to 1920 with a displacement between 9,800 and 13,500 tons.

*NEW GUNS*

• New French Mark 1/Mark 2 guns for calibers 2-inch up to 8-inch.
• New French Mark 1 guns for calibers 9-inch up to 13-inch.

*NEW FEATURES*

• *Design AI opponent ships in Custom Battles:* You can now design the ships of your opponents by switching the view between “You/Enemy”  in the Ship Design phase. As a result, you can now create your own battles with much more freedom.
• *New Key-Bind Options:* You may now change the key shortcuts for several control options of the game according to your own preferences.
• *New Friendly Fire System for guns:* Ships will stop firing at targets that are blocked by friendly ships in front of them and too close, risking being hit instead.
• *New Division Command “Avoid Torpedoes:* When you enable, the ships of your division -except the leader of the group- will actively avoid torpedoes automatically.
• *Armor distribution affects ship stability more:* Previously the belt/deck armor affected the stability of the ship only as a factor of total weight. Now adding armor to the fore/aft ends of the ship directly affects the weight distribution. For example, adding too much bow armor (something usually done unrealistically by players to have an advantage over the AI with frontal attacks) will now increase weight offset and the general instability of the ship. You will also notice that ships with an initial fore/aft armor may have some initial weight offset, which you can stabilize by making equal the armor weight distribution between fore/aft sections of the ship. All in all, the weight calculations of the ship have become more realistic and offer more design alternatives.

*NEW MISSIONS*
*“Jeune École has failed?”*: The old French strategic concept called “Jeune École” of having a main fleet based on numerous light warships equipped with torpedoes and high explosive rounds is now put to the test. The Germans are approaching with several dreadnoughts and a potent force of destroyers escorting them. They are heading near the French coastlines to threaten directly the control of your waters. You have some torpedo boats and some old cruisers and the choice to reinforce them with ships of your design on a rather strict budget. Will you build more cruisers and prove that the “Jeune École” can work or prefer to fight with some battleships instead?

*CAMPAIGN*

• Improved campaign AI to balance its shipbuilding strategy. Previously the AI could order for building so many ships that when they were all completed could cause bankruptcy and eventual defeat because the AI could not handle them economically, scrapping them in the end with no real use.
• VP gained from sinking Transports is now properly shown in the Battle result window. Previously these points were shown only in the strategy map report and it was not clear their effect after a battle.WIP.
• The Mission generator will create big battles with more probability. 
• You can now unlock the 1940 initial year for the campaign.
• You can now rename your ships in the campaign in the FLEET window by double clicking the ship names and editing a new text..
• Initial Battle distance tuned so that fleets start in better starting distances according to tech era (not too far, not too near).
• Initial cash slightly increased for the late tech campaign era.
• Victory points calculations balanced for late years so that campaigns do not end prematurely after a few victories.

*BATTLE AI*

• Improvements on AI aggressiveness/Responsiveness.
• Auto Targeting is more responsive.
• Significant AI auto-design improvement. The better, more effective ships will also affect the Battle AI positively.

*OTHER IMPROVEMENTS*

• Improved further the shell dispersion mechanics, especially at close range.
• Fine tuning of horsepower output for early tech engines.
• Increased cost of engines/armor for the design process, to a level that better reflects the value of the ship.
• Iron Plate armor has a new balance, simulating more effectively its historical effect.

*BUG FIXES*

• Fixed visual bug of gun hovering in Ship Design interface. It was caused when the game was wrongly paused when you switched on/off the Help with the “H” key.
• Fixed some reported issues on hulls.
• Fixed bug in smoke interference which caused inaccurate calculations when smoke interference was negative.

Any new feedback will be used to make some last changes, if needed.

PS.

@akdThe improvement of weight offset is dedicated to you fellow player, who have urged with your feedback to fix it. I hope you like it.

[akd]

38 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

@akdThe improvement of weight offset is dedicated to you fellow player, who have urged with your feedback to fix it. I hope you like it.

Thank you for looking into this Nick! It does appear to be working now.  That said, we still need more ways for the player to adjust weight distribution within hull itself.  Armor is now the only real working lever the player can adjust, but most designs tend to bias toward a strong fore weight offset, and adding more armor to the back of the ship versus the front is not really a logical design choice.

One other thing I just noticed is that conning tower armor weight appears to be applied to the center of the ship rather than the forward superstructure.  While some designs did incorporate both forward and aft conning towers, the aft conning towers seldom were of the same size and protection as the forward conning tower.  However, applying the conning tower armor weight to actual location would exacerbate the tendency toward forward weight offsets, and as noted above, there is little the player can change to offset this in a realistic way.

Edited December 27, 2021 by akd

[Nick Thomadis]

3 minutes ago, akd said:

Thank you for looking into this Nick! It does appear to be working now.  That said, we still need more ways for the player to adjust weight distribution within hull itself.  Armor is now the only real working lever the player can adjust, but most designs tend to bias toward a strong fore weight offset, and adding more armor to the back of the ship versus the front is not really a logical design choice.

One other thing I just noticed is that conning tower armor weight appears to be applied to the center of the ship rather than the forward superstructure.  While some designs did incorporate both forward and aft conning towers, the aft conning towers seldom were of the same size and protection as the forward conning tower.  However, applying the conning tower armor weight to actual location would exacerbate the tendency toward forward weight offsets, and as noted above, there is little the player can change to offset this in a realistic way.

The conning tower is added to the weight of the main tower, so any armor weight should increase the weight of the tower. I will double check if there is an issue on this.

[Adm.Hawklyn]

I do hope that the next update on steam fixes the custom battle bug of not being able to start a battle when the year is at 1940.  I understand you're getting the other side up to the steam beta version, and thats fine.

I am concerned however, that the campaign time seems to bleed over into the custom battle section; a possible reason why the custom battle will not launch at year 1940. Shouldn't the campaign timing be its own and not affecting the custom battles? @Nick Thomadis

[akd]

1 hour ago, Nick Thomadis said:

New *"French “Ironclad Battleship III”* available from 1890 to 1906 with a displacement between 8,400 and 11,800 tons. This hull type can faithfully recreate the French Battleship “Massena”.

French Ironclad Battleship III cannot mount either 10-inch or 11-inch single turrets in the center side hull positions.  Massena had 10.8-inch single turrets in these positions.  The largest you can place there are single 8-inch guns.

On French Battleship II, you can mount 10- to 11-inch guns in the wing positions as on the Bouvet (actual guns 10.8").  However, you cannot mount 6-inch single turrets in the positions immediately next to and below these wing main turrets.  You can mount 5-inch guns, but as the actual ship had 5.5-inch guns, I'd argue 6-inch should be allowed also (and interference with the main position adjusted if needed).  You can mount 6-innch guns in the front and rear side hull positions abreast the 12-inch gun turrets.  Also, you can't mount 4-inch shielded secondary guns anywhere in the towers or funnel superstructure, whereas Bouvet had 4-inch (10cm) guns in several superstructure positions.

Edited December 27, 2021 by akd

[Nick Thomadis]

5 minutes ago, Adm.Hawklyn said:

I do hope that the next update on steam fixes the custom battle bug of not being able to start a battle when the year is at 1940.  I understand you're getting the other side up to the steam beta version, and thats fine.

I am concerned however, that the campaign time seems to bleed over into the custom battle section; a possible reason why the custom battle will not launch at year 1940. Shouldn't the campaign timing be its own and not affecting the custom battles? @Nick Thomadis

If you cannot start a battle at 1940 then probably there is a corrupted save. There is no known bug that prevents you to play a battle in 1940.

Go to C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Game Labs\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts

and delete the file "custom_battle_data.json" so that you can check if this was the problem.

[Nick Thomadis]

1 minute ago, akd said:

You can mount 5-inch guns, but as the actual ship had 5.5-inch guns, I'd argue 6-inch should be allowed also

Do the guns overlap? If they overlap with each other, we cannot allow them to mount. Can you provide image with the exact issue?

[akd]

15 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Do the guns overlap? If they overlap with each other, we cannot allow them to mount. Can you provide image with the exact issue?

It doesn't even show as a possible mounting location for 6-inch, even with nothing mounted in the main wing turret position, so there is no way to check for possible interference.

6-inch selected, no mounting points shown.  It looks like her main side turrets were in reality taller than they are in game, and possibly the side center secondary positions somewhat lower in the hull.

Maybe the main barbette in the hull side could be raised to get the main turret up a bit higher and allow for a greater variety of guns to fit in the secondary positions?

Edited December 27, 2021 by akd

[Nick Thomadis]

12 minutes ago, akd said:

It doesn't even show as a possible mounting location for 6-inch, even with nothing mounted in the main wing turret position, so there is no way to check for possible interference.

6-inch selected, no mounting points shown.  It looks like her main side turrets were in reality taller than they are in game, and possibly the side center secondary positions somewhat lower in the hull.

Maybe the main barbette in the hull side could be raised to get the main turret up a bit higher and allow for a greater variety of guns to fit in the secondary positions?

The 6 inch guns cannot fit for sure, they overlap. Not sure if we can fix later, but unfortunately the model itself cannot fit itself the bigger 6-inch guns.

[Grayknight]

53 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

The 6 inch guns cannot fit for sure, they overlap. Not sure if we can fix later, but unfortunately the model itself cannot fit itself the bigger 6-inch guns.

well problems with CA hull number 1 and AI ships

CA number 1.... well there is mounting for 6 inch turret and you have to put there 6 inch (main battery) but it does not work. you can put 11 inch gun on stern which does not fit hull and there still is collision causing overlaping on 2ndery battery

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2697094349

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2697094166

 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2697093478

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2697093150

 

AI - check bow of BC and 3inch turrets on BB


BTW is it just me or were those hulls changed drasticly? i played with them once or twice and now i have thise strange felling

Edited December 27, 2021 by Grayknight