Questions prior to buying early access.

[Gsam]

I am a huge fan of game labs in general. I have been awaiting this game, but II had a few questions I wanted to find out about prior to buying it.

 

By my last count on steam II had 1284 in UG:CW  I absolutely loved that game. I loved building my army, I loved building units the way I wanted etc.

 

Without even a second thought, I bought UA:AoS and that was prolly the worst game I have played in a long time. Everything I loved about UG:CW was not there in UA:AoS.  I hated the upkeep on your ships. I found the campaign to be absolutely maddening. I found the ship combat to be boring and tedious. It felt more like work playing ship combat than fun.  Upgrades were very difficult to get and I found that I was constantly broke and destroying ships just to keep playing.  I watched video after video to figure it out and I just never took a liking to it.

 

Here I am now, sitting here considering purchasing UA:Dread and I am wondering which game I am gonna get?  Some of the many questions I have:

1) Is there upkeep on the ships?

2) Is the campaign scripted or can I pick and choose how and when to fight?

3) Is the ship building truly dynamic or is it more of a gimmick?

4) How is balance?

5) Is the economy working?

6) How does research work? Are you time locked on every research or can you allocate more money or funds to research to advance quicker at the expense of ships now?

7) Are your ships locked out of battles for repairs and you are forced to use older or outdated ships?

8.) Is there any sort of captain or crew perks like generals had?  Can I customize my ships at all?

9) Do battles just get stupid overloaded with ships so I end up having to micromanage 50 ships?

10) Do ships get XP? IS it based on a total amount for the battle and all ships get the same? IS it based on how that shiip performed?

 

Thanks in advance!

[halofanjames]

campaigns bare bones at the moment, we're supposed to get it expanded in the coming update

ship building is dynamic but mileage will vary depending on how in depth you're wanting to go (ie set hulls and a lot of turrets and other stuff can look very samey depending on faction)

balance is okayish however some ships and weapons behave... off such as torpedoes and destroyers

economy is again like the campaign barebones 

research is kinda neat actually but still a work in progress functions by researching blanket modules such as high caliber guns, armor, hulls, engines, torp propulsion, torp size etc

 ships are locked from battles to repair yes

no such perks or skills besides crew level and no customization as of yet

exact opposite you'll usually get to chase a single cruiser 80% of battles, usually battles rarely get over 10 ships

I'd recommend honestly recommend waiting till this next major patch drops (no clue when) in the meantime check nick tomadis' posts as he's the dev that posts what's getting added

[Gsam]

16 minutes ago, halofanjames said:

campaigns bare bones at the moment, we're supposed to get it expanded in the coming update

ship building is dynamic but mileage will vary depending on how in depth you're wanting to go (ie set hulls and a lot of turrets and other stuff can look very samey depending on faction)

balance is okayish however some ships and weapons behave... off such as torpedoes and destroyers

economy is again like the campaign barebones 

research is kinda neat actually but still a work in progress functions by researching blanket modules such as high caliber guns, armor, hulls, engines, torp propulsion, torp size etc

 ships are locked from battles to repair yes

no such perks or skills besides crew level and no customization as of yet

exact opposite you'll usually get to chase a single cruiser 80% of battles, usually battles rarely get over 10 ships

I'd recommend honestly recommend waiting till this next major patch drops (no clue when) in the meantime check nick tomadis' posts as he's the dev that posts what's getting added

Thanks for the feedback.  Really appreciated.

 

Anyone else have any input? Thank you in advance!

[Norbert Sattler]

To elaborate a bit on the state of the campaign:

Right now there is no real campaign with diplomacy and such. You can start only as Britain or Germany and they are at war with each other. When one side wins, the "campaign" is over.

So in other words this isn't the actual campaign, but just something the devs threw together to test some of the mechanics.

You can already research submarine and minelaying technologies, though they don't do anything yet.

Economy right now consists solely of convoys. You have a certain base-amount of monthly money. Lose convoys and this goes down. Build convoys and this goes up.

For spending money there are three sliders, one each for crew-training (does both recruiting and training up existing crew in one), research budget and money put into building more convoys. And of course the costs and maintanance of ships and shipyards.

Speaking of the shipyards, right now you don't have seperate shipyards or slipways, but just a single number that determins both how big your biggest ships can be and how many tonns of ships you can have building at any given time. You can naturally build that up.

[Sir Guppy]

The current state of the game is very much early access - if you are buying in now you are buying into the journey of what the game could be. There is strong and compelling core set of mechanics: build ships and fight a battle. However, many of the supporting mechanics that flesh out the game don't exist or are barebones: campaign, missions, and diplomacy to name few. That said £28/$38 offers reasonable value. I would suggest watching a few YouTube videos, anything recent will give you are clear insight into the current state of game mechanics. You can watch entire campaign playthroughs from thehistoricalgamer. Nick Thomadis appears to be the only developer posting updates so I track his posts to see what is being developed.

To answer your points specifically:

1 - Yes, but in the current state of the campaign it hardly comes into play, I've never run out of money.

2 - You can design and build ships, and then very broadly give them an order. Each turn the campaign generates some random battles based on your and the AIs fleets. Win enough battlesand win the campaign via a victory points system. Apparently the campaign will be getting fleshed out as its a major weakness at the moment. At the moment the campaign only lets you play Germany and Great Britain for 1 war, in the future I think we will be able to do multiple wars against multiple opponents over a much longer time period.

3 - Easier to watch YouTube videos than describe it all. You can pick a hull type from quite a wide range - but you can't draw the hull shape yourself. You can place all the major external components; guns, torpedoes, bridge, and funnels. You then use various sliders and options to control the ship internals and armour. Cosmetics are automatic. It provides a decent amount of flexibility to build ships which look the part, but its not a 3D modelling tool where you can make anything you want.

4 - Fine, both sides have very similar stuff, torpedoes are particularly deadly. In any case the AI isnt hard to beat in a campaign, but you might loose the odd battle.

5 - It's very basic, hard to tell its even there, in the current state of the campaign it hardly comes into play, I've never run out of money.

6 - I don't really know (common problem with the game, most mechanics lack decent explanations). It's very basic, you spend more or less money each turn, and set prorites, but the campaign is so short at the moment its not uncommon to win before researching anything. The campaign has multiple start dates, so its more practical to just start playing in the time period you want the technology for.

7 - Yes, but again the length of the campaign limits this occurrence.

8 - Ships crews gain experience via use. Can customise the ships via building them described above.

9 - Never seen anything that big during campaign. I find you get a good mix of smaller and larger battles. It's more common is fight with a few ships each, and then every so often you get a much larger fleet engagement. Largest is probably 15 v 15 but that isnt common. Worth mentioning that the game is also very slow as befitting the game context, which provides plenty of time to make orders, I usually play with a high time compression.

10 - At the moment ships crews gain experience via use, not sure how it works exactly.

 

[Littorio]

1) Yes there is.

2) Scripted for now but more freedom to maneuver and seek engagements yourself is soon to come.

3) That depends on what you consider "dyanmic" and "a gimmick." They give you a hull, of a certain role, size, etc, and then you get to place whichever components you want on it. You can't just make your own hulls, and I have repeatedly asked for third party mod support to do so. Maybe someday that will happen but for now it's not an option. That said, the next update will give us beam and draught customization for the hulls, so that is one step closer.

4) Not terrible...except when the AI makes ridiculous designs for ships. They tend to go quantity over quality. This will be improved in time obviously.

5) Almost not at all. Your money can fluctuate with transport losses, but that is about it. More will come later, but a full economy is not currently present.

6) Both. You are time locked, but you can allocate up to three areas for priority research. The more things being designated as priorities however, the slower all the rest of the research. Overall research is very basic at the moment, and it isn't even completely done. Trees need to be finished for mines, subs, naval tactics, etc. Right now none of those are present in the actual game, only placeholders on the research screen.

7) Ships can definitely be locked out for repairs. Idk about being "forced" to use old ships. If by that you mean if your hypothetical Bismark is damaged, will you have to rely on Scharnhorst for awhile, then yes. A damaged vessel currently cannot be used once it returns from battle and goes into dock for repairs.

8.) No, but admirals and other officers are coming at some point. Exactly how they will work is not yet known though.

9) Depends on the era and exact settings, but I don't find it too bad. You will have to micromanage a fair bit right now however, as ship formations are a bit clunky. Collision avoidance is still being improved, and I find it better to control my vessels manually.

10) Ship crews do gain XP. I believe it is based on the actions in the battle. Not all ships get the same amount, or even any at all. Ships that don't do anything won't see their crews gain XP. There are different levels you can read about.

[Gsam]

2 hours ago, Littorio said:

1) Yes there is.

2) Scripted for now but more freedom to maneuver and seek engagements yourself is soon to come.

3) That depends on what you consider "dyanmic" and "a gimmick." They give you a hull, of a certain role, size, etc, and then you get to place whichever components you want on it. You can't just make your own hulls, and I have repeatedly asked for third party mod support to do so. Maybe someday that will happen but for now it's not an option. That said, the next update will give us beam and draught customization for the hulls, so that is one step closer.

4) Not terrible...except when the AI makes ridiculous designs for ships. They tend to go quantity over quality. This will be improved in time obviously.

5) Almost not at all. Your money can fluctuate with transport losses, but that is about it. More will come later, but a full economy is not currently present.

6) Both. You are time locked, but you can allocate up to three areas for priority research. The more things being designated as priorities however, the slower all the rest of the research. Overall research is very basic at the moment, and it isn't even completely done. Trees need to be finished for mines, subs, naval tactics, etc. Right now none of those are present in the actual game, only placeholders on the research screen.

7) Ships can definitely be locked out for repairs. Idk about being "forced" to use old ships. If by that you mean if your hypothetical Bismark is damaged, will you have to rely on Scharnhorst for awhile, then yes. A damaged vessel currently cannot be used once it returns from battle and goes into dock for repairs.

8.) No, but admirals and other officers are coming at some point. Exactly how they will work is not yet known though.

9) Depends on the era and exact settings, but I don't find it too bad. You will have to micromanage a fair bit right now however, as ship formations are a bit clunky. Collision avoidance is still being improved, and I find it better to control my vessels manually.

10) Ship crews do gain XP. I believe it is based on the actions in the battle. Not all ships get the same amount, or even any at all. Ships that don't do anything won't see their crews gain XP. There are different levels you can read about.

Thanks for the reply!