Observed bugs in 1.09.03 (and a few suggestions)

[neph]

(This post is mostly copied from the feedback thread)

Overall, I am hugely impressed by how much better combat feels. Between the changes to HE/AP balance, the continued iterations to barrel length balance, the new "Angle!" mechanics for extreme roll, and the changes to armor damage leading to eventual penetration, UA:D is better than ever.

Thank you, Devs! This game is more fun to play than ever before.

 

Now to the issues I've observed in 1.09.03:

* The tooltip over ports isn't large enough if there is an additional line in the description (for example, if there is a minefield, or so many ships that the list fits on two lines).

* Captured ships will occasionally just vanish from the world menu & the fleet panel without a trace. I had 3 captured US battleships. Suddenly I had two. No clue where they went! The rest of their fleet was still there.

* Cannot refit captured ships. This is because you cannot refit from the "view ship" screen, which, given the tooltip suggesting it, seems like an oversight? It would be far more useful to take battleships from your defeated foe if you could refit their bad designs & make them better. Also, if you accidentally delete a design/the last refit there is no way to ever refit that class of ships again.

* It seems to be possible to have ships get stuck on Meeting, where a small, fast ship is blocking the progress of a large fleet moving in the other direction. The large fleet has enough recon that it will generate the same mission each turn, but the small ship is fast enough to withdraw. This will go on for months until peace is declared. The only way to resolve this is by fighting the battle & doing or receiving enough damage that sufficient ships on either side return to port for repairs. Note that this won't happen if you auto-resolve--it has to be a real battle! In the meantime both sides will just keep getting more damaged and possibly (if far away from supporting ports) lower on fuel.

* Frequently, main guns just won't fire, or only one turret will fire. This is very, very annoying & can't be fixed except by continuously switching targets--they'll fire one shot at a new target & then stop shooting again. Supposedly it is also possible to fix this by switching secondaries completely off, but this seems spotty. It seems to also affect torpedoes, which will similarly not fire.

* Destruction of escorting ships ends the battle, with no chance to kill transports. Suggestion: as soon as all escorts are dead, show the "End Battle" button, but do not require the battle to end.

* AI-controlled ships & ships with "auto avoid" on will rarely come to a complete halt next to sinking ships. You can't get them to move at all. The only way to fix it is to wait for the sinking ship to finish sinking (at which point the ship will start moving again) or to turn auto-avoid off. Enemy ships suffer from this problem as well.

* For some reason, once I could unlock Modernized Dreadnought and I had the shipyards large enough to build it, every single ship (destroyer to older battleship) showed that massive hull, concealing the components & other elements on the ship. You could still view it & refit it, but it was really really hard to see what was going on because the hull blocked everything from view.

* Ending a war frequently results in going to war with the same nation a few months later. Similarly, rejecting an alliance request usually results in another a few months later. The result is that you'll fight the same nations a million times and never have a hope of fighting any others. It seems like this is because once two "sides" have formed, the relation bonus/penalty you get when other nations go to war (you become closer to your friends & further from your enemies) is enough to keep you locked into that side forever, because this happens *every time* somebody goes to war. Could we experiment with war not changing relations between other nations?

* Enemy ship design continues to be awful. Sometimes they make decentish designs. Other times they make monstrosities with 50% fore weight offset & no funnels. What?!?

* Finally, please do not generate unskippable "ambush" and enemy "convoy raid" missions if the 'attackers' are just going to immediately run away--even before visual contact. Having to pursue my ambushers for irl minutes on 10x or 30x speed is absurd, especially when the same mission is generated every single month until there is finally some resolution (see above).

And a few suggestions:
* Forbid changing armor quality, number of hulls, beam/draft, or citadel type when refitting. Make changing armor thickness & anything about turrets >5" (those with barbettes) very expensive (or forbid it entirely!) Right now, it's too easy to never have to build new ships because you can just keep refitting a good design forever. This would make older ships be harder to keep updating.
* Would be really nice if we could refit ships with new types of superstructure & funnels.

Edited November 26, 2022 by neph

[neph]

Another issue related to one above. TL;DR: an encounter/mission shouldn't prevent ships from moving AT ALL during that entire month.

I am Spain, at war with Austria-Hungary. I have a massive blockading fleet in the East Med. Suddenly, I'm at war with Italy. Italy has NOTHING. They've been wiped out by endless wars with the UK & only have 3 submarines to their names and a CL or two. I want to move my blockading fleet back to home ports in Spain/West Med. However, every single month, I get a stupid submarine mission (side note: these are bugged, see below). I easily repel the subs or even kill one of them. Problem: this prevents my ships from moving at all, so they stay put. Apparently, I'm somehow too close to Italian mines, and every month a good quarter of my fleet gets entirely sunk by mines. It's been four months now & all my destroyers are dead, half of my capital ships & cruisers are dead, and I'm still getting the god damn sub mission when I'm RIGHT NEXT to my port. I can't move because I keep getting the sub mission, so I can't leave the minefield that keeps killing my ships. I have destroyers coming in from all over the global empire to help, but it doesn't matter--Italy has sunk more battleships than in the rest of my 15 year campaign just with their 3 submarines.

 

Please don't make encounters completely freeze your task force in position. It needs to still be able to move or it will keep accumulating damage & be unable to return to port.

 

BUG: Submarine missions against large fleets freeze the game. The application's still responsive--you can still mess with the UI, but you can't do anything until you go to the main menu & return, at which point it'll have resolved without an issue. The more boats, the longer sub missions take to resolve. I timed one & it took 30 minutes to figure itself out against a large task force. Again, going to the main menu & back works fine, so it's obviously trying to think about something it doesn't have to.

[neph]

Two more bugs, one minor, one major.

 

First bug: If two nations sign peace at the same time, you only can interact with the "ships/funds/provinces" menu for one of them. When you close it, it will close the other menu behind it.

 

Second bug: It seems like it is possible to continue being blockaded after peace is signed. Full disclosure: this is happening to me by the same nation that I couldn't ask for ships/funds/provinces due to the bug above, may be related (? unlikely).

 

Second bug: big yikes.

[neph]

Not a bug, but extreme frustration. Friendly fire seems to be way worse than before--in previous patches, I never had any issues with friendly fire as my ships would cease their fires if there was a chance of it.

Now, I've lost 6 destroyers to blue-on-blue. I haven't lost any to enemy fires. This is very very frustrating & makes it even more challenging to coordinate torpedo runs, as you've got to make sure no ships are shooting at the intended target lest you kill your own destroyers.

[neph]

This is related to a previously mentioned bug/suggestion, as clarification.

 

War & tension system is very frustrating. I am Japan & I want the Philippines. I have been dutifully stationing modest fleets in Oceania, the Caribbean, and Southern Asia. I have been steadily getting that -2.1 relation per theater, each turn. Slowly yet steadily I work my relations with Spain down to 0... and then...

 

 

They go to war with the US, and they got to war with Russia. Boom, we're back up to 50 relations.

Now, the amount of tension you get seems to be a function of your existing relation. So now, we're going to be earning no tension, or we'll even been increasing our relationship by having fleets there.

 

THIS HAS HAPPENED EIGHT TIMES

 

Any time Spain, or one of her allies, or one of her friends goes to war with one of my enemies, I get a relationship boost that is worth months or years of tension building. It's expensive to have those fleets out there.

 

Devs: Please eliminate or substantially reduce the secondary tension/relation modifier caused when nations go to war.

[neph]

Suggestion: say in which ocean/theater a blockade is occurring, instead of having us try to track it down via the tooltips.

[Nick Thomadis]

Thank you for the feedback. Noted to check all the points for the next major update.

[neph]

This will probably get lost in the noise. There's a lot of dissatisfaction & even anger sent your way, but I can't express just how strongly grateful I am to know that you guys are actually, really, listening & caring for everything we say, mean or not. It's an incredible amount of work and it is beginning to show very strongly in the product you have in UA:D. The amount that the game has leapt forward in scope & quality over the last year is incredible for any small development team; not to mention one located in the middle of a nation invaded.

I can't express enough appreciation & gratitude to you guys. I wouldn't have ever written all this up if I wasn't certain it'd read listening ears. That's worth so much in a brutal & uncaring industry.

Can't wait to see where UA:D goes in 2023; thanks for taking note of the feedback!

[neph]

 

Bug! Murakumo definitely sank.

I fought the battle out, and as Makinami limped out, I used "leave battle" to exit. Yay, Rhode Island joined her sisters as a submarine. Thanks, auto-resolve.

But wait... Murakumo is back from the depths. It definitely sank.

 

"Leave Battle" can un-sink ships.

[neph]

 

Bug: Naval alliances keep their assets merged for payment in future wars.

The US & Russia were in an alliance, & when I defeated them they showed up as a joint negotiation in which I could seize both their assets in the same menu.

Later, I got into a war with just the US, but I can still steal Finland from Russia. Not great for them!

[neph]

BUG: You can't send ships to two different but close ports. For example, try sending ships to both Colon & Balboa. They'll always choose one or the other, meaning it's basically always over tonnage & the other is sitting idle. Annoying!

[Lima]

8 hours ago, neph said:

BUG: You can't send ships to two different but close ports. For example, try sending ships to both Colon & Balboa. They'll always choose one or the other, meaning it's basically always over tonnage & the other is sitting idle. Annoying!

A very old bug. Tunis/Bizerte is a classic. A large map has added more ports.

[neph]

Another "bug": you can have your fleet out at sea bottling up a superior enemy fleet & still be blockaded by it while the enemy hides in port

[neph]

The game calculates separate deck/belt pen values, based upon an assumed flat deck & standard ballistic arc. This worked fine in previous versions of the game, where roll from flooding was only a graphical effect. Now, it's entirely common for me to see a light cruiser resist point-blank 12" fire for 100s of rounds. When the ship builder decides you can only punch through 0.5" of deck armor (effective) at <1000 yards, that's what the game hears.

We need a unified "can penetrate this much armor" value & calculate whether or not it ricochets/partial pens/pens in realtime, instead of having precalculated deck/belt values based on now-faulty assumptions about the terminal relative angle.

 

Change deck/belt penetration values to--a single penetration value & the angle (from the horizontal) at which the shell will fall--for each given range.

[o Barão]

11 minutes ago, neph said:

The game calculates separate deck/belt pen values, based upon an assumed flat deck & standard ballistic arc. This worked fine in previous versions of the game, where roll from flooding was only a graphical effect. Now, it's entirely common for me to see a light cruiser resist point-blank 12" fire for 100s of rounds. When the ship builder decides you can only punch through 0.5" of deck armor (effective) at <1000 yards, that's what the game hears.

We need a unified "can penetrate this much armor" value & calculate whether or not it ricochets/partial pens/pens in realtime, instead of having precalculated deck/belt values based on now-faulty assumptions about the terminal relative angle.

 

Change deck/belt penetration values to--a single penetration value & the angle (from the horizontal) at which the shell will fall--for each given range.

"We need a unified... "

No. Well I don't need. I can't speak for the others and the same applies to you. 

I don't have any issues with the current system and your solution doesn't make any sense to me. 

[neph]

On 12/3/2022 at 9:47 AM, o Barão said:

"We need a unified... "

No. Well I don't need. I can't speak for the others and the same applies to you. 

I don't have any issues with the current system and your solution doesn't make any sense to me. 

You don't have any issues with 12" guns being unable to penetrate a listing CL with a 3" deck at point blank range?

[Lastreaumont]

12 hours ago, neph said:

You don't have any issues with 12" guns being unable to penetrate a listing CL with a 3" deck at point blank range?

As far as I'm concerned, my 12'' guns (325mm to be precise), are able to make holes into everything the AI puts in front of. Not at each hit of course, but at the end the ships are sunk. 

[o Barão]

15 hours ago, neph said:

You don't have any issues with 12" guns being unable to penetrate a listing CL with a 3" deck at point blank range?

With 12 inches at point blank range do you think will make any difference? You will pen the belt armor like a hot knife through butter anyway. 

 

The situation you are mention, is a specific one, not common. It's a limitation in the engine? Can be. Is enough to bother the players to suggest to scrap the entire work in the current system for the past 4 years for a new one? No, of course not. There are many things in need to be done and priorities needs to be in place and I don't even consider this specific thing to be in the low list of priorities.

[Cryadis]

For a makro issue concerning the campaign i'd like to add something here.

Playing 2 campaigns from 1890 till 1907 so far (one AH and one as Japan) the GPD usually seems to stall (you start with around 14billion and 15 years later i still ended up with roughly the same GPD).

From my observation it seems to be related that GPD does only really grow in peace times (possibly with the amount of provinces you control, in both capaigns i had over 20 in 1906 around). Maybe specifici to the empire I did chose, but so far I ended up in a mostly permanent war status (AH you tend to have fun with Fance, British, Spain, Russia and also Italy - Japan you are locked in with RUssia, CHina and possibly USA and SPain).

If that was to be improved i suggest either make GPD growth better during war (i guess easier to do) OR give better tools to handle diplomacy (the events to pay other off to avoid war are okayish, but on one hand they can add unrest and on the other hand you end up in the same "war incomming" status just a few turns after that again).

 

 

[neph]

18 hours ago, o Barão said:

With 12 inches at point blank range do you think will make any difference? You will pen the belt armor like a hot knife through butter anyway. 

 

The situation you are mention, is a specific one, not common. It's a limitation in the engine? Can be. Is enough to bother the players to suggest to scrap the entire work in the current system for the past 4 years for a new one? No, of course not. There are many things in need to be done and priorities needs to be in place and I don't even consider this specific thing to be in the low list of priorities.

• But you don't hit the belt. You hit the deck. This is an issue that only arose because of the listing/rolling mechanics implemented in the last update (a good change!)
• It is a specific situation, and it is common. Nearly every vessel lists towards you when you give it flooding damage.
• It is absolutely enough of a bother! It means torp-laden cruisers stay afloat for orders of magnitude longer than they should while your battleline passes by it, ready to be torpedoed by a ship that should have died in-game hours ago.
• You don't need to scrap the whole system; you just need to apply the exact same calculations already being made (angle of incidence, ricochet chance, penetration capacity at angle are all already being calculated live) to the single underlying penetration value from which currently underlies the secondary deck & belt pen values. It's actually a simplification of the system--you're making it more straightforward.

If you seek to have an accurate model of naval combat, the ability of 3-6" of extended deck armor to resist 18" shells impacting at >70° incidence ad infinitum is clearly an issue. It is a priority.

Edited December 7, 2022 by neph