-=Thank you for the participation in our 6-month Roadmap=-

[Sandermatt]

Some rather minor changes, but I would rather have a more polished game then new features.

1. I would like GDP growth to be a bit more transparent. Allow me to understand what is affecting it by how much.

2. GDP growth is affected by minor wars even if no combat is happening. A nation far away declaring war on you without sending ships should not tank your economy. Allow us to ignore the economy war state if we want.

3. Research becomes unbalanced. Certain research naturally goes ahead of time, other branches will lag behind. This should not happen without focuses in certain areas.

4. Enemies should not engage you if they intend to flee. I don't enjoy battles where no combat happens and both sides are just wasting time. 2 ideas:

a) Communicate pre-battle that the enemy tries to avoid you and allow an option to not make the battle (these battles should also not hinder your fleet from moving.

b) Allow earlier than 30 mins "end battle" if the enemy is in a fleeing state

[MDHansen]

25 minutes ago, Sandermatt said:

b) Allow earlier than 30 mins "end battle" if the enemy is in a fleeing state

(1) there should be a check after XX minutes; is enemy retreating and is out of gun/visual range by X meter.

(2) There could also be a check once you accept the mission on the campaign map; is the enemy damaged and if likelyhood of retreat is x%, cancel the battle. This could be a low threshold, so engagement could in many cases still happen, but refer (1)

Or something along those lines

[Dave P.]

Other things observed playing a 1920-start campaign as Germany:

Bugs:

In order to do a naval invasion of southern egypt (Hurghada) you'd think I'd have to put the requisite 100k tons of ships in the red sea, but I actually had to move them north through the Suez first, then south again to get inside the invasion zone on the next turn. So, some kind of map zoning bug I guess.

HMS Warspite shows up as a CA?

When at war with China I was somehow able to blockade them even though I had no ships in the area and no territories in the Pacific. (I had sent a fleet to go run up some VP but it was already on its way home when the blockade started, and the resulting blockade didn't end on its own until about a year later when the war finally ended.)

By 1942, the US Gulf Coast province has no oil resources discovered. Dude, that map area includes Texas.

Still seeing entire task forces going home after winning battles with minimal damage and few casualties. I've also seen ships rotating out for repair while the larger force stays in place, so there's still maybe some inconsistent logic somewhere.

France dissolved due to economic collapse after I conquered Northern France. Eventually, it started to reemerge, and the "French Empire" took over Southern France, but then immediately collapsed because its home provinces weren't under its control.

Not sure if Bug or Feature:

Land Army sizes and budgets seem inconsistent between countries:

• UK, 57M/481M home/other pop, 2M army, $13B army budget, $320B GDP
• Japan, 65M/29M pop, 4.5M army, $24B army budget, $99B GDP
• Germany, 157M/22M, 3.9M army, $24B army budget, $721B GDP

I'd really like to know how the army size is determined, what makes it go up/down, as well as how it effects Naval Invasions, if at all.

AI often seems fixated on designing ships with the biggest guns possible, even if they're inferior to a more advanced but smaller caliber weapon. (Mk1 16" guns in particular seem pretty awful.)

Population numbers seem off - are they supposed to mirror historical data (they definitely don't) or is growth influenced by economic or military factors?

HE rounds are still way overpowered. I've got CAs soloing BBs/BCs with escorting destroyers, just throwing 4" HE at them until they "sink" with 90% structure and 100% floatability. Now, I don't MIND having a bunch of one-sided victories, but I really think this ought to be reconsidered/rebalanced.

Similarly, having crew training at Seasoned/Veteran makes your ships basically Death Incarnate compared lower levels.

If you're advancing into an enemy territory when their government collapses, IMO you should get that territory.

Mechanics Questions:

I would really like to know how the Withdraw mechanic works. Because my little groups of very fast ships seem to be inconsistently able to (and usually unable to) avoid battle with larger groups of slower enemies.

After a battle ends (either by clicking the end battle button or by auto-ending) sometimes torpedoes are still in the water or ships are on a collision course, and I have even seen or heard them hit home as the screen fades our and the after-report loads. Are these hits counted? Should they be?

Request:

It would be nice if peace treaties could be negotiated both directions. Like, say I win a war with the UK and would really like Newfoundland. But maybe the reparations aren't high enough to warrant that, or maybe I requested it but got a cash equivalent instead. What if I could throw in some money or ships of my own to sweeten the deal? Or have a couple rounds of negotiations instead of just the one?

Doom Stacks seem essentially gone, aside from the occasional swarm of target practice destroyers. But the AI is also pretty dedicated to avoiding combat against superior forces (even when they have a numerical advantage.) When I spot an enemy task force with a bunch of big juicy battleship-shaped targets, it would be nice to be able to force combat somehow, a la the old "decisive battle" doctrine.

I want to be able to invade my enemies' allies. Their ships are shooting at mine, after all.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Dave P.

[Danz_Von_Luck]

49 minutes ago, Dave P. said:

HMS Warspite shows up as a CA

HMS Warspite was an Imperieuse class armoured cruiser before it was a Battleship so not a bug

[Candle_86]

One Thing I'd really like to see added is realism settings, lets say you want to play without having defects, while this can be fun for more realisim, it can also be very unfun at times. Same goes for other things, a realism slider would be great. 

[Dave P.]

2 hours ago, Danz_Von_Luck said:

HMS Warspite was an Imperieuse class armoured cruiser before it was a Battleship so not a bug

Fair enough but it feels wrong, esp. in 1942 for a campaign starting in 1920.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Dave P.

[Kothra]

I wish there was more to fleet management. Let me create divisions and task forces from a central menu. I would like to be able to assign units on the division level to a particular port rather than having to micromanage every ship. Divisions should always enter battle together (maybe unless some ships need repair).

Maybe it's a misunderstanding of mechanics on my part but when I sortie a task force the missions it generates rarely use the entire strength, it often just picks random ships from the task force rather than what I would normally commit to such a mission. I supposed there's a need for randomness rather than just having large battles every time, but I feel like committing ships on a division level rather than just random individual ships to every mission would be more interesting.

Also, let us assign which ship is the flagship, rather than just always picking the first on the list (or whatever it normally picks).

[Rina Ravyn]

Okay, hear me out for a second. 

 

PAINTJOBS

 

because you cant tell me a little Lt. working the rangefinders sees this and wont go "WHAT IN SEVEN DAYS PLOWIN IS THAT?!" 

PS: thenagain youd also kinda have to add a camo modifier to already existing novel of aiming modifiers x.x

[Schmitty21]

Seems like Russia doesn't have any shipping in the Baltic or Black Seas. I only see their transports being sunk in Asia. Never get convoy missions against them in these areas either.

[ZorinW]

3 hours ago, Rina Ravyn said:

Okay, hear me out for a second. 

 

PAINTJOBS

 

because you cant tell me a little Lt. working the rangefinders sees this and wont go "WHAT IN SEVEN DAYS PLOWIN IS THAT?!" 

PS: thenagain youd also kinda have to add a camo modifier to already existing novel of aiming modifiers x.x

That's not going to happen due to the way 3D models are handled in this game. There is a reason why they all only habe a very generic texture, because otherwise the up- and downscaling and squishing and squashing of the models would become even more obvious.

[Eisenfeld]

I've played quite a few battles and I enjoyed them, but here's one thing that will make the ships more realistic:

Feature request: Have the fire control directors atop the front and rear towers move with the turrets to improve realism and immersion. In the battles, the fire control directors stay facing forward while the turrets rotate to face the enemy ships.

It seems odd because in historical photos, the fire control directors usually rotate when the turrets rotate.

[brothermunro]

19 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Hello guys,

Your participation is truly motivating! We consider your criticism and feedback very important and we will do our best to use them in order to make the game even better. However, there are very few bugs mentioned. 

There were some posters lately speaking about "many bugs" that make the game unplayable for them and those have reviewed the game badly. We invite these players to write them down here, if they have the time. We need to know those  bugs, if they are still present, to focus on fixing them.

Thank you.

Hi Nick,

I am more collecting common bugs/issues I hear about from my community here, not having a go (I have seen a few of these myself as well though). People often use the term 'bug' colloquially when they just mean 'doesn't work the way I expect' rather than how a developer or programmer would understand the term.

• Damaged Ships: Ships starting battles with damage that doesn't match the damage they took in a previous battle is another frequently mentioned 'bug' to me, though I am pretty sure the game just records 'light/medium/heavy' damage as a state and then applies it at the battle start rather than saving detailed damage information. This is an example of a system that is almost certainly working fine with zero bugs which annoyed players cite as a bug.
• Penetration issues: Primarily the game recording a blocked or partial pen when the player expects an over penetration. It is much less common in 1.1.7R. Most of the issues now seem to be around the 'sloped design' stat & resistance values (I think). You still see some odd things, like a light cruiser a battleship is unable to penetrate.
• Accuracy/Aiming Issues: Again this is much better in 1.1.7R but I frequently hear complaints about accuracy. For instance I was watching Spartan Elite playing yesterday and suddenly his ships had a tenth of the accuracy they had in the previous month, it caused a bunch of problems for him, then fixed itself a few turns later. For me the biggest issue here is that the 'target lock bug' is still present where guns can get stuck at a negative aiming progress, causing them to just fire all their shells into the sea. Rare in campaigns, but very obvious in 1940 1v1 customs.
• Balance Issues (Battles): There is quite a variance in stats between hulls and guns between countries. The most frequently complained about statistic is resistance as it has such a dramatic effect on ship survivability. Similarly default gun lengths, muzzle velocities etc vary between nations (this may be intentional of course!). The most frequently complained about nations are the UK and Germany. The rates of fire, accuracy and general performance of big guns is also frequently mentioned as needing adjustment (the balance mod changes help a lot with this). Torpedo avoidance by the AI is very very frequently mentioned as being so good to make torps completely useless for the player.
• Balance Issues (Campaign): Land invasions, especially in Europe where playable nations share a land border, are regularly mentioned as being far too effective, and cutting short otherwise promising campaigns (players doing Italian campaigns at war with France and/or AH being destroyed even if the navy never loses a battle for instance). GDP tends to snowball, and is a huge boost to larger nations (kinda historical but in my US campaign the GDP of the USA is approaching the kind of levels not achieved until the 1960's).
• Map Issues: The map not 'looping'. I understand the team considers it an aesthetic issue, but I can assure you many players consider it to be unfinished and therefore a 'bug'. (Unfair perhaps but true).
• Missing Hulls: Again this is probably unfair, and the reason for new hulls being added more slowly the past year is totally understandable, but a lot of players will not know the reason, they just see when they research a tech 'Unlocked hulls <?>' and think 'oh the game isn't finished - ugh so full of bugs'. (My personal recommended fix is to allow/document how to add models into the game so modders can fill in any remaining gaps after the summer).
• Formation Issues: Formations are much better than they used to be, however the game still does some very odd things when trying to adjust formations. For instance divisions merging when a user double clicks on a division, when a user 'picks up' a division the game picks up multiple divisions, when trying to separate a single ship the entire division breaks up etc. They are minor, but very frustrating.
• Submarines: Submarines are frequently mentioned to me (I never build any when I'm playing) as being problematic. Players expect them to be able to provide power projection (to enable blockades) and sink transports which they don't do effectively, and find the auto resolve nature of their battles confusing and arbitrary.
• Mission Generation Issues: Players find the mission generation system confusing and often talk about it being 'bugged'. For instance sailing one of their task forces right on top of an enemy task force and that not generating a battle or ships engaging in battles very far away from where they expect ships to be (such as ships stationed in Malta not fighting enemy ships near Malta, but instead attacking something in the Irish Sea).

I'm keenly aware from the dev team's point of view none of that list as actual bugs! I'm just trying to help you understand what players are actually finding is preventing them from fully enjoying the game, and what they mean when they say 'full of bugs!!'

[SpardaSon21]

11 hours ago, Dave P. said:

By 1942, the US Gulf Coast province has no oil resources discovered. Dude, that map area includes Texas.

 

The Western USA should also be producing oil at all eras.  California was a major oil producer starting in the 1870's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_oil_in_California_through_1930

 

Oil numbers also kept going up and up and up across the whole USA, as well.  The USA had several instances of overproduction of oil threatening to collapse the market during the game's time frame, funnily enough.

[JeeWeeJ]

My two cents of stuff I'd like to see (in random order):

• Pre-battle deployment: the ability to deploy your ships so you can somewhat avoid the AI going bonkers as you try to reorganize your fleet
• Faction-wide diplomacy: Make it so faction wide diplomacy can take place. Now it's quite annoying when you try to make a peace deal...and get dragged back into the war the next turn because your allies are still at war.
• Option to make national preferences "neutral": right now certain nations have a preference for certain other nations (like Austro-Hungary has a preference for Germany and Italy), give us the option to ignore these and make our own minds up who we want to be friends with.
• Camouflage/paintschemes: this would be some seriously nice eyecandy if we were able to paint our ships in the colors of the great white fleet for example.
• Mod/Workshop support: I'm sure this community is filled with people with amazing modding skills that can enhance/expand this game.

[UncleAi]

Necessary:

Time and Weather. Night battle is an important part of naval warfare.

Port Build. Manually increase port capacity.

I hope to have:

Tactical Map/Mini Map. To show the overall status of the battle.

More complex map. Shore, islands, fjords.

Port Defence. Build coastal defense guns and ASW facility.

[AdmiralBert]

Lots of suggestions I approve of already here!

One I'd like to see is a representation of the shipping lane(s) in use by a given power, and the ability to influence / redirect your own transport capacity in times of war. As technology improves, you should gain greater control, but as a very basic rule of thumb you should be able to:

• See what routes your transports will be taking
• How much tonnage of transports operate in a given sea region (with smaller ports generating/requiring fewer ships)
• Assign ships in port to run convoy protection in their sea region
• Reroute convoys to avoid a given sea region where possible (reduces economic growth/output because ships are taking a longer route, but allows you to avoid a contested sea region etc)

Ideally, this will allow a player/AI to better understand what is going on with their transport capacity, and thus play 'around' it better. After all, if the game doesn't track how much trade goes through a given sea region, how can the AI understand the need to allocate ships to protect it?

[Hardlec]

My "thing" is custom gun sizes for each class of ships.

I know that many nations would produce "one-off" gun sizes for individual ships or classes of ships.  The "supply chain" issues for this would be hideous. A nation that only made one type of 5-inch guns would be able to focus on the manufacture of one size of shells.  
Standard weapon sizes/calibers should give a supply/cost advantage.  

I should be able to "refit" ships under construction if a new technology becomes available.

Submarines need to be included as part of power projection and invasions.  Commandos inserted by submarines can play a part in strategic operations.  

Please update the documentation.  

How do I balance a ship?  I want to reduce pitch and roll, but I have learned a few things, but it is still exasperating trial and error.

[HistoricalAccuracyMan]

Two more things I would like to suggest (if they haven't been addressed/discussed already):

1) US oil production

Comparing numbers and dates when it comes to US oil production during the game's timeline...the US should be producing oil like crazy, especially in California and Texas starting fairly early on.

2) If the "two turret" aiming system is still around, would you consider changing it or getting rid of that system?

(This isn't a bug, as the devs have stated that this was the way it was. If the "two turret" aiming system has been changed, then the rest of this post is null/void)

My ship's effectiveness shouldn't be hampered/negatively effected just because half my main battery is in triple turrets (that can both track the target) and the other half is in twin turrets (of which just one turret can't quite bear on the target, but that means that the other twin turret may as well be shooting blind). This is why I have completely stopped doing anything like a USS Nevada/USS Pensacola build because half the main battery inevitably winds up being all but useless/inaccurate for no good reason. You actively sabotage yourself by mixing the number of guns per turret. As I said in a post I made a while ago on this subject...I've got a hard time picturing somebody onboard the USS Nevada during WWII telling the Captain, "The triple turrets have got the range and are blazing away sir! But the front dual turret may as well be firing blind, because the rear dual turret can't bear on the target!" I'm sorry...but that isn't how that would've worked, it just isn't. They either had the range and all guns (which were all 14"/45 caliber guns, firing the same shells, with the same propellant) that could bear on target would open up, or they didn't have the range.

If you change the barrel length or diameter of a particular gun, it applies to all guns of that size. There isn't an option to adjust only the triple 14 inchers or only the twin 5 inch secondary guns. It doesn't matter whether you have all twin turrets, if you have a single, dual, triple and quad turret, or any combination of gun barrels...as long as the guns are the same base size...all guns barrels receive the length and bore changes. All guns of the same size fire the same shells, with the same propellant, same bursting charge, same muzzle velocity. So in practice, that means there shouldn't be any discernable difference between a turret with two barrels and turret with three...and yet, here in UAD there is, for some reason. There shouldn't be an arbitrary difference between the accuracy/effectiveness of a twin turret vs the accuracy/effectiveness of a triple turret mounted on the same ship. If they are firing the same exact shells out of the exact same barrels, why is one turret not "accurate" just because it has one more/one less barrel, or it's counterpart on the rear of the ship can't bear on the target?

The issue with "side guns vs centerline guns" having separate targeting data was changed so that all guns of same caliber and number of barrels were grouped together, regardless of whether or not they were centerline or wing turrets. Now, why don't you just group the guns together by the size?

I realize that there is a lot irl that went into how accurate a gun would be depending on where it was mounted, and I'm also not ignorant of the fact that certain ships/nations would install a delayed firing device in triple turrets that would delay the firing of the middle barrel just enough to where the muzzle blast of the other guns wouldn't effect the flight path of the shell fired from the middle gun. If you want to implement this in game, maybe you could put in a "delayed firing device" in the tech tree somewhere that enhances accuracy for triple/quadruple guns.

TL;DR Oil production in the US should probably be higher than it is. And I don't care how you slice it: a 14" gun is a 14" gun--regardless of how many gun barrels are sticking out of the turret face. If the guns are exactly the same (which they are in UAD), you shouldn't have two different sets of targeting/accuracy data. If you can't set a unique/individual barrel length, bore size, propellant, bursting charge, weight and shell type for each individual gun/gun barrel...why are we still dealing with the problems/issues from a "two turret" aiming system? 

[casperwieik]

On 2/3/2023 at 10:37 PM, HistoricalAccuracyMan said:

I don't know if that "C Class" cruiser you guys mentioned is for the US Navy, or if it is going to be a generic hull for all nations, but I would hope that it is a proper Northampton/Pensacola/New Orleans class hull and towers

Sorry mate, but the C Class cruiser is a British light cruiser series of designs. 28 were build between 1913 and 1922 to seven different but similar versions of the same base form. The first of these were still old style with mixed main battery and the main battery placed along the sides of the ship, but the later classes resembled a more modern form with 5 6-inch guns on the centerline. Very ordinary and not really unique ships, they served as the basis for the Danae, Emerald and Hawkins classes of cruisers, served throughout the world, and two world wars. One, HMS Caroline, is preserved in Belfast in a vastly modified state after having been used as an accomodation ship all the way untill 2011, almost 100 years after she was laid down.

[casperwieik]

10 hours ago, brothermunro said:

(My personal recommended fix is to allow/document how to add models into the game so modders can fill in any remaining gaps after the summer).

I wholly support this. If it is viable to implement modding support for UA: Dreadnoughts, then the devs shouldn't have to worry about missing out on "Important" hulls anymore, since this community will probably jump at the opportunity to have their own favourite design in game.

 

Also, something I just realized: Please run over every hull and superstructure for colliding gun mounts, some gun mounts cannot currently be used at all because even the tiniest calibers will collide with the superstructure or hull, or are so big that they cannot be placed on both sides. Example: US Cage mast main towers have space for one barbette style secondary on each side of the conning tower, but no guns can fit because they collide with the backwall of the collision model of said towers. There are also alot of modern superstructures that suffer this problem, leaving weird empty spaces that look like they should hold a gun, but are not.

[Schmitty21]

• Late campaign the game gets very slow. I understand the reason turns might get slower but even moving back and forth from the dockyard, going in and out of the research screen, or saving the game becomes very slow. To the point I'm getting my phone or a book out to entertain myself while I wait. Surely when I go in and out of the dockyard we don't have to reload the whole campaign state.
• I'd like to see the army be a bit more aggressive about taking over neighboring ungoverned provinces. Its easy pickings. You could even make it so when you conquer on of these provinces on another major power's border (who was likely trying to gain it as well) it increases tension.
• Is there a hard number tied to the transport logistics? Like how many do I have? How many do my enemies have? Since I sink X amount per turn I want to know what that means in terms of the total number.
• The range of submarines is strange. The circular ring would normally mean they can go this far and back in a straight line. But then my subs can leave Pola, travel through Gibraltar, and then all the way up to the Baltic Sea because the ring extended that far. Realistically my subs shouldn't be able to go that far. 
• Ships aren't staying in the ports they're assigned. When I build say, DD's, I have to assign them somewhere in my home territories, so let's say Ancona. Then I send them where I want them stationed, like Tripoli. Then they get involved in combat and end up back at Ancona. I guess they go there to get repaired, which is fair but they need to either get repaired at their station or return to their station after getting repaired. When I'm at war I use some task forces and let the rest of my ships sortie from their stations. They ended up all over the place and I'm constantly trying to find out where they've gone and get them back to where they're supposed to be.
• Please let us have more leniency on placing barbettes. Its really frustrating how limited some of the designs are (Japanese modern battleships for example). Especially the lighter secondary gun barbettes should pretty much be allowed everywhere, including off center, so we can get some more interesting secondary battery configurations.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Schmitty21

[Dave P.]

2 hours ago, Schmitty21 said:

Please let us have more leniency on placing barbettes. Its really frustrating how limited some of the designs are (Japanese modern battleships for example). Especially the lighter secondary gun barbettes should pretty much be allowed everywhere, including off center, so we can get some more interesting secondary battery configurations.

I'd agree with your but HE secondaries are so OP right now any ship with dual-tiered secondary batteries would be pretty OP.

I think there are some hulls that don't take barbettes in certain spots because they're based on ships that didn't, historically, have superfiring guns. (The late-game armored cruisers the Germans have, for instance.) It's pretty annoying but I get the reasoning.

[Dave P.]

I will occasionally see (and even drive right over) a radar return from a ship that is... not there. Is it possible there's some kind of "sensor ghost" bug from ships that sink while out of sight/contact? (I can't think of anything else that fits what I've seen.)

[anonusername]

17 minutes ago, Dave P. said:

I'd agree with your but HE secondaries are so OP right now any ship with dual-tiered secondary batteries would be pretty OP.

I think there are some hulls that don't take barbettes in certain spots because they're based on ships that didn't, historically, have superfiring guns. (The late-game armored cruisers the Germans have, for instance.) It's pretty annoying but I get the reasoning.

The limitations on barbette number is already covered by tech now, so the hull based restrictions just feel like relics of an older version of the game.

[Panzergraf]

Giving the game multi-core support should be near the top of the list of things, in my opinion. It's a pretty big thing, but important. I think most of us have PC's with multi-core CPU and GPU, and the game frankly just runs worse than it should currently. Battles are mostly fine, but for some reason I get a lot of lag in the campaign map?

Minor issues:
1: Map doesn't scroll all the way around. I get that functionally you can send ships from the eastern pacific (west on the map) to the western pacific (east on the map), but it's still a big annoyance to scroll aaaall the way to the other side of the map every time you move ships around in the pacific. Especially when playing as Japan or USA.

2: Let us refit ships while they are being repaired. Historically this was when a lot of ships went through refits. Just add the months to the repair time. It's a big annoyance when you have a ship you want to refit, but the moment it's repaired it is dragged into some random battle, takes a scratch to its paintjob, and has to be repaired for another month before it can be refit.

3: Make repairs optional. Battleship Nagato takes two hits from 5 inch guns, scorching the paint. 99.99% health remaining. I don't need it to sit in port for a month to fix it - it can wait. Especially annoying if your shipbuilding capacity is already stretched to the max.
Autorepair could be an option for those who want it, like a box you can tick in the Fleet roster - similar to Add Crew.

4: Let us minimize or close all windows in the campaign. In my current Japanese campaign, I went to see if I could start a naval invasion of German New Guinea. I could not, but I could start an invasion of Kiautschou Bay - which I was already invading (3/6 months). I could not click the window away any other way than selecting to invade Kiautschou Bay. I did, and it started another invasion on top of the one already underway (1/6 months) - while hiding the original invasion!
(this also had the effect of doubling the number of German troops in the region...)

Minimizing a peace treaty window to look around at the map and see where available war reparations regions are would also be nice. I'm pretty good at geography, but I don't know where every single pacific or caribean island is, lol

Just adding close (X) and minimize (-) buttons should not be too hard, I think.

5: Weather effects. I see this is planned already, and I like the sound of that. Very rough seas should also limit the speeds at which smaller ships can travel, I think.

6: Make it possible to directly attack enemy fleets on the campaign map, kind of like in the Total War games. I'm not saying UAD should become a TW clone, but the TW games just do a lot of stuff right when it comes to mixing turn based campaign map gameplay with real time battle gameplay, so it's a convenient referance point.
Such attempts at direct engagement could come with a miss-chance, like the enemy fleet might be able to slink away unseen (i.e. like the Germans after Jutland). Technology like Radar and spotting planes might lessen this chance. Essentially it would be the enemy clicking "withdraw" instead of "fight". The player would have the option to try and withdraw too, of course, should the enemy directly attack.

Some random battles would be fine too, but I think relying less on random encounters would make things like operational range and formation speed (i.e. speed of the slowest ship) matter more than it currently does.

7: "Enemy smoke spotted" should include more information. Like approximate range. If there are mutliple groups of enemy ships, I would like to know. Like transports and escorts. Some times I get past the escorting ships, but get no information regarding the smoke from the transports. "Enemy smoke spotted south" would be for example the CL I just passed and evaded, and the enemy transport ships could be somewhere to my north - or maybe east or west. But no information is given.
This makes hunting transports before you have RDF or Radar researched a real pain in the neck.
In this case I would like to be told "Enemy smoke spotted south. Enemy smoke spotted north" - I would then know which smoke trail to chase to find the transports.