"Naval Arms Race" mod overhaul. BETA v11.1 - for UAD v1.5.1.3

[o Barão]

10 minutes ago, King_Tiger_II said:

Bruhhhhh I just download it and installed it and seconds later the damn game updates again to Opt. x3

Yeah, sometimes it can be frustrating. If it is possible, disable steam updates to avoid any possible issues.

The current version is working with the new devs update, so I will take a break to enjoy the weekend.

[killjoy1941]

3 hours ago, o Barão said:

Weird, yes, but if we take into consideration the role they were designed to fulfill, it seems the Germans took the best they could get from the treaty limitations.

Oh, absolutely. It's just that most people seem to think they were purpose-built raiders from the keel up when it was more like, "How the hell are we going to squeeze 11" guns into 10k tons and make it useful?"

The same thing happens with the Scharnhorsts (let's build BBs with 11" guns so the Royal Navy doesn't pound them to dust in the dockyards) and Alaskas (naval conservatism meets the apex of pre-CV cruiser design).

[rossi191]

i don't think it had anything to do with the British pounding them in the dockyards people seem to forget how much more advanced British guns and armour were at the time and for the Graf Spee to compete with a British 8 inch cruiser it needed to have a gun that could match the range and penetration although the 11 inch couldn't match the fire rate of the 8 inch it made the Graf Spee capable of going up against other cruisers and ships of her size 

it was the same for the Yamato her 18.1s were equivalent to the British and American 15/16 inch guns but with a far slower reload rate  

[killjoy1941]

10 hours ago, rossi191 said:

i don't think it had anything to do with the British pounding them in the dockyards people seem to forget how much more advanced British guns and armour were at the time and for the Graf Spee to compete with a British 8 inch cruiser it needed to have a gun that could match the range and penetration although the 11 inch couldn't match the fire rate of the 8 inch it made the Graf Spee capable of going up against other cruisers and ships of her size 

it was the same for the Yamato her 18.1s were equivalent to the British and American 15/16 inch guns but with a far slower reload rate  

That's a thing, but for the Scharnhorst class, they were designed for 15" guns. Hitler overruled the admirals in favor of 11" guns. That's generally attributed to the British reaction to the Deutschlands and their 11" guns, and the fear that anything larger would provoke a British attempt to destroy the ships in the dockyards to force Versailles compliance. As it was, the Scharnhorsts were constructed in deep secrecy until it didn't matter anymore.

[killjoy1941]

@o Barão

Finally, I have time for a new campaign:

1890/Normal/USA

It's now 1914, and everyone is at war and has been for about 3-6 years, depending on the nation in question. No nation has a GDP growth above 2.5% (except me), and no one has a fleet larger than 40 ships, except the Soviets at 83, but they're economically f****d anyway with their economy contracting at -2%.

A lot of this reflects the concerns I had about economy changes. It's generally fine during peace, where everyone has a GDP growth between 4% and 7%, but war wrecks everyone. Growth drops to at best 2%, and the weaker nations immediately go negative. Not by much, usually between -0.2% and -0.7%, but once the AIs start losing convoys, they're forced into a contractionary spiral with no end but peace, which is why the AIs all have small fleets.

The strongest nations, Great Britain, Germany, and France, have $67b, $54b, and $50b economies, respectively. The weakest - Italy, Japan, and Austria - have $23b, $18b, and $8b (!) respectively.

I have a $97b economy. I have 50% more economic power than GB. In 1914. They start with damn near a 100% relative lead.

It's far, far easier to outstrip the AI with tight economic constraints than it is with generous economic constraints.

Oh, and I collapsed Spain by taking just her colonies. That was a 1v1 war, and Spain had fought no other wars. In vanilla, on normal difficulty, that's almost impossible to do.

I'm not sure I see the merit in a tightened economic system if it makes the AI even more fragile than it already is. I'd much rather have huge, un-spendable budgets and be able to build whatever I want if it means the AIs can operate large, modern fleets and sustain long wars.

[o Barão]

@killjoy1941

 

"...but war wrecks everyone. Growth drops to at best 2%, and the weaker nations immediately go negative. Not by much, usually between -0.2% and -0.7%, but once the AIs start losing convoys, they're forced into a contractionary spiral with no end but peace, which is why the AIs all have small fleets. "

and in the end...

"I see the merit in a tightened economic system if it makes the AI even more fragile than it already is."

 

Thank you for the report.  (I would prefer to see some screenshots), now I am going to do the opposite to fix that issue. 😉

 

Major update coming!!! Experimental branch.

[killjoy1941]

4 minutes ago, o Barão said:

"I'm not sure I see the merit in a tightened economic system if it makes the AI even more fragile than it already is."

You missed that part. I do hope you mean you won't further tighten the economic screws?

As for screenshots, what do you want to see?

Edited March 24 by killjoy1941

[o Barão]

1 minute ago, killjoy1941 said:

You missed that part. I do hope you mean you won't further tighten the economic screws?

As for screenshots, what do you want to see?

No, the opposite. I will lower the economical penalties for countries at war. This should also incentivize the player to wage war more often. To have fun

[o Barão]

BETA v7 - "Release the Kraken" - N.A.R. changelog:

• Updated to UAD 1.5.0.5 Optx3
• AI ship design logic reworked to use more main guns for most ships.*
• Some hulls reworked to use the new AI logic.
• Dual barbettes fantasy removed from early ships. You will see them only in modern ships. (g4 ships for the modders)
• Minimum main battery for the CA is now 7" (previous 6")
• Minimum main battery for the CL is now 5" (previous 4")
• Brandenburg hull (the German variations) will always use the bigger version to bring more guns to the fight.
• Lowered the economy penalties to help the nations at war to keep them fighting and to incentivize the player to fight more.

 

About the AI logic rework:

• Almost all ships were reworked to use more guns if possible. Expect to see some monsters in the water.
• This will affect mainly BBs, CAs, modern CLs, modern DDs, gunboats and early french ironclads ("hotels at sea")
• This version is highly experimental, can make your campaign crash, game stuck on loading screens, I have no idea since it is impossible for me to test all hulls.
• Expect to see more improvements to the AI logic in the future.
• If playing a campaign around 1890-1900, it is probably best to start a new one, for the others it should work fine.

 

Note: Both the turrets and barrels requirements were increased for almost all ships, but you still can expect some strange things from the AI, like designing a modern cruiser with 4 single turrets. Not perfect, but in general much more dangerous.

 

Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Vr9QrPW0iJtDljTSj6yxQGmSi42LUKcp?usp=drive_link

 

"Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!!" - Emperor Palpatine

*All these designs were made by the AI

Edited March 24 by o Barão

[killjoy1941]

@o Barão

Okay, this is looking much better. Pre-war:

After a few years:

The diplomatic influence system has been infuriating this game, so I haven't seen any of the new ships yet, but the war economies look adequate. They can probably be tweaked upward a bit (looking at you, Spain), but it's not hurting anything the way it is now.

Edited March 24 by killjoy1941

[o Barão]

5 minutes ago, killjoy1941 said:

@o Barão

Okay, this is looking much better. Pre-war:

After a few years:

The diplomatic influence system has been infuriating this game, so I haven't seen any of the new ships yet, but the war economies look adequate. They can probably be tweaked upward a bit (looking at you, Spain), but it's not hurting anything the way it is now.

Thank you for the screenshots!!

 

Maybe I was too kind in the recent changes. I am seeing nations at war against 2 or 3 countries and with a positive GDP. Maybe it is impossible to make them go bankrupt now. If that is the case, report to me.

 

But for now, no more changes to the economy. Have fun! 😉

[killjoy1941]

2 minutes ago, o Barão said:

Thank you for the screenshots!!

 

Maybe I was too kind in the recent changes. I am seeing nations at war against 2 or 3 countries and with a positive GDP. Maybe it is impossible to make them go bankrupt now. If that is the case, report to me.

 

But for now, no more changes to the economy. Have fun! 😉

Oh, god no. Don't make them go bankrupt. Spain is about to collapse, and that means all their territory will fall under the minor nations system, where it's essentially non-interactable and can take up to 30 years to be integrated by someone. Ideally, given the way the game works now, nations would never collapse unless they lose all their ports.

If the majors didn't break up into a bunch of minors I'd be okay with it, but that's not what we have.

[flaviohc16]

I also arrived at 1914.

As always: US, normal difficulty, 1890 start.

Did 18 years of peace, then went to war against spain, that collapsed 3 years in.

I have to agree with @killjoy1941, the war economy was too taxing before, and nation go easily into a death spiral. Spain collapsed when they had more than half of their territories still untouched ( and they had an insane 21 provinces).

I have a 117 billion economy, right where I wanted , slightly more is better, but probably with the change of the war economy you just did we are good. I would say that the economy is right.

screenshots in the quote

Quote

 

I'm in 1914, can I keep playing my campaign or the save is nuked and I have to restart? ( consider that I have built some fantasy turreted early CAs)

Also, greatly appreciated the narrowing in caliber for Ca and CL. I hope I can try the new patch soon

[o Barão]

7 minutes ago, flaviohc16 said:

I'm in 1914, can I keep playing my campaign or the save is nuked and I have to restart? ( consider that I have built some fantasy turreted early CAs)

I am almost sure you can continue. The only changes to ships I made for the new AI logic, were for a French hull and German hulls from the 1890-1900 period. So I am guessing you should be fine now.

 

Thanks for the report!!

Edited March 24 by o Barão

[Stallfighter]

2 hours ago, o Barão said:

Minimum main battery for the CA is now 7" (previous 6")

I understand that for AI reasons, however we all remember Mogami example (but tbf there are no treaty system so why bother regunning your CA).
Also, it means 6' on CAs will count as a sec battery now? In late armored cruisers era 6' counted as main battery for citadel calculation purposes and it was annoying sometimes.

[o Barão]

34 minutes ago, Stallfighter said:

I understand that for AI reasons, however we all remember Mogami example (but tbf there are no treaty system so why bother regunning your CA).
Also, it means 6' on CAs will count as a sec battery now? In late armored cruisers era 6' counted as main battery for citadel calculation purposes and it was annoying sometimes.

I can add the Mogami hull for the CLs. In fact, we already have something similar, in game. It's only missing the torpedos ports and the round secondaries placements. A simple change.

Yes, 6" are now secondaries on the CAs.

Mogami added for the next update. "Modern light Cruiser II"

Edited March 24 by o Barão

[xXT4LLIXx]

Hey there, I recently played a Russian campaign and I noticed that on the modern Heavy Cruiser III hull, none of the available funnels fit into the gap on the main tower. This leads to ugly gaps between the superstructures on heavy cruisers.

[Morningstar]

in my 1900 AH NAR Legendary campaign I found myself behind on tech by march 1904 despite keeping my research budget at maximum.

does the mod change tech progression significantly?

[flaviohc16]

17 minutes ago, Morningstar said:

in my 1900 AH NAR Legendary campaign I found myself behind on tech by march 1904 despite keeping my research budget at maximum.

does the mod change tech progression significantly?

No, but it gives a 30% boost to the AI, and you are playing with a small-ish nation.

[Morningstar]

I see. thank you very much

so that would explain why britain is always very advanced in tech

Edited March 25 by Morningstar

[NiKuTa]

On 3/23/2024 at 10:34 PM, King_Tiger_II said:

Bruhhhhh I just download it and installed it and seconds later the damn game updates again to Opt. x3

to avoid and play game without autoupdates do this:

1. Set game to update when start game. Do this in game setting(properties)-> update.

2. Don't start game by steam or steam shortcut. Make a shortcut on desktop form a main game .exe like "x:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts.exe"

3 start a game form this shortcut. Game will run without update.

[o Barão]

57 minutes ago, NiKuTa said:

to avoid and play game without autoupdates do this:

1. Set game to update when start game. Do this in game setting(properties)-> update.

2. Don't start game by steam or steam shortcut. Make a shortcut on desktop form a main game .exe like "x:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts.exe"

3 start a game form this shortcut. Game will run without update.

Going to add this to the mod description. 👍

[bshaftoe]

17 hours ago, o Barão said:

Thank you for the screenshots!!

 

Maybe I was too kind in the recent changes. I am seeing nations at war against 2 or 3 countries and with a positive GDP. Maybe it is impossible to make them go bankrupt now. If that is the case, report to me.

 

But for now, no more changes to the economy. Have fun! 😉

Are the penalties static or can they be derived from some other value?

If the second, maybe they can be tied to % of current transports and how much money you are funneling into building convoys? So, first months on a war, where you don't have any losses in shipping, penalties are mild (or if you fight a much less powerful navy). But once you start having losses (that are more likely if you are ganged up by more than one enemy, or fight against a strong navy), penalties can go up QUICKLY.

[o Barão]

30 minutes ago, bshaftoe said:

Are the penalties static or can they be derived from some other value?

If the second, maybe they can be tied to % of current transports and how much money you are funneling into building convoys? So, first months on a war, where you don't have any losses in shipping, penalties are mild (or if you fight a much less powerful navy). But once you start having losses (that are more likely if you are ganged up by more than one enemy, or fight against a strong navy), penalties can go up QUICKLY.

There is already a penalty for transports losses.

tr_loss_factor,220,linear factor that affects how much transport capacity % is lost for every TR loss,,,,,,,

the other economy penalties modifiers important for nations at war:

war_wealth_growth_add,-0.003,"addition to wealth growth, if we are at war"

war_inflation_add,0.01,"addition to inflation, if we are at war"

inflation,0.0004,inflation monthly,war month inflation

 

Note: Those are NAR values

 

So mostly static, well the TR penalty are the result from the encounters and the manual states that TR will boost the GDP, but I don't see that modifier.

 

Then we also have expenses, materials cost and income modifiers.

[flaviohc16]

there is a little bug at the "lightweight fittings" in the battleship hull tech tree