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"Naval Arms Race" mod overhaul. BETA v7.3.0 "Release the Kraken" - for UAD v1.5.0.6


o Barão

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3FSwMP8.jpg

Introduction

Naval Arms Race, or simple "N.A.R.", is a mod overhaul for U.A.D. that reworks several game mechanics with focus in historical accuracy. Other gameplay improvements are also made where it is possible to provide a more enjoyable experience for the player.

 

Special thanks to “Nick Thomadis” from the U.A.D. team, for all the help and the precious information shared, and to all the players that shared their feedback during the mod development. It helped me a lot, some with interesting suggestions, others by reporting bug fixing issues.

 

BETA v7.3.0 "Release the Kraken" N.A.R. changelog:

SLrzfMB.jpeg

Ships designing AI logic reworked to use more guns.

  • Added the quad 4"; 5" and 6" guns for the British.
  • Added the quad 4" and 5" guns for the French. 2 models. One model for mk3 and mk4 and the other for mk5.
  • Added the quad 10", 12", 13"; 14"; 15" and 16" for the French
  • Added the Akizuki guns for the Japanese main ships to add more variety and to allow the players to design the "fantasy" wows ships in the japanese tech tree. *I don't know how historical this can be, maybe there were designs that use them. Anyway, the variety should be interested to see.
  • French 5" mk4 and mk5 in capital ships become a simple non turret gun to fit better in some places.
  • Fixed some destroyers towers missing.
  • German Light cruiser IV hull changed to better represent the Magdeburg-class cruiser; Karlsruhe-class cruiser; Graudenz-class cruiser; Pillau-class cruiser; Wiesbaden-class cruiser
  • Added German Light Cruiser VI to represent the Emden cruiser; Königsberg class; Leipzig class
  • German Light Cruiser V sections nerfed to a more realistic look and  added new towers and funnels.
  • show_tooltip_timer,0.1,Delay before appearance ToolTip,,,,,,, *stock 0.5
  • Propellants reworked.
  • Explosives reworked. Pricic Acid, Dunnite and TNT will not become obsolete.
  • Ships sections on fire needed to make it sunk buffed from 70% to 80%, credits to "brothermunro" for the tip.
  • Economy reworked
  • Scrapping threshold increased to 100k from the previous 50k to help the AI to maintain a decent fleet size.
  • Added 2 options for the player to choose how he/she wants to play the game:
 

Traditional formations: Scout; follow and Screen formations are enabled from the start and the AI will use them. AI is also ordered to keep a battle formation.

Swarm AI tactics: Any AI ship with torpedoes is ordered to rush the player at close quarters.

 

Note about the new hulls:

  • Austro-Hungarian “Battleship II” Hull changed to one with more realistic proportions and look, but stills needs a better hull to better represent the "Habsgurg class".
  • Russian “Battleship VI” - "Peresvet" Hull from the devs used to improve the "Peresvet" from the mod (russian Battleship III)
  • British “Dreadnought V” - "Dreadnought V" from the mod become "Dreadnought VI"
  • French “Semi-Armored Cruiser V” Added new small funnels to complement the main tower and improve the French design language.
  • Japanese “Light Cruiser IV” Hull changed

Issue:

  • US “Large Armored Cruiser” only show up in 1912 but is set to be available at 1905.

---Hull effects reworked.---

Beam:

  • The wider the beam, the shorter the ship turning radius.

Draught:

  • The greater the ship draft, the bigger is the surface area that needs to push the water, increasing the ship turning radius.
  • The deeper a vessel lies in the water, the more sluggish will be her response to the helm.
  • The deeper a vessel lies in the water, the more gentle will be the rolling in bad weather, mitigating the issues with the guns accuracy.

Other:

 Many hull effects values were tweaked, but in general are minor changes.

NIGHT VISION stat enabled. This is only experimental, and it is for running tests to see if it is working or not. The player will find this new stat in the towers.

 

IMPORTANT

  • I do not recommend using the "shared designs" at the moment. I plan to do some important changes to ships and parts. I plan to have everything ready in a few weeks for the live version 1.0.

-----   Mod description (PDF)   -----

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xj2cgnBCYlHsKLCSE3lkTONgGfdkU1bU/view?usp=drive_link

 

-----   Installation:   -----

1) Set the game language to be in english.

 

2) First, and this is very important to do. Is to backup, move or delete this files from this location:

C:\Users\(user)\AppData\LocalLow\Game Labs\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts

- custom_battle_data.bin

- mission_data.bin

- save_x.bin

The reason behind this, is the changes to the game files will make all your designs impossible to work with the mod and will probably make the game to crash.

 

3) Pick the game version

Beta 7.3.0 "Release the Kraken" 1.5.0.6 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Vr9QrPW0iJtDljTSj6yxQGmSi42LUKcp

1.5.0.5 optx2: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kXuaGBXf46rpE07OwQuqoB9dUi7evgnn

1.4.1.1 Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rsqwKiBEtf1PD72XbFUkANlAXeROidYB?usp=drive_link

 

IMPORTANT:

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 from this shortcut. Game will run without update.

 

 

Now choose one of the 2 options available:

Traditional formations: Scout; follow and Screen formations are enabled from the start and the AI will use them. AI is also ordered to keep a battle formation.

Swarm AI tactics: Any AI ship with torpedoes is ordered to rush the player at close quarters and most likely will fight to the death.

Download the "resource.assets" file from the option you choose, and also the "english" file.

 

 

4) Move resources.assets file inside the folder to this location: C:\….Steam\steamapps\common\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts_Data

 

5) Click yes to replace the original file.

 

6) Move English.lng file inside the folder to this location: C:\....\Steam\steamapps\common\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts_Data\StreamingAssets\Languages

7) Click yes to replace the original file.

 

 

All done.:)

 

-----   New Horizons III reshade   -----

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13_-C2R1V8l2_kuzFN0n-zpqt69zZ4qHb?usp=drive_link

 

Features:

  • RTX Global illumination.

  • 3 color scheme for the player to choose. All featuring a RTX version and a non RTX version for low-mid PCs, for a total of 6 options.

  • Many tweaks to contrast; exposure, sharpness and colors.

Installation:

  • Download “New Horizons III” folder.

  • Place the content inside the folder in ….\Steam\steamapps\common\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts

  • To remove the mod, just delete the files.

Shortcut keys in game:

  • Home”-open/close reshade panel

  • End”-enable/disable the effects

To change the color scheme:

  • Press "Home" to open the panel.

  • Use the "arrows" to change the preset you want to use.

 

 

-----   Important   -----

 

Do not report any bug to the devs if you are using this mod. They are not responsible for the

changes I made to the game.

 

This mod is a work of passion and dedication, that took me several hundreds hours and many months to be completed. If interested in using parts of the mod in your work, please ask permission and give me the credits.

 

Sorry for my poor English, it is not my native language.

 

Happy hunting, the Baron.

 

Edited by o Barão
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Question on the gun pen values since I did not see it mentioned.  I am assuming a "yes" until told otherwise.

Are the guns still using the formula of "vs +0% armor" when viewing the values in this mod?  Meaning if my armor has a +50% value, and the gun I am looking at is 20" of pen, do I still need to use 20 / 1.5 == effective armor at specific range?

Edited by Suribachi
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15 minutes ago, Suribachi said:

Question on the gun pen values since I did not see it mentioned.  I am assuming a "yes" until told otherwise.

Are the guns still using the formula of "vs +0% armor" when viewing the values in this mod?  Meaning if my armor has a +50% value, and the gun I am looking at is 20" of pen, do I still need to use 20 / 1.5 == effective armor at specific range?

That is a good question that I should clarify in the mod description. Thank you for remind me.

z7FED2R.jpg

I added this note to the iron plate armor, so the players understand what is the relation being used in NAR. Iron plate being the first armor component in game, was for me natural using this as a reference. Not only the penetration value from the shells, but also the armor values being used.

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I will respect the devs' wishes and not post the bug I found since your mod is active, but I don't think your mod does anything to interfere with the things beyond stats of modules and having the formations spawning further apart right?  

Basically, I just ran into the transports not having superstructures again.  Not saying your mod did it at all.  Just frustrating that the game is in a state where it not only happens, but happens almost 80% of the time in my experience.

Think I will wait a few more patches before having the ships engage in boarding actions again.  Great mod though!

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W.I.P. rebalance some of the bigger funnels to make them more interesting to be used in game. In the current state, there is no reason to use them. They don't give the same benefits as if using smaller ones.

With additional aiming bonus (if having a place for observations) and in many cases improvements to the funnel capacity, these components will be much more useful in game.

dG4rCkZ.jpg

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2 hours ago, o Barão said:

Update alpha build 0.25

Changelog:

  • Updated for UAD 1.2.8
  • rework some funnels for DDs, torpedo cruiser and BB Maine (still W.I.P.)
  • armor cost rebalanced
  • Increase damage taken from torpedos in DDs

Nice stuff, especially the funnels.  Here's hoping things stabilize soon so you can get some more time to properly work on things instead of updating for patches.

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Update alpha build 0.30

Changelog:

  • Rebalanced the funnels for all DDs and TBs. Now bigger components will be more useful, with some providing an aiming bonus (if having an observation post or a range finder).
  • It is no longer possible to achieve unrealistic speeds with only a small funnel. The designs should now look more realistic and interesting to see.
  • Added tall angled and thin funnel variants to all modern Japanese destroyers hulls. It is now possible to recreate the look of historical ships like: Kagero; Asashio; Shimakaze; Shiratsuyu; etc...
  • Rebalanced the funnels stats for the torpedo cruiser hull and BB Maine. These were incredibly weak, forcing the player to use an incredible number of funnels to achieve a minimum engine efficiency. Now should be much more enjoyable to design these ships.

9OV0hpw.jpg?2

UWxfXuX.png

*Shiratsuyu-class destroyer

 

EYibsEO.jpg*

*Kagero & Asashio destroyer

 

Asxf9op.jpg

*New aiming bonus in some funnels (if having an observation post or rangefinder)

Edited by o Barão
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Update alpha build 0.31

Changelog:

  • Updated to UAD 1.2.9
  • Updated some cruiser funnel descriptions
  • Ship armor cap limit changed: BB 20;BC 15;CA 10;Cl 5 *This can cause issues with current designs.
  • Tech being researched will be revealed at 25%.
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W.I.P.

4xacsc1.jpg

  • Changed the default BB Italy hull for 1890. This design, looks more to what the Italians were building at late XIX century.
  • Added Basic tower II & I to Italy and Austrian BB I hulls.

0v91yLt.jpg

  • Added modern destroyer hull for the Germans (without the aft island)
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Update alpha build 0.32

Changelog:

  • added modern destroyer hull to the germans (without the aft island)
  • Hybrid italian destroyer funnels stats reworked (it was missing)
  • Changed the default italian BB for 1890 *warning this can cause issues with your current campaign or designs.  A new campaign is recommended.
  • Basic tower II & I added to italian and austrian BB I (1890)
  • updated for UAD 1.2.9r
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I'm sorry to say I haven't yet done a campaign with your mod since I've been hoping the devs slow down with updates (will tonight), but any chance you can take a look at the stats on the engine types?  Some of it just doesn't make sense, like gas turbines having worse funnel efficiency than diesels and an absolutely terrible cruising speed despite turbines working best at higher RPMs.  Does the game assume they're completely ungeared or something?

 

Also, to be historically accurate 9,000 ton cruisers should be acceptable for an 1890 start, unless you think one can research that by September of that year when USS New York of 9,043 metric tons fully loaded was laid down.  Light cruisers should be 4,700 as USS San Francisco was 4,657 metric tons at full load and was laid down in 1888.

And is there an alternate download source?  Dropbox isn't working for me at the moment when I try and download.

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21 minutes ago, SpardaSon21 said:

I'm sorry to say I haven't yet done a campaign with your mod since I've been hoping the devs slow down with updates (will tonight), but any chance you can take a look at the stats on the engine types?  Some of it just doesn't make sense, like gas turbines having worse funnel efficiency than diesels and an absolutely terrible cruising speed despite turbines working best at higher RPMs.  Does the game assume they're completely ungeared or something?

 

Also, to be historically accurate 9,000 ton cruisers should be acceptable for an 1890 start, unless you think one can research that by September of that year when USS New York of 9,043 metric tons fully loaded was laid down.  Light cruisers should be 4,700 as USS San Francisco was 4,657 metric tons at full load and was laid down in 1888.

And is there an alternate download source?  Dropbox isn't working for me at the moment when I try and download.

I find that I'm able to download it if one selects the PDF and the zip folder and downloads them as a package.

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Just started a new 1890 campaign and find it quite confusing that the accuracy is so low. I would consider that i know how to build a ship but man my BBs have problems hitting enemy ships even a few hundred meters away. I have everything build to max accuracy. At this distances i would consider it beeing actually difficult to miss a shot. Maybe you can consider starting with higher accuracy for the MK1 guns.

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I find the accuracy pretty darn punishing aswell 😬 I've tweaked it to a point roughly inbetween vanilla and this mod. It is a game after all, though I can understand some peoples wish for accuracy (pun intended)

 

I do love the work you've done adding and tweaking/changing parts

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5 hours ago, SpardaSon21 said:

And is there an alternate download source?  Dropbox isn't working for me at the moment when I try and download.

Try this link. Maybe is much better for me and for the players. No need to pack or unpack anything, just download.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1q3jd4AXtSRNYvMD7uEtfI51cbwDS-CNQ?usp=share_link

About the cruiser's size. Yes, but I need to think also in average numbers and tech tree progression. Not all nations could build ships with that size. This is a global modifier that is being applied to all nations.

About the gas turbines, is something that I will need to research before I do any change. And there are still other things that I want to do before I look at this.

Edited by o Barão
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1 hour ago, MasterBurte said:

Just started a new 1890 campaign and find it quite confusing that the accuracy is so low. I would consider that i know how to build a ship but man my BBs have problems hitting enemy ships even a few hundred meters away. I have everything build to max accuracy. At this distances i would consider it beeing actually difficult to miss a shot. Maybe you can consider starting with higher accuracy for the MK1 guns.

Well, in reality it was much worse.

jVkzUWi.jpg

3% to 5% hit rate for the 5-inch guns.  And this at ranges somewhere between 1 km to 2 km only.

https://theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record/ImageViewer?libID=o283734&imageNo=1

Battle of Santiago de Cuba.

jsK5vJO.jpg

In game, I can already have crazy high numbers in comparison to what was possible from that time period. This example is from 1890 custom battle with regular crew (50% crew quality)

Also, crazy high accuracy numbers add, as a consequence, the negative effect of making armour almost useless in game if using HE. By igniting so many fires in a short time period that the damage control parties don't have enough time to do their job. Leading the ship to surrender very quickly to extensive, fire. You will notice this in vanilla game very easily.

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5 hours ago, o Barão said:

Try this link. Maybe is much better for me and for the players. No need to pack or unpack anything, just download.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1q3jd4AXtSRNYvMD7uEtfI51cbwDS-CNQ?usp=share_link

About the cruiser's size. Yes, but I need to think also in average numbers and tech tree progression. Not all nations could build ships with that size. This is a global modifier that is being applied to all nations.

About the gas turbines, is something that I will need to research before I do any change. And there are still other things that I want to do before I look at this.

I already the got link downloaded @StrikerDangerand their advice, but always nice to have a backup in case.  And that's fair on the turbines and other things.

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On 3/23/2023 at 6:30 AM, o Barão said:

Well, in reality it was much worse.

jVkzUWi.jpg

3% to 5% hit rate for the 5-inch guns.  And this at ranges somewhere between 1 km to 2 km only.

https://theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record/ImageViewer?libID=o283734&imageNo=1

Battle of Santiago de Cuba.

jsK5vJO.jpg

In game, I can already have crazy high numbers in comparison to what was possible from that time period. This example is from 1890 custom battle with regular crew (50% crew quality)

Also, crazy high accuracy numbers add, as a consequence, the negative effect of making armour almost useless in game if using HE. By igniting so many fires in a short time period that the damage control parties don't have enough time to do their job. Leading the ship to surrender very quickly to extensive, fire. You will notice this in vanilla game very easily.

We've been spoiled by non-frustrating game mechanics designed by thoughtful devs to enhance our entertainment, and it turns out reality tends not to be as thoughtful of the involved parties' enjoyment of the situation.

It took multiple watchings of Drachinifel's long form videos to really hammer in the point of how hard it was to hit stuff back then.
Yet if you think seriously about it and take the time to imagine the whole thing, it starts to make sense: you're in a moving hunk of metal trying to shoot at another moving hunk of metal that's several kilometers away, with limited knowledge of ballistics and a LOT of error introduced by the myriad variations involved in the manufacture of the gun you're firing, the shell you're shooting, your estimation of the target's distance, speed and bearing and the possible manufacturing errors of the equipment you're estimating it with.. all on top of extreme life-and-death pressure to do everything right and do it fast, all while probably also being shot at.

We have much, much more info as players than anyone had in real life, thus we easily forget that for even the smartest people on board the ship we're controlling it would have been nigh on impossible to achieve what our expectations demand.

Even so, it remains true that UAD is a game first and a simulation second.. and maybe it's acceptable to sacrifice some realism to the altar of fun.
Either that, or add all the historical explanations to set expectations back to historical levels.. which would be one hell of a UI design challenge and not necessarily make the game any more fun.

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On 3/23/2023 at 4:30 AM, o Barão said:

Well, in reality it was much worse.

jVkzUWi.jpg

3% to 5% hit rate for the 5-inch guns.  And this at ranges somewhere between 1 km to 2 km only.

https://theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record/ImageViewer?libID=o283734&imageNo=1

Battle of Santiago de Cuba.

jsK5vJO.jpg

In game, I can already have crazy high numbers in comparison to what was possible from that time period. This example is from 1890 custom battle with regular crew (50% crew quality)

Also, crazy high accuracy numbers add, as a consequence, the negative effect of making armour almost useless in game if using HE. By igniting so many fires in a short time period that the damage control parties don't have enough time to do their job. Leading the ship to surrender very quickly to extensive, fire. You will notice this in vanilla game very easily.

I would look into some reports of Olympia's performance at the Battle of Manilla Bay. From what I understand she had much higher accuracy for her main and secondary guns than any of the American BBs at Cuba. While Olympia is not a Battleship, her layout is very much like a scaled down Pre-Dreadnought. I would also look into reports from the Battle of Tsushima for crew training bonuses and accuracy of secondary gunfire from 1890s era BBs and Armored Cruisers (as much of the Japanese fleet was).

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1 hour ago, ijp8834 said:

I would look into some reports of Olympia's performance at the Battle of Manilla Bay. From what I understand she had much higher accuracy for her main and secondary guns than any of the American BBs at Cuba. While Olympia is not a Battleship, her layout is very much like a scaled down Pre-Dreadnought. I would also look into reports from the Battle of Tsushima for crew training bonuses and accuracy of secondary gunfire from 1890s era BBs and Armored Cruisers (as much of the Japanese fleet was).

I did, but didn't find any numbers related to the accuracy of the guns.

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/s/selected-documents-of-the-spanish-american-war/olympia-in-battle-of-manila-bay.html

About Tsushima, there were some important improvements about firing methods and optics, that increased the accuracy at the time of the battle that simple didn't exist in XIX century. So is not a valid comparison, but in the end is irrelevant anyway, and I will show why.

In the image I posted in the previous post, that accuracy values were from a 1890 custom battle. The battle of Santiago of Cuba was in 1898. So I would get access to rangefinder tech, better hulls and better guns if I were to replicate the same situation. In other words, the accuracy % value, would be much higher.

And I also got this.

KDjbz53.png

Iowa guns firing tests. 2.7% chance at 27.4 km away against a broadside target of a similar size. A BB.

Zvfg5lR.jpg

With 50% crew quality, I already got 25.4% against a BB at almost 29 km away. So almost 10x better.

This is too much, IMO.  But taking into consideration this is a game, a middle ground between realism and fun is not bad. But don't expect any buff to accuracy values. They are already too high in any era. And then of course there is the problem with HE spamming, that I mentioned.

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Major update alpha build 0.5

Due to the changes to ship building, I strongly recommend deleting these files:

custom_battle_data.json / mission_data.json /save_x.json

 

Part 1 - armor rework finalized.

"Iron armor" was replaced by "Pre-WWI Midvale Non-Cemmented Class "A" armor (MNC). Note that in N.A.R. 1-inch of penetration still is 1-inch Iron armor.

Why the change?

  1.  I tried to add more armor options, but sadly the game always crashed, so I am limited to use the 11 slots the game allows me to use.
  2.  Both Iron and Compound armor are available in 1890, but most navies were mainly building the new warships with Compound armor for best protection and weight savings.
  3. There is no reason for the player to choose Iron armor. I can make the Compound armor more expensive, but the cost will be irrelevant for the player and the AI can still build ships with iron. So a little unfair against the AI IMO.
  4.  I have a huge gap in time between KC armor, and Class "A"armor, so by adding "MNC" in 1907 and moving KCA to 1914 will make the transition to Class "A" armor in 1922 more natural from a gameplay point of view.

 

Part 2 - ship design changes.

0BKXROI.png

*Bismarck weights list

 

  1. Many modifiers rebalanced to better simulate real ship weights: fuel; belt armor; deck armor; barbettes; conning tower; crew numbers; crew quarters; torpedo protection; side turret armor; turret top armor; secondaries armor; casemate guns weight.
  2. Some gun weights rebalanced.
  3. All towers weights halved.
  4. Sonar components weight & cost modifiers only applied to the main tower.
  5. Armor cost rebalanced

Part 3

  1. Lowered weight penalty for non prioritized researches
  2. Improved the research speed for old techs.

 

Also:

Download link changed, now I will be using the google drive. No need to unpack the file anymore.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1q3jd4AXtSRNYvMD7uEtfI51cbwDS-CNQ?usp=share_link

"New Horizons II" reshade visual mod is also included, to anyone interested. Installation procedure in the mod description.

Mod description and PDF file updated.

Edited by o Barão
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