[Mod] HIP v1.5+ for UAD 1.5.1.6 (New Sounds update)

[XerMGGW-2]

Hybrid Improvement Project tournament balance mod for Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts 1.5.x.x
(You can simple-overwrite it for game version of 1.5.1.6, but if the game is newer or older version, and the mod wasn't updated in a long time, you'll need to spend extra 5 minutes following this tutorial:

—
HIP download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hvSL238c5a_BLIkucFR591D8YZqezwRl/view?usp=drive_link
—

Most of the mod's description will be located within the in-game main menu News section.
This mod consists of resources.assets, SoundMod.resource and English.lng

1. Go to Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts_Data (Folder)
2. Paste resources.assets into there, it'll overwrite the original resources.assets
3. Also just paste SoundMod.resource into that same folder. The game will call upon it automatically for new sounds.
4. Go to StreamingAssets (Folder), then Languages (Folder)
5. Paste English.lng into there, it'll overwrite the original English.lng (Is required for Events and new descriptions)


This here mod was initially intended to be a collection of better balanced parts for helping out BrotherMunro to implement within DIP v1.5 onward, but there was just so much stuff in the game that required rebalancing that this had to end up being it's own thing, with Tournament-grade Balance quality for those who find brawls/slugfests to be indeed the most fun part of the game, the part whether the ships manage to survive or not, however it is still mostly compatible with DIP Ship Pack!
BrotherMunro is author of Dreadnought Improvement Project.

To be put simply, if you enjoy DIP's arcade, do check HIP's AI-Tournament-friendly Vanilla&DIP-based rebalance and increased content across the in-game countries.
Submarines and mines are still removed. As in, completely unresearchable.

Adds an even higher game difficulty in Campaign.

I'll keep the description in forums shorter minding what was already written inside in-game News section you can read upon downloading:

Changes in v1.0:

Part Balancer:

502 Hulls were tweaked:
-Either by elongating more according to vanilla displacement;
-or maximum allowed gun caliber according to their size where bigger and thicker hulls = bigger guns, which strongly helps out Hybrids, Semi-Armored Cruisers, and such;
-many useless Experimentals were given something special, and then about 50 other early game hulls were all given some special stats;
-or by changing one or multiple of their stat properties, specifically those with a lot of additional unusable superstructure;
-or by crew amount change
-or by an entire rework
-or a combination of any few of these.

Yes, I'll repeat, it means some CAs can have 12" or 13" and two largest of the CA type can wield 14", CLs also 8" and 9" and one largest of the CL type can get 10", and game's two Flotilla Leaders might fit an 8", many other DDs up to 7" and 6". All BBs and BCs were tweaked too, where of ships that already had caliber limit imposed by devs, USA modern battlecruiser from 15" to 17", USSR stalingrad battlecruiser from 15" to 16".

~100 Funnels&Towers&Barbettes tweaked:
-Entities with a lot of additional unusable superstructure tend to get additional Damage Control (modern French Main Towers have variants with no funnel slots, they'll now help compensate for french BB's general lack of Damage Control);
-also mutliple hulls have a lot more funnels accessible (for British escort&command cruisers, which fit well into that big Dido tower, for G3, more USA Funnels for big USA hulls accessible now, more USSR Funnels for big USSR hulls accessible now);
-pretty much all longitudinally twin funnels (or just take up a lot of longitudinal space), as well as torpedo boat funnels (which also affected Novik hull funnels), were buffed;
-some biggest ships have more humongous secondary towers available (with high damage control) accessible, that were in the gamefile, but disabled;
-some towers just got stat tweaks without superstructure taking up space being the reason, like thin tall main towers (resembling G3) now having more proper long-range accuracy compared to other accessible towers;
-some funnels just got stat (weight) tweaks compared to other accessible funnels to whichever hull.

-Crew number tweaks for pretty much all guns and torpedo launchers of any barrel/tube count.

More accurate high-caliber mk1 and mk2 guns; more stable stat maximums; higher maximum armour value dependancy on hull particulars instead of ship type;

More info will be listed in-game (News section)

Part Resizer:

-USA 13" and above guns no longer can be Brooklyn, only Iowa;
-USA mk1 (also accessible to China) Maine Turrets no longer get uncontrollably obese with each consequent gun caliber (a vanilla error);
-Due to technology unlock tweaks, where bigger guns unlock earlier, changed all mk1 14" turrets models to be the same as mk1 13", however only USA (and China) has triple-gun mark1 turret model in-game, a very rare sight of which will be possible to see only in 1911;
-French quads models can no longer be different from non-quads of the same caliber (a vanilla error for 16"+ guns);
-Now accurate and up-to-scale Queen Elizabeth BB possible that unlocks in 1912, gave it 3 fitting compact main tower versions;
-Shrunk something into simple fast modern Torpedo Boat hulls;
(didn't get to change much else)

Damage type equalizer:

Normalized damage float-up values to firstly, not be so inflated and unreadable, and secondly, better represent the actual damage of the gun shown in your ship stats.

Crew will not give up so easily, ships will not flood so comically quick, ramming becomes viable at finishing off critically structurally damaged ships, significantly improved resistance to Extensive Fire (very dependant on Damage Control now), early years guns tend to fire faster, 1.1" guns now fire especially quickly and are finally useful for short range accuracy, torpedo launchers now take 80% of the time for that crew army assigned to them to pull out torpedo batch out of storage, and 20% to shove one-by-one into each torpedo tube (huge RoF buff for multi-launchers) humongous guns tend to fire slower and at shorter ranges, More on this in News section.

Costs & Technology & Components tweaks:

-Unlocking "End Tech" before last actual "Component" that happened due to overlap must no longer be possible.
-Basically everything costs differently now. With more and more previously free technologies inserted into each of components, whether it's a hull, an armour, a tower or a gun, will now make them cost more with each new non-arbitrary tech. Originally, ships are fairly cheap, especially with weak hulls and reduced initial turret cost making ships further cheaper.
-Engine cost jumps are now less, Advanced Steam engine now only obsoletes when first Diesel engine unlocks. It's description now clearly says that it's a wise choice for slow ships.
-Increased cost jumps of Survivability section and Weapons section components,
-Increased amount of technology unlocks for hulls after 1927 where super battleships will only unlock much later, (also tiny reshuffle of early battleships so that ones don't overshadow others, probably only in Chinese and one in Russian).
-Increased amount of research effort required for big hull viability jumps (1905 and 1927 especially), and slightly affects cruiser research too. Secondaries are also generally slower to reasearch with each consequent caliber so that they're more reasonable in campaign.
preserved DIP v1.5's no-armour-weight-change per quality components & no-hydrophone&sonar for anything above CL policies.

Also

preserved DIP v1.5's weight balance for hulls (it helps out AIs and unfortunate hulls a lot), lack of Submarines, lack of Mines, lack of Smokescreens, and generally reduced ship mobility, however they now also accelerate much slower at low RPM too. Also some DIP balance bias can be noticed so expect familiar feeling if you played DIP already, despite there being only like 2% of .assets text size changes that remained identical.
-Extremely rare events are now less rare;
-Unrest and Naval Prestige better usable in gameplay thanks to tweaked event outcomes, may be more difficult to deal with;
-More rare events and not-so-rare events about interacting with Minor nations;
-Population is more aware of warmongering;
-AI admirals are now more warmongering especially noticeable at high difficulties;
-AI ships in battle could be more aggressive and reckless and approach at 20% closer optimal range;
-Transport ships have been slowed down significantly.

-Ships can no longer be unrealistically overpopulated by Crew, the Crew amount you see when picking Hull at max length will stand for Spacious Quarters now;
-This then causes Crew reserves be a lot more valueable, training a bit more time-consuming (but degradation is less), Task Forces became smaller but I've added more levels. The required fleet tonnage for coastal operations should be significantly reduced, too.

-Barrel length now fully supports variation between -30% and +25%.
-Introduced more new components for higher variation in earlier game and making these high-speed cruiser hulls actually feasible, as these were oil-fired.
-Everything that has to do with Oil, Electric Wires and Electric Batteries now creates more issues with Fire Extinguishing, especially Turbo-Electric engines.
-Fixed critical stat loopholes, exploits, some vanilla and DIP balance design logic errors, and little typos.

-Removed Hard difficulty.
-Added difficulty harder than Legendary, as mentioned. Nightmare Difficulty mod

More details in News section. Check it out for yourself! I am (unfortunately) obsessed with balancing games.

Which resource assets changed:
accuracies, components, compTypes, crewTrainingLevels, events, guns, params, partModels, parts, provinces, shipTypes, stats, techGroups, technologies, torpedoTubes, techTypes, aiPersonalities, players, governmentMod, relationMatrix.

Don't forget about English.lng! Entire Events system is based all around it's special flags, and obviously it's required for new Components, Techs and Events descriptions.

Any other mod is free to use the parts rebalance, also mind that technologies, shipTypes, params, (crewTrainingLevels, guns, torpedoTubes), are all conjugated about ship/part behaviour rebalance (and gun/torpedo behaviour rebalance)!

And, most certainly, do not report bugs to the game devs while using any mods, as pretty much all "bugs" revealed by mods are simply the unexpected maximums bypasses for which the devs should not be bothered to make specific PIDs and failsaving compensators.

When using any mod, you must disable the autoupdater of UAD, unless it's an Optimization patch which doesn't affect the mod, unless confirmed otherwise.
It means any Opt can mismatch your current game's version Opt but remains compatible.
But do note that some other mods, like DIP, will break campaign saves as of now still, when crossing over the vanilla version.

Edited July 15 by XerMGGW-2

[Guest]

Nice. Good to see more modders on the scene

[XerMGGW-2]

v1.1 Update

- Further increased task force size techs amount.
- Minor allies help over longer distances.
- Disabled mines and subs techs from being researchable. Due to the not being technically deleted, does not break your past saves.
- Small additional adjustments to some hulls and funnels and big long range accuracy buff to Secondary “Rangefinder” and “Targeting”-type towers, patched up stats and a typo in medium-small type Brooklyn model towers. Russian 13-inch and 14-inch mk1 gun models are now russian, except the triplets will be like that of Sevastopol. As well as mk1 17-inch to 20-inch.
- Added “Very Tall Superimposed Barbette III”.
- Adjustments in historical AI personalities for most countries, all AIs should now love refitting ships, without changing chance of refit-preference-to-build-new-ship roll. Who knows whether they'd do what they love or not. Thanks for suggesting.
- Made non-standard wartime events that have analogs in peacetime extremely rare.
- Gave Super Heavy Cruisers Advanced Funnel Complexes.
- Due to all big DDs having short Atlanta main towers vars, given them access to Standard Funnel that fits into them and exists in previous DD hulls.
- Gave unique big DD turret models to all nations based on what they had for their cruisers. Except France, it already had theirs. (Previously was defaulting to ancient Pola turret model, which is never used anywhere anymore.)
- Smoothed out accuracy properties transition from 8-inch to 9-inch affecting everything from 6-inch up to 10-inch inclusively.
- Cost of better oil fuel itself is no longer undone by it's reduced stowage.
- The starting GDP had to be increased with each starting year from what the game initially had due to ships becoming unaffordably expensive and also end up being wildly different when regarding growth with 1890 start: unchanged in 1890, 110% for 1900, 120% for 1910... 150% for 1940.
- Further tweaked and reduced real base GDP and likely Budget % of all countries, especially rich ones. Fun fact, the least possible relative starting amount of money is 1900 China start, and any of 1920-1940 Austro-Hungary start, due to in-built modifiers.

Edited May 5 by XerMGGW-2

[XerMGGW-2]

v.1.2 Update

- To reduce unrealistic obnoxiousness of relations, and compensate for increased events role, all effective relationship deltas both for governments and citizens have been halved.
- Redid fuze times for HE.
- Engine costs per tonnage now grow much slower, but do note the hull cost due to engine still, when you combine advanced engine with advanced or big hull.
- Nerfed wartime events further.
- Increased additional Naval Budget and Unrest if alliance formed via funding. Reduced compensations upon terrorist attacks.
- Tweaked relation matrix and somethings else to be more historical upon later game starts, mostly around China, Soviet Union and Austro-Hungary.
- Tweaked government parties percentages throughout the world to make some more historical sense despite it not mattering much at the current state of the game.
- Even more Mayday in parts file.
- Hybridized 1.5.1.1's gun length-to-velocity-to-accuracy rework with the Balance, paying special attention to shell components so that Light shells no longer godawful, and Tube Powder I (and, hilariously, Brown Powder) no longer god-like. Reduced reload time increase upon extra length.
- Introduced the British Quads to start appearing after the first original British quad appears in 1923 (mk4 9-inch) for Britain. Oddly enough, these are referred to as “richelieu_gun_b_380_x4” in files despite clearly being early “king george” turrets. Bigger pre-kgeorge turrets became compact “hood” ones. Furthermore, single- and twin-gun kgeorge turrets are now slim, correct to the reality!

Who knows, perhaps soon I'll also look into redoing (reducing) the size of these 2" and 3" turrets into something more appropriate if people want?

[XerMGGW-2]

I'm thinking I should make a mini-update tweaking the starting countries' economies even more, but this time severely reducing the cash in earlier years because of just how many ships countries can consistently pump out when comparing to some 1930's, without even being a monarchy.

Any opinion against this otherwise inevitable campaign balance improvement?

[flaviohc16]

I will give this mod a try in the weekend, so I will "cheat" on NAR. lets see how it is.

[XerMGGW-2]

v1.2+

- A little more tweaks in new gun and shell components balance.
- Reduced starting economies of all countries in earlier years: -20% for 1890, -15% for 1900, and -10% for 1910.
- Small change in government type modifiers: nerfed constitutional monarchy, buffed right and nationalists.
- More  parts balance. Most notably, the crew count of casemates is now adequate (3 to 4 times less), and underwater torpedo launchers should be harder to hit. Touched Command Battleship yet again upon discovering errors in it's and other chinese bbs' tower costs, easier to hit, but still as unsinkable. Added more tower variants to other Chinese big battleships; fixed a mix-up in hull unlocks with these hulls; forbidden their assigned smaller BBs and BCs from using oversized barbettes; etc...
- After discovering the game's inconsistensies in tech modifiers that should've been unique to each barrelcountX gun, further buffed the singlet turrets while the debuff decreased for quads, but individual guns (referred as barrels) did get more costly, so will be more prominent in modern long-barreled guns.
- Then made turrets weigh based mostly on their barbettes and reload mechanisms, it grows strongly from singlet to twin, but becomes a bit more efficient for the bigger volume of a barbette of a quad as it takes less armour area to protect. Also makes modern USSR turrets are no longer so ridiculously heavy that the triplet weighed less than a quad. 
- Redid HullSize stat in majority of hulls again, getting rid of outliers. For player's information, this is effectively the chance protection from having ship's parts hit rather than the hull itself. Which would mean that turret ships, for example, will get hit in turrets more often, unlike (mostly) taller ships of the time. Abstractly, it's not connected to actual hull scale or tonnage as much as it is connected to the general idea of the hull shape and expected parts sizes and placements for it with however much of it would be revealed or covered in mind, since the game, quite obviously, doesn't like checking what the shell actually has hit and at which angle as that shell follows a predefined path.

Edited May 17 by XerMGGW-2

[Abood]

Can i use some of the files or will the game not work if i dont put all 18? also i cant make peace at all, the peace button is not available.

[XerMGGW-2]

1 hour ago, Abood said:

Can i use some of the files or will the game not work if i dont put all 18? also i cant make peace at all, the peace button is not available.

Peace is only an option when about 45k points of VP difference is gained. (AI doesn't chicken out as easily as in vanilla, at least for me)

There are many interchangeable files: without some, others will be incomplete. Either won't break the game per se, but it will break the balance. Thing like "Parts" musn't be used without Stats and Params, and preferrably not without Guns and ShipTypes, too. New Components never come without Technologies. Meanwhile lacking individual stuff like GovernmentMod and RelationMatrix and PartModels harms not.

Sorry for the holdup if 1.1.5.2 doesn't work for 1.1.5.1Mod, I'm experimenting if I can introduce Tillman battleship hull&towers&funnels into the game using existing data while uncondensing some hull unlocks with new 1921 year hull strength tech.

[Abood]

Can you tell me how to change the peace rquierment, please?

 

[XerMGGW-2]

v1.3

- Added “Maximum Battleship”, a Tillman-based battleship design up to 80000 tons, as well as towers and funnels for it. Unlocks in 1921. 
- The new foredeckless torpedo boats now have unique towers which aren't reasonlessly lifted.
- There's a new year for battleship hull unlocks in 1921, big dreadnought hulls unlock there now like an N3.
- Some more labour reducing errors in towers & funnels stats in parts, nearing the perfection.
- All Destroyers and smaller now have better stealth. (Detected from lesser range)
- Increased general accuracy of all sizeable guns.
- Other insignificancies. Like 8.9" casemate now up scaled properly instead of scaled down.

These assets just so happen to fit the best, especially 5 casemates on the aft, one of which being on centerline. Of course no sextuple turrets are possible, but at least it fits guns of up to 20".

Edited May 22 by XerMGGW-2

[XerMGGW-2]

On 5/20/2024 at 9:39 AM, Abood said:

Can you tell me how to change the peace rquierment, please?

peace_min_vp_difference in params

[XerMGGW-2]

v.1.3+

- Equalized custom Beam/Draught for foredeckless torpedo boats.
- Added two new barbette protection component variants that do not negate flashfire consequences but rather try to not let it happen firsthand for the most unsafe ammunition.
- Funnel capacity reduced in all geared turbine engines a bit.
- Auxiliary power component battery variants now reduce engine vibrations much like turbo electric engines.

Just in case, a reminder that although the updates will have a few unchanged DIP files from it's newest version when it doesn't specifically fall into the list of the post, it generally shouldn't break your vanilla campaign saves (duplicate saves when unsure), and is generally compatible with DIP Ship Pack.
The Naval Academy changes that DIP prepares are being passively transferred over.
When playing campaign, do not disregard tiny strongly buffed AA guns, for they are useful against these tiny gnats that are modern torpedo boats. But also don't forget that oversized guns, although reduced in range, are no longer inaccurate at lower marks and aren't unreasonably heavy.
You should find out yourself which tower ports only support specifically single-barrel turrets.
AI gets significantly less bonus GDP with each consequent difficulty level than in Vanilla, but gets a bit more tech instead. Due to hull strength tech now being more difficult to research, all AI admirals have been given bonus priority to it.
Due to reduction of range on oversized guns, and irrelevancy of stereoscopic rangefinders in earlier years anyway, I did make Long Range give maximum accuracy bonus at 32km, instead of vanilla 50km.
Damage numbers are no longer overinflated, ships have roughly 10k health, unless you're extremely lucky, or unless you deal like 50k more damage to dead sections instead.

Edited May 23 by XerMGGW-2

[XerMGGW-2]

Question: Should I return the slight armour weight decrease per thickness in each consequent Armour component quality when v1.4 comes?
Right now the only armour type that gets it's weight changed via component is Iron armour, the rest is just like in DIP with only quality %s differing.
I don't personally find this useful because there already are passive armour forging techs that make different armour layers weigh less, and carbonizing iron, introducing nickel, chrome, molybdenum and manganese by miniscule percents doesn't really reduce the density of the armour, by few percents at most.

Meanwhile, have a new big dreadnought hull in the works to be unlocked in 1921 to be a counterpart for N3 & Tillman.
This Hull does not allow any barbettes for superfiring mains.

Edited May 26 by XerMGGW-2

[XerMGGW-2]

v.1.4

- Added Dangerous Dreadnought, as typical of all Imperial Russia's dreadnoughts, supports extreme firepower and good speed at the cost of durability, an elaboration on multitude of different ~1915 projects meant for russia's quad 16-inch turrets at the time with over 20 casemates up to 200mm, after reading book. Lacks barbettes. Unlocks in 1921.
Tip: If you want to shift main tower a bit backward on such hulls that only have forward main tower slots, try placing it on short hull with low displacement slider first, and then increase displacement after. The Main Tower won't move but stay legally on floor.

- Resized Peresvet pre-dreadnought (Battleship VI) to be accurate to real life. Casemates only up to 6-inch but at least now there can be even more of them at maximum elongation to vanilla's maximum displacement.
- Stolen Dreadnought IV (Generic) from Russia, but in return gave the rest of Russian dreadnought hulls barbette towers and crane funnel, though their stats are worse than other original parts of those hulls.
- Resized all standard dreadnought turrets across 2-inch up to 4-inch to become plausibly smaller. Same for such british “didox” turrets.
- Yet again some more balance in parts, affecting buncha funnels and small scout cruisers to also become a bit stealthier, and unlock year switchups on a couple of hulls. Ibuki BC hull now supporting up to 14-inch instead of vanilla 12-inch as it was built for large guns. Due to that one being slow, all Battlecruisers can now be as slow as 21 knots. Also note N3 increasing in displacement true to it's vanilla scale.
- Finally, made it no longer possible to combine minimal draught, beam and high hull form to achieve -100% engine weight. This merciless meta obliteration affected every single possible ship in the game, as compensation I reduced fuel and boiler weight increasers, and total engine weight final multiplier per ship type, until stupid shipbuilding AI stops failing weight limit endlessly when trying to go over hull speed limit. It does indeed mean that all minimum beam/draught ships will become overweight.
- Generally improved the Steering components mathematical human use rate by variety.
- Reduced low speed acceleration sensitivity due to funnel capacity, a fair buff for mono-funnel designs.
- Added Compact Superimposed Barbette. An extremely pleasant middleground from secs' to mains' -sized barbettes.

Edited June 14 by XerMGGW-2

[XerMGGW-2]

The latest compatibility update has left the mod missing a whopping 60kB of additional text data modded into the game's resources, essentially failsaving/reverting it into an augmented DIP of sorts. (Which is bad, because DIP risks destroying your campaign saves when loaded)
Now fixed.

Do always check at least the News section to see if the mod is proper to itself. Thanks to reformedfren on Discord for mentioning it, I knew I'd mess that one up eventually as I can't check the thing myself due to crippled update system on my part.

Edited June 19 by XerMGGW-2

[XerMGGW-2]

v1.4+

- The recent recoil patch appears to have severely increased ship survivability and accuracy to unsettlingly high levels. Redid everything about it, together with recoil and individual crew member health, from the ground up to feel more similar to previous mod version, changing values by magnitudes in order to not blunder the balance.
(Ship durabilities have been reduced by like x3, Base accuracies have been reduced by maybe x20, recoil dissipation due to now bad own exponent was sped up by ~x500, etc.)
(also made accuracy debuffers that had ability to reach 100% and above no longer do that, except for recoil)
(also caused some changes targeted at base accuracy in Technologies)
- A little bit of additional secondary towers. (Modernized Dreadnought I of China and Spain, and for biggest Chinese battleship)
- British big mk5 Turrets with 1-2 barrels are now too, thinner, similarly to how I made their predecessing marks.
- Stereoscopic rangefinders will not have a convenient text hint in their descriptions.


Running out of all possible space for in-game mod description. As a matter of fact, if v1.6 will come, I'll focus on exploring how Sounds can be modded, to be in general more balanced and some redesigned, especially now that partial pens finally produce correct explosion sfx instead of ricochet sfx.

Edited June 23 by XerMGGW-2

[XerMGGW-2]

v1.5

-  All pre-ww1 secondary US guns models now more adequately scaled, and made their weight universal between cruisers and battleships. Since some can be found in China too, did the same there. 
- Discovered that bad exponent behavior of recoil is now same for engine vibrations. Now addressed. (Increased dissipation value by ~x130 times) (This increases all accuracy compared to v1.4+ back up by some)
- Perfected the accuracy over range rework of each caliber since last compatibility patch. Tuned damage per ship type. Now the combat variety is Balanced again!
I can finally rest this mod version unless something bad happens in next game update again.

- Tweaked ship autobuilder to be no longer oddly obsessed with specific items, like oversized guns.
- Minor tweaks/fixes in hulls & parts. Gave that new russian big sec barbette tower to “Dreadnought IV (Generic)” also.

Be careful when minmaxing ship speed according to hull max speed, the so-called "magic weight barrier" might be 0.1 knots slower for some hulls, like 17.7 (or enter 17.79 for that matter) instead of 17.8 sharp for Battleship III hull, from USA.

Keep in mind now that Damage numbers aren't inflated and are a bit more useful, that all Ships (and Boats) will have around 10000 total section HP, but due to damage saturation and dispersion and parts hit expect 20000 on average.
Thus, theoretically, detonations on fresh ships are the most effective damage source, but the only way to know true section health pool is by ramming the ship.

Edited June 24 by XerMGGW-2

[XerMGGW-2]

v1.5+

- First instantiation of game's combat sounds improvement and volume balance (for better experience when up-close to a ship, recording a video for tournament/challenge or campaign and whatnot): All excessively loud damage explosion sounds were tuned down throughout all calibers, some got volumetrics improved, 8-inch gun sound being the worst one got completely redesigned and balanced, all small caliber gun fire sounds have had more than 50% of silence duration cut from their sound effect duration, taking up less processing space of simultaneously playing sounds, also smaller silences on other affected combat sfx. Now among all these explosions you should hear unchanged ricochet and overpen sounds better.

(3rd step to install is now: 3. Also just paste SoundMod.resource into that same (Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts_Data) folder. The game will call upon it automatically for new sounds.)

- Reduced crew vulnerability to all HE hits (still >2x of AP) and increased overall tendency to survive. Still, expect guns reloading far slower with little specialized crew left among many other disadvantages than in vanilla.
- German ugly 17-inch+ turrets were not removed, but have been shrunk better according to visually advertized caliber. Game now also recognizes their short length for calculations, expect space efficiency, high firerate and defined ballistics.
- Made deck torpedo launchers too, harder to hit, but redid torpedo detonation damage, which now tends to be more severe but still trying to not steal ammo from other unaffected torpedo launchers.
- Fire is less difficult to extinguish, but presumably does even more damage to parts (that are not ship structure).
- Engine damage chance decrease decreased in newer components.

Quote

A video sound recording. China's Gun Cruiser hull, armed with excessive amount of 8.7" -30% length turrets for sound stress test. Sounds like a softer mix of 7" and 9". Not very practical because it quickly achieves above 100% recoil accuracy debuff and is very brittle.

 

Edited August 9 by XerMGGW-2

[XerMGGW-2]

I'll need at least a week to research the new balance, and see what balance changes from the mod are no longer compatible to update it to 1.6 for, coincidentally, v1.6.x.x of UAD, as well as efforts for extra difficult campaign.
Don't try to transcend version for v1.5.x.x into v1.6.x.x
Ignore me for now. 😅