>>>Alpha-8 Feedback<<<

[Nick Thomadis]

Admirals, we just released a new hotfix update. You can check out the details in our blog:

https://www.dreadnoughts.ultimateadmiral.com/post/alpha-8-hotfix-patch

or below:

============================

BALANCES

• Gun rebalance: The smaller guns from 9-inches and lower are now reloading slightly slower and with more desynchronization. Their damage became accordingly higher. Damage now will be more meaningful per caliber and guns below 7-inch will clearly be more useful against Destroyers.
• Targeting rebalance: The “Targeting penalty due to speed” has been reduced significantly but the dynamic targeting that utilizes target bearing and range rate became intensified. As a result, ships moving fast at a straight line will no longer be so hard to aim at. Maneuvers, though, became more impactful to targeting. In any case, when ships are at close distance, the hitting rate will be more consistent.
• Base deceleration of ships slightly decreased, addressing cases where some ships could turn too sharp. The base “rudder shift time” is slightly increased to compensate for this change.
• CSS Virginia’s guns became slightly stronger, as it was too weak compared to the Monitor.
• Triple and Multiple expansion steam engines have slightly increased weight, so that older pre-dreadnoughts cannot easily exceed the 20 knots speed.

AI

• AI will maneuver more often according to enemy strength and battle situation. You will notice AI ships to approach or retreat at sharper angles, while keeping an effective broadside. Issue of torpedo boats not approaching close enough to launch short-range torpedoes should be resolved.
• AI targeting improved, affecting AI opponent and friendly ships. You will notice guns to be more effective in switching to the nearest threat or distributing gun groups against multiple targets.
• AI screening behaviour improved. The main fleet and the screen ships will operate closer to each other and keep a more effective formation. There are known issues of formations, which are still evident, especially when AI has to handle a large formation of different ship types. We will address all formation issues gradually on next updates.

FIXES

• Fixed potential bug that sometimes made transport ships to be auto-designed without any funnel.
• Fixed issues with ramming. Previously, the smaller ship caused more damage. Now when ships ram each other, the damage will be more consistent and flooding should occur with more probability. There are remaining problems on ramming that we will address in a next update.
• Fixed a problem with ship evasion logic which previously made ships to react at a shorter distance, and thus collide with a friendly or enemy ship with more probability. As a result, ships will be harder to ram at. We will later further improve the evasion system and ramming might become a tactical choice for the player, if he wishes, with a special control option.

Warning:

Mission difficulty setting is a work in progress and currently has no effect.

============================

Your feedback is always welcome and you can place it in this thread.

 

Edited August 21, 2020 by Nick Thomadis
Added changelog of patch

[Cptbarney]

Nice been a while since the last update, actually got me to pause my 3d modelling lol. Thanks! @HusariuS @Marshall99@Shaftoe@Hangar18@TotalRampage@BobRoss0902@Aceituna@IronKaputt@1MajorKoenig And anyone else i missed out.

[BobRoss0902]

2 hours ago, Cptbarney said:

Nice been a while since the last update, actually got me to pause my 3d modelling lol. Thanks! @HusariuS @Marshall99@Shaftoe@Hangar18@TotalRampage@BobRoss0902@Aceituna@IronKaputt@1MajorKoenig And anyone else i missed out.

We need an @all

[BobRoss0902]

2 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Admirals, we just released a new hotfix update. You can check out the details in our blog:

https://www.dreadnoughts.ultimateadmiral.com/post/alpha-8-hotfix-patch

Your feedback is always welcome and you can place it in this thread.

 

Is the campaign still on track for a November release?

[Cptbarney]

5 minutes ago, BobRoss0902 said:

We need an @all

Ye, and a spoiler tag as well. Instead of using html.

[WiselessOwl]

For some obscure reason main Dreadnought website always hesitates to open on my provider. Sometimes it does, but slow - sometimes it won't open completely, like now...😬
Could someone of you, good sirs, repost changelog here?

[liaxelot]

ok more and more correction  nice...   even if it is long and little updated

BUT  when can we expect turret of 4 gun for royal and french navy

and the campaign ?

[Shaftoe]

Thanks, Devs! I think those are positive changes.

 

Looking forward to future updates. Keep up the good work!

[Nick Thomadis]

2 hours ago, WiselessOwl said:

For some obscure reason main Dreadnought website always hesitates to open on my provider. Sometimes it does, but slow - sometimes it won't open completely, like now...😬
Could someone of you, good sirs, repost changelog here?

Added the changelog of patch in the first post 👍

To all, we hope you will like the new patch. We will keep you informed as soon as possible for our next set of improvements.

[Shaftoe]

So, I just played mission "The Modern Battleship" and lost, even though I managed to complete the objective by sinking 70% of enemies (only 2 enemy battleships were left), just in the nick of time.

I think this mission should be checked, and the time could be increased by 15-20 minutes - to prevent "technical" losses spoiling clearly winning situations.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Shaftoe

[WiselessOwl]

27 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Added the changelog of patch in the first post 👍

To all, we hope you will like the new patch. We will keep you informed as soon as possible for our next set of improvements.

Many thanks! The update also seems fun - especially the targeting rebalance. Finally, no more invincible-47-knots-2fast2hitme-superbattlecruisers yay!😄

[Rina Ravyn]

Is there already an ETA on when we can expect the non-repairing rudders and engines to be fixed?

Its really annoying because that damage is most often permanent for the player, but the AI can most often repair it and get going again.

[Tycondero]

I do not know whether other people also experienced this issue, but when light cruisers and destroyers are set to screen they stick fairly close to the capital ship causing frequent evasion movement orders to the battleship. I feel that the friendly screen/AI controlled ships should not cause the capital ships to frequently move out of their set path. They should just avoid crossing the capital ships much more, as they are more nimble anyway (and less important in the naval hierarchy).

[Cptbarney]

14 minutes ago, Tycondero said:

I do not know whether other people also experienced this issue, but when light cruisers and destroyers are set to screen they stick fairly close to the capital ship causing frequent evasion movement orders to the battleship. I feel that the friendly screen/AI controlled ships should not cause the capital ships to frequently move out of their set path. They should just avoid crossing the capital ships much more, as they are more nimble anyway (and less important in the naval hierarchy).

Ill have to test this out once im done with other stuff.

[SonicB]

Okay, after a couple of battles I'm pretty positive about this change. It certainly seems to have fixed the speed issues, and I think the lower fire rate of small guns definitely feels more authentic.

That said, it seems to have accentuated a problem whereby every battery insists on waiting to fire in salvos, but the time taken to fire a salvo with large numbers of small (especially single) guns is so long that that waiting seems to seriously cut the overall fire rate. Either that or I'm reading the reload display completely wrong.

I get that any long-to-medium range fire would have to be coordinated by salvo rather than under local control, but I can't see any reason why small gun batteries - or any guns, for that matter - need to leave a second between shots. Historically, even 16" salvos could be fired simultaneously.

Speaking of salvos, ideally, I'd love the option to switch batteries between directed and local control, sacrificing long-range accuracy for the ability to target multiple opponents and an increased rate of fire.

[SonicB]

3 hours ago, Tycondero said:

I do not know whether other people also experienced this issue, but when light cruisers and destroyers are set to screen they stick fairly close to the capital ship causing frequent evasion movement orders to the battleship. I feel that the friendly screen/AI controlled ships should not cause the capital ships to frequently move out of their set path. They should just avoid crossing the capital ships much more, as they are more nimble anyway (and less important in the naval hierarchy).

This. I've played a few fleet battles now, and it's looking like the new evasion rules are causing more trouble than they're worth. It's now very difficult to maneuver one formation around another without causing the first formation to break up.

Can I elaborate on this idea and suggest an alternate remedy? The root of the problem seems to be that under the current logic, both ships are required to evade. In reality, under maritime law where there is a risk of collision, only one ship is required to evade the other (determined by certain situational rules.) The other ship is called the 'stand-on' vessel because it has an equal duty to maintain its course and speed so the 'give-way' vessel can maneuver safely to avoid it.

In reality, even in peacetime, any destroyer skipper who causes the Admiral's flagship to take evasive action is going to be in trouble. Therefore, in the game context, it would make sense to develop a consistent hierarchy of who gives way to whom. Broadly, I would say the more maneuverable vessel should give way, and in the case of formations of equal ships, the flagship/lead ship should have priority. Any vessel under 'manual' rudder control would have highest priority as a way of overriding the system.

[Durham Dave]

Poking smaller ships to test speed and aiming effectivness changes, it seems that I can still get very fast ships far too easily. 1908 Royal Navy, I can get something with 2x1 4", 6x1 3" and 2x2 18" torp tubes (biggest available) going 37 knots using coal fired steam on 950t. Compared to the 1908 Beagle-class which on 950t got 1x1 4", 3x1 3" and 2x1 21" torp tubes at 27 knots with coal fired steam turbines. I don't think the weight 'cost' rises steeply enough for speed right now.

[Hangar18]

On 8/21/2020 at 2:16 PM, WiselessOwl said:

For some obscure reason main Dreadnought website always hesitates to open on my provider. Sometimes it does, but slow - sometimes it won't open completely, like now...😬
Could someone of you, good sirs, repost changelog here?

probably your browser, try going to a different one.

[Skeksis]

fps is missing, is this accidental or has it been removed? I would like it back, maybe it should be a gameplay option anyway.

[SonicB]

Update on the collision avoidance stuff - yeah this is getting silly. AI was bending my ship's course at this range and I had to default to manual rudder. As I have had to do at one point during almost every academy mission I've played since patch.

It's also interfering with internal formation logic. When a ship leading a formation gets hit and can't maintain speed, it tries to join the back of the formation. But since the patch I've found that behaviour causes the next ship in line to evade, and pretty much destroys the formation.

Think I'll be giving up on formations and using manual follow commands from now on.

 

Edited August 24, 2020 by SonicB

[Skeksis]

Impact Explosions (suggestion for the sound team).

So far we only have the metal penetrating sound(s) and nothing else, no explosion or shell dentations, it’s all rather quiet after the impact.

Maybe there should be an explosion, at least 50% of impacts to be followed up with an explosion (maybe vary explosion sounds to the amount of damage done), and/or a ship shutter, collapsing decks/structures sounds or a general ship groan, etc. probably don’t need any more visual aids than the fires we already have, just extra sounds of internal damage taking place or the shell denotation itself.

Edited August 24, 2020 by Skeksis

[Draco]

Hi guys, first of all thanks for the update!

Okay my thoughts so far, really, really really great that you fixed the speed penalties and made it more about maneuvering. Historically accurate, and more interesting and challenging to play as it affects our ships too, and the AI is naturally better at microing their ships to continue maneuvering enough to keep them hard to hit, so definetly an improvement on the gameplay there as well as the accuracy in regards to reality. Top notch!

Improvements to AI overall have also been noticeable, I no longer see AI battleships just hanging out beyond their own range and waiting for my 18 inchers to get deck hits at plunging range, and they generally seem much more adaptable in terms of the tactical situations I put them in as a whole, so plus there too.

But!

I do seem to be noticing an exacerbation of ricochets whenever a ship is at anything above effectively broadside angles, and i get why. A lot of people have been playing a lot of wows and come with the feedback that angling your ships should be an effective tactic, and it did historically have some of the effect we currently see in the game and I don't think angling your ships should be removed as a mechanic or anything... no no no... but, I have had several battles now where I have had upwards of 60-70% ricochet rates even for 17" and 18" main guns going against armour that should have been well outside it's relative immunity zones on all surfaces even if you correct for a 45 degree angle... and it's just, I feel it's a bit much right now. That's all.

Apart from that, keep up the great work, I hope yall are safe and sound, and still really looking forward to that campaign. Cheers!

 

[Adm.Hawklyn]

Yeah, I managed to get through the very first mission, target practice, again. But any mission past that has been an unable to complete due to screen freezing in sea battle mode. And yes I did post in the tech forum.

Enjoy the game, been playing it pretty often, specially before my desktop died... But yeah, I look forward to the next update.

[Cpt.Hissy]

Noticed one little inconvenience with collision avoidance. Your ships will ignore speed setting and actively brake if on collision course, even on manual ruder. Makes intentional ramming or other silly close manoeuvres very hard to impossible to do.
I guess on manual rudder they also should be on manual speed.

[draconins]

I would say I think I like this Alpha v76, as it reduced instances of crippling forever circling destroyer, which need manual rudder set, which usually plague once mission time goes few hours. Circling itself still happening but seems it is no longer require me to set rudder manually, instead I can detach, set some command, then attach it back later usually solve this. It is tedious but there at least it is workable.

Previously it is game breaking as setting rudder on many ships is very annoying, especially when I already in the game for few hours. This helped me complete remaining academy missions, especially last 2 missions which I had so many instances of it happening in alpha v74 and 75.