My overall not so short(but still not complete) feedback on all gameplay elements

[Kraut]

Since my feedback consists of so much words i have to split it up into multiple posts, otherwise it becomes laggy.

And wth is wrong with those high security password demands for a simple forum? 😅

First part(out of three):

Here it comes

first i wanted to express my concerns of game-labs having many projects at the same time in development.
Although i can understand the urge to develop ones own ideas as soon as possible(and/ or getting paid for said development)
a "step by step" approach might have been more rewarding for the developers and especially the customers.
I mean, the first video on the channel(Stealth17Gaming, in case u want to give that man a cookie) that got me interested in the game
is from October 2019.. thats over 2 years ago by now. And Looking into that Video atm ....there has not much changed.. on the surface...
yet.

shortest first:

"graphics":
            - the style is okay. its not like i would like it to be, but its bearable enough to enjoy the gameplay.
            What i really dont like is the scaling / size of the objects though. Pls increase the size of the ships to their actual one.
            When im creating a almost 300 meter long battleship i wanna see and "feel" that when zooming into it in the designer and during
            the battles. Atm the things look and feel like toys in an endless bathtube....

Designer:

A Designer of anything, in this case, warships,
 is a place where ppl can/want to express there creativity, ideas, thoughts,
 or just rebuild historic ships/ designs they like.
 
 Although its not a bad designer at all, its lacking for both targets, historical rebuilding
 or the full unleash of ones own phantasy.
 And the following points are my thoughts of why thats the case:
 
- "Hull/ Type Requirements" : 

                                 I dont understand the Design-Decision by the devs to limit the players design choices
                                 by making requirements for each ship type / hull as so much main gunz/ torpedo-tubes etc.
                                Why would u do that? If somebody doesnt want to build a historical or even functional ship,
                                why not just let him? Everyone that wants to buil historical ,will meet the requirements anyway.
                                But why restrict the design choices of a player? in a Game wich core gameplay is 50% desinging ships?
 
 - "Displacement":   

                    in its current status Displacement rules for the lenght and width of a ship. 
                    Although it is true, that there where often Displacement Targets/ Tresholds that 
                    were aimed at or needed to be met, its umcomfortable to use.
                    I strongly recommend / ask the devs to replace the displacement slider with
                    sliders for Length, width and other measures of the ships hull to give the 
                    player more control over their design ideas.
                    
 - "Towers / Superstructure":

                            the size of the superstructure does not scale with the hull size and thats...
                              ... unclever.
                              Together with the Jumps in Length from the Displacement Slider it makes it 
                              hard to realize certain designs and i dont see any reason why the superstructure
                              should not scale with the size of the hull.
                              The superstructure is build to give a ship certain capabilities,
                              to actually make a functional or advanced warhship out of a hull with gunz.
                              Its a tool, not the goal, so it has to adapt to the ultimate circumstances 
                              like the dimensions of the hull. and not the other way around.
                              And some Towers seem way to heavy for what they deliver. the 1890 CA for
                              example suffers extremly from those overly heavy Towers.
                              
 - "Tower Equipment:             i get the idea behind the added weights and costs as means of balancing.
                                 But even for a game that looks atm like its not intending to be a simulation
                                 it seems like a bad joke to me, that radio Equipment and the rest increase weight
                                and costs of Towers relativly. Like.. wtf? THe weight of the advanced Towers
                                is in the thousands of ts. And i shall believe, that a Radio-Equipment costs
                                me 20% of 6000ts ?? that would be a Radion of 1200 ts that come on top
                                of the superstructure. The Weight of Radio equipment ist based on the needs
                                for Range and signal quality, not based on how much metal on the ship already exists...
                                Same applies to the Radar, Sonar and Rangefinders.
                                I strongly vote for giving the Tower Equipment absolute weight and cost.
                                
- "Engines/ Propulsion:        Engines and the rest of the Propulsion section should be own entities like gun(turrets)
                               with their own specifications like dimensions, Power, weight / effciency instead of some artificial percentages for an
                               unknown base value. That would also offer great oppurtinites for Research.
                               ANd for the Player to actually learn something about technic and technology instead
                               of just min/maxing artificial numbers and percentages.
                               
- Protection:                    The Whole Protection should be like adjustable like the generic belt/deck and turret armour
                                already is. For Example Citadelle or Barbette Armour. It makes no sense to display 
                                those vital armour schemes of Warships just as min/max option to reduce the probalitites 
                                of certain events. Either the Barbette Armour or the Citadelle are thick and strong enough
                                to withstand penetration. Or they are not. The Chance of a catastrophic even after 
                                an penetration of these vital Armour schemes is only depending on what is stored behind them,
                                how much of it and of what kind is the penetrating object and what dmg causes it to the armour
                                (secondary effects like spalling) and will the explosion of the object occur and if it occurs,
                                does it cause secondary explosions (ammunition)
                                That applies to all Protection Systems. The only exceptions maybe Bulkheads and Anti-Flooding.
                                It may not be nessarry for a satisfiying design and gameplay experience to care bout the thickness
                                of Bulkheads and their doors.
                                Anti-Flooding seems to be redundant here since the sectioning of a ships hull via bulkheads
                                is already the counter-measure to flooding ( and spreading of fire), so an additional-anti-flooding 
                                makes not much sense to me atm. but im not a pro in ship-design, so there are maybe important systems
                                additionl to bulkheading a ship that im not aware of yet.
                                
Funnel Capacity:                 Funnels for smaller ships are often worse than their counterparts for the big girls.
                                An exception to that are those for Destroyers/ Torpedoboats. But especially in the low 
                                tech era its very easy to get a highly efficient propulsed BB compared to a CL or even
                                worse, a CA. I mean, maybe one would now argue bout how scalability makes bigger 
                                propulsions more efficient, but why are so many, not all, but a lot of funnelz less effcient
                                the bigger they get. Here id say a Bigger Funnel with a greater Diameter is moar efficient percentages
                                t then a smaller funnel of the same kind because of a minimum treshold of metal needed to create
                                the funnel. and the percentage of that minimum treshold should decrease when increasing the funnelz size,
                                therefore making it more weight efficient, not less.
                                And comming back to the Comparision between BB and the smaller Crafts. We shall not forget
                                that a BB needs a much bigger Engine for the same Speed/Range than the smaller ones, so even
                                with scalability on its side a CL should be faster when the efficency of the propulsion systems
                                is the same.
                                
                                
Barbettes:               Although barbette Armour is rightly so activated by placing a turret on a hull, the explanation
                                shown in the tooltip is not correct. A Barbette is not only a socket to bring a turret
                                into a superfiring position, its the general housing of a turret.
                            
Casemates and torpedo launchers:

                                Why are casemate gunz and underwater torpedo launchers so much heavier than their decked counterparts
                                although there armour is either shit or nonexistent? Setting Armour to the same level a casemate gun
                                is significantly heavier despite beeing displayed as the smaller and shorter barreled object.
                                

Final thoughts on the designer: 

                                Atm it feels to reduced in complexity. The urge to call it "mobile gamish" came suddenly to my 
                                 mind. And i think for a game called "Ultimate Admiral" and with a price tag of 35 euros 
                                for an unfinished early access game sets the bar much higher than that.
                                As u probably all aware of, that type of game is rather a niche, hence the relativly higher
                                price tag for what is offered or will be offered once its finished. 
                                But my Point is not so much that its a niche game, but more that its gameplay mechanics are
                                limited. Its a (atm rudimentary) designer and a battle game. The campaign atm is not much
                                more than a somewhat random succession of "naval-academy" battles.
                                So id wish for those few gameplay mechanics to be as good as possible. The designer should be dope.
                                And the battles too. The campaign was just recently installed and is far from finished, so i wont judge
                                its state yet. But the designer and the battles are sticking around for a very long time now judging from
                                utube videos.

 

End of Part One.

Edited January 3, 2022 by Kraut

[Kraut]

second part:

Battles:

Im aware of certain Bugz like ships just wont turn as commanded, awkwarldly slowing done when close to each other etc.
i dont think that behavior is intented so i expect it to be fixed regardless of my or other persons feedback anyway.

Speeding up time:

                  Pls stop limiting the use of speeding up the time depending on the distance between own and enemy ships.
                    I think u can think of ur own of enough examples of why it is a pain and waste of lifetime to not be able to
                    speed up whats happening during battle. Especially in the low-tech era that is a huge problem...

Bulkheads:   

            it appears to me that ships in UA are somewhat two dimensional. The bulkhead seem to go over the full
            ship width wich makes shooting at an opponent ship from two sides pointless except for two sided 
            installation like casemates and deck gunz/torpedos.
            I dont understand the reasoning behind a decision like that. It might be the case for smaller ships,
            but bigger and more advanced ships certainly have also a horizontal bulkhead scheme.
            
Flooding:

           first, the Indication should not be called flooding, but bouyancy. It makes no sense that flooding reaches 
           0% and the ship sinks. The ship will sink when its buoyancy reaches 0%. Wich does not necessarily means
           that flooding reached 100%, since ships often sink / break due to strong unbalances in the buoyancy.
           (titanic anyone???)
           I find it strange that Listing still does not effect the flooding / bouyancy of a ship despite the 
           game beeing now playable for so long. And the game showing ships to list and partially sink below the water line.
           Also the pumping is way to strong. The pumping is to fast and i also want to know how its possible to pump
           out sections completly? i mean, i can see fixing up a wooden ship with some patches. But does
           that work to stealframes too? are they riveting / welding up patches to seal the hull of the ship again? And im sure
           even if thats the case that will be limited to a certain hole size.
           The Listing issue brings us to the next problem:
          

shooting:

         why is the listing / angle of a hull in the water not effecting the abilitiy to shoot at a certain target/ at all?
          its seems kinda basic to me that it should not be possible to hit a target under/above a certain range when my gunz
          are either pointing up in the air or into the water.
         
Damage / Abandoning of ships:

                               ships should be abandonded by its crew or going silent when certain damage tresholds are met.
                                atm Ships keeping shooting back and manouvering even when 80-90% of the ship is aflame. Im very sure thats
                                not hard to imagine that human beeings would have more pressing issues than manning their stations and shoot
                                somehwere( the smoke of the fires will take them the sight for targeted shooting anyway) when flames are all
                                around. A metal ship might not burn to ashes, but the humans in those metall coffins would.
                                A Ship should generally stop to combat / be abandonded when a certain dmg treshold is met, so i (and other players)
                                dont have to fight down every ship to either sinking or 0% structural integrety cause its still posing a treat to 
                                the own ships.
                                An abandonded ship can then either be taken price by the winning side or beeing towed home be reminding friendlies
                                depending on the positions of the participants at the end of the battle
            
Damage/ repairing overall:

                           the Extreme Pumping cabailities and other factors are making ships way to resilent to dmg taken.
                            Especially the Resistance of small ships and transport to torpedoes is ridicilous. One might argue,
                            that early torpedoes were smaller. but so where the ships. and those early ships had no torpedo
                            protection whatsoever. The Torpedoboat meta results from those factors mostly.
                            Repairs seem to be "op" too, greatly enhacing the survivability of those small and hard to hit boats/ships.
                            In Contrast to that the torpedo protection is way to weak. real events have shown that a proper Anti-Torpedo-Systems
                            minimizes the effects of Torpedo hits and keeps a (battle)ship afloat. In game the Torpedo-Dmg
                            rises so much stronger than the Protection against it that even one or two torpedos cripple a BattleShip
                            even when latter is equipped with the strongest anti-torp measures.
                            So my recommandations / biddings are in short: reduce repair speed/ capabilities, reduce resistence of ships
                            to dmg / overall, greatly increase the effectiveness of anti-torpedo-systems.
                
CPU (AI) Performance:

                   since there is no AI yet( and i personally pray, there wont be ever), i find it always strange to 
                    call those scripts an AI, but im aware that its the common thing to do. Only some games go out 
                    of the way and call the PC opponent for example "CPU".
                    Its on the same time to aggressive and to defensive. I often witness an CPU fleet hiding its boats/DDs
                    behind its bigger units instead of using those small things to screen and carry out torpedo attacks.
                    On the other Hand, when its using said small units, its not following thru, they just drive in front 
                    of my gunz to  be shot down, but do not carry out a full attack. Lately they even refuse to launch
                    torpedoes at all despite their design having enough torpeodes with them. CLs and CAs are still launching as evar
                    Overall the CPU wastes away its ships. it preservation instinct / script kicks in most times to late if
                    at all. Thats i think one of the biggest reason why the campaigns are so short. The other big 
                    reason is the Target selection / group behavior / maneuver.
                    But im glad that now ships actually try to protect each other. Also that results in the dangerous behavior
                    of adjusting its own speed to that of the dmg/ crippled ship wich results in another(or more) dead / crippled ship.
                    In one transport mission for example the enemy CLs where sitting to a dmg transport, one per CL, instead of 
                    activly engaging my Cls and defeating them / pushing them away.
                    
Battles/ 
Commanding ships/
 fleets in general: 
                    Thats a thing i dont like bout other games like EE, AOE or SC(SupCom) as well. Beeing the Brain of all
                    Units under my COmmand. I mean, hello? Im the Admiral. Not the Captain of a DD. or BC. let alone of both
                    at the same time. or of 10 Ships at the same time.
                    Ofc its cool to see a clash of a lots of Ships. But on the other hand its to much pain in the ass to 
                    manage all those ships at the same time against an opponent that has not the limits a human has when it
                    comes to concentration and multi-tasking. And no, also dont wanna do that against other ppl.
                    Im A Stragist / Tactian, not somebody on ecstacy / cocain.
                    So id ask for an Degree of Automatisation, that lets me do my Admiral busieness like giving the general
                    heading of the fleet or flotillas and which targets shoot be prioritized, but spares me the hustle of adjusting
                    courses to avoid ship-collisions or torpedo dodging.
                    Atm i can either decide to do everything myself or to have no control about the ship whatsoever. Both are
                    not satisfiying.

Torpedoes:             U got Torpedo-Range wrong: Torpedo-Range means the Range a Torpedo has enough Energy/Fuel to be propelled.
                    Reaching that Range-Treshold means, the Torpedo sinks done to the ground and either destroyes/ deactivates itself.
                    Atm ingame Torpedo-Range means the Range at or below wich a torpedo can be launched at a certain target by the ships
                    crew. Wich makes no sense at all. I can launch a Torpedo whenevar i want. (Same would apply for gunz too btw)
                    And that Range makes espeically no sense since the actual Torpedo-Range is much higher than the "Targeting/ Launching-
                    Range" of those torpedoes.
                    So, although i stated before that i want less micromanagedment, in terms of torpedoes i want the full control
                    of when, where, at what direction and HOW MANY torpedos are launched.
                    Its for example very frustrating when u wanna sink an already crippled enemy with one torpedo, but ur ship
                    can only launch all of its launchers/torps at once, so ur wasting torps when using multi-launchers/ multiple launchers.
                    Multi-Launchers also should be capable of firing torps without beeing fully loaded. That will just be a
                    conseqeunz of making torps single launchable anyway i hope.
                    Or i want the Script to be able to fire a proper Torpedo-"Fan-Shot"/"Salvo" with multiple launchers.
                    Atm only multi-Launchers create nice "Fans" in the water. And only when the Range is big enough.
                    But i want ships to deliberatly use delays in firing their torpedoes to create such fans, so a big enough
                    fan on shorter ranges can be created.

 

end of part two

[Kraut]

part three:

Battle/ Designer:     Since the gameplay of the game basically consists only of those two things, they should be complex and entertaining
                    enough own their own. Even a finished campaignmode wont take away much of those two key gameplay elements.
                    I have the strong feeling that there is no actual shell/penetrating physic modell at work.
                    As indicated in the game, there are probalitites of penetration based on Gun/ ammunition Performance 
                    and on the otherside the armour sickness and its angle. But althoughgraphically displayed i think
                    there is no "real" penetrating/ richoching happening. Instead, after a penetration is achieved,
                    there are than calculations taken that determine if the fuse goes off, how much dmg is dealt or can be 
                    dealt and if something is hit in the compartment / bulkhead where the penetration occured.
                    While that works for a display when the underlying mechanics are unknown its kinda disappointing when u
                    know that. 
                    Especially since there are other games around for many years that actually feature the "real"
                    penetration of armour and the behavior of the projectile aftwards either beeing destroyed upon penetrating,
                    or over-penning or exploding.
                    I mean, none of these systems is totally realistic and i dont ask for that in a game. But additionally
                    to the other armour schemes beeing really implemented (barbette, citadell and anti-torpedo) it would
                    create the possibilty for nice x-ray vision of the ship and its internals as well as testing once own design
                    against shells, like other games (i dont wanna mention here) have that inlcuded.
                    Additionally it would give the Player an insight into the internals of his ships and warships in general
                    providing some education.
                    As the Introduction of real entities regarding engines or radar /radio equipment would be.
                    There is not much to learn of Steam Engine II or Diesel Engine I despite the little information the tool tip
                    provides.
                    
                    all ships should be able to install smoke-screen devices. Smoke should be left behind when a ship moves foward/ in any direction.
                    It should not stay with the ship, giving it basically a cloaking device to press on an attack.

My thoughts on Campaigning:

        The Campaigns are still over after 6 month (on hard, as germany) except for the 1890 start.
        
        How much sense does it make that i can see all the enemy ships, their classes and names before the battle, but
        during the battle i have to identify them to know what exact ships im facing ???
        
        I think there should be: Much less battles / missions going on.
        
        VP musst be calculated and weighted according to the actual Fleet size, Funds and ship building capacity of 
        a Nation.
        
        Campaigns later should have goals that determine how far a Nation is willing to go ( in terms of loss of life,ships and fundz
        and unrest ) 
        
        creating fleets / flotillas, setting them up to certain locations / mission types.
        
        Give Mothballing its own Button instead of beeing hidden behind the "Set the crew" function.
        
        Increase shipyard size building speed or increase shipyard side from the beginning or both. How many 
        
        years shall a campaign last to finally be able to build the biggest stuff??? (and finishing the ship and making
        it play an actual role in the still ongoing conflict)
        Although that can be offset by ur planes to make campaigns actually have peace time.
        Actually, why does that not exist already? Why does the Campaign end with peace? Why is it not possible
        for CPU / Player to wage war at each other again?
        
        Give moar Informations. How many transports are needed for 100% ? Make repairing transports a thing to so 
        dmging transports without beeing able to sink them is actually worth something.
        
        Permantly display the tonnages of enemy and own Fleet and the Power projection and not just when a Blockade is going on.
        
        Make Naval intelligence a thing so we have atleast a rough estimate of how effective economic warfare is or what
        the capabilities of the enemy are.
        
        Divide research stronger in sections and give each section the possibility to focus on certain projects.
        Not all scientists / researchers are researching on everything together at the same time. Especially
        Fields that have not much to do with each other should not effect each other. Like Range-Finding and Steel / Hull works for example.
        Although state research funds are generally coming from the same pot, there is also non-founded/ private research going on
        that pushes technological advance forward. 
        So Focusing should only decrease the advancement of research if that research is only done by the state. A private person/
        company is not negativly effected by the goverment spending on another project.
        But ofc u can speed up also private projects be granting them state support.
        

So, although it may appear a lot to u it its likely that i forgot something that i thought of at some time playing the game.
I may or may not add that later.

Best Regards,

Kraut

end of part 3 and of my feedback for now.

[Kraut]

So, after finish the 1940s campaign, this time after 9 instead of 6/7 month, with germany, on hard,

i want to add some of those things that i had forgotten yesterday:

Campaign: 

- Why are ships moved to random harbours, mostly Baltic Sea, when in repairs? Why the heck are they moved at all away from the 

Harbour i determined for them as their base of operations?

- Add the feature to slow down or hault repairs to control those repair costs.

- ships, that are in repais, shall not take part in Operations unless the CPU / Player deliberately decides to do so.

- ships, that are damaged / in repair shall not add to the Power Projection / Blockade Tonnage, or, if they do, than only to a certain degree, for example with .. 0.75 of their

status percentage. So a ship with 80% status is worth 60% of its Power Projection/ Tonnage.

- the Event log shall be bigger. And accessible so the player can reread older messages. Also a Note Pad / Log book would be helpful to note... informations that need to be remembered

- the tooltip within the designer and in the fleet tab shall all of the most important informations. Atm for example i am missing ... RANGE ... wich is a very important parameter of a warship (atm only as part of power projection, i know). The Power of the Engine might be nice to know, but what is much more important ist the Efficiency, cause that effects acceleration and range. Turning Circle would also be a viable info when comparing different designs. Maybe add Resistance to the Armour values. And Spotting / Viewranges and gun ranges would be viable too. Its important to compare the key factors of military vessels at a glance when deciding what needs to be build or later assigned to what type of mission.

- vital campaign information such as enemy fleet size / power projection / tonnage of enemy and own fleet as well as montly balance / fundz shall be displayed on all campaign tabs at all time.

- What is keeping u right now from adding a little economic growth ? the grammar seems to be there, just make it a 1 or 2 instead of a 0 ???

Maybe add a lil "random" factor in it.

- The effects of a Blockade musst be delayed, they wont affect the budget the next month after the blockade started

 

Battle:

- When i select all ships / multiple ships and click detach, my intention is to detach all select ships from their flotillas. not attach them randomly to either one or X flotillas. 

Detach should always work like a person that reads "Detach" and "Attach" is expecting it, and not just when only one ship / flotilla is selected

- There need to be a quick select button / shortcut for "select all "Type" ships"

- As far as i read the Control / keybinding options, there is no possibility to create control groups. I tried strg+number. Thats def. a musst have in a game with real time stuff happening.

- when a type of ship was identified once during the campaign, it shall be identified quicker all following battles.

- While the campaign lacks all sorts of vital information, we have to much information during the battle. How would i know the exact amount of Ammunition the enemy carries? We may have an estimate or even an exact number from a construction sheet / our naval intelligence, but i doubt that its practial to have some guy on the bridge counting the shots from the enemy for all calibers.

- Why would we also know the reloading status of the weapon systems of the enemy? on Close range u might spot the torpedo tubes beeing empty or filled up again, although thats really not a healthy thing to do while shells are passing by left and right or even directly at the torpedo tubes. so far i saw hits on those tubes, damaging them or disabling them, but i couldnt witness an torpedo-tube explosion, wich should be a thing, when the launcher is hit.

- anyway, that information on enemy weapon system allows two abusive tactics: let the enemy run dry and know when he launches torpedoes without beeing able to detect them. I agree that it might be possible to actually see torpedos beeing launched from deck launchers, so its not totally unrealistic. but that would only be the case for close ranges / best vision conditions. and not on 15km distance probably.

- Torpedo ranges are to far after all. those ranges are only obtained by oxygen enriched torps and those are a serious threat to the own ship. i know, that there is a modifier, but the base chances of torpedos going off doesnt seem to be that high or i had just bad luck so far. Anyway, the ranges of torpodes should be overall much shorter. electric torpedoes even shorter though or even slower.

- Ammunition explosions, especially those of main weaponry, shall rip apart a ship. So far an ammo detonation does a lot of damage, yes, and a chain of ammo explosions eventually will destroy the whole ship. but the fact is, that already one explosion of a main ammo rack / compartmant is enough to destroy the hull in its vicinity and therefore the whole ship. 

 

designer:

- give the choice over speed/ range of a torpedo all the time and independent of the torpedos propulsion system. Maybe even give the choice for the warhead / propulsion ratio.

- maybe add advanced tech to torpedoes like homing or pre-programmed zick-zack courses.

 

Again more than i thought. Well, what needs to be said musst be said.

Best Regards,

Kraut