>>>Beta 1.6.0.7 - Fast Loading in campaign<<< (Update x5 Hotfix 2)

[Nick Thomadis]

16 hours ago, justMike247 said:

 

 

 

Attempt to load battle.. Game crash… relaunch game… Attempt to reload battle after enduring replay of all previous skirmishes that happen that month… Game crash… Relaunch game… Rinse and repeat 5x… Give up trying to fight battle… Auto-resolve… Fleet gets creamed… Rinse and repeat per every major fleet v’s fleet battle.

 

 

 

Improve Relations… Exercise in pointlessness when multiple examples of Fleets affect Tension can tank political relations by up to 80 points per month… Result;- continually being bled dry by parasites.

 

 

 

Province Conquest… Attacking force at 1100% (no that’s not a typo) of stated required tonnage… Conquest failure…

 

 

 

Province conquest via invading land forces… Impossible to defend against… Successful recapture within 2 months.

 

 

 

“Reduced frequency of “come chase me” engagements” = 2-6 failed chase me missions per month. Auto resolve to negate failed stern chase invariably sinks all opposition while putting my fleet into repair.

 

 

 

Captured 5x major ports in theatre… Ships damaged in engagement end up in neutral port because…????

 

 

 

Refuelling / ammo replenishment, even in a major port takes between 4-6 months. Fleet fuel reserve exhausted after 1 month sailing plus 1 month blockading a port.

 

 

 

Attrition of merchant fleet…  Forced into continual war = decimation of merchant fleet (reduced to 7%) despite slider constantly at max.  How are they being found?? Why can’t they be formed into convoy and given armed escort?

There is a DESIGN folder, back it up if it has ships you want to keep, and erase its content. Then load up the save again.

 

Hello,

You have sent to us a bug report but we cannot reproduce the issue. Do you have Shared Designs in your design folder?

Please check your saves folder found usually here:
C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Game Labs\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts

[justMike247]

I have whatever default is... I never use shared designs, no mods active

 

From what I can see, there's no Shared Designs in the UAD folder, nor in the Designs folder

 

Edited September 30, 2024 by justMike247

[Nick Thomadis]

35 minutes ago, justMike247 said:

I have whatever default is... I never use shared designs, no mods active

 

From what I can see, there's no Shared Designs in the UAD folder, nor in the Designs folder

 

Do you have a Design Folder? Does it appear as an empty folder?

[justMike247]

2 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Do you have a Design Folder? Does it appear as an empty folder?

Confirmed... Design folder is empty

[Nick Thomadis]

5 hours ago, justMike247 said:

Confirmed... Design folder is empty

We cannot reproduce the problem at all. I cannot think what can be the problem except that maybe you use a modification which alters the game in some aspects causing it to not load the save.

We will make one more update for the beta, either tonight or tomorrow. We have fixed all things reported so far, but some of the fixes will work only on a new campaign, please note.

[justMike247]

as stated in my first reply to your question... I've no active mods... running on exactly what Steam delivered

[Aendos]

3 minutes ago, justMike247 said:

as stated in my first reply to your question... I've no active mods... running on exactly what Steam delivered

Try verify game files on Steam?

[justMike247]

UAD uninstalled, reinstalled, verification run and checked out fine... Designs folder still empty

[Nick Thomadis]

17 minutes ago, justMike247 said:

UAD uninstalled, reinstalled, verification run and checked out fine... Designs folder still empty

It is alright to be empty. Not a problem. Does your game load now?

Are you switched to Beta, this is important.

[justMike247]

loading's never been the issue, in as much as the campaign loads and I can fight fleet v's small opponent numbers. Problem was always fleet v's fleet... game crash when compiling divisions 100% of the time...

 

Can't tell yet if that's been resolved... yet to have fleet v's fleet engagement... Will advise

[justMike247]

2 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Are you switched to Beta, this is important.

playing 1.6.0.7 Beta Update x3... which... is why I commented in this thread...

 

Despite any percieved grouchiness, I'm trying as best I can to help you guys... Can't tell ya how to fix what I believe is broken, but I can report/describe the faults as I come across them

[JaM]

Whats up with the research in latest build? its slower (which i dont mind, but) research focus almost makes no impact, while after few years, it immediately shows me as "very behind" and its impossible to catch the research curve anymore...

 

 

FYI, started a new campaign, didnt touch the priorities at all, set the technology financing to 100% and went BEHIND in few years time.. funnily enough, one year it even jumped to ADVANCED, then next year to BEHID...

 

overall, this change makes technology strange... you tend to advance faster when you dont touch it, which on its own is quite strange gamplay decision... personally, i prefered how it was before in current release build (not beta)

[justMike247]

UAD 1.6.0.7 Beta initial impressions

 

 

 

Perspective…

 

Observations are necessarily reflections on the two most recent patches and their impact on playing one single (still ongoing) campaign. With that out of the way, if you’re interested in this post, grab a coffee; it’s gonna be pretty long. For sake of clarity, I’ll try to divide this into two main sections;- prior to/after the latest Beta update.

 

 

 

For a change, I’m playing this campaign from Uncle Sam’s side of the pond, and it’s been… interesting. From start date of 1890, biggest issues were selecting hulls that didn’t instantly induce a feeling of “my ghod, what were they THINKING??” That’s not casting aspersions on the design team; I’ve no doubt they’re trying to render reasonably accurate models for what was in vogue at the time. Single biggest change in these early stages was near absence of opportunities to conquer local minor provinces. Admittedly, at this time, the overall strength of my navy was embarrassingly small, so it’s highly unlikely I could have done anything had opportunity arisen, but it was somewhat depressing to see the opposition practically trip over themselves in their rush to empire-build.

 

 

 

Throughout this particular campaign, I’ve been trying to focus on testing the “Fleets Affect Tension” routine. Game states that tension is generated by my own fleets, plus fleets of my allies. With that in mind, I’ve been very pro-active in shedding “allies” as expediently as I can, declining to build any ships for them, or accepting/ immediately cancelling a build order because that’s the only mechanism available to us to break away from allies.

 

 

 

When not actively involved in prosecuting a campaign against a country, my navy is in home ports with status set to Limited. This, we’re told, presents the least potentially offensive profile to other countries. It’s been my experience that this, at the very least, has zero bearing on the Tension mechanism, frequently finding myself being threatened by up to four countries while extracting some payback on a fifth. Initially I thought the extortion routine was based on something like “the smaller the dog, the more irritating the bark,” the extorting countries more often than not possessing no more than a handful of hulls available. But the constant exception to this observation was the UK. From the earliest days of the campaign, the UK had by far the biggest fleet and largest army, and they’ve been particularly aggressive deploying it while constantly taking offense at my fleets “at home, Limited” posture. I let this situation run for over 30 years in attempt to discover whether the Tension routine ever quit. Attempts to sooth ruffled feathers via political intervention invariably proved a waste of time, even after political overtures improved relations. But it’s impossible to improve things enough to make a difference when the biggest effect you can hope for is a 5% change for the better, when being hit for 50, 60, 70 and 80% for the worse over the course of a single month.

 

 

 

Difficulties encountered when prosecuting an offensive campaign were generally the same, the worst being the rate of attrition on my merchant fleet, frequently taking losses in areas where there’s no hostile fleet in theatre to interdict them. This disconnect between what the player is being told, v’s what can be seen on the map generates the impression that merchant fleet attrition is purely a product of RNG, with little/no bearing on the presence of friendly/hostile fleets. This is compounded by the glacial rate that merchant ships can be replaced despite the near constant application of maximum permissible budget to redress this.

 

 

 

Any player experienced with previous rev’s will be familiar with the frustration of having an overwhelmingly stronger force blockaded at navigational choke-points by as little as a single torpedo boat or small coastal sub. This rev introduced a new slant on this phenomenon; half my navy blockaded by… no hostiles in theatre, resulting in fleet movements that should have completed inside a month, frequently taking 2-3 months.

 

 

 

Refuelling and rearming was particularly frustrating from campaign beginning up until the early 1930’s, with fleets laid up for up to 6 months in major (high capacity) ports while waiting for fuel/ammunition. Freshly bunkered fleets would invariably be running on fumes after a single turn of movement, plus a single turn of blockade, despite Range being set to max after refit. The issue of vessels new-arrived in port to rearm/refuel being immediately hijacked by the AI to produce “special missions”, resulting in those hulls being decimated for lack of fuel and ammunition if I attempt to play those missions. Declining the “invitation” has a seriously detrimental effect on any accrued Prestige; damned if you do / damned if you don’t.

 

 

 

Small/intermediate hull displacement build issues are still ongoing, the effect being disproportionally profound on the smaller hull classes. This invariably results in designs that are, at best, curious? DD’s that more closely resemble trawlers, with the wheelhouse amidships, as much of as little as possible on the whale deck, and everything else crammed as far aft as space permits. The curious look is compounded when a significant proportion of available displacement has to be wasted in asymmetric use of armour to ballast down the stern.

 

 

 

CL’s and CA’s suffer similar issues despite more deck space and greater displacement to work with. Cruiser evolution in the Research tree seemed particularly slow in evolving away from the Protected/Semi-Protected designs, compounded by profound frustration when the first “modern” designs can’t be built. US 14500 ton CA hull needs a two funnel design to give the hull reasonable speed, but it’s literally impossible to fit any of the funnel designs to any of the rear superstructure modules. This issue persists until the next hull evolution becomes available.

 

 

 

Being smaller, CL’s suffer to a more alarming degree. Despite spending hours experimenting with all available hull/module options, it was impossible to create a design that produced CL’esque performance/capabilities. N.B. this despite restricting myself to particularly conservative options. The result invariably produced a hull that would barely keep pace with my BB’s, have wafer thin armour, precious few disturbingly small guns, and no serious (if any) torpedo battery.

 

 

 

It was around this time that the latest mod rolled out, with profound effect on “established norms.”

 

 

 

Glossing over already reported issues when loading Battles, Auto-Resolve has seen a drastic overhaul. It came as a pleasant surprise to learn that I no longer need to reflexively reach for “Certified Carbide-Free Lube” because this is gonna hurt. That said, at risk of sounding masochistic, damage sustained v’s damage inflicted “feels” a smidge disproportionate; nowhere near as extremely in favour of the A.I. as it’s been, but.. yea.. favouring the player just a bit too much.

 

 

 

Changes to “hands on” engagements have proven to be… (insert pause while searching for appropriate vocabulary)… profound? That feels understated, but multiple engagements have produced similar issues.

 

 

 

Torpedoes… A.I. DD’s launching torpedoes at ranges in excess of 35km. Granted, my fleet was involved in prosecuting a stern-chase and would be closing on the torpedoes, so this would be fairly true-to-life, provided Player launched torpedoes can do this too. Thus far, the opportunity to test this hasn’t arisen. A.I. torpedo speed has seen a significant buff; torpedo spread made my DD’s look like they were in reverse despite running at 38kts. I guessed the A.I. torpedo speed somewhere in excess of 80kts.

 

 

 

Capitol ship main battery ranging. Similar to torpedoes, the opposing A.I. demonstrates almost “true to life” behaviour, i.e. wildly erratic dispersal patterns when trying to range on target, but once ranged, capable of sustaining withering fire on a target. Unfortunately, this buff seems to have gone a bit too far, as demonstrated when the target is a division of DD’s. The A.I. now has an alarming capability to “mission kill” a division leader with a ranging salvo, sinking the target in fewer than six salvo’s, then immediately hitting the next target in that division. This, despite those DD’s masking their position with smoke, begging the question, in absence of RADAR, how are those targets being spotted? Sadly, the reverse doesn’t apply for player capabilities; smoke immediately breaks target lock.

 

 

 

An additional worrying complication;- damage/destruction to opposing A.I. capitol ship modules has no effect on that ship’s ability to maintain both high rate of fire and high degree of accuracy. Case in point;- stern chase, 3x BB’s v’s 1x BB. A.I. BB has Mk3 2x2 385mm guns aft (Y turret damaged), destroyed rear tower, damaged main tower, ablaze from rear of main tower, aft. It’s being engaged by ships armed with 2x3 356 or 406mm Mk3 guns forward. Despite 4 v’s 18 disadvantage in rifles, A.I. achieves 75% hit rate per salvo while my BB’s struggle to gain 6%. A.I. shells repeatedly pen main deck/main belt. Main deck armour thickness is 350mm, main belt is 550mm angled at approx. 60deg. Exactly how does a 385mm shell manage to pen that thickness of Modern 1 armour when the range is 21km? How can it range even approximately with a destroyed rear tower? How does it “see” through the smoke of its own fires?

 

 

 

Sadly, the above hasn’t proven to be an isolated case, producing the unusual situation where, right now, it’s strategically better for me to Auto-Resolve rather than manually play out the engagement…

 

 

 

Player auto-targeting still seems to follow the “dude… what are you smoking?? Is that chit legal??” model, invariably prioritising the least threatening target. Manual targeting multiple divisions invariably makes you feel busier than a one armed paper hanger as the A.I. constantly changes target priorities.

 

 

 

Damage Control… Witnessing the A.I. routinely pump out flooded compartments at a rate that defies belief, while knowing my own ships will never have this capability has been a bugbear since the earliest release of the game, so it genuinely astonished me to see one of my own ships take a hit in the bow, see three compartments flood, and then pump out two of those three compartments. Sadly, I’ve only witnessed this once.

 

 

 

Spotting Range… A.I. routinely spots my fleet at ranges in excess of 60km. In absence of spotter planes and satellite tracking, how is this physically possible?

 

 

 

Final point… Shot Dispersal… Thus far, it’s been the case that the majority of shells fired in each salvo end up “over there… somewhere”, while the errant shell in the occasional salvo produces a hit. This latest update finally demonstrates the ability to “correct shot”, producing reliably accurate ranging and straddling, at least from the opposing A.I. perspective. From the players perspective however, we’re still stuck with killing fish, salvo after salvo with no correction for range or bearing. I’m NOT trying to argue for any unearned increase in hits per salvo, merely re-stating that any self respecting gunnery officer would be capable of achieving a straddle within three salvo’s, with each subsequent salvo improving “grouping.”  

 

 

 

Overall… this latest rev finally feels like a big step in the right direction. That said… there’s still quite a way to go before the game feels like it’s playing on a level playing field rather than two radically different laws of physics.

[Nick Thomadis]

Steam seems to have a network problem at the moment. It may delay to make the file available or you may not be able to visit the steam forum threads.

Beta Update x4 uploaded. including:
- AI units will now not be able to retreat in campaign battles where they "Fail to withdraw" as Task Forces on the map. They may still attempt to fight at a safe distance but they will not try to leave the map as before.
- Tension mechanics tuning to make tension more dynamic.
- Economy balances. Army cost affects the expenses more. Transport Capacity and Crew Training costs are more dynamic, and depend more on National GDP.  Fleet maintenance and repair costs increased slightly. Shipyard capacity limit affects more the building times and costs.
- Fix for ships spawning too far from each other (rare issue).
- Fix for minor nation ships not cleaning up after being sunk in battle.
- Optimization in ship movement at sea mechanics.
- Optimizations in shell ballistics (affects penetration due to different shell physics applied).
- Optimization in environment lighting for battles.
- Optimization in auto-design.
- Optimizations in Battle AI.
- Further balance on the new auto-resolve.
You need to restart Steam to get the update.

This beta is a release candidate. Needs urgent feedback on new campaigns, to test properly the new Campaign changes. If all is fine, we will release.

 

[Suribachi]

Life has been kicking me while I am down so I have not had much chance to play.

Feedback so far:

1.  Addition of Shipbuilding Capacity on Map View and Ship Design screens for Campaign == 10/10 fantastic addition

2. Tension popup includes areas where relations are being affected in a scroll-able list == 10/10 fantastic addition

3.  Lack of feature proposed feature is not good

4. Campaign loading is much faster and UI feels snapper and more responsive somehow.

[Северная]

3 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Steam seems to have a network problem at the moment. It may delay to make the file available or you may not be able to visit the steam forum threads.

Beta Update x4 uploaded. including:
- AI units will now not be able to retreat in campaign battles where they "Fail to withdraw" as Task Forces on the map. They may still attempt to fight at a safe distance but they will not try to leave the map as before.
- Tension mechanics tuning to make tension more dynamic.
- Economy balances. Army cost affects the expenses more. Transport Capacity and Crew Training costs are more dynamic, and depend more on National GDP.  Fleet maintenance and repair costs increased slightly. Shipyard capacity limit affects more the building times and costs.
- Fix for ships spawning too far from each other (rare issue).
- Fix for minor nation ships not cleaning up after being sunk in battle.
- Optimization in ship movement at sea mechanics.
- Optimizations in shell ballistics (affects penetration due to different shell physics applied).
- Optimization in environment lighting for battles.
- Optimization in auto-design.
- Optimizations in Battle AI.
- Further balance on the new auto-resolve.
You need to restart Steam to get the update.

This beta is a release candidate. Needs urgent feedback on new campaigns, to test properly the new Campaign changes. If all is fine, we will release.

 

Cool, I will start a new campaign now and see what's up.  It looks like you have addressed several of the important issues with the retreating, tension, and the weird ship spawn bug that I got like 25% of teh time.  I don't know what any of the "optimization" stuff means, so we shall see...

[Северная]

3 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Steam seems to have a network problem at the moment. It may delay to make the file available or you may not be able to visit the steam forum threads.

Beta Update x4 uploaded. including:
- AI units will now not be able to retreat in campaign battles where they "Fail to withdraw" as Task Forces on the map. They may still attempt to fight at a safe distance but they will not try to leave the map as before.
- Tension mechanics tuning to make tension more dynamic.
- Economy balances. Army cost affects the expenses more. Transport Capacity and Crew Training costs are more dynamic, and depend more on National GDP.  Fleet maintenance and repair costs increased slightly. Shipyard capacity limit affects more the building times and costs.
- Fix for ships spawning too far from each other (rare issue).
- Fix for minor nation ships not cleaning up after being sunk in battle.
- Optimization in ship movement at sea mechanics.
- Optimizations in shell ballistics (affects penetration due to different shell physics applied).
- Optimization in environment lighting for battles.
- Optimization in auto-design.
- Optimizations in Battle AI.
- Further balance on the new auto-resolve.
You need to restart Steam to get the update.

This beta is a release candidate. Needs urgent feedback on new campaigns, to test properly the new Campaign changes. If all is fine, we will release.

 

OK, I have some feedback already about tension.  It is still too high, like by the end of 1890, everyone is at war.  I notice there is more positive tension in the mix than before, so some countries end up being very friendly very quickly too, just entrenching alliances but not really toning down the permanent war problem.

 

But the biggest issue with it is how chaotic and unorganized it is.  Every month I get a tension pop-up that has DOZENS of entries of +3.3 this and -6.8 that in all these different regions - what the heck am I supposed to make of it?  Do all the math for all the nations and add them up myself?  If this is how it is going to be, can you also just display the total net affect of positive and negative tension for each relation?  You are giving us this information but it is unreasonable and insane to try to make sense of it every turn.

 

EDIT.  January 1891, playing as Spain, Legendary:

1) Russia just declared war on me (Spain) after I just concluded brief war with USA that initiated half way through 1890

2) Britain is at war with Russia, Italy, China

3) France is at war with Germany and Russia

4) Austria-Hungary is at peace but almost at war with Russia

5) China is at war with Britain and Japan

7) Germany is at war with France

7) Italy is at war with Britain

😎 Russia is at war with Britain, France, Spain, Japan, and soon Austria-Hungary

9) USA is at peace after ending a war with Spain one turn previously

10) Japan is at war with Russia and China

Edited October 2, 2024 by Северная
War update

[Северная]

What's really dumb about it too is that as Spain, everyone goes by my waters trying to get through the Med, especially Britain, and while all my fleets are in port, everyone gets mad at ME for creating tension!  Especially Britain.  And the AI isn't TRYING to cause tension, it's just everyone's fleets are moving around causing this as a byproduct.  In Britain's case, they're at war with Russia, so sending a lot of ships by me on the way to the Black Sea, and I don't care at all, but a couple turns later, Britain wants to declare war on me!  Every other month I have someone wanting to declare war.  I even paid off Britain once and the VERY NEXT MONTH they want to declare war.

 

You said you wanted "urgent feedback" on this new update, and I am saying this system needs a much bigger rework than whatever you have been doing with it.  I really cannot bear to keep playing it in this state.  It wasn't perfect before, but it was much better than it is now.  It is terrible.

On the bright side, I haven't had any of the battle related bugs like the ship weird spawning thing or the ghost ships thing happen this time, so that's nice.

[Aldaris]

10 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

- AI units will now not be able to retreat in campaign battles where they "Fail to withdraw" as Task Forces on the map. They may still attempt to fight at a safe distance but they will not try to leave the map as before

I think I just teared up a little bit.

Will try this as soon as I can!

[MDHansen]

11 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

- AI units will now not be able to retreat in campaign battles where they "Fail to withdraw" as Task Forces on the map. They may still attempt to fight at a safe distance but they will not try to leave the map as before.

This is great news! 

For us that have edited the "params" file(and others), will we need to revert values back to original where applicable?

[NathanKell]

12 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Steam seems to have a network problem at the moment. It may delay to make the file available or you may not be able to visit the steam forum threads.

 

It's just Tuesday Steam prop, we do that every Tuesday afternoon Pacific pretty much.

[JaM]

lots of new bugs in recent update, definitely not ready for RC...

 

Bug1  Transport ships appear in Ship building list as "buildable" after they appear in battle..

Bug2 - enemy sunk my cruisers that were escorting transport ships (controled by AI), but battle did not end, and battle just continued so i was a passive spectator watching AI playing AI..

 

[Nick Thomadis]

42 minutes ago, JaM said:

lots of new bugs in recent update, definitely not ready for RC...

 

Bug1  Transport ships appear in Ship building list as "buildable" after they appear in battle..

Bug2 - enemy sunk my cruisers that were escorting transport ships (controled by AI), but battle did not end, and battle just continued so i was a passive spectator watching AI playing AI..

 

We will fix everything and provide new build. Thank you really everyone for all the help!

[JaM]

FYI, right now, nation relations deteroriate extremely fast... as Japan, i had war with China in 3rd turn, and Chinese due to having larger fleet just launched single strike mission against one of my ports that had no ship inside... i lost autoresolve (TR vs single CL), and now suddenly they have 70000 VP points and war is lost and so is my campaign...  and its all on Medium difficulty...

[MDHansen]

wowzers! the game and UI feels sooooo much smoother. The general "lag" entering/exiting menus are more or less gone. Even the designer is acceptable. Leaving a battle 10 years in to a campaign takes a literal second! (I am playing "slow", sure as hells doesnt feel slow). Turns are twice, if not 3 times, as quick than 1.6.0.6

[18:50:01.302] [UnityExplorer] [Unity] [NextTurn]: Date: 09/01/1910
PassableAreas: 4ms
RecalcCost: 0ms
PlayerRoutine: 568ms
Battles: 68ms
Relationships: 60ms
TaskForces: 8778ms
Straggle: 33ms
TaskForces: 12ms
Battles: 635ms
SubmarineBattles: 151ms
TransportLoses: 49ms
RefitShips: 1081ms
ManageFleet: 600ms
MoveVessels: 322ms
Events: 1ms
PlayerRoutine 2: 534ms
PlayerRoutine 3: 40ms
Save: 223ms
Total: 13159ms

Edited October 2, 2024 by MDHansen