>>>v1.6.0.7+ Feedback<<<(Latest version: v1.6.1.5 Optx4)

[Nick Thomadis]

Hello Admirals,

We are very happy to announce a new large update of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts. This update focuses on optimizing all aspects of gameplay and most importantly it has significantly increased the loading times of the campaign.

v1.6.0.7 Optx5

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1069660/announcements/detail/4676515842031874560 

v1.6.0.8 Optx2

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1069660/announcements/detail/4550415957649390146 

v1.6.0.9 Optx4
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1069660/announcements/detail/4556045820219632734 

v1.6.1.0
 https://steamcommunity.com/games/1069660/announcements/detail/455604582023376965

v1.6.1.1 Optx2
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1069660/announcements/detail/4556046454947315862

v1.6.1.2
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1069660/announcements/detail/4468226896061006027 

 v1.6.1.3 Rx7
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1069660/announcements/detail/4468226896061006178 

 v1.6.1.4 Optx8
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1069660/announcements/detail/6904675658203398491  

v1.6.1.5 Optx4
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1069660/announcements/detail/500558980530046913 
 

[justMike247]

earliest observations...

Tension rebalance seems to be working pretty well... nice job guys. That said, Naval Prestige during the first couple of years feels particularly twitchy; loads of negative plunges for little apparent reason, offset with precious few opportunities to do anything to claw it back up again. It's fine once you have a few battles under your belt, but when starting with zero prestige, you're forced into making some curious/bad decisions purely on the basis that you can't risk Prestige dipping much more.

 

Changes to Combat A.I. mean battles no longer feel like shooting fish in a barrel... long overdue. Too early to say if that works throughout campaign timeline, but thus far, it feels allright.

 

Only glaringly obvious omission I've found thus far... Merchant fleet losses aren't being reported, denying info re where raiders are supposed to be. Only cue remaining for merchant loss is the change in percentage of fleet strength. Seems like an easy fix.

 

Noticed the opposing A.I. now has a buff in pumping ability, pumping out flooded sections at a rate that would make the fuel pumps of a Saturn V's F-1 engines envious... Not merely unrealistic, but a poke in the players eye... Tech we have to research and pay for in cost/weight, but won't operate for us in battle.

 

Overall impression thus far... Game feels/plays a hellova lot better than I've ever experienced it. Had a few glitches (saved refit designs not saving), still some room for improvment, but... yea... not too shabby now....

[Северная]

This is the best version of the game released yet and a lot of feedback was addressed and taken into account.  I still think there is a lot to work on though.

Best things about 1.6.0.7:

- Battle AI is much better, no more endless retreat encounters 

- Quick loading times and battle performance is much improved 

- Tension generation is finally reasonable

Things that still need work:

- Tech research is still dull.  There’s no reason to use priorities considering their penalties, so there isn’t a way for this mechanic to add flavor or really be interesting at the moment.

- Weight offset needs work.  There are many hulls, particularly ones that have front casemates or funnels attached to the front tower that have totally ridiculous front weight offset.  There isn’t a valid reason on the planet why a pair of 10 ton guns on a 30K ton battleship should affect its weight offset by more than 10%.  This is resulting in less realistic designs or ignoring these hulls entirely.

- Diplomacy.  Alliances are currently pointless and the AI cancels them without penalty in a few turns anyway.

- Minor nation interactivity.  Don’t bother starting in 1890 as Japan if you want to pursue a historical conquest of Korea because odds are you will never conquer them.  Also, when you DO go to war with a minor nation that has multiple provinces, the war should continue for all the provinces.  It’s weird that it is only ever about one province, like if you are lucky enough to invade Korea, you need to get lucky three more times.  Related to this, when you eliminate an AI major, your army should occupy all their territory, not leave masses of nonsensical ungoverned territories.

- Fleet organization.  It would be very helpful to organize fleets and divisions for your forces, especially if this can transfer to how they are grouped and put into a formation when you enter battle.

 

 

[Abuse_Claws]

3 hours ago, Северная said:

- Diplomacy.  Alliances are currently pointless and the AI cancels them without penalty in a few turns anyway.

- Minor nation interactivity.  Don’t bother starting in 1890 as Japan if you want to pursue a historical conquest of Korea because odds are you will never conquer them.  Also, when you DO go to war with a minor nation that has multiple provinces, the war should continue for all the provinces.  It’s weird that it is only ever about one province, like if you are lucky enough to invade Korea, you need to get lucky three more times.  Related to this, when you eliminate an AI major, your army should occupy all their territory, not leave masses of nonsensical ungoverned territories.

This. Also I would add woeful inability to influence domestic politics. I get that the player is only the admiral, not the ruler of the country, but one would think that an 'Admired' admiral might have some political weight to throw around.

And it's badly needed too, as currently playing long campaigns as Russia or China is just unsustainable, the GDP growth penalty for Absolute Monarchy is just too much to handle in the long run.

Options like "plot a coup" to change the government form completely or "endorse opposition" to influence the next election where applicable would be VERY nice to have. Maybe even "call for a snap election", IDK.

Of course those options shouldn't come free: unsuccessful attempts to change the government should result in sizeable penalties to Naval Prestige, Unrest and maybe even Naval Budget. Potentially this might even be something that happens over multiple turns, costing NP/Unrest at each turn. But there needs to be a way to do this

Also of note, it's really weird that elections just set Unrest to zero. Sure, they should reduce it significantly, but the way it works now is if I have elections in my country, I just never bother to look at unrest again and it becomes as much of a dump stat as NP currently is

[Nick Thomadis]

Uploaded optimized version including
- Fixed issue of "Own Fleet Creation" at the start of campaign, resulting in negative funds if your built ships exceeded the shipyard capacity.
- Fixed shipyard cancellation issue, causing tonnage to get lower than before.
- Reduced further the difficulty levels' Technology boost of the AI (it is really minimal now). After the latest campaign AI improvements the effect appeared to be strong.
Please restart Steam to get the update fast

[Aldaris]

Since a lot of the pressing problems are being adressed, I'd like to venture a bit into suggestion territory.

One area that could use expansion is "ways to spend your money". One that should be pretty easy to implement: allow for manual expansion of port capacity. It's quite frustrating being stuck with waiting for ports to grow organically, it would be very nice if we could spend money to do it, similar to how we can spend money to expand our ship building infrastructure.

If you want to keep the distinction between major ports like Portsmouth and some backwater port on a pacific Island, you could make the expansion a percentage based on the existing capacity. Therefore it would take several rounds of expansion and a lot of investment to get some tiny port up to major capacity, but if you wanted to expand something like Vladivostok, you would get a lot of tonnage out of it because it's already fairly large.

That would have two positive effects: it's a money sink for those mid to late game scenarios where you're swimming in cash, and it would allow us to influence where we can base major fleets. Sometimes the issue isn't money or building capacity, but the fact that you don't have anywhere you could put that new Battlecruiser squadron you'd like to build.

Edited October 5, 2024 by Aldaris

[flaviohc16]

23 minutes ago, Aldaris said:

 

That would have two positive effects: it's a money sink for those mid to late game scenarios where you're swimming in cash, and it would allow us to influence where we can base major fleets. Sometimes the issue isn't money or building capacity, but the fact that you don't have anywhere you could put that new Battlecruiser squadron you'd like to build.

We need more sinks in the game, also some "respect" sinks, maybe to change governament/invade some minors later on, when you earn a shitton of VP in battles.

[Aldaris]

Good point! Naval Prestige is basically meaningless as long as it is positive - being able to utilize it for something would be great!

Edited October 5, 2024 by Aldaris

[Panzergraf]

Backing a coup that ends up failing could cost you your head though. End of campaign💀
But it would be fun if it was an option!

Gambling some Naval Prestige on backing electoral candidates would be nice too. If they lose, the next government might like you a bit less for backing their opponents, but you get a chance to directly influence what kind of government type you want.

[justMike247]

1 hour ago, flaviohc16 said:

We need more sinks in the game,

Multiple full blown ass-whoppin, name takin, heart breakin battle fleets isn't a big enough money pit for ya??  Eesh... Kids these days... Oi Vey...   😜

 

Option to plough cash surplus back into GDP would be nice too

[Aldaris]

Yeah, that too. It never made sense to me that the Navy has a many billions strong piggy bank just sitting there,and no one in the rest of the government clears their throat and starts to make "you know, we could find a use for all that money" noises.

[Abuse_Claws]

3 hours ago, Panzergraf said:

Backing a coup that ends up failing could cost you your head though. End of campaign💀

While it's more realistic, I don't find SoDs particularly fun
However, if you try a coup and fail without having enough NP in stock, that will end the campaign 100%
Basically, are you useful enough for the government to pardon you and keep you in place or not

[MDHansen]

[22:06:27.064] [UnityExplorer] [Unity] [TrySendShipToPort] CL Vestfjord to port Willemstad, repPrior: Low, lowCrew: True

This message would be very handy to have ingame after a battle. Either in the log window or as a message in the battle summary

[Zuikaku]

I suggest having more interaction with minor nations. If they are allied with enemy of mine and we are at war, why I can not invade that minor nation? If Korea is allied with Russia, and me, as Japan, find myself ar war with Russia, why Korea, Russian ally can not be invaded. This way feels like minor nations are immune.

And also, ship models (destroyers and cruisers in particular) seems to have decks washed even at slightest waves.

Edited October 5, 2024 by Zuikaku

[solarkraken]

While the new loading times are great, I feel a lot of other issues are just ruining the overall playability.  I just tried to build ships in the british 1930s campaign, the first 3 battleship designed where done with little issue.  My biggest complaint here are the 4 inch and smaller gun mounts are too big.  when a dual 3.9" mount is 80% of the size of a 5.5" dual mount, thats a problem.  Yeah there are a few instances on a real battleship where the tertiary gun mounts were oversized (the single 3.9" DP guns on the Littorio's for example).  This really applies when you try to start building cruiser hulls.  This is where the real major issue began.  EVERY heavy cruiser hull available in 1930 EXCEPT the heavy cruiser IV hull (16k to 19k tons) could NOT be constructed as the only available superstructures for them were way OVERWEIGHT by ALOT.  I'm talking with full electronics/rangefinding gear they all come in at 1900 to well over 2200 tons for the front superstructures.  The maxed out cruiser hull is around 15000 tons (+/-).  With just 4 twin 8"/50cal turrets and the lightest superstructures available (along with every weight saving system applied - krupp IV armor, geared turb II, etc...) the ships were instantly overweight.  Armor was 6" belt (3" f/a) 4" deck (2" f/a) 5" CT, 2" structure.  Turret was 6"/3"/6" respectively.  Speed was 33 knots.  This added with the fact the secondary mounts on almost EVERY cruiser hull in the game are so oversized you cant build period correct ships AT ALL.  The hulls need to have the entire deck opened up for mounting equipment on cruisers and destroyers.  Look at the twin 4" DP guns on the County class heavy cruisers of ww2, they are barely 25% of the size of the main 8" twin mounts.  Thats the other issue.  Stop counting 4 and 5 inch guns as main battery guns on cruiser hulls. (the larger 5+ inch guns are a pain since the japanese light cruisers all used 5.5inch as a main battery, for example).  Maybe theres a way they can let you choose between using these mid-sized guns as main or secondary on cruisers.  As someone else has mentioned in another post about the fore weight of a LOT of hulls needs to be addressed as well.  It seems to me they are so quick to try to get new content out, they are failing to really go through and play test ship building before releasing.  To me the game is 'broken' because I cannot stand building stupid non realistic designs (like the AI cheats and does all the time - 60+ torpedo tube cruiser anyone??).

 

[Warspite96]

This is a minor gripe I have mentioned before, but quad guns still have different characteristics to the same gun in single, double or triple mounts. When building ships with the same gun in different mounts such as the KGV class, it means the quad turrets usually have different barrel lengths to the dual turret and therefore you basically have two different main guns on the same ship.

[BELEW848]

I really don't like that I have a Yamato with the right guns then when I refit it I get what looks like Iowa's guns.....y can't I get the new guns but keep the look of the old ones that fit the ship like it did in history?

[Grayknight]

Hi all, campaign became far better with all the minor changes. In my opinion we are gooing in really good direction with game. If i could ask for minor qol on top of the other things we said - add ships for sail box in fleet screan so we can put it on/off it is annoying as hell to be spamed with -50% purchuse offer of the ship i just built.

[Nick Thomadis]

1 hour ago, BELEW848 said:

I really don't like that I have a Yamato with the right guns then when I refit it I get what looks like Iowa's guns.....y can't I get the new guns but keep the look of the old ones that fit the ship like it did in history?

There is no known issue like this. If you play an unmodified version of the game, please do an in-game bug report to take a look.

[Zuikaku]

@Nick Thomadis are there any plans where we coul'd keep older versions of the guns during the refits. I'm pointing out on example where shielded guns are replaced by non-fitting turrets by default. Will we be ever be able to choose between shielded and turreted versions of the guns, since turrets take up much more space and tonnage.

Edited October 6, 2024 by Zuikaku

[Panzergraf]

Minor graphical issue, but sinking ships now have their class and (sinking) displayed over them even with the HUD turned off.

 

Also, I've noticed I'm getting far less money now in 1.6.0.7, went from a 2.6bln monthly surplus (China, late 40's, at war) to a 3bln monthly deficit after the patch.
It seems like it's gotten harder to get battles/meetings and other encounters too.

But other than that I'm really liking the improved loading times, well done!

[Nick Thomadis]

Uploaded optimizedx2 version including
- Tension mechanics fine tuning according to feedback. Tension should rise in cases that previously was too passive. You have to know, though, that while you are allied to a nation you cannot raise tension against it.
- Fixed old issue of auto-resolve happening when leaving combat causing sometimes to reset damages made in combat.
Please restart Steam to get the update fast

[Nick Thomadis]

4 hours ago, Zuikaku said:

@Nick Thomadis are there any plans where we coul'd keep older versions of the guns during the refits. I'm pointing out on example where shielded guns are replaced by non-fitting turrets by default. Will we be ever be able to choose between shielded and turreted versions of the guns, since turrets take up much more space and tonnage.

There is no plan to change current system. Offering too many options to change turrets, was tested and it caused many bugs which we cannot risk adding into the game.

[Urst]

6 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

There is no known issue like this. If you play an unmodified version of the game, please do an in-game bug report to take a look.

There are. It's called forced updating of the model when the Mark of gun is increased.
I also don't see how doing that would be so difficult if you don't tie the model to any stats.

[Zuikaku]

2 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

There is no plan to change current system. Offering too many options to change turrets, was tested and it caused many bugs which we cannot risk adding into the game.

I understand, thank you! But the other problem is that turreted versions of small caliber guns are available way too early. Shielded guns were a common thing well into '20s, while in the game they are hsrdly available a few years into 1890 campaign.