Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts News

Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts Alpha-9

Admirals,

We have just made available a long anticipated update, an update that was very much needed to improve several crucial aspects of the game. The formation system has been revamped and includes new control features which aim to make easier the command of large fleets. We added quad guns, and very big caliber guns of up to 20-inches. New hulls for the French Navy became available. Many issues that you have reported have been addressed and gameplay has been improved according to your feedback. Want to know more? Please read below:

[h2]Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts Alpha-9[/h2]

FORMATIONS

The formation system of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts received an overhaul of its mechanics, making the control of large fleets much easier and realistic. First of all, we fixed all bugs that were the cause of division lines to become mixed up and make ineffective evade maneuvers, especially when the fleet included many ships. Except of those bug fixes we offer the following:

Drag & Drop Division cards: You can multi-select divisions or ships and drag them into any division via the division card interface. If you wish, you can merge several ships of any type into one division (previously there was a limit of 5 ships and only one type was allowed). In this way, you can create your own ship organization during battle with more freedom and flexibility.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]A short video demonstrating the new division controls

Make battle lines with ease: With the more flexible division groups, you will be able to create a group of any ship type and merge into one single formation, which will be controllable as one unit (selectable from the unit cards). This formation group, ideally a number of large capital ships, can then be used as a main battle formation, which you can control with a single movement order, while your lighter ships follow it in screen or scout formation.

At the start of battle, the ships will have more efficient formations

Formation spread really matters: Ships will keep their maximum speed according to their allowed formation spread. By default the following ship types will use the following spreads:
- BB: Tight
- BC, CA: Normal
- CL, DD, TB, Other: Loose

Tight spread will allow a lower top speed, but the ships will operate in closer, stricter formation and, thus, will be easier to keep an effective firing line and maintain a cruising speed. When ships become damaged, they will not break the formation (as before) but the formation will slow down accordingly unless those ships become extremely slow, so they will gradually follow the formation at the back. Normal spread makes this system less strict, while the Loose spread makes the ships move at the highest speed possible, with no attention to formation cohesion, which can be useful if your ships need the maximum speed in order to withdraw or just survive a battle.

Note: Previous artificial bonuses/penalties in accuracy of division spread modes were removed, because they are no longer needed. Ships already can receive collateral damage due to their concentration in an area. So by using tight formations you receive firing bonuses naturally, due to keeping a steady cruising speed, but you might become hit with more probability from indirect fire.

Revamped “Screen” command: The functionality of the screen command received major changes. Previously, each division was placed in compact formation at a distance around the lead ship of the screened division. In the new screen mode, the ships become distributed and operate independently around the center of a single division or a larger grouped formation, creating a much more realistic and versatile formation, covering all flanks with less amount of ships.

New “Scout” command: The previous functionality of the screen command will resemble the new “Scout” order that you can give to ships classes CL, DD, TB. With this command, the divisions will move around a very large distance around the scouted division or grouped formation, so they will be able to trace enemies sooner.

Diagram showing how the new formation system works

NEW HULLS

“Battleship Richelieu” is the new addition in the game’s database of realistic hulls. The new hull and its assets can produce the following new ship variants:

A French Modern Battleship of 45,000 to 65,000 tons, which can faithfully recreate the historical Battleship Richelieu.
A French Super Battleship with displacement between 70,000 to 85,000 tons.
A French Battlecruiser with displacement between 35,000 to 45,000 tons, inspired by the Battleship “Dunkerque”.
Two French Experimental Battlecruisers available in custom battles from 1935.
A French Large Cruiser of 28,000 to 32,500 tons.
A French Heavy Cruiser of 12,000 to 14,900 tons.

Furthermore, various new assets and guns became available to several other hulls.

A variant of the Battleship "Richelieu"

A Battlecruiser similar to "Dunkerque"

A new French super battleship designed to be armed with three 19-inch quad guns

A new French Battlecruiser which is capable of a very high top speed

NEW MISSIONS

Conflict in the Tsushima strait: A battle that resembles the historical battle of Tsushima featuring large fleets for both sides. You take the side of the Japanese fleet vs a large Russian fleet composed of many but rather outdated battleships. Will you reinforce your fleet with advanced battleships or will you invest on numerous fast cruisers, in order to defeat the stronger -in numbers- enemy?
German wrath at North Sea: It is 1913 and the powerful British fleet amasses near the vicinity of the German ports at North Sea. As the British are divided into two groups, you decide to attack and gain a temporary territorial advantage. You will have to choose whether to build Battleships, Battlecruisers or Heavy Cruisers to reinforce your attacking fleet, utilizing a rather limited budget. The British fleet is superior but your own forces can triumph via better tactics and by investing in the most suitable technologies.
Prevail in the Mediterranean: It is 1941, near the cape Matapan, south of Greece, where a British and an Italian fleet prepare to fight each other. You are in command of the Italian fleet and you must defeat the enemy without taking heavy losses. Your fleet of cruisers and destroyers can be reinforced either by a few strong battleships, or multiple cruisers of various types, that you will design.
France vs Germany: Create a successful striking force made of French modern ships of the 1940s and defeat a strong German fleet which has as a flagship a humongous super battleship of the H-class.

A "bold" AI design of a Japanese battleship with three 18-inch quad guns

GUNS & OTHER

The improvements on formations will consist the biggest part of our next update, but there are more to be included. Here is the planned list:

Quad guns: Quadruple turrets of large caliber become available and are separated into two main visual types. Type-1 has its four guns distributed evenly on the turret, while Type-2 has two dual guns (Similar to the French Battleship “Richelieu”).
19-inch and 20-inch guns: You are now able to design ships with the most powerful armament, which was never actually implemented on any warship, but was used in various planned designs. These guns will be available only on specific large hulls, such as those of the super battleships. Designing ships with so large guns should be a challenge due to their extreme weight that could be used for increasing ship protection and speed.
New British Guns: New special looking late-tech guns are available for Britain.
New French Guns: New special looking late-tech guns are available for France.
Damage Saturation fix: Previously there was no damage to ships if we hit destroyed sections, making ships indestructible when hit at red areas. With the improved damage system, a small amount of damage will spread out to nearby sections. A damage rebalance will be needed to fine tune the result.
Hull & Auto-Design fixes: Some remaining issues that were many times reported were addressed, including secondary gun inconsistencies on Iowa hull, overlapping guns with Bismarck towers and many others.
Mk5 8-inch guns available in the 1940s: It has been corrected so that the latest technology of 8-inch guns are available in the late tech era of custom battles.
Fixed bug that caused turrets to not fire with all their gun barrels: Triple turrets and the new quad guns could, sometimes, not use all their gun barrels while firing. This was happening quite often at large distance aiming but now it is fixed.
Turrets will no longer use only two gun barrels for aiming: Previously the triple turrets (and now the new quad guns) fired only a dual salvo per turret for bracketing salvoes (something that was commonly conceived as a bug). Now all guns will be used and turrets will fire successive bracketing salvoes with more efficiency.
Various sound improvements including the addition of the new sounds for 19-inch and 20-inch guns.
Fixed Naval Academy bug that did not allow the nation randomization of player ships hulls in missions that did not have any nation restriction. The result of this bug was that missions were played once with a random nation and in any future playout with new designs it was not possible to change the nation to your liking.

A Japanese battleship with three dual 20-inch guns, sacrificing protection and speed for extremely powerful guns

BALANCES

A few balances were made based on the player feedback we received on our last patch.

Accuracy balance: Maneuverable ships, such as Destroyers, will be harder to hit, so they will be more comfortable to control them at a safe distance. Average Accuracy is less at long range but will be significantly higher at very short ranges, creating more decisive engagements when ships approach very near to each other.
Triple and Quad Guns are distinctively heavier: Making ships with many heavy guns will need more trade offs. This was especially needed now, that we added quad guns and the huge guns of 19-inch and 20-inch caliber.
More resilient Destroyers and Torpedo Boats: The hull damage that DD and TB can withstand is increased, so they are not so rapidly destroyed in gun fights.
Increased weight of torpedo tubes: It should be much harder to create functional ships that can host too many torpedo launchers.
Increased weight of bulkheads: Making ships with full bulkheads will need more design sacrifices. Additionally, AI will try to make ships with more bulkheads.
Increased weight of guns of 9-inch and smaller caliber: Now the weights of ships should be more balanced and AI should not spam with guns when auto-designing.
Balanced damage of guns below 11-inch so they do meaningful damage to battleships or other larger ships. This was needed with the update of the damage model.
Flash Fire chance balance: Flash fire should happen less often for small caliber guns.
AI more effective: The AI will keep a more effective distance according to battle situation. Battleships will try to keep a safer distance, especially against Destroyers, while Destroyers will find a more suitable approach direction to launch their torpedoes.

Another variant of the new French battleships

The new quad guns will be highly preferred by the modern French battleships of the AI

*Important*

- The "Mission difficulty" setting is a work in progress and currently has no effect.
- Due to the many hull fixes and improvements, your old saved designs will most possibly not work.

Thank you for reading! Please continue to share your feedback in our forums:

[Update] Forthcoming patch information: Alpha 9

Hello Admirals,

We would like to share news about the progress we have so far and the status of the upcoming update.

The team’s reorganization is working great and we are very happy with the results. These last 2 months we have touched upon all major aspects of the game with the new lead programmer (from formations to AI to ship designer) - and finally we can say - now the new team is more than ready to continue with the development of the campaign. We plan to add extra resources in November, which will help us to speed up the development even further.

Regarding the patch, in addition to all the features we mentioned in our previous blog and in our forum, including the new quad guns… we are also preparing the following.

A variant ship based on the "Richelieu" hull

[h3]New Hulls[/h3]
“Battleship Richelieu” is the new addition in the game’s database of realistic hulls. The new hull and its assets can produce the following new ship variants:

A French Modern Battleship of 45,000 to 65,000 tons, which can faithfully recreate the historical Battleship "Richelieu".
A French Super Battleship with displacement between 70,000 to 85,000 tons.
A French Battlecruiser with displacement between 35,000 to 45,000 tons, inspired by the Battleship “Dunkerque”.
A French Large Cruiser of 28,000 to 32,500 tons.
A French Heavy Cruiser of 12,000 to 14,900 tons.

Furthermore, various new assets and guns became available to several other hulls.

[h3]New guns[/h3]

19-inch and 20-inch guns: You are now able to design ships with powerful armament, which was never actually implemented on any warship, but was used in various planned designs. These guns will be available only on specific large hulls, such as those of the super battleships. Designing ships with so large guns should be a challenge due to their extreme weight that could be used for increasing ship protection and speed.
New British/French Guns: New special looking late-tech guns are available for Britain and France.

[h3]Balances[/h3]
A few balances were made based on the player feedback we received in our last patch.

Accuracy balance: Maneuverable ships, such as Destroyers, will be harder to hit, so they will be more comfortable to control them at a safe distance. Average Accuracy is less at long range but will be significantly higher at very short ranges, creating more decisive engagements when ships approach very near to each other.
Triple and Quad Guns are distinctively heavier: Making ships with many heavy guns will need more trade offs. This was especially needed now, that we added quad guns and the huge guns of 19-inch and 20-inch caliber.
More resilient Destroyers and Torpedo Boats: The hull damage that DD and TB can receive is increased, so they are not so rapidly destroyed in gun fights.

[h3]New Missions[/h3]

Conflict in the Tsushima strait: A battle that resembles the historical battle of Tsushima featuring large fleets for both sides. You take the side of the Japanese fleet vs a large Russian fleet composed by many but rather outdated battleships. Will you reinforce your fleet with advanced battleships or will you invest on numerous fast cruisers, in order to defeat the stronger -in numbers- enemy?
German wrath at North Sea: It is 1913 and the powerful British fleet amasses near the vicinity of the German ports at North Sea. As the British are divided into two groups, you decide to attack and gain a temporary territorial advantage. You will have to choose whether to build Battleships, Battlecruisers or Heavy Cruisers to reinforce your attacking fleet, utilizing a rather limited budget. The British fleet is superior but your own forces can triumph via better tactics and by investing in the most suitable technologies.
Prevail in the Mediterranean: It is 1941, near the cape Matapan, south of Greece, where a British and an Italian fleet prepare to fight each other. You are in command of the Italian fleet and you must defeat the enemy without taking heavy losses. Your fleet of cruisers and destroyers can be reinforced either by a few strong battleships, or multiple cruisers of various types, that you will design.
France vs Germany: Create a successful striking force made of French modern ships of the 1940s and defeat a strong German fleet which has as a flagship a humongous super battleship of the H-class.

[h3]Other[/h3]
Lastly, we have fixed various errors and inconsistencies, related with the Auto-Design system. Hulls created by the AI should be effective and good looking, with consistency. The patch is still under development, but close to completion. We will notify you when it is about to be released.

Thank you for reading,

[h3]The Game-Labs Team[/h3]

Alpha-8 HotFix Patch

Hello admirals,
Today we release a small update that aims to address some of your recently reported issues. More of those issues are going to be fixed in the coming weeks as new programmers are added into our development team. We decided to not include yet a richer set of our planned features and improvements, since they were still risky and might have caused problems in your otherwise positive gameplay experience.
[h2]Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts Alpha-8 v76[/h2]

[h3]BALANCES[/h3]

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.

[h3]AI[/h3]

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.

[h3]FIXES[/h3]

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.

[h3]Warning:[/h3]
Mission difficulty setting is a work in progress and currently has no effect.

Share your feedback in our forums:

Alpha-7 v75 hotfix

Hello all,

A hotfix has just become available:

[h2]Alpha-7 v75[/h2]
[h3]BALANCES[/h3]

Improved Auto-Design and balanced ship weights/costs further for even better designs.
Note: This change might make some of your old designs overweight, but you should be able to repair them by lowering speed, armor or other settings.
Ship design tonnage step reduced from 100 to 50 tons (provides more design flexibility, especially for smaller ships plus makes Auto-Design to be more effective).
Improved AI auto-targeting, so that it switches target to nearest threats more actively.
When shells hit strong armor at an angle they have bigger chance to cause at least partial penetration instead of zero-damage ricochets.
Reduced dispersion of shells. Problem of too low accuracy at short ranges should be resolved. Destroyers need to operate at safer ranges but will still be dangerous and useful.
Increased slightly the potential damage of detonations/flash fires. Their impact will become even more critical.
Reduced maximum torpedo ammo to be from 2 to 4 rounds per tube, according to design setting.
Torpedo reload time increased +25%.
Engine repairs became somewhat faster according to type of engine (Fully flooded or damaged engine sections are not repairable).
Improved the Hull form statistics of the modern Russian destroyers to aid them achieving higher speeds. The Destroyer leader hull shape has improved.
Increased detection bonus of Sonar, so that it can trace electric torpedoes or other stealthy types, more effectively. Cost of Sonar has been increased.
Fine tunings in base ship maneuvering characteristics (addressing issues that could cause slow ships to stall and become very unwieldy).

[h3]MISSIONS[/h3]

Increased time and reduced AI techs for mission: "Battleship vs Torpedo Boats".
Added two Destroyer escorts and increased distance of AI reinforcements in mission: "The US Super Battleship". Tech level of AI opponent reduced. Now you need to destroy only 3 Battleships (instead of 4).
Expanded time limit for mission: "Destroyers vs Torpedo Boats".
Changed objectives of "Contest in the Black Sea" so now you need to sink 60% of enemies (instead of sinking the Battleship and Battlecruiser which was very difficult).
Changed objective of mission: "The Modern Battleship" so that to win you need to sink 70% of enemies, instead of 100%.
In mission "Destroy a Full Fleet" the enemy AI fleet has now less advanced tech level. Objective has changed so that now you need to sink half of enemy fleet but also protect half of your own fleet (instead of sinking 70% of enemy ships).
Increased time and funds for mission: "Undefended Convoy".
Other minor fund changes to some missions.

[h3]MINOR FIXES[/h3]

Fixed secondary cage mast not having adequate placeholder to fit in a USA battleship of 1899.
Fixed issue of French “Semi-Armored Cruiser” of the 1890s that did not allow 2-inches guns to fit in casemates while no larger guns fitted.

As always, you can share your feedback in our forums:

Enjoy!

Alpha-7 "Gameplay Optimizations"

Hello admirals,

Our next patch mainly addresses an issue regarding mission win rates. Some missions were almost unwinnable and had less than 5% win rates across all players. Our next significant improvement is in the AI Auto-Design algorithm that previously generated, quite often, ships that were unrealistically fast or not sufficiently protected according to armament.

Often the "AI Auto-Design" will build ships balanced in protection and firepower, such as this Japanese Large Cruiser

Even when the new Auto-Design exaggerates with the main armament, the designed ships should be well protected

A third important improvement comes on the dynamic targeting mechanics. The gun aiming procedure that assesses target bearing and range is much more sensitive to maneuvers and this makes more comfortable the controls of fast but lightly protected ships, because now they can avoid shots more consistently when you make effective maneuvers. Lastly, several minor fixes were made according to your reports.

Please read below the changes of our new update:

[h2]Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts Alpha-7[/h2]

BALANCES

Targeting became more dynamic, affecting mainly fast moving ships, such as destroyers, which should have more chances in evading shots when they maneuver.
Flash Fire chance reduced for smaller guns ammo, especially those found in Destroyers.
Fine tuned ship maneuverability/steering mechanics.
Early tech torpedoes are now having smaller range and are slower. This makes the impact and evolution of torpedoes more historically accurate.
Sonar/Hydro equipment is now available for CA, BB, BC, making capital ships much more aware against torpedo threats. Stealth and torpedo detection levels have been rebalanced accordingly.
"Fast Mode" of torpedoes rebalanced. Range penalty is less but accuracy is reduced further.
Minor adjustment to auto-design algorithm for improved designs.
Optimizations of Destroyers' engine weights.
Optimizations of all other hull types' engine weights.
Two more barbette variants for large guns, giving more flexibility in handling gun arrangements.
Balances of costs/weights for various ship parts.
Early tech engines received a small boost in horsepower, so that early pre-dreadnoughts are not overly slow (needed with new changes in weights).
Several mission rebalances (Long List of changes HERE).

*Note:* Some mission changes will take effect only if you delete all previous mission saved designs.

Battleships without quick-firing secondaries will have serious trouble to defend against torpedo boats

REPAIRS

Fixed secondary guns that could fire over their maximum range and cause the "Too many threads" crash
Fixed torpedo tubes that could not fire at very sharp angles.
Fixed a generic Mark-3 102mm (4-inch) single barrel turret that appeared with two barrel model.
Fixed issue that made Transport ships too slow in maneuvering, stalling their formations.
Fixed some Italian towers of Italian heavy cruisers, that were not fitting on the deck (due to a bug fix that previously allowed overlap of towers out of the deck).
Fixes/rescales in some old-type Destroyer hulls.
Repaired some issues with USA cage masts, that either did not fit in hulls or where not available.
Rescales in casemate guns (fixing some overlapping issues).
Various other minor fixes in hulls, where it was applicable (thank you for the continued reports, we address what is possible for the given time)

After this patch we would like to invite you to play again the missions that you could not pass and tell us if things have improved. Your opinion about the better auto-designed ships will be much appreciated too.

As always, you can share your feedback in our forums: