Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts News

Dear Admirals,

Our progress on the campaign and the first core patch is steady. Our team is also growing and is able to work faster and more effectively. Until we deliver our planned major patch, we wanted to update the game for you with more content and various improvements that you have asked for.

We offer a new base hull with which you can design and build the British battleship "King George V" and many other hull variants. Additionally, we added new gun models and repaired various hull issues that you reported.

One of the most requested features was to offer more flexibility in using mounts for all the various ship parts, and we did it at a great extent, compared to previous design functionality. Overall, the Ship Design aspect of the game received many new improvements and balances which you are surely going to enjoy.

Please read below about all the new features and improvements of the new game update of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts.

[h2]Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts Alpha-11 update[/h2]
You can now build a battleship similar to "HMS King George V"

NEW HULLS & MODELS

• New hull which allows to recreate the King George V-class battleship for the British Empire. You can find this hull with the name “Modern Battleship I” in custom battles after the year 1929.
  
• New British Modern Battleship II variant with displacement between 55,500 and 75,500 tons, available after 1936, which can reproduce ships similar to HMS Vanguard or larger speculative designs.
  
• New British Modernized Dreadnought variant with displacement between 32,000 and 39,000 tons, available after 1927, which can produce ships similar to HMS Warspite.
  
• New British Modernized Battlecruiser variant with displacement between 40,000 and 53,000 tons, available after 1935, which can produce speculative improved versions of HMS Hood.
  
• New British Super Battlecruiser variant with displacement between 67,500 and 82,500 tons, available after 1935. This hull can produce battlecruiser designs that never existed but will test the limits of the battlecruiser concept, offering very high speed, large firepower and protection.
  
• New British Large Cruiser variant with displacement between 30,500 and 36,000 tons, available after 1935, which can produce medium size capital ships with large firepower.
  
• New British Heavy Cruiser III variant with displacement between 16,500 and 19,500 tons, available after 1925. This type of hull has a low freeboard and can produce ships which combine speed, stealth and decent firepower.
  
• New British Heavy Cruiser II variant with displacement between 12,500 and 16,900 tons, available after 1925. This strong hull with high freeboard can offer cruiser designs with powerful armament at a reasonable cost.
  
• New Spanish Heavy Cruiser II variant with displacement between 18,500 and 21,500 tons, available after 1925. This type of hull is a hybrid between a modern battlecruiser and a heavy cruiser, so it can produce quite strong ships at an affordable cost.
  
• New Spanish Small Dreadnought variant with displacement between 15,500 and 17,500 tons, available after 1906 for Spain and also for China. This hull, which is similar to the Spanish Dreadnought Espana, offers the design of cheap, rather cumbersome ships which, though, can be quite powerful as gun platforms.
  
• New Armoured Cruiser variant with displacement between 8,500 and 10,500 tons, available after 1903 for Italy and China.
  
• Improvements in late Spanish cruisers with new parts and hull fixes.
  
• New towers and other parts for several older hull types.

A British battleship variant mounting six 20-inch guns

NEW GUNS & IMPROVEMENTS

• Various new gun models for the British late techs.
  
• Update of Spain’s late guns with new models.
  
• Quadruple 13-inch guns only available for the French.
  
• Quadruple secondary guns (2,3 and 4 inches) for the French.
  
• Gun scale fixes according to feedback.

There are several new hull types, such as this British Large Cruiser of about 30,000 tons

SHIP DESIGN IMPROVEMENTS/FIXES

• Fixed old bug which sometimes caused the AI to design ships with unoccupied barbettes or place very small guns on huge barbettes.
  
• New feature that stops you placing Secondary Towers or Funnels in front of Main Towers. Such designs will produce an error which you must fix. This new feature also repairs the bug of AI which could design unrealistic ships with funnels or secondary towers misplaced in front of a main tower.
  
• Increased the flexibility for all mount types. For every hull, you will notice much larger freedom in placing the various ship parts. Moreover, you can override the mount snap points by pressing the CTRL button so you can add the part (Towers, Funnels, Barbettes etc.) in a continuous area between the allowed space.
  
• Armor and Bulkheads weight rebalance. Heavily armored ships will have significant weight demands. Ships with maximum bulkheads will weigh more. Ships with minimum bulkheads will weigh slightly less, so the trade off between bulkhead protection and other ship assets will be more pronounced.
  
• The guns mounted in free mode are now placed in proper forward/rear alignment according to position, instead of facing always at the sides.
  
• Fixed various issues with boat decor (boats overlapping with other parts) and enriched the areas where boats can appear on deck or on ship parts.
  
• Various Auto-Design improvements aid the AI to build successful ship designs consistently.

You can now place the various ship parts with much more freedom

Funnels and Secondary Towers are automatically rejected if placed in front of Main Towers

AI IMPROVEMENT

• Further AI improvement makes AI ships to keep a more effective firing distance at all circumstances.
  
• Fixed issue which caused ships on scout/screen mode to fight at very large, extreme ranges, causing them to stall their movement too often.

NAVAL ACADEMY

New mission: “Enforce the British Rule”:
Germany has prevailed in World War II and has ultimately conquered Europe. France remains a client state and contributes with her naval facilities in the construction of a new, more powerful German Navy. Although weakened, Britain remains a potent naval force and aims to meet, engage and decisively defeat the growing German fleet. With scarce resources you are called to build the main force of your fleet, either focusing on battleships or by building more numerous advanced cruisers. Smaller cruisers and destroyers will supplement your attacking fleet.

Other

• Improved gun splash dispersion at close range. Shells that miss should not fly so wide against the target as before.
  
• Various text fixes for loading screens.
  
• Removed Naval Academy difficulty options, which were not working.
  
• Repaired graphics issues at lowest settings (Fast, Fastest) that made visuals completely broken and also caused torpedo trails to not be visible.

Note: Due to the many hull fixes and new mount mechanics, your previous saved designs for Naval Academy will become not functional.
Latest intel provides information about a new hull type... in next patch!

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

• Official Forum
• Steam Forum

Hello admirals,

Despite the difficulties of 2020, which have affected everyone’s life as well as the game’s development, we continued to provide several updates and significantly improved the game. We deeply hope that Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts has already become a game that you enjoy and thank you for your ongoing and precious feedback that we so much appreciate.

We want to assure you that we acknowledge all your concerns and suggestions and today we would like to inform you about what are our definite plans for the next patches that are going to be delivered within 2021.

We will continue to monitor your feedback and hotfix anything necessary that you report. The next major updates are organized as follows:

• Core patch 1 - Core of campaign including Custom Battle saves
  
• Core patch 2 - Crew and officers
  
• Core patch 3 - R&D and Tech Progression
  
• Core patch 4 - New nations and map expansion

The first short campaign version of the game will be playable for two nations (British Empire, German Empire) and will expand with content in every next core patch.

Patches 1-3 will be made based on a campaign map covering the North Sea and will feature the conflict between Great Britain and Germany. New ships, new game features will be offered as the game shapes up around this first playable campaign.

The Steam Early Access version of the game will become available upon the finalization and polish of Core Patch 3.

In Core Patch 4 and onwards we shall progressively add new playable nations and expand the map until we fully cover the campaign with everything needed.

We cannot promise a specific date of arrival for those next major updates but we confirm as above their flow of delivery within 2021. Furthermore, we confirm the allocation of another dedicated programmer who will focus solely on needed improvements for the ship design system.

Thank you all for reading. We will get back to you with specific information about the next big update of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts!

The Game-Labs Team

Hello Admirals,

First of all, we wish you a great time with your family and friends during these festive days. Today we are happy to announce our new update which offers crucial improvements on battle gameplay, especially regarding the formations and evasion system. In this patch we also introduce the ability to use the reverse engines of ships, an action that is very useful for evading torpedoes and maintaining formations. Various other improvements have been worked on, based on your recent feedback. You can read more information below.

[h2]Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts Alpha-10[/h2]

SHIP EVASION IMPROVEMENT

The auto-evasion system has been fully reworked and optimized. Ships under AI control will be much more effective in evading other ships or torpedoes. Especially, the ship-to-ship evasion system is now more advanced and is based on ship size and rank, following the standard military navigation rules of the Royal Navy:

Priority of Passage Rules

1. Ship of higher tonnage has priority
   
2. Ship with Captain of higher rank has priority
   
3. For ships of the same rank and size, the ship on the starboard has priority.

The new system makes ships to keep formations with realistic and consistent maneuvers without doing unneeded circles.

The new "Reverse" button is found next to the speed slider.

SHIP REVERSE MOVEMENT

Ships are now able to use reverse engines. This is done automatically when ships have to auto-navigate for evading or keeping a formation. Additionally, the player can also use the reverse engines at his own will, by pressing the new "Reverse" button. In that manner, the ship can turn harder to avoid, for example, a torpedo or another ship. Moving backwards at will is possible but you will realize it has no tactical benefit in most battle situations, while it can harm your engines.

AI OPTIMIZATION

AI will keep an effective firing distance according to battle situation. Destroyers will approach in more deadly ranges according to their torpedo armament. Lightly protected ships will desire to keep a safer distance. This was especially needed for AI battlecruisers which now they desire to fight inside their immunity zone more often, but not too far away and becoming ineffective.

AI and player Formations are held with more consistency

OTHER

• Auto Design Fixes: Some important bug fixes regarding the auto-design system make AI ships to never have empty barbettes or have very large unoccupied gaps on the deck.
  
• Partial Penetration Damage Increase: Shells that partially penetrate the armor will now make more damage. Small gun damage will be more significant against Battleships as a consequence, but still not comparable to the impact of big guns.
  
• Weapon info improvement: The average damage estimation of guns and torpedoes will be closer to actual battle numbers (previously the numbers were just not accurate showing x100 more damage). Additionally, penetration ranges can expand up to 35 km (previously they were limited to 25 km).
  
• Weight balances for armor, bulkheads, guns: The new balance of weights for integral parts of the ships allows for more realistic constraints. Auto-Design is also affected positively because it makes wiser choices for building more durable and effective ships.
  
• Tonnage Minimum Step for Design reduced: Minimum step was 50 tons and now it is 25 tons. This change not only helps the player to utilize tonnage more effectively for designing ships but also helps auto-design to use almost all free tonnage (previously it could leave several tonnes unused making AI designs weaker than the player’s on average).
  
• Minimum Speed for BB, CA and CL slightly increased: For BB and CA now the minimum speed is 16 knots (from 15) and for CL is 17 knots (from 16). This was needed for allowing more realistic designs of those ship types and to help AI to not build impractical, very slow ships.
  
• Minor penetration balance for 8-inch and 9-inch guns: Those guns have slightly more penetration at their extreme ranges.
  
• Initial playable missions increased: Initially the unlocked missions are nine (instead of five), to help players progress. (Note: The ironclad missions should be not so tough, due to the partial penetration damage increase).
  
• Various minor hull fixes.

AI ship designs should be overall more effective and balanced

Warning:
The "Mission difficulty" setting is still a work in progress and currently has no effect.

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

• Official Forum
• Steam Forum

The Game-Labs Team

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:

• Official Forum
• Steam Forum

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]