Greetings Admirals,
The next major patch for Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts has just become available! This large update is the precursor of the first campaign version of the game. We decided to release not together with the campaign since it has many new features which owe to be tested solely.
Among the various improvements you have requested and we implemented, there is a whole new Hull line for the Italian Navy, many new ships for the Russian Navy and all the playable nations received the capability to build their own super battleships (Britain, Austro-Hungary, China and Spain now have a special super battleship hull). Additionally, two new detailed base models can reproduce the Littorio-class Battleship for Italy and the Russian Battleship project “Sovetsky Soyuz”.
The new crew mechanics are the next major feature we introduce to the game which will greatly affect the ships’ performance in battle while in campaign they will be a crucial resource for maintaining your fleet in a functional state (Crew is a very important factor for the campaign and will need your extensive testing in the current patch, so that we optimize it).
Other new features include the long anticipated save system for custom battles and Naval Academy and the various new armor zones which will greatly add to the detail and uniqueness of your ship designs.
Please read below about all the improvements we have prepared for you for this patch:
*==============================* *Core Patch 0.5* *==============================*
NEW FEATURES
New Crew Mechanics: Ships now have crew which you can manage not only in campaign but also in Naval Academy and Custom Battles, affecting your ship design decisions significantly. Crew losses during combat will affect several aspects of ships’ functions, making battles more realistic.
Ship Design Saves: Finally, you can now save your favourite designs in Custom Battles! The system works similarly as for the Naval Academy. You will be able to save and reuse your designs depending on the technology year and the ship types used for the battle.
Battles Saves: You can now save your custom battles or Naval Academy missions at any time during battle gameplay! Load them at your next play session from the special “Load” button found in Custom Battles and Naval Academy.
Design Custom Battle AI: Now you can design not only one type but all the participating ship types for your fleet in Custom Battles. A new interface helps you to browse all available ship types that you want to design prior to the battle.
New “Propellant/Shell Charge” components: The old “Explosives” component which included, temporarily, options both for Propellant and Shell Charge has become split into two new categories named “Propellant” and “Shell Charge”. The new vital characteristics for the shells used in your ship will play a very important role for your designs.
New “Rudder Type” component: Rudders are categorized in three generic settings, “Balanced”, “Semi-Balanced”, “Unbalanced” affecting the maneuverability of your ships.
New Operational Range functionality: Operational Range is now properly measured in Km and is affected by ship design.
New Conning Tower armor: Now the Conning Tower armor is properly depended according to the weight of the main tower. Previously it was only a crude multiplier of weight and thus it was very light in large warships causing excessive free tonnage.
New Superstructure armor: The new armor zone is properly protecting the Towers and Funnels and its weight is included in ship design evaluations (previously the armor for Towers and Funnels was much simpler).
New Belt & Deck armor: The extended Belt/Deck armor zones are split into the corresponding Bow/Stern sections, so that you can edit different armor settings for the front and rear armor protection of the ship.
New detailed Gun armor: Each gun type can now be armored with side and top armor according to its caliber and type. Previously the gun armor system was much more limited, layered differently according to two only different zones for main guns and secondary guns.
Keyboard input values for Displacement and Speed: Now you can alternatively type the desired values instead of using the slider.
18x NEW HULLS
The Italian “Littorio-class Battleship” can now be recreated in a hull base between 45,000 and 75,000 tons for Italy after 1936.
The Russian battleship “Sovetsky Soyuz” that was never completed can now be built with a displacement between 63,000 and 83,000 tons after 1936.
New Italian “Super Battleship” available after 1936 with a displacement between 76,500 and 92,500 tons.
New Russian “Experimental Battlecruiser” which resembles the Stalingrad Battlecruiser. It is available after 1935 and has a displacement between 41,000 and 51,000 tons.
New Italian “Modern Battlecruiser II” available after 1935 with a displacement between 39,500 and 54,500 tons.
New Italian “Large Cruiser II” available after 1929 with a displacement between 32,500 and 42,500 tons.
New Russian “Super Cruiser” available after 1934 with a displacement between 19,000 and 23,000 tons.
New Russian “Heavy Cruiser III” available after 1925 with a displacement between 14,700 and 17,500 tons.
New Italian “Heavy Cruiser ΙΙ” available after 1934 with a displacement between 16,500 and 19,500 tons.
New Italian “Modern Light Cruiser II” available after 1930 with a displacement between 8,000 and 11,000 tons.
New Italian “Compact Light Cruiser” available after 1930 with a displacement between 6,700 and 8,000 tons.
New Italian “Hybrid Destroyer” available after 1936 with a displacement between 3,500 and 4,500 tons.
New Chinese “Super Battleship” available after 1936 with a displacement between 74,500 and 82,500 tons.
New Spanish “Super Battleship” available after 1936 with a displacement between 75,500 and 87,500 tons.
New British “Super Battleship” available after 1936 with a displacement between 80,500 and 92,500 tons.
New Austro-Hungarian “Super Battleship” available after 1936 with a displacement between 89,500 and 101,500 tons.
New Russian “Super Battleship II” available after 1936 with a displacement between 86,000 and 117,000 tons.
New "Small Dreadnought" available between 1906 and 1918 for Germany and Austro-Hungary with a displacement spanning from 18,000 to 20,500 tons.
Additionally: Various new ship parts became available in previous hulls.
NEW GUNS
New Special Italian Guns for 3-inch up to 8-inch caliber ranging from Mark 3 to Mark 5.
New Special Italian Guns for 12-inch up to 20-inch ranging from Mark 1 to Mark 5.
New Special Russian guns for 2-inch up to 8-inch ranging from Mark 3 to Mark 5.
New Special Russian Guns for 9-inch up to 20-inch ranging from Mark 1 to Mark 5.
BALANCES
Shell Ballistics/Weights/Costs have been rebalanced to support the new Propellant/Shell Charge components.
Belt Armor weight has been increased by about 10% (it could become rather light in the late technology era).
Torpedo Protection now contributes slightly to the Hull Resistance, making it useful not only against torpedoes.
Overpenetration mechanics improved. You should not get excessive overpens against torpedo boats, destroyers and generally unarmored ships.
Fires are extinguished less easily, so they can have more impact on ships.
Various others minor.
AI
Friendly AI division commander has been reworked.
Improved further the AI design system.
Improved further the opponent AI.
BUGS & OTHER FIXES
Fixed guns that could not rotate during battle. The problem was caused by errors in colliders which allowed guns to be placed very near to the superstructure which blocked their rotation.
Fixed rotation of guns that were mounted on turrets.
Fixed bug that was related with Attach/Detach of divisions.
Repairs in the LOD of the new torpedo models. They could cause, very rarely, the “Too many threads'' error in low-end systems.
Fixed bug that could make early torpedo boats to have 12 inches belt armor in Custom Battles.
Fixes on the availability of German/Italian/Austro-Hungarian cruisers of the 1900s.
Fixed bugs that could cause great delays during the Auto-Design processes.
Fixed a Battle UI issue that showed inactive components still active on the list.
Fixed issue with 17-inch guns of mark 3 that could be researched slower than they should.
Various hull and gun fixes as per feedback.
GRAPHICS & OPTIONS
New settings with more available details for configuring the optimal graphics settings for your system.
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We are going to continue improving the campaign version while you enjoy all the new features. Your impressions and ideas on the new crew system, will be utilized to optimize the final campaign patch, which will become available in the coming days.
Thank you for reading! Please share your valuable feedback in our forums: Official Forum
The Game-Labs Team
===================== Note: There is a known bug of freeze if you click mouse button while waiting to load a battle. If you choose to not terminate but wait for the program to respond, the battle should load successfully. We delayed the patch in order to make this freeze not critical. We will fix fully as soon as possible. *Hotfix v88* (17/9/2021 UPDATE)
- Fixed major bug of gun armor resetting for saved designs, when trying to apply new gun armor settings.
- Fixed major bug of armor penetration, incorrectly evaluating the armor thickness of guns and causing too many detonations and flash fires.
- Fixed issue with part selection in ship design, that could become overly big and inaccurate.
- Fixed bug that caused keyboard edit of gun armor to use only inches measurement.
- Fixed bugs of Auto-Design which could cause building delays, overweight or overcost ships.
- Reduced about -5% Belt/Deck armor and about 10% the superstructure armor. Designs should now be more consistent with historical values.
- Increased crew damage from penetrating hits +10%.
- Various inconsistencies for hulls and stats fixed according to your feedback.
*Hotfix v89* (20/9/2021 UPDATE)
- Fixed various bugs of auto-design, which were also responsible for freezes while loading battles.
- Fixed gun collider issues. You should be able to mount guns with more flexibility, especially in towers.
- Fixed bug in gun selection when it was placed on a tower.
- Fixes on other minors you reported.
*Hotfix v90* (30/9/2021 UPDATE)
- Refactoring of the Auto-Design code, addressing various issues that could cause errors and delays in the process. Most, if not all, problems regarding freezes, delays, unbuildable ships, should be fixed.
- Improved the overpen mechanics, so now you will be able to see full penetrations on the smallest craft such as the Torpedo Boats.
- Increased the torpedo damage (due to latest changes in ship section density, damage could be small in large warships).
- Fixed bug that caused operational range to become reset when loading a custom battle saved design.
- Fixed bug of custom battle saves which included Transport ships, making them disappear when loaded.
- Fixed some other bugs related to battle saves.
- Some minor UI issues with overlapping buttons in 16:10 resolution have been resolved.
- Fixed bug of Bug reporter not allowing to use the Enter key.
- Fixed bug making graphical settings to reset. This could have been a source of graphical bugs, depending on player’s system.
- Fixed bug on smoke screen becoming available to BB, BC, CA if they were on the same division with DD or CL.
- Minor fixes in some hulls.