Greetings Admirals,
We are very happy to announce the next update of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts which includes the first early version of the campaign! Let's read in more detail what we offer in Core Patch v1.0.
THE VERY FIRST VERSION OF THE CAMPAIGN The following information describes in a few words the first playable campaign. It may have a limited functionality, but it should be fully playable and enjoyable. It presents the following main aspects:
The campaign involves only two Major Nations: *Britain* and *Germany*. You can select and play both of them in different starting years spanning from 1890 to 1940 which you unlock as you win campaigns (in the first build you will be allowed to unlock years up to 1910). The different starting years do not feature different historical map conditions but only represent the respective technology era, in which you can quickly jump in.
There is currently no peacetime and no diplomacy & alliance mechanics. Your goal is to survive and beat your opponent in an endless brawl against the rival nation.
The economy is working at a minimum level due to the limited nature of the first campaign version. So, for example, economic growth or other related financial factors are not yet simulated. There are, though, various decisions which you have to take regarding the shipyard development, crew training, technology funds and transport capacity, which are detrimental for financing and continuing the war.
The technology mechanics are not finalized but they work sufficiently for the most important aspects. The technology advancements would matter more during peacetime while you prepare for war, so now they are gained in a rather fast manner, aiding more distinctively the nation which chooses to invest funds for gaining a technological advantage.
The Map is limited graphically and in functionality, while the ship movement mechanics are disabled. However, a mission generation system will assess various strategic aspects, data from your active ships and their sea control orders, and will automatically create battles in the various sea regions. Some battles can be avoided, for example defending a small convoy against enemy ships and this would only cost you the loss of some transports - if you choose to not risk your valuable ships. But some key battles will require you to take a mandatory action.
This first version of the campaign is provided as a stable test version for you, while we continue to develop it. We will very much appreciate your feedback and suggestions not only for the current working state of the campaign but for the future features you would like to see. Most work for this patch was allocated for the special functions of the campaign, but there are several new improvements which you can read below.
QUICK GUIDE ON HOW TO PLAY
Initially you can choose to play with the "British Empire" or the "German Empire".
The starting year is 1890 but as you win campaigns for each nation, new starting years become available.
The AI opponent can be randomized to be fully unexpected in its behavior in campaign strategy and battles.
Your fleet is by default auto-generated, but you can choose to create your own fleet.
As you pass turns in the campaign, missions may become available for your fleet.
Some missions may be ignored but if they include friendly transport ships, you will lose them, negatively affecting your Victory Points status.
Key missions will need your immediate attention. These missions cannot be avoided and you need to take one of the following actions, where applicable:
Fight: Go to Battle or Auto-resolve
Delay: Attempt to hold a safe distance from the enemy fleet but do not engage. This action may fail if the average speed of your fleet is much smaller than the enemy’s. If it succeeds then there can be an escalation on the next turn, inviting more ships for both sides into the location.
Withdraw: Attempt to escape. This action may fail if the average speed of your fleet is much smaller than the enemy’s.
Your monthly funds are dependent from the annual revenue of the government (GDP) as part of the yearly naval budget percentage.
At the moment, the following actions are functional:
Crew Training: The amount of money spent for training and recruiting new crew. The Training Pool receives new cadets which are gradually trained according to the funds spent. Crew in the pool and ships can reach the maximum level of “Trained” with training. Only in battle the crew of the ships can receive higher training skills.
Transport Capacity: Your nation’s economy and fleet need transport ships in order to function at full potential. This slider determines the policy cost of building more transports. If you have "Transport Capacity" higher than 100% your GDP receives bonuses. During war you will start having an economic impact with each loss of transport, if the "Transport Capacity" is lower than 100%.
Tech Budget: The more funds you allocate in the “Tech Budget” the faster you research new technologies. You may further speed up the technology research for selected categories by assigning priorities in the “Research” panel (See Next Image).
Shipyard Size: Increasing your shipyard development size allows you to design and build larger warships. Hulls you research will not be available if the shipyard development is not sufficient.
Assign a priority to a technology category in order to focus on this research and reduce the time needed to achieve a breakthrough at the expense of slowing down the research of other technologies.
Click the priority icon on your preferred technology to enable/disable it. Up to three priorities can be used.
In the "Ship Design" section you manage your ship designs. If you select "New Design" you are transferred to the already familiar dockyard environment where you can design your ship. Saved designs are added to a list where you may choose one or more to start building.
In the "Fleet" section you see, on a list, all the ships belonging in your fleet and what is their current action. From here you can replenish the crew of damaged ships, suspend construction and set roles such as "In Being" and "Sea Control". Setting your ships to "Sea Control" role, their maintenance cost is increased but they become more active, participating in missions far away from their base, depending on their operational range.
ADDITIONAL CONTENT
The campaign consumed the largest part of our development time, but this is not the only big feature we prepared for this update. We added new hulls, new features such as the Battle Statistics and improved several aspects of the gameplay according to your feedback. Please read below what more you can find on this patch:
9x NEW HULLS
The Japanese “Mogami-class Heavy Cruiser" is the new detailed ship model of the game. You can find the new hull for Japan after 1930 with a displacement between 10,400 tons and 16,600 tons with the name “Heavy Cruiser III”.
New Japanese “Heavy Cruiser IV” especially suited for torpedo armament that is available after 1930 and has a displacement between 13,400 and 18,600 tons.
New Japanese “Modern Light Cruiser II” available after 1930 with a displacement between 10,200 and 13,600 tons.
New Japanese “Scout Cruiser”, a light cruiser which is especially stealthy and fast, available after 1930 with a displacement between 9,000 and 11,600 tons.
New Japanese “Heavy Scout Cruiser”, a heavy cruiser which is particularly effective in distant fighting is available after 1930 and has a displacement between 10,600 and 13,600 tons.
New Japanese “Experimental Cruiser” which is essentially a small battlecruiser with a displacement between 24,000 and 27,600 tons that is exceptionally stealthy and fast. This hull is available after 1935.
New German “Modern Battleship I” which is a smaller variant of the Bismarck-class having a displacement between 42,500 and 54,500 tons and is available after 1927.
New USA “Modernized Dreadnought” based on the famous California-class that was rebuilt in the 1940s. It has a displacement spanning from 34,500 and 38,500 tons and is available after 1927.
New French “Experimental Battleship” a hull that is better suited for a fast battleship is available after 1929 and has a displacement between 45,500 and 67,500 tons.
*Additionally:* Many new ship parts became available in previous hulls, following the new progression system of the campaign.
NEW FEATURES
New AI personalities: Adopting the new campaign mechanics, the AI opponent fleets now behave differently according to the nation. Some nations are very aggressive, others are balanced, and others especially cautious. All the AI personalities are now using a more effective system to decide when, how and at which distance to attack, due to the new AI which received an overall improvement.
New After-Battle Statistics: Now you are able to examine detailed battle statistics for any ship that participated in a battle.
New Steering gear component: You are now able to choose between various different steering options which affect the ship maneuverability.
More engine components enriching the available technology tree: Multiple Expansion Steam Engine II, Turbo Electric Drive, Gas Turbines are the new engine types. Due to having now the option of a Turbo Electric Drive system, the respective previous Aux systems were rebalanced and renamed.
New improved weight/offset mechanics: The new system allows the design of ships with cross deck guns and no side weight offset (previously it was impossible to have cross deck guns without instability problems). Another noticeable improvement is that you can find a perfect weight balance, if you use the CTRL while moving ship objects (previously this could be achieved much harder and sometimes it was impossible).
BALANCES & GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS
Various ship weight balances, especially in armor and engine aspects, allowing to make more realistic ship designs.
Ship rotation mechanics are adjusted so that ships have realistic turning rates at all situations. You should notice ships to turn more naturally according to their weight and length.
Smoke interference became more significant in earlier technology years and depended more on fuel type and engines.
Overpenetration mechanics adjustments cause now more frequent overpens on small or lightly armored ships.
Rescaled some small guns of the Pre-Dreadnought, Dreadnought era. They now match better to their caliber size.
Initial deployment of ships became improved so that BB and BC types are always placed into battle lines that cannot merge with each other (previously some battle lines could be too close to each other creating inevitable ship collisions.
Ships no longer automatically lose speed according to formation spread. This was helping them to maintain the formation but players usually removed the ships from formation to achieve the top speed. Now the ships will still be effective overall in keeping the formation but you will have to adjust their speed if they lose cohesion.
Added in Battle Statistics damage details for ramming.
Increased Naval Academy funds by about +15% as compensation for the money needs of the latest components and features.
AI
The AI, as mentioned already, has received a significant improvement. You will notice AI to become more aggressive when it clearly has the advantage. For example, if the AI notices that your Destroyers are out of torpedoes, then it will stop behaving defensively and will close in to destroy them. Another noticeable improvement is that it generally keeps a more effective firing distance and maneuvers more sharply and promptly, trying to adapt to player actions.
Optimized the Auto-Design system. Ships of the AI should be generated in much less time and be much more effective according to their technology generation.
Division AI logic improved in general, to be more responsive and help to maintain the formation.
BUGS & OTHER FIXES
Fixed various minor issues of the Graphical Interface.
Fixed collider issues of some Russian guns, which made them overlap with other guns.
Fixed bug that caused the showing of wrong information of min/max armor value in ship details info.
Fixed issue with a few funnels not fitting in some hulls.
Fixed issues with the shell dispersion mechanics which could make shell shots fall at much wider range than they should at close distances. Now you will notice much more realistic shell trajectories at all ranges.
Various small fixes to some hulls.
GRAPHICS & OPTIONS
The Ship Designer interface became improved by organizing the various parts into scrollable windows. Previously the excessive number of parts could overload the interface or become very small due to downscaling.
Battle FPS performance became improved due to the AI code optimization.
Fixed some issues that could cause lag in the design interface.
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The first campaign is just the start. We continue to improve it and will expand all functionalities in the next updates.
Thank you for reading! Please continue to share your very valuable feedback in our forums:
The Game-Labs Team
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Note: There is a known issue with crew losses not being measured accurately in battle stats. We will provide a fix for this as well as more improvements and repairs in a hotfix as soon as possible.
Hotfix Update v92 (25/11/2021)
- Fixed several bugs that could cause game crashes in campaign. - Fixed issue with scrap that could give too much money. - Fixed bug of crew losses calculations. - Fixed a lag issue in ship design process. Ship design interface should now run smoother. - Campaign can be played now without needing 3 Naval Academy Battles won.
Hotfix Update v93 (27/11/2021)
- Fixed crash issue when we chose "Rebuild" during a custom battle.
- Fixed other crash issues.
- Fixed old issue with accuracy caused by angular velocity not estimated properly according to speed of ships. Accuracy should be now properly increased when firing at slow moving ships.
Hotfix Update v94 (29/11/2021) READ HERE
- Added movement of ships between ports. You can now select ships from each port and move them to other friendly ports (Work in Progress).
- Added mouse sensitivity options in the controls. Players who had issues scrolling the map can adjust this new setting to suit their needs.
- Improved Auto-Design to not accept ships with side instability.
- Adjusted further the aiming of ships to be more consistent when focusing on a target persistently, especially at close range.
- You can now unlock the initial campaign years up to 1930 (fixed also a bug which caused the campaign years to unlock without winning).
- Increased AI aggressiveness in battle.
- Decreased average ship distance in divisions with Loose Spread (ships could have a very stretched out formation, reducing the cohesion needed for effective formations).
- Increased Germany Base income (often Germany started too weak).
- Slightly increased crew regeneration capacity, to support the construction of new ships for both player and AI.
- Slightly increased the XP bonus from ship combat performance.
- Power projection calculations improved so that the stronger fleet properly triggers a blockade.
Hotfix Update v95 (30/11/2021) - Fixed bug that caused a game crash after moving in some ports. - Fixed bug that made the campaign unlocking to work inconsistently. - Fixed relationship update bug caused when a blockade was ceased. - Fixed some other minor bugs. - Aiming of guns fine tuning. - AI aggressiveness increased (it is affected by aiming). - Fixed issue with few money for own fleet creation after 1920. - Fixed issue with mount snap points being too strict, causing errors to auto-design.
Hotfix Update v96 (3/12/2021)
- Fixed issue with wars ending too soon in late years of the campaign, due to very large VP given to the winner. VP now scales properly according to the technology era.
- Campaign mission generation should create more balanced missions, so that AI will not be prone to withdraw from them.
- Reduced the repair costs for ships in campaign, as they could overwhelm the economy of player and AI.
- Fixed AI issue making it too defensive in campaign.
- Auto-Design further optimization.
- Fixed bug that caused "Rebuild" to erase previous designs.
- Fixed bug with Battle Icons appearing too small in 4K monitors.
- Fixed small bugs related with the mission list of campaign.
- Fixed Torpedo Protection V stats not applying correctly to the component.
- Fixed major errors in crew losses calculations in battle stats.
- Fixed a minor error for a German Destroyer tower.
- Stalled ships issue due to evasion logic should happen less often (known bug we will fix better in future updates).
- Other minor bug fixes.
- Hulls that cannot be used due to low shipyard size are now viewable.
Hotfix Update v97 (6/12/2021)
- Various optimizations and small issue fixes.
Hotfix Update v98 (9/12/2021)
- Improvements in the Mission Generator to not generate defensive missions near enemy waters.
- Mission Generator system will now create new special missions, depending on the fleet composure of Attacker or Defender.
- Auto-Design Optimizations.
- Fixed Anti-Aliasing resetting after each game restart.
- Improved early battleships of Britain to have more funnels in the middle section.
*Patch v99* (14/12/2021)
- Significant AI improvement to be more aggressive and responsive.
- Flooding chance increases further at heavily damaged ships (aids to sink crippled ships faster).
- Shell dispersion improvement to be not so high at close range shots.
- Fixed a collider issue which affected fire arc calculations, created overlaps and auto-design errors.
- Fixed issue of auto-design producing ships with excessive funnels.
- Fixed bug that made Operational Range to become maximum for new designs in Naval Academy and consequently make hull weight too large (In Naval Academy the range cannot be edited).
- Some UI fixes.
- Battle Sound improvement for several impact hits.