Admirals,
We would like to inform you that we are currently working to improve critical aspects of gameplay that are going to be very important in the campaign. Our team is progressing on radical changes regarding formations, armor mechanics, AI and various others you requested many times. Here are some of the improvements which we plan to offer in our upcoming update.
Major rework of the formations
The formation system of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts will receive an overhaul of its mechanics, making the control of large fleets much easier and realistic. First of all, we will fix 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 will offer the following:
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 will be 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.
Make battle lines with ease: 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.
Improved Line Ahead/Line Abreast: The bug fixes on the formations will make Line Ahead and Line Abreast to work seamlessly not only in divisions but also in group formations. When you select a large number of ships you can make them create either a large Line Ahead formation or a wider Line Abreast formation.
The “Line Ahead” command can be expanded to a large group formation of multiple ship types.
The “Line Abreast” command will become improved and expanded to a large group formation of multiple ship types.
Revamped “Screen” command: The functionality of the screen command will receive 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.
Four divisions of 12 ships screening a battleship division, with the previous system.
In the new system, the ships become distributed around the battleship division and operate independently.
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.
Two divisions of 5 ships move in scout formation around a battleship division, in larger distance compared to the ships at screen formation.
Ships in Screen or Scout mode will interact with enemy threats more effectively.
Various other improvements
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”).
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 fixes: Some remaining issues that were many times reported were addressed, including secondary gun inconsistencies on Iowa hull, overlapping guns with Bismarck towers and some 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 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.
Quad turrets and others will arrive on next game update. Showing a work in progress.
As we continue to progress, we will update our changelog accordingly with more planned features, for example the finalization of Naval Academy difficulty mode, revamp of the accuracy system with detailed colliders or… the addition of 19-inch and 20-inch guns. We will also provide information about when to expect the next Alpha-9 Update.
Thank you for reading,
The Game-Labs Team