Hello Admirals,
We are very happy to announce the next major update of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts! The campaign has received not only a map expansion but a crucial new functionality which allows you to create Task Forces. With the Task Forces you can bring the battles close to the enemy waters in a detailed manner, but beware, the enemy will do the same to you. The AI will counter your movements or will try to find opportunities to reinforce weakened sea regions and gradually destroy your convoys.
58 new ship variants enrich the huge roster of ships you can design, including the detailed model of the German Battlecruiser SMS Von der Tann. The game's interface has received a total clean up and visual enhancement while many other gameplay fixes and improvements await you to explore them in the largest update, in terms of content, that has been released so far for the game. You can read the long list of improvements in the below text.
A variant of the Von Der Tann Battlecruiser in various camera angles.
==Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts v1.05 Update==
CAMPAIGN
Map Expansion: Expanded the map to include the Mediterranean Sea and a larger portion of Europe.
New Nations: Italy, France and Austria-Hungary are added to the major nations. The nations form two rival alliances and fight with each other for total victory (this is temporary functionality until we offer the prolonged campaign system).
Task Forces: Previously you were able to move ships only between ports. You can now also form Task Forces, by grouping ships and sending them to any sea point on the map. In this way you block strategic passages and generate missions according to the ships in the vicinity.
Refit Mode: Now you can refit your ships, from changing a few components to radically replacing weapons, funnels, towers with modern variations. This new and essential feature will allow you to utilize all the latest technology advancements for your current ships without the need to scrap them and build new ones.
New Sea Roles: New sea roles added to the previous “In Being” and “Sea Control”, special for the Task Forces, offer more options for controlling strategically your ships.
Interface improvements: There is a new tab “Politics” where you will later manage some diplomacy aspects. Now you are able to overview the relations and power of all nations. Additionally we added an “ Economy Growth” to the GDP which will be dependent later from various conditions. You will be warned when you want to end the turn with danger of going bankrupt. When you hover at a sea region a tooltip shows statistical information for the included fleets. Many other minor changes to support the new functionalities.
Balances: Maintenance cost is balanced so that it is not so high now that ships will spend more time at sea with all the various and expensive sea roles. Tech research is balanced to be overall faster and tech priorities will give a more distinctive advantage when chosen. Various other balances were made to support the new campaign expansion.
NEW GUNS
Germany and Austria-Hungary receive new visuals for: 4-inch up to 16-inch Mark 2 guns and 9-inch up to 14-inch Mark 3 guns.
New casemate gun models for late tech years.
58 NEW HULLS
A new base model for one of the most famous German Battlecruisers of World War I is added along with many new variants. Many new towers and parts are added or improved for previous hulls and the technology tree has changed to include the following new ships:
The “Battlecruiser SMS Von der Tann” can now be faithfully recreated in the game. You can find it in the new German Hull “Battlecruiser I” with a displacement between 19,200 and 24,200 tons in the years 1907-1919.
New German “Large Armored Cruiser” variant with a displacement between 13,500 and 17,500 tons that is available in the years 1907-1920.
New Japanese/Spanish/Chinese “Large Cruiser” variant with a displacement between 14,500 and 18,500 tons that is available in the years 1907-1919.
New “Large Armored Cruiser” variant for Spain, China, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Japan with a displacement between 13,000 and 16,500 tons that is available in the years 1907-1920.
New Russian “Large Armored Cruiser” variant with a displacement between 13,500 and 16,800 tons that is available in the years 1907-1920.
New Italian “Armored Cruiser V” variant with a displacement between 11,000 and 12,800 tons that is available in the years 1907-1920.
New French “Armored Cruiser IV” variant with a displacement between 11,800 and 15,500 tons that is available in the years 1900-1920.
New “Light Cruiser III” variant for Britain, Spain, China, Austria-Hungary, Italy, USA with a displacement between 3,500 and 8,500 tons that is available in the years 1905-1920.
New British “Light Cruiser IV” variant with a displacement between 5,500 and 9,500 tons that is available in the years 1915-1930.
New “Japanese Light Cruiser III” variant with a displacement between 3,500 and 8,500 tons that is available in the years 1905-1920.
New “Russian Light Cruiser III” variant with a displacement between 3,300 and 8,300 tons that is available in the years 1905-1920.
New “French Scout Cruiser” variant with a displacement between 4,500 and 9,500 tons that is available in the years 1905-1920.
New Russian “Scout Cruiser” variant with a displacement between 4,300 and 9,300 tons that is available in the years 1909-1920.
New Italian “Scout Cruiser” variant with a displacement between 4,500 and 9,500 tons that is available in the years 1910-1920.
New US “Scout Cruiser I” variant with a displacement between 8,500 and 10,500 tons that is available in the years 1915-1930.
New US “Scout Cruiser II” variant with a displacement between 9,500 and 12,500 tons that is available in the years 1919-1930.
New US “Heavy Cruiser I” variant with a displacement between 10,500 and 12,750 tons that is available after the year 1919.
New French “Light Cruiser V” variant with a displacement between 7,500 and 9,750 tons that is available after the year 1921.
New German “Light Cruiser V” variant with a displacement between 7,700 and 10,250 tons that is available after the year 1921.
New German “Battlecruiser II” variant with a displacement between 23,000 and 28,000 tons that is available in the years 1907-1920.
New German “Battlecruiser III” variant with a displacement between 26,000 and 31,000 tons that is available in the years 1913-1928.
New Russian “Battlecruiser III” variant with a displacement between 29,500 and 37,000 tons that is available in the years 1913-1928.
New Russian “Battlecruiser IV” variant with a displacement between 33,500 and 41,000 tons that is available in the years 1916-1935.
New Japanese “Battlecruiser IV” variant with a displacement between 27,500 and 36,500 tons that is available in the years 1916-1928.
New German “Battlecruiser IV” variant with a displacement between 27,400 and 34,000 tons that is available in the years 1913-1928.
New German “Battlecruiser V” variant with a displacement between 35,500 and 44,500 tons that is available in the years 1916-1928.
New British “Battlecruiser IV” variant with a displacement between 29,500 and 34,000 tons that is available in the years 1916-1928.
New British “Battlecruiser V” variant with a displacement between 23,500 and 37,500 tons that is available in the years 1919-1928.
New Japanese “Battlecruiser V” variant with a displacement between 36,500 and 43,500 tons that is available after the year 1919.
New Austro-Hungarian “Battleship I” variant with a displacement between 8,000 and 11,500 tons that is available in the years 1890-1905.
New Austro-Hungarian “Small Dreadnought I” variant with a displacement between 14,500 and 18,500 tons that is available in the years 1905-1915.
New Spanish/Chinese “Small Dreadnought I” variant with a displacement between 15,500 and 17,700 tons that is available in the years 1905-1915.
New Austro-Hungarian “Experimental Dreadnought I” variant with a displacement between 21,000 and 25,000 tons that is available in the years 1908-1919.
New Austro-Hungarian “Experimental Dreadnought II” variant with a displacement between 23,000 and 27,000 tons that is available in the years 1910-1919.
New Russian “Dreadnought I” variant with a displacement between 20,500 and 26,000 tons that is available in the years 1905-1915
New Russian “Dreadnought II” variant with a displacement between 30,500 and 36,000 tons that is available in the years 1910-1927
New German “Dreadnought I” variant with a displacement between 19,500 and 22,500 tons that is available in the years 1905-1915.
New German “Dreadnought I” variant with a displacement between 19,500 and 22,500 tons that is available in the years 1905-1915.
New Japanese “Dreadnought I” variant with a displacement between 18,500 and 25,000 tons that is available in the years 1905-1915.
New British “Dreadnought II” variant with a displacement between 19,500 and 27,500 tons that is available in the years 1908-1915.
New French “Dreadnought II” variant with a displacement between 20,800 and 29,500 tons that is available in the years 1908-1915.
New Italian “Dreadnought II” variant with a displacement between 20,500 and 25,000 tons that is available in the years 1908-1915.
New German “Dreadnought II” variant with a displacement between 23,500 and 27,500 tons that is available in the years 1908-1915.
New French “Dreadnought III” variant with a displacement between 22,500 and 28,000 tons that is available in the years 1908-1915.
New British “Dreadnought III” variant with a displacement between 21,000 and 29,500 tons that is available in the years 1910-1915.
New German “Dreadnought III” variant with a displacement between 27,000 and 34,000 tons that is available in the years 1910-1926.
New British “Dreadnought IV” variant with a displacement between 23,600 and 32,500 tons that is available in the years 1912-1915.
New Italian “Dreadnought IV” variant with a displacement between 29,000 and 35,000 tons that is available in the years 1914-1926.
New French “Dreadnought IV” variant with a displacement between 24,000 and 31,000 tons that is available in the years 1914-1926.
New French “Dreadnought V” variant with a displacement between 32,000 and 39,500 tons that is available in the years 1916-1926.
- New *USA “Dreadnought III”* variant with a displacement between 35,500 and 42,500 tons that is available in the years 1919-1927.
New British “Dreadnought V” variant with a displacement between 25,500 and 35,500 tons that is available in the years 1914-1926.
New Russian/Spanish/Chinese “Experimental Dreadnought” variant with a displacement between 25,500 and 30,500 tons that is available in the years 1914-1926.
New British “Dreadnought VI” variant with a displacement between 33,000 and 45,000 tons that is available in the years 1916-1926.
New German “Dreadnought IV” variant with a displacement between 44,000 and 57,000 tons that is available in the years 1919-1926.
New German “Dreadnought V” variant with a displacement between 47,000 and 61,000 tons that is available in the years 1919-1926.
New French “Dreadnought VI” variant with a displacement between 44,000 and 66,000 tons that is available in the years 1916-1926
New Italian “Dreadnought V” variant with a displacement between 38,000 and 56,000 tons that is available in the years 1919-1926.
The game now includes over 318 Hull Variants of which 33 are highly detailed base models. All the ships of the game use over 1381 different ship parts and thousands of different weapons in various sizes and tech levels.
MAJOR NEW FEATURES
Customization of Beam / Draught: You can now adjust the width and height of the hull in the design options. These adjustments will greatly affect the hull characteristics and the performance of your designed ships.
New Components for AP/HE rounds ratio: Choose the distribution of AP and HE rounds between different settings for your main and secondary guns. You will no longer have indefinitely any type of AP or HE round but both will have their separate limit.
New Components for AP/HE shell types: The type of the HE or AP shell can be now customized depending on technology. The different HE shells span between the options: HEI - High Explosive Incendiary Shell HCHE - High Capacity High Explosive Shell CNF - Nose Fuze Shell CP - Base Fuze Shell CPC - Common Pointed Capped CPBC - Common Pointed Ballistic Capped The varying AP shells are: SAP - Semi Armor Piercing Shell SAPBC - Semi Armor Piercing Ballistic Cap Shell AP - Armor Piercing Shell APC - Armor Piercing Capped Shell APBC - Armor Piercing Ballistic Capped Shell Improved APBC - Armor Piercing Ballistic Capped Shell
New Battle Control Option “Avoid Ship”: By default it is enabled and allows the ships to automatically avoid other ships to prevent collision. You can now override this behavior individually for any of your ships, either for improving your swift maneuvers or for ramming the enemy…
New Battle Control Option “Ammo for Secondary Guns": You can now choose what type of ammo is used for your Secondary Guns, Auto, AP or HE.
Improved Shell Ballistics and Gun Aiming Mechanics: Following the various new options for AP and HE shells the shell ballistics now follow a much more characteristic trajectory depending on all their different physics variables. Additionally, the guns aim in a more realistic manner, firing salvoes depending on the target’s speed and angular velocity. For example, previously you would see shell salvoes to be mostly random in relation to the center of the target, but now salvoes are en mass fired forward, aft, in front or behind the target until the range is found and hits start to be achieved. This automatic procedure affects the base accuracy and now makes the firing more natural and expected depending on target distance.
Improved Ship Motion at Sea: Ship buoyancy mechanics are enriched to support the new Beam/Draught options. The interaction of ships with waves is now more characteristic depending on the weight offset, pitch/roll, beam/draught options chosen for their design.
Exponential speed limit for hulls: As ships reach a maximum speed barrier depending on the hull technology, then the engine weight needed to achieve a higher speed increases exponentially. Thus it will be much harder to design unrealistically fast ships with old hulls, something that a lot of players abused to make much faster ships than the AI to overwhelm it.
OTHER IMPROVEMENTS
Over penetration mechanics improvement: Overpenetration will now happen with more accurate conditions. Previously the unarmored ships would mostly overpenetrate, or the heavily armored almost never became overpenetrated.
Flooding mechanics improvement: Flooding from direct hits will now spread not only to adjacent sections but further beyond, depending on the height of water inside the flooded sections. This new feature addresses the previous unnatural survivability for smaller ships (especially the torpedo boats) which would become unsinkable until more sections were flooded from a direct hit. With this new feature, the torpedo and flooding protection schemes in the design options will be more than essential.
AP/HE different stats: When you hover on guns to see their info tooltip you will now see detailed and different statistics for AP/HE shell weights, damage, range, muzzle velocity, penetration and accuracy tables.
Crew scales with hull size and displacement: As you change displacement, beam/ draught the hull crew number will change accordingly. Previously the “Control Station” crew was not scaling.
Added instability/beam/draught values in battle UI: These are important design aspects, useful to know for any ship that participates in a battle.
Save file system improved: When a new game version requires it, obsolete save files will be discarded and new will be generated automatically. This will stop the confusion of players when the game would become broken due to incompatible saves (invalid designs, exceptions, floating guns etc.)
Ship weight/cost balances: Balanced the weight and cost for various parts and components, as it was needed for all the latest new features.
Other balances: The “Dunnite” explosive charge is available in late tech years, new Radar Rangefinder III is now available and other minor improvements or balances for the ship design options.
Minor Visual Effects Improvement: You will notice a little better visual effects overall.
Graphical Interface Improvement: We have changed the graphical interface in various aspects of the game, in the campaign, battle stats, shipyard, menu etc. to be more pleasing to the eye.
Now the ships can be lost due to casualties: When a ship receives more than 70% casualties it surrenders, which is considered a ship loss, during combat.
BATTLE AI
The Battle AI is further improved to make decisions more promptly and effectively by using more algorithms. The result is an AI that will know better when to attack and defend and at which distance, always depending on the nation's personality.
Auto Targeting is influenced by the new AI algorithms and is more effective. Some older issues should become resolved, for example the over-prioritization of Transports.
Improved the AI decision making on switching shell type. You will notice that the ships will more successfully switch ammo depending on the armor and angle of the target.
AI auto-design algorithms enriched to support all the new features for Beam/Draught, new components. The ships created will be balanced in protection and firepower and thus more potent adversaries.
BUG FIXES
Several division movement bugs were fixed: Ships will not confuse so much as before in dense formations. Further fixes will come after feedback.
Fixed issue that caused the division ship leader to instantly switch position when receiving little damage, causing confusion to the formation.
Fixed bug that would cause ships of screen formation to immediately try to switch position at the start of battle, creating big confusion in the formation.
Fixed bugs that would cause the showing of inaccurate statistical data after battle.
Fixed some issues with barbettes that were not available in mount positions, while they should. This bug would cause issues in the auto-design which made it very difficult to find a proper barbette to place a gun.
Fixed old issue of inconsistent reverse engine damage.
Fixed sinking animation jitter (ships changing to sinking animation effect instantly, losing frames).
Minor text fixes.
=================================================================================== We thank everyone who tested the beta version of this update while we were developing it. You helped us greatly and we hope all players will enjoy this final playable version.
Thank you for reading! Please share your valuable feedback in our forums: Official Forum
The Game-Labs Team
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Important information for early buyers
Please note that v1.05 will be the last update for the Standalone Launcher of the game. All future updates will be deployed on Steam Early Access. So if you have purchased the "Limited" or "Standard Edition", and you haven't used your Steam Key yet, please check your email and enable it so you can continue to play Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts fully updated.
If you have trouble finding or enabling your Steam key, please head to our support forum and ask for help: