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.
Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts Alpha-10
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
- Ship of higher tonnage has priority
- Ship with Captain of higher rank has priority
- 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:
The Game-Labs Team