Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts

[Sergiu64]

Now count Russia vs Japan 1905.

Tsushima is kind of an exceptional case in that the Russians sailed all the way around the world, by which point their ships were already kinda falling apart, to get into a fight with a force that completely outclassed theirs, leading to a situation in which retreat was nearly impossible, since their only options to retreat were "run all the way BACK around the world" and "run all the way through the Japanese fleet". It turns out you can, in fact, get massacred if you send an obsolete fleet around the world into a fight from which there is nowhere to retreat.

Hard to say if its an exceptional case or not given that naval engagements of that scale were not all that common to start with. But yes - if it takes a nation decades to build us something that looks like a fleet - most of them try not to throw them away.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I'm no expert on naval warfare, but it seems to me that battleship technology was completely overtaken by other technological developments.

A WW2 battleship would have obliterated an entire fleet 50 years prior, but in WW2 there were aircraft carriers, torpedos, magnetic mines, radar, etc so nations were more concerned how to prevent their battleships from sinking. So battleships became a purely defensive weapon, or one that would occupy large enemy resources (like the Tirpitz in Norway) without firing a shot.

Instead everyone had elaborate plans like the Japanese plan for a decisive battle in the the Pacific and wanted to wait until the conditions were right. The war was over before they could even consider launching any of their plans.

And a few nations who had ignored the situation like British sent the Prince Of Wales/Repulse to Singapore, or the Germans sent the Bismarck to the Atlantic, were slaughtered.

 

[Norfleet]

Hard to say if its an exceptional case or not given that naval engagements of that scale were not all that common to start with. But yes - if it takes a nation decades to build us something that looks like a fleet - most of them try not to throw them away.

Well, when you look at it in the context of all kinds of combat engagements, you find that death rates, in general, are low, and massacres only result when one side is either completely outclassed and/or has no means of escape. We note that Tsushima hits all of the relevant markers for a potential massacre: The Russian fleet was outclassed and falling apart already from its extended trip around the world, facing an enemy that was faster and longer-ranged, and had no real means of escape: They would have to punch through the Japanese fleet to escape to Vladivostok (only one ship made it), or retreat all the way BACK around the world. This is, obviously, not the normal case for a country's naval engagements: Everyone else tends to pick fights closer to friendly ports. It was obvious that Tsushima was an unusual case even before the shooting started.

And a few nations who had ignored the situation like British sent the Prince Of Wales/Repulse to Singapore, or the Germans sent the Bismarck to the Atlantic, were slaughtered.

These ships were ultimately victims of being shat on by planes. The former two were directly shat on by planes, the latter was shat on by a plane and lost the ability to retreat, or it probably would have made it back to France, where it would have been stuck until it got shat on by a plane again.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Yes, that is obvious. But it showed that you couldn't send your battleships out, even if the conditions were favorable like they were for the Bismarck. You needed aircraft carriers and air supremacy or your battleships would not come back.

There was at least one other such case, the Admiral Graf Spee that was sunk in Montevideo, that did not even involve aircraft.

 

[Norfleet]

There was at least one other such case, the Admiral Graf Spee that was sunk in Montevideo, that did not even involve aircraft.

It also didn't involve actual combat, yes. The Graf Spee was scuttled because the captain didn't want to fight to the death and get most of his crew killed. No ships were sunk in battle during the preceeding engagements.

 

[Burning Bridges]

The Spee had been damaged in battle with Ajax, Achilles, Exeter. It was only minor damage to the fuel system but because it had been sent out alone into the south Atlantic there was no chance.

 

[Norfleet]

That misses the point, namely, that none of the ships involved were actually sunk in battle, which is in line with what I'm saying about how the actual kill rates of ships is very low and they tended to run away exactly as the previous poster complained about.

As for how "no chance" they really were, it's hard to say, given that the primary cause of the ship's downfall was being beaten in the diplomatic and intelligence games: The British weaponized the rules of diplomacy and false intel against it, leading the Germans to believe the situation was far more hopeless than it really was, which, admittedly, wasn't a good situation to begin with.

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

The main issue spee had was damage to the desalination and oil purification plants making the trip back impossible. It would take 2 weeks at least to fix those problems, too much of the allowed 72 hours then had before the ship would be interned by uruguay and the brits having access to it at a later date given the political relations at the time.

 

[Norfleet]

The main issue spee had was damage to the desalination and oil purification plants making the trip back impossible. It would take 2 weeks at least to fix those problems, too much of the allowed 72 hours then had before the ship would be interned by uruguay and the brits having access to it at a later date given the political relations at the time.

Getting stuck in Uruguay was a diplomatic blunder on their part, yes. As it is, the Brits still managed to get access to the wreck.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Wether it is the German East Asia squadron, the Spee or the Bismarck it was always the same pattern. The Germans liked to send their ships far away from Britain where they could do a lot of damage, but then there was no plan B.

An interesting case is the Kormoran, an armed merchant that sent a cruiser (HMAS Sydney) to the bottom. As a consolation the Kormoran sank too, otherwise this would have been the joke the century.

Sydney

Kormoran

 

[Norfleet]

Wether it is the German East Asia squadron, the Spee or the Bismarck it was always the same pattern. The Germans liked to send their ships far away from Britain where they could do a lot of damage, but then there was no plan B.

Well, Germany was never a naval power. Their only option was to do this, or be stuck bottled in the North Sea until they got shat on by planes.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Leaving the Tirpitz in Norway was probably much more effective than sacrificing the Bismarck because it seriously drained British resources. In principle not a single British convoy in the Norway sea could sail freely because Tirptz could obliterate it in 1 hour.

Had the Bismarck not sunk the Hood with a lucky shot, the whole operation would have been nothing but a big embarassment.

 

[Norfleet]

The whole thing was basically a string of lucky shots. Had the Hood not exploded abruptly, the Germans would have had little to show for the episode, but if the Bismarck hadn't lost its rudder in a similarly lucky strike, it would have made it back to France, so we can see that the game of naval combat tends to be determined by random crits and in the absence of them, nobody big seems to actually sink from combat.

 

[Burning Bridges]

It was almost impossible to engage without taking too much risk. Admiral Jellicoe could have lost the entire war in a single day, and in the aftermath of Jutland the British realized how close they got ("There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today") and that most of their ships had serious flaws.

And I need not mention Tsushima. An entire fleet destroyed in a single day.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

It was almost impossible to engage without taking too much risk. Admiral Jellicoe could have lost the entire war in a single day, and in the aftermath of Jutland the British realized how close they got ("There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today") and that most of their ships had serious flaws.

And I need not mention Tsushima. An entire fleet destroyed in a single day.

Their battlecruisers didn't have serious flaws, aside from one, being under Beatty.

 

[Raghar]

AI here was designed by a French as their favourite tactic is to runaway all the time.

That's actually surprisingly realistic. Relatively few ships in naval combats were actually SUNK. Most of the combats involved one or both sides breaking off after sustaining only "light" casualties, which is at odds with the typical gamer behavior of turning every fight into a bloodbath.

Just to iterate on this.
Jutland:
250 ships participated,25 sunk.

The only actual naval battles with huge losses at that era were in the American civil war and that was because of the low number of ships involved and design failures because of the rush to build more stuff.

Now count Russia vs Japan 1905.

That's not fair, you are talking about Russians. Whole navy at the bottom, they would build new one. And Japan who was finally winning about one of white big powerful countries was willing to put sacrifices.

 

[Norfleet]

It was almost impossible to engage without taking too much risk. Admiral Jellicoe could have lost the entire war in a single day, and in the aftermath of Jutland the British realized how close they got ("There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today") and that most of their ships had serious flaws.

Jutland largely ended indecisively and with a relatively low ship destruction percentage, representing the typical outcome where neither side is cornered and can choose to end the engagement by going home.

And I need not mention Tsushima. An entire fleet destroyed in a single day.

We covered this one already: The unusual case of the Russians sending an obsolete fleet all the way around the world to get into a fight from which it had no means of retreating is not a norm.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

 

[flyingjohn]

We covered this one already: The unusual case of the Russians sending an obsolete fleet all the way around the world to get into a fight from which it had no means of retreating is not a norm.

Also having your auxiliary ships signal the entire fleet position to the enemy is not the norm.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Jutland largely ended indecisively and with a relatively low ship destruction percentage, representing the typical outcome where neither side is cornered and can choose to end the engagement by going home.

We covered this one already: The unusual case of the Russians sending an obsolete fleet all the way around the world to get into a fight from which it had no means of retreating is not a norm.

It ended completely decisively. The Imperial German surface fleet never left port again which allowed the Royal Navy to starve Germany to death.

 

[Burning Bridges]

If Jutland was a boxing match Germany won by points and then collapsed outside of the ring.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Jutland was a typically British affair. Jellicoe and his Grand Fleets seamanship allowed them to surprise and cross Scheers T twice during the engagement (the hard part). Meanwhile the absolute basics like cordite handling and stowage were neglected.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Meanwhile the absolute basics like cordite handling and stowage were neglected.

Not in the entire fleet. This was mostly the retardation focused on the battlecruisers commanded by Beatty's who - aside from being a wannabe Nelson - had a fetish focused on the rate of fire.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Yeah, the whole thing with cordite storage (and leaving the blast doors between the turrets and magazines open) was being done on purpose to allow for faster reloading. One of those moments when people try being cool by violating basic rules because they know better, only to have the situation literally blow up in their face.

 

[Joggerino]

Very underwhelming campaign at the moment, it's mostly an event generator right now. And real men play rtw 2.

 

[Norfleet]

That's not a surprise, considering that it is unfinished and explicitly acknowledged as such.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1069660/view/3198126829835962733

Major Update v1.05
Full patch notes on the most recent update
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.

Spoiler

A variant of the Von Der Tann Battlecruiser in various camera angles.

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 a 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

The new expanded map includes the Mediterranean Sea


NEW GUNS
Germany and Austria-Hungary receive new visuals for the following:

• 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 II”
  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 327 Hull Variants of which 33 are highly detailed base models. All the ships of the game use over 1386 different ship parts and thousands of different weapons in various sizes and tech levels.

The new Task Force functionality allows to group ships into a moving fleet


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
  
  
  
  
  4x new ship components for shells
  
  
  
• 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.

A New British Dreadnought in action


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.

The new Beam/Draught options provide more design flexibility


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.

The Design interface has been cleaned up from redundant information


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.