Hello Admirals, We are very happy to announce a new large update of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts. This update focuses on optimizing all aspects of gameplay and most importantly it has significantly increased the speed of campaign loading times. After a period of beta testing, thanks to the really helpful feedback from all who participated in the beta and the collaboration with many players we finalized the update which offers the following: [b]*v1.6.0.7*[/b] [list] [*] Complete overhaul of the campaign system, greatly improving the loading times. When you start a new campaign the AI will use pre-made designs so the campaign will need a few seconds to start instead of several minutes as before. We will gradually enrich the pre-made ships to greatly increase the variability of AI initial designs. [*] The campaign loading time between the shipyard and world map or battle and world map have been decreased significantly. Previously, according to how many designs the player and the AI had active, it would often delay too much to load the next game scene. [*] Campaign turn times have also been reduced significantly due to refactoring of the related code. [*]New options "Mixed", "Fast", "Slow" for starting the campaign, allow you to use the pre-made AI ships according to your liking. If you want to play in the fastest way, you choose “Fast” so all AI designs are pre-made. In “Mixed” mode only the starting units are pre-made and in “Slow” mode all AI designs are generated on demand, making it a full sandbox mode, but it will cost the most time during turn times. [b]*Important:*[/b] Mods will be compatible only with the “Slow” mode. [*] Fixed a minor auto-resolve issue, not causing adequate transport losses in “Undefended Port” battles. [*] Several improvements in the auto-resolve system to make results even more consistent based on the power of ships. This will not be a "hand holding" mode for players. You will expect more sunken ships for the side that is inferior in techs and overall firepower of the fleet for both AI and player. Mods are not guaranteed to have the same results, as always, so if you want to test it out, you need to use the default game values (auto-resolve is affected not only by dedicated parameters but also cost and many other aspects of ships). [*] Fixed and improved various aspects of Campaign’s Victory points system. You will notice the impact of submarine raiding of transports more noticeably and battle results will be much more consistent. [*] Increased the impact of Crew rescuing/healing techs. [*] Weight fixes in several late tech destroyers, which had very heavy towers and were very difficult to design, creating delays in the auto-design. These various destroyers of your fleet will gain free tons which you can use to improve them. [*] Added shipyard capacity indication in Ship Design and Map interface. [*] Technology priorities/penalties got a milder effect, addressing cases where technology could either be researched too quick for the era or it could delay too much the AI, when it used the priorities. [*] AI units will now not be able to retreat in campaign battles where they "Fail to withdraw" as Task Forces on the map. They may still attempt to fight at a safe distance but they will not try to leave the map as before. [*] Experimental more aggressive Division AI logic making the ships which are on screen or scout to behave more independently, often more effectively as the previous AI command. This change will also affect the opponent AI. [*] Tension mechanics tuning to make tension more dynamic. [*] Economy balances. Army cost affects the expenses more. Transport Capacity and Crew Training costs are more dynamic, and depend more on National GDP. Fleet maintenance and repair costs increased slightly. Shipyard capacity limit affects more the building times and costs. [*] Various minor bug fixes. [/list] Thanks again to everyone who contributed in the beta! As a small mention, we have fixed a few more bugs that you reported including the retreat button not working in some Task Force battles of the campaign. [b]Uploaded optimized version including[/b] - Fixed issue of "Own Fleet Creation" at the start of campaign, resulting in negative funds if your built ships exceeded the shipyard capacity. - Fixed shipyard cancellation issue, causing tonnage to get lower than before. - Reduced further the difficulty levels' Technology boost of the AI (it is really minimal now). After the latest campaign AI improvements the effect appeared to be strong. [b]Please restart Steam to get the update fast[/b] [b]Uploaded optimizedx2 version including[/b] - Tension mechanics fine tuning according to feedback. Tension should rise in cases that previously was too passive. You have to know, though, that while you are allied to a nation you cannot raise tension against it. - Fixed old issue of auto-resolve happening when leaving combat causing sometimes to reset damages made in combat. [b]Please restart Steam to get the update fast[/b] [b]Uploaded optimizedx3 version including[/b] - Further fine tuning in tension mechanics. - Reduced further the AI technology progress boost of harder difficulties to make the gameplay more comfortable. - Logistics and navy power calculations improved, increasing the influence of the Navy Strength and Transport Capacity. This change will greatly affect all aspects of campaign military warfare. - Campaign log can include much more information per turn showing all actions of the AI (when you save the log information gets limited). - Fixed some code exceptions causing ships to disappear from the fleet or sunk ships to not be cleaned up. - Fixed VP calculations related to transports, causing big differences in VP (old issue). - Fine tuned overall VP calculations. - Auto-Resolve further optimizations. - Fixed problem that prevented shared designs to be used in the Fast mode of campaign. - Fixed minor calculation inconsistency for event effects. - Fixed old error causing task forces to travel in the same exact spot if they failed to merge, making it very difficult to select them. - Other minor fixes. [b]Please restart Steam to get the update fast[/b] [b]Uploaded optimizedx4 version including[/b] - Further fine tuning in tension mechanics. It should be much better if not optimal. - Reduced AI boosts at higher difficulty levels to make the gameplay more comfortable. - Fixed a loading freeze that could happen in campaign prior to a battle (a left over bug of the beta). - A memory handling optimization. [b]Please restart Steam to get the update fast[/b] [b]Uploaded optimizedx5 version including[/b] - Fixed some old inconsistencies of naval invasions and special events' battles causing AI to not interact properly in all occasions and also added visibility of all AI special events so that players are aware of when the AI attacks somewhere or supports a defense in allied waters. Colors of missions have changed according to nation. This is a major improvement for the campaign, which will activate AI in all the necessary military actions properly. - Fixed bug which made ships to disappear from the fleet in the campaign. - Fixed some bugs that prevented to save components when copying designs. - Fixed kills caused by submarines not saved into the end campaign statistics. - Fine tuned task forces auto-shift position on the map to avoid being merged into the same coordinates. Please note, you cannot add many task forces into singularity as previously, to maximize the tonnage in missions, you need to keep some space between your task forces. - Fixed some minor UI issues showing not total change of shipyard capacity when selling ships. [b]Please restart Steam to get the update fast[/b]