Introduction
Naval Arms Race, or simple "N.A.R.", is a mod overhaul for U.A.D. that reworks several game mechanics with focus in historical accuracy. Adds new ships and rework many others. Other gameplay improvements are also made where it is possible to provide a more enjoyable experience with more interesting choices for the player.
Special thanks to “Nick Thomadis” from the U.A.D. team, for all the help and the precious information shared, and to all the players that shared feedback. It helped me a lot, some with interesting suggestions, others by reporting bug fixing issues.
Summary of the most important changes.
I - Guns
Complete rework of all guns in game penetration values with data from real guns used as a reference from a ballistics software. Note: In N.A.R. 1-inch of penetration equals to 1-inch wrought iron armor.
All guns models in game manually edited (around 3500 guns!!). Reworked the guns for all nations to be a smooth transition, between gun models and Mk variants using historical guns as a reference. Many guns had their size tweaked and changed place to improve the nations historical design language.
More than 135 historical guns reload times researched and used as a reference for the different eras and guns marks.
Barrel length mechanic reworked from the ground. Now increasing barrel size will no longer lower the deck pen, but will also not be OP as in stock game. Lowering the gun barrel is in fact a viable option to reduce the “immune zone” from the enemy ships. This is based on my historical guns research comparing different barrels using the same shell.
Gun's accuracy formula changed. In general, the bigger the gun, the more accurate will be, specially at long ranges. Around 1x – 1.5x to what was possible in real life based on some battle and trial reports. There is also an arcade version (x2 the hit probability) for the players that enjoy that kind of experience.
Fantasy quad guns removed from the game. Only Britain, France and USA will have access to big caliber quad guns. Note: Italy had some quad guns studies, but I don’t have an exclusive gun model for them ingame.
II – Components
All armor values and descriptions reworked with new options added to better represent the different types of armor used in the time period, their properties, and to give the player more interesting options. Note: In UAD, the armor scaling effect doesn't exist so it is not possible to make, as an example, the American Class "A" armor the best in the world for cruisers but only average for battleships. Some modifiers were added to better represent this in game.
Guns propellants and bursting charges reworked with new, historical options, that will give the player more options to choose.
All weight modifiers removed from the armor components. Where it is possible to have some minor differences between different types of armor, in reality the differences are so small that aren't worth it to mention in the game. With this change, the player will find it impossible to add absurd levels of armor to ships as in the stock game, forcing to use more historical accurate levels of armor in the ships, however because of the guns penetration rework, these values should be more than enough if you stay inside the “immune zone”.
Sonar torpedo spotting modifiers removed since it is unrealistic for a sonar to detect torpedoes in the water with the ship at flank speed coming from the stern.
Sonar is now only applied to CL and DD classes.
Added scout plane mechanic. This will add recon value, bonus to the long accuracy and add aerial depth charges to use against subs. Radar long range accuracy values rebalanced because of this to reflect the real value of these systems in the battlefield. Credits goes to “M3rky1” for finding the solution.
III – Shells & Ballistics
Lighter shells have better accuracy at low ranges due to higher muzzle velocity, trajectory flattening and reduced time to target, where heavy shells have better range and are more accurate at long ranges due to better ballistic coefficient, that is a measure of how well a projectile retains its velocity and resists drag as it travels through the air. Note: In NAR , the long range accuracy effect starts at 5.5 km and gets the maximum effect at 40 km. This offers new tactical options for the Admiral to consider when designing the ships.
Wind resistance modifiers added to all shells. The lighter the shell, the bigger the effect, specially on stormy weather.
Penetration values difference from shell weight modifiers increased to 28%. This was by reading and comparing the data from the 16" on the Nelson class (light shells) with the 16" on the Iowa class (super heavy shells). There is around 41% difference, but there is also a generation gap in gun technology.
Heavier shells are more likely to penetrate surfaces rather than bouncing off, due to their greater mass and momentum.
Added guns weight and rotation modifiers for the shell weight components. The loading mechanism weight is taking into account the shell weight. This will have a small impact on the gun's overall weight and turret rotation.
New shell added, SAPC.
SAPBC penetration improved.
SAP and all HE shells damage was improved to better represent the difference in weight from the bursting charges.
HCHE, CNF and CP fuse are now more sensitive since they were designed to work against light armored ships.
Min angle and max angle of ricochet for all shells reworked, taking into account the shell shape or the AP cap design, if present, for ricochet chance calculations:
- APBC & SAPBC The addition of a ballistic cap that allows the cap underneath to have a less aerodynamic shape often with sharp edges, which allows it to grip into armour even at high impact angles.
- APC shells have a unique hard cap design that favors penetration at low angles, but is very poor at steep angles.
- SAPC Use a soft cap to spread the radial shock outward from the impact along the radius of the now flattened soft cap, keeping the shock from travelling into the body of the shell itself. Soft caps, however, do not function at high impact angles.
IV – Ship design
Ships stability reworked, being a lot easier to get stable ships. As an indirect effect the AI also benefits a lot from this, so expect to fight more capable ships.
Many modifiers rebalanced to better simulate real ship weights: fuel; belt armor; deck armor; barbettes; conning tower; crew numbers; crew quarters; torpedo protection; side turret armor; turret top armor; secondaries armor; casemate guns weight.
Added 4" and 5" casemates for the protected cruisers. Credits goes to "clavernever" for finding the solution. Note: Not all hulls support this. (Torpedo cruiser hull as an example)
Increased the gun caliber cap for all semi armored cruiser to 9"
Depth charges removed from CA class.
Main triple guns barrels removed from the destroyers since they were never used.
Added mines, radio, rangefinder, sonar, depthcharge, radar, shaft, rudder, steering and antiflooding techs to TBs.
Flooding mechanics reworked so the difference between bulkheads used is now smaller.
Hull effects reworked:
- The wider the beam, the shorter the ship turning radius.
- The greater the ship draft, the bigger is the surface area that needs to push the water, increasing the ship turning radius.
- The deeper a vessel lies in the water, the more sluggish will be her response to the helm.
- The deeper a vessel lies in the water, the more gentle will be the rolling in bad weather, mitigating the issues with the guns accuracy.
- Changes in beam and draught will have lower impact in accuracy to balance the AI ship designs and to prevent the wide ships designs meta.
Night vision stat enabled. This is only experiemental, and it is for running test to see if it is working or not. The player will find this new stat in the towers.
V – Battle
Gun and torpedo damage reworked. The smaller the ship type more devastating will be the damage.
Torpedo evade range at 1500m (13500m in stock game). To improve fleets movement and the AI behavior in battle.
Torpedos takes longer to reload to prevent spamming.
Spotting values and accuracy modifiers affected by weather and light conditions reworked.
Smoke option disabled. The most important reason is the fact the AI doesn’t know when to use it, so it is unfair against the AI and ruins the experience. The fact that it is a bubble and that it haves an arcade timer also does not help.
HE fire chance nerfed, however using picric acid and variants is still a viable option.
Ships sections on fire needed to make it sunk buffed from 70% to 80%. Credits goes to "brothermunro" for the tip.
Flash fire, ammo detonation and torpedo ammo detonation damage x2.
VI – AI
AI ship design logic reworked to use more main guns for most ships, bigger secondaries but fewer to lower the chance of seeing a gun firing arc blocked by other gun. The chance of seeing torpedo launchers in big ships was lowered.
Battle AI logic reworked to have complete freedom of movements. Can chase, rush the player for torpedo runs, create battle lines, maintain the distance, will try to retreat from battle if the odds are not favorable. Badly damaged AI divisions will try to disengage from battle. Divisions roles ranges edited to help the AI to create a coherent battle group and still have some freedom of movements.
Lowered the optimal distance used by the AI to promote more fighting at medium and close ranges.
The AI ammo logic improved to know better when to use HE or AP. This affect both the player and the AI, unless the player gives strict orders to use one specific ammo.
VII – Campaign
Economy reworked to prevent or at least minimized the snowballing effect in later years and to make decisions about spending more important. The impact in the GDP for a country at war is now less impactful which should help the AI nations to stay at war.
Shipyard building program is now more important in the long run. The player can still skip many years without upgrading, but if he wants to build big ships in the future it should consider upgrading sooner.
The GDP and army modifiers differences from the type of government are smaller now.
Scrapping threshold increased to 200k from the previous 50k to help the AI to maintain a decent fleet size.
Crew training values were rebalanced. The differences are now more reasonable.
TBs class will not become obsolete.
Improved AI building program for all nations. Added the Japanese 8-8 fleet construction plan.
Lowered the initial starting fleets distances in battle. It should be now quicker to initiate combat, or quicker to catch the AI if it is running away from battle.
7000 tons CA cruisers and 3750 tons CL cruisers available to be built from the start. (1890)
Lowered weight penalty for non prioritized researches and improved the research speed for old techs to give the player more freedom and enjoyable experience with the tech tree.
Ship movement at sea x2.5 in comparison to stock game.
Withdraw and delay factor according to average speed of ships increased to 100%.
Denial zones smaller in size to allow more fredom of movement in chokepoints. Only powerful task forces should be able to block straits.
The defense modifier changed for many provinces. It will take into consideration, the terrain, the weather, tropical diseases, and the people and their willing to fight.
Changes to submarines:
- Minelaying subs removed from the game. Overpower and impossible to balance them ingame since the player can always refuse to lead them to battle.
- Subs range limited to more realistic values. Now subclass and base of operations will be more important. Sub descriptions updated and added range info. (*base value)
Changes to mines:
- Minefield size nerfed around the ports and it takes longer to reach the maximum size.
- Vastly increased the mine sweeper capability.
- Decrease the chance to have an event about ships being damaged by mines.
- Increased the mine damage. It is possible to see ships being sunk by mines in rare occasions.
VIII – Hulls & parts
New modern torpedo boats for all nations. (unlocked in 1920)
All modern destroyers hulls package were reworked to offer a unique design language for most nations.
Many new hulls added to offer the possibility to build historical ships or design proposals:
- "Northampton" and "Portland" classes cruiser. American heavy cruiser II hull.
- Replaced the Russian BB I hull for one that resembles more to what the Russians were building around 1890. "Navarin"; "Tri Sviatitelia" and "Sissoi Veliky" classes.
- Added Russian pre-dreadnought "Poltava". Battleship II hull.
- Replaced the Spanish battleship I hull for another that resembles more the "Pelayo".
- "Recon Cruiser" from plan Z added to the Germans.
- German light cruiser IV changed to better represent the Magdeburg; Karlsruhe; Graudenz; Pillau and Wiesbaden classes.
- German light cruiser VI added to represent the Emdem, Königsberg and the Leipzig classes.
- French armored cruiser V, the "Edgar Quinet" class.
- Barbettes added to the french experimental dreadnought hull so it is possible to design the "Coubet" and the "Bretagne" batteships.
- Japanese experimental large cruiser hull reworked to resemble more the "B-65" design project.
- British dreadnought II hull reworked to resemble more the "Colossus" and the "Neptune" classes.
- British dreadnought III hull changed to look more with the "Orion" and "KGV" (1911) classes.
- British dreadnought IV package reworked to resemble more the "Iron Duke" and "Queen Elizabeth" classes.
- British dreadnought V package, reworked to resemble more the "Revenge" class.
Many funnels, towers and other parts created, stats edited and used to create the new ships or improved already in game hull to get a better design language, historical accurate if possible. Impossible for me to list all the thousands changes I made without the reader to fall asleep. 
----- Installation: -----
1) Set the game language to be in english.
2)Backup if you wish but move or delete this files from this location: C:\users\(user)\Appdata\LocalLow\Game Labs\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts
custom_battle_data.bin
mission_data.bin
save_x.bin
The reason behind this, is the many changes to the game files will make all your designs impossible to work with the mod.
3) Go to this link, download the english file and the resource.assets from the version you want. The mod offers two ways for the players to choose how they want to play the game. "Realistic accuracy" or "Arcade accuracy" (x2 the hit probability).*
*Unless you are a masoch*st, naval history nerd, that understands how the game different mechanics works, DO NOT use the realistic accuracy version. You guys are not going to like it.
Beta 11 update for UAD 1.5.1.1 Optx4 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ac6FZM6KTnY3Rhm5GRsEO6Zs6V8Jfasf?usp=drive_link
Note: Use a software to unpack the download and extract the content from inside the folder.
4) Move the resource.assets file inside the folder to this location:
c:\...Steam\steamapps\common\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts_Data and click yes to replace the file.
5) Move the English.lng file inside the folder to this location:
c:\...Steam\steamapps\common\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts_Data\StreamingAssets\Languages and click yes to replace the file.
The player will know if the mod is working and what version it is by reading the news.
VERY IMPORTANT:
I don't know when I am going to update the mod again, so to avoid any issues, block the auto updates from steam:
- Set game to update when start game. Do this in game setting(properties)-> update.
- Don't start game by steam or steam shortcut. Make a shortcut on desktop from the main game .exe in this location: "....\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts.exe"
- Start a game from this shortcut. Game will run without update.
----- Sources -----
- A Brief History of Naval Armour - by Drachinifel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoEFjl0buiM
- Table of Mettallurgical properties of Naval Armour and construction materials - by Nathan Okun. http://www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/metalprpsept2009.php
- Introduction to the development of Warship Armour. https://www.naval-history.net/WW0Book-USN-Armour1937.htm
- Naval Weapons of the World. http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/index_weapons.php
- Range-finding and Fire Control - by Drachinifel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbXyAzGtIX8&t=2208s
- Evolution of Battleship Gunnery in the U.S. Navy, 1920-1945 - by William J.Jurens http://www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_BB-Gunnery.php
- Report on naval gunnery at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba https://theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record/ImageViewer?libID=o283734&imageNo=1
- USA 16"/50 Mark7 naval gunnery report on trials http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-50_mk7.php#Accuracy_During_World_War_II
- Hull Form Design - by Drachinifel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkRJxgYgTVA
- Bismarck weights list https://www.kbismarck.com/bsweights.html
- Guns reload research https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LjZPDcRo6GsqRVEMfHsM5426_d3jYm5C/view
- Recon Cruiser https://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ships/destroyer/spahkreuzer/index.html
----- New Horizons III reshade -----
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13_-C2R1V8l2_kuzFN0n-zpqt69zZ4qHb?usp=drive_link
Features:
RTX Global illumination,
3 color scheme for the player to choose. All featuring a RTX version and a non RTX for a minimal fps loss (1 fps). A total 6 options.
Many tweaks to contrast, exposure, sharpness and colors.
Installation:
Download "New Horizons III" folder.
Unpack, and place the content inside the folder in this location: c:\...Steam\steamapps\common\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts
To remove the mod, just delete the files.
Shortcut keys in game:
- "Home" -open/close reshade panel
- "End" -enable/disable the effects.
To change the color scheme:
- Press "Home" to open the panel
- Usethe "arrows" to change the preset you want to use.
----- Important -----
Do not report any bug to the devs if you are using this mod. They are not responsible for the changes I made to the game.
----------------------
This mod is a work of passion and dedication, that took me thousands of hours and many months to be completed. If interested in using parts of the mod in your work, please ask permission and give me the credits.
Sorry for my poor English, it is not my native language.
Happy hunting, the Baron.
Edited by o Barão
