History VideoGame / UltimateAdmiralDreadnoughts

* ObviousBeta: The game was unceremoniously dumped into full release in January 2023, with many, ''many'' bugs still in the game and most of the campaign features half-baked. On top of that, while the developers have been providing a steady stream of patches, most patches break things even worse.

As of July 2022 the game is in Open Alpha, with updates every few weeks.

As of September 2021 the game is in Open Alpha, with updates every few weeks. The "Naval Academy" scenarios and Custom Battles are functional, but the campaign is not yet available.

** In the Alpha-9 update, guns of 19- and 20-inch caliber were added, along with the ability to mount them in quad turrets. [[VideoGameHistoricalRevisionism No guns of this size were ever built in real life]], though there were various plans and designs for ships armed with them in history.

* ProceduralGeneration: This is how the AI generates all of the enemy ships you face, in addition to the other ships in your fleet that you choose not to design yourself during Naval Academy and Custom battles. It can lead to some "interesting" ship designs that probably would never have been created by any (sane) naval architect in real life.
* RealTimeWithPause: In Naval Academy and Custom battles, the player can pause the action, give ships and divisions new orders, and then resume it.

* VideoGameHistoricalRevisionism: Sort of the point of the game, really, in that it allows you to design your own warships and fleets for various nations, so you can see how they might have fared with some different strategic philosophies. Skirmish in particular allows you to design ships of all types for countries that could never have afforded them nor had the shipbuilding industry to actually construct them in real life (e.g. Hundred-million dollar battleships for the Chinese Empire ca. 1940). However the biggest departure from reality is probably the absence of aircraft (and the required defenses against them, and the ship classes centered around them) as the 20th century rolls on. The absence of submarines and the corresponding anti-submarine equipment also becomes noticeable around the same time.

* BloodlessCarnage: Although the ships can explode violently when hit, their crew is not modeled in the real time battles, even for guns that don't have enclosed turrets and would need a crew standing out on deck to service them, so you never see them get hurt or killed.

As of December 2020 the game is in Open Alpha, with updates every few weeks. The "Naval Academy" scenarios and Custom Battles are functional, but the campaign is not yet available.

* ATeamFiring: Particularly at early tech levels, hitting a ship with a shell at the range of dozens of kilometers is very difficult. Dozens of shells are likely to be expended for every hit; the game helpfully calculates a hit chance for each of your gun batteries to help you determine whether to open fire or save your ammo. However at the higher tech levels (the 1930s and later), advanced technologies and upgraded guns make hits more likely, particularly as targets get closer.

* BloodlessCarnage: Although the ships can explode violently when hit, their crew is not modeled in the real time battles, even for guns that don't have full turrets and would need a crew standing out on deck to service them, so you never see them get hurt or killed.

* ProceduralGeneration: This is how the AI generates all of the enemy ships you face, in addition to the other ships in your fleet that you don't design during Naval Academy and Custom battles. It can lead to some "interesting" ship designs that probably would never have been created by any (sane) naval architect in real life.

* VideoGameHistoricalRevisionism: Sort of the point of the game, really, in that it allows you to design your own warships and fleets for various nations, so you can see how they might have fared with some different strategic philosophies. Skirmish in particular allows you to design ships of all types for countries that could never have afforded them nor had the shipbuilding industry to actually construct them in real life (e.g. Hundred-million dollar battleships for the Chinese Empire ca. 1940). However the biggest departure from reality is probably the absence of aircraft (and the required defenses against them, and the ship classes centered around them) as the 20th century rolls on.

''Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts'' is a 2020 [[TurnBasedStrategyRealTimeCombat real-time and turn-based]] [[MilitaryAndWarfareVideoGames Naval Warfare]] StrategyGame with SimulationGame tendencies published by Game-Labs for PC, where the player designs fleets of Steam-Era warships, and then pits them against enemy ships in a campaign, single-battle scenarios, or custom skirmish battles. During ship design and the campaign, the player must make key ship design decisions involving speed, firepower, armor protection, and cost, in order to balance the desire to have the best ships possible with the need to be able to afford enough of them to make a difference. Actual combat is real-time strategy, where the player finds out if their ship designs were up to the challenge and if they know how to handle them. In a way it can be described as ''"VideoGame/KerbalSpaceProgram'' [[Main/RecycledInSpace but with Battleships]]" and half the fun comes from making silly ship design decisions and seeing if they work (or how spectacularly they fail).

As of October 2020 the game is in Open Alpha, with updates every few weeks. The "Naval Academy" scenarios and Custom Battles are functional, but the campaign is not yet available.

** In the Alpha-9 update, guns of 19- and 20-inch caliber were added, along with the ability to mount them in quad turrets.

* MinMaxing: The Naval Academy missions tell you before the design phase what kinds of ships your opponent will have, and custom games allow you to choose your own opponent fleet. Having access to this information allows you to tailor-make your own ships to counter the enemy

* {{BFG}}: At higher tech levels, the player gets access to some truly fearsome naval artillery, such as triple 18-inch turrets.

* MoreDakka: Instead of mounting super-heavy guns, the player can instead mount large numbers of smaller caliber but rapid-firing guns. By min-maxing the ship's design to reduce the weight of other components (engines, armor, etc) this can be taken to truly absurd levels, with battleships mounting dozens of main guns and ''hundreds'' of secondary guns, particularly in custom battles where where available funds are not a limitation. Such a ship might not exactly be the most practical but it certainly will be entertaining.

* VideoGameHistoricalRevisionism: Sort of the point of the game, really, in that it allows you to design your own warships and fleets for various nations, so you can see how they might have fared with some different strategic philosophies. Skirmish in particular allows you to design ships of all types for countries that could never have afforded them nor had the shipbuilding industry to actually construct them in real life (e.g. Hundred-million dollar battleships for the Chinese Empire ca. 1940). However the biggest departure from reality is probably the absence of aircraft (and the required defenses against them) as the 20th century rolls on.

''Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts'' is a 2020 [[TurnBasedStrategyRealTimeCombat real-time and turn-based]] [[MilitaryAndWarfareVideoGames Naval Warfare]] StrategyGame with SimulationGame tendencies published by Game-Labs for PC, where the player designs fleets of Steam-Era warships, and then pits them against enemy ships in a campaign, single-battle scenarios, or custom skirmish battles. During ship design and the campaign, the player must make key ship design decisions involving speed, firepower, armor protection, and cost, in order to balance the desire to have the best ships possible with the need to be able to afford enough of them to make a difference. Actual combat is real-time strategy, where the player finds out if their ship designs were up to the challenge and if they know how to handle them.

* TheDreadedDreadnought: You can easily re-create the TropeNamer ''HMS Dreadnought'' in-game. The game will also randomly assign the name Dreadnought to British battleships or battlecruisers. More generally, you can min-max ship designs to easily create ships worthy of the name.

* ArmorPiercingAttack: Naturally, armor piercing shells are designed to do exactly this. How likely they are to actually penetrate the enemy's armor depends on the thickness of that armor, the type of armor used, the angle the shell strikes at, the caliber of the shell, the speed it's flying at, and how much damage the armor has already taken.

* ProceduralGeneration: This is how the AI generates all of the enemy ships you face, in addition to the other ships in your fleet that you don't design during Naval Academy and Custom battles.

** Battleships are needed to handle other battleships, and are highly dangerous to battlecruisers and heavy cruisers. However they will have a harder time dealing with destroyers, torpedo boats, and light cruisers, as they are small, fast, and hard to hit. Battleships are also particularly vulnerable to very light ships because typically their speed and maneuverability--which would allow them to dodge torpedoes--has been sacrificed for more guns and armor.

** Light cruisers will generally get gunned down by anything heavier than them due to their weak armor, unless they can run and evade. However they are absolute hell on destroyers and torpedo boats using many fast-firing medium-caliber guns and good maneuverability to avoid torpedoes.
** Destroyers and torpedo boats generally have next-to-no armor and very small guns, only suitable for dealing with other destroyers and torpedo boats. However, they are extremely fast and agile and can carry numerous torpedoes, which do massive damage to anything they hit, making them very useful against cumbersome battleships (or anyone caught unawares).
* TargetSpotter: Any ship can function as this for any other ships, but relatively small and stealthy destroyers and torpedo boats are good at it as they can safely get closer to the enemy than the big battleships.

* ATeamFiring: Particularly at early tech levels, hitting a ship with a shell at the range of dozens of kilometers is very difficult. Dozens of shells are likely to be expended for every hit; the game helpfully calculates a hit chance for each of your gun batteries to help you determine whether to open fire or save your ammo. However at the higher tech levels (the 1930s and later), advanced technologies and upgraded guns make hits more likely, particularly as the targets get closer.

* LightningBruiser: Battlecruisers. Although they have a harder time standing up to battleships due to their somewhat lighter armor, it's still pretty decent armor, their guns are the same caliber as battleships, and they can be as fast and manueverable as cruisers and some destroyers.

* MoreDakka: Instead of mounting super-heavy guns, the player can instead mount large numbers of smaller caliber but rapid-firing guns. By min-maxing the ship's design, this can be taken to truly absurd levels, particularly in custom battles where where available funds are not a limitation.

** Battleships are needed to handle other battleships, and are highly dangerous to battlecruisers and heavy cruisers. However they will have a harder time dealing with destroyers, torpedo boats, and light cruisers, as they are small, fast, and hard to hit.

** Light cruisers will generally get gunned down by anything heavier than them due to their weak armor, unless they can run and evade. However they are absolute hell on destroyers and torpedo boats using many fast-firing medium-caliber guns and good maneuverabilty to avoid torpedoes.