Darkest Hour - Dev Diary #28 - Sneak Peak 1.03 - Combat rework and more

[nattai]

An interesting read, thank you.

One concern that I have is that with the new movement speeds, in particular for armour, will see the AI performing unsupported breakthroughs which will be cut off and destroyed quite often, as they will not be able to move infantry up to support them in time. Has this occurred in playtesting at all?

[Cybvep]

I'm more worried about overpowered overruns. ARMs can be supported by MOTs and they are not easily destroyed, anyway. However, with very fast units, it may become very easy to overrun the enemy troops due to how the game mechanics works. It would sad if overruns became preferable over encirclements any time.

[ewphoenix123]

Maybe not weird effects but even 10% makes really huge diffrence. I remeber there was bug in AoD or IC over AoD can't remeber exactly which gave SU 130% GDE for some time and Germany had it at 80%, in short 30 German division were not able to beat 3 Soviet division with low org.

Doesn't happen in my tests so I hope we are on the save side. If I remember the old AOD Devdiaries correctly, they did some changes to the combatformulas that tied gde and defensivess or something like that. So my guess is that it somehow created a nonlinear effect. If you stumble over the bugreport by accident, I would appreciate it, just to be sure.

Could we simulate stacking penalties with gradual GDE loss if more and more divs are in the same province? I mean every additional div would lower the whole stack's gde. The point of this is if you have lots of soldiers cramped into a given space mp losses would go up.

That would be the mechanism of choice, but it should not be applied arbitrary in every situation. Not possible to do with the existing mechanics, and not necessary in most battles. It's something we will need it in the future to finally get rid of defender superstacks, but the changes described here, already greatly reduce the damage such superstacks cause, and increases the damage they take.
What is still missing is a mechanic for special cases like 120 divisions in gibraltar.

Quoting myself:

A stacking penalty which limits the amount of divisions that can fight in a specifc province efficently, is a completely different thing, it greatly depends upon dispersion laws, doctrines and a mixture of terrain features. This can’t be simulated with existing game mechanics, and won’t be part of the next patch.
For the most part it wouldn’t even make sense, DH is played on a scale that provinces are of a size where stacking penalties would only occur when battles involve well beyond 100 divisions and at that point the command limit penalties already affect the battle.
Of course there are special cases like battles in cities or against forts where the value would be much lower, and a stacking penalty would be noticeable. So it is something we might decide to add for a later patch, but it’s no high priority for me.

An interesting read, thank you.
One concern that I have is that with the new movement speeds, in particular for armour, will see the AI performing unsupported breakthroughs which will be cut off and destroyed quite often, as they will not be able to move infantry up to support them in time. Has this occurred in playtesting at all?

yep. It's a problem when the ai recklessness is set to high, which actually helped to point out some bad ai files.

I'm more worried about overpowered overruns. ARMs can be supported by MOTs and they are not easily destroyed, anyway. However, with very fast units, it may become very easy to overrun the enemy troops due to how the game mechanics works. It would sad if overruns became preferable over encirclements any time.

It will need careful observation, and I hope for a lot of playerfeedback once we reach the beta phase to get the balance right.
So far I haven't seen the problems you expect, even slow you unit are now a bit faster, and retreating units move with full speed, in combination with the 24h command delay after an attack it works out. *knocks on wood*

edit: are you planning some naval rework as well?

There are plans, but the changes require pretty much a new navalcombatengine, and I'm not sure it can be done for 1.3 so no promises.

[nigo]

so if I understood correct, battle events will more important now then before?


example: like a delay event will be a less manpower loses for defender side?

[MacDunne]

Thanks for the in depth report on 1.3 combat changes. Can't wait to experience it first hand to see how these changes will affect game play. I trust the AI has been able to handle these changes effectively?

As for air -- you didn't mention fighters -- any tweaks there, or are they still primarily to be used to take down your enemy's interceptors?

[DrakenPL]

I'm more worried about overpowered overruns. ARMs can be supported by MOTs and they are not easily destroyed, anyway. However, with very fast units, it may become very easy to overrun the enemy troops due to how the game mechanics works. It would sad if overruns became preferable over encirclements any time.

Then finally people will keep reserve divisions behind their main front (I almost always do that), in short this will mean more realism, anyway there is delay between atack AFAIK.

I like!

[Cybvep]

Obviously, I'm worried about the AI here.

[Dichromate]

Then finally people will keep reserve divisions behind their main front (I almost always do that), in short this will mean more realism, anyway there is delay between atack AFAIK.

I like!

The question is whether the AI will.

[Gort11]

What's with the fighter/interceptor split anyway? It seems arbitrary and made up just for the game. A hurricane gets a big bonus to shooting down bombers, but a spitfire doesn't? What?

[Doc Jay]

Something I haven’t seen so far in any mod is, that I placed a stronger emphasize on the day/night cycle. All units slow down during the night. Infantry almost completely, while mobile forces maintain a greatly reduced speed.

This gets especially interesting in combination with the moddable daylength modifiers in the misc.txt.
It is possible to define different daylight period for different seasons.

This means a Division now moves faster in summer, then it does in winter.

Reading this paragraph made me remember variables what I haven't seen talked about.

DH and the other Hearts of Iron games, seem to assume that the amount of daylight is the same in Australia and for example in Finland.
So could it be implemented that during summer in the northern hemisphere armies fight with day modifier the whole day and night ?
And during winter season there would be only minimal daylight time to fight on to simulate the fact that during midwinter the sun doesn't rise over the horizon.

This system however does complicate things as you'd have to do modifiers for each month and region.

I hope you understood what I meant, this ain't a simple phenomenon to explain.


It is kinda funny to see that winter season is exactly the same in places where the game puts the frozen tag.
Meaning that -2 degrees celcius with 5 centimetres of snow in Belgium is exactly the same as - 30 degrees celcius with 50 centimetres of snow in Siberia.
So is there any possiblity to add new modifiers to define winter, like
( 0 ) - ( -10 ) celcius = cold temperature, slightly decreases combat efficiency
( -11 ) - ( -40 ) celcius = really cold temp. , moderately decreases combat efficiency
( -41 ) - ( -90 ) celcius = extreme cold temp. , greatly decreases combat efficiency

( 0 ) - ( 5 ) centimetres of snow = mild snow density, slightly decreases combat efficiency
( 10 ) - ( 20 ) centimetres of snow = medium snow density, moderately decreases combat efficiency
( 30 ) - ( 90 ) centimetres of snow = huge snow density, greatly decreases combat efficiency


I might be overthinking things too far and I suspect that this kinda expanded weather model can be hard for the game engine to model.


And also

But...

As Patton wrote in his book "Any avarge officer can lead panzer division but you need a genius one to supply it", and sadly with current logistic system there is no way to simulate that (in AoD it is possible).

That was Heinz Guderian's line, not Patton's if I remember correctly

[Cybvep]

Too much complexity IMO. A simpler option would be to introduce sth like "severe winter", which would mostly be confined to Russia, Scandinavia etc.

[Doc Jay]

Even that would be an okay solution, but the lack of good daylight cycle has always slightly annoyed me in DH

[Kretoxian]

Question for devs: Is it true that you are incluying at least two new unit types? Coastal Subs and Light Carriers?

[^_AC_^]

Question for devs: Is it true that you are incluying at least two new unit types? Coastal Subs and Light Carriers?

No. Those are from TRP.

[MartinBG]

Question for devs: Is it true that you are incluying at least two new unit types? Coastal Subs and Light Carriers?

These are used in the upcoming TRP mod for DH 1.03 (the Light Carrier is a completely new unit while the Coastal Submarines reuse the Nuclear Submarine type).

[Kretoxian]

These are used in the upcoming TRP mod for DH 1.03 (the Light Carrier is a completely new unit while the Coastal Submarines reuse the Nuclear Submarine type).

So, in a nutshell, there will be only be one new unit type: the CVL, right?

[^_AC_^]

So, in a nutshell, there will be only be one new unit type: the CVL, right?

Again, that's the TRP Mod. So far they've added the CVL, but they may add (98) more if they want.
If a new unit and what unit will be added to DHFull is still undisclosed.

[Kretoxian]

Again, that's the TRP Mod. So far they've added the CVL, but they may add (98) more if they want.
If a new unit and what unit will be added to DHFull is still undisclosed.

But... right now can i create new units from scratch?

[^_AC_^]

But... right now can i create new units from scratch?

With patch 1.03 you'll be able to create a maximum of 99 new unit types (in addition to the 31 already in the game).

[Kretoxian]

With patch 1.03 you'll be able to create a maximum of 99 new unit types (in addition to the 31 already in the game).

Oh! i see! A totally nice feature BTW, it'll greatly help me in TTEP.

Congrats DH team, you always look for us, the modders.