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HOI4 Dev Diary - Scout Planes and breaking the Enigma - and Stream premieres today at 16:00CET!

Hi everyone! Today we are going to start talking about changes to Intel and present some of the tools you will have at your disposal for gaining it in La Résistance. We will also go back to the Agency and talk about code cracking.

Scout Planes
Scout planes is a great way of gaining intel on your enemies. This is a new plane type that comes in two tech levels
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These new planes are not capable of fighting or giving air superiority, but they have a new mission “Air Recon” which can also be performed in peace time. This mission will give you intel on nations under its area of operation, or their navy if covering trafficked naval regions. It also does spotting of ships and divisions so its a great way to figure out what the enemy is up to.

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Other planes types can not do the air recon mission, although in war time other planes will be gaining you intel as well during regular operations.


Code Cracking
One of the things in WW2 that has always fascinated me was the allied efforts to break the axis codes, particularly the work done at Bletchley Park. When reading about this work you usually are told about the tough choices that had to be made, because after the enigma codes had been cracked and german messages could be read the allies were forced to only use this knowledge in limited ways. If they had not it would have tipped off the Germans that they knew and made the whole thing moot. Basically, to save the punch for when it was most needed. This is something I wanted to make sure that we captured when we started designing the new code cracking system.

To interact with code cracking etc you need to form a new department in your Agency. Under it are upgrades both for creating and breaking enemy ciphers.
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The higher your decryption power the faster you can break enemy codes and the higher your crypto strength the tougher you in turn are to break.
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In the above screenshot I have cracked Germany's current cipher. If they end up upgradign to a higher level I would lose some progress and have to continue the work. The 25 shown is your total decryption power and will be shared among all active projects. Right now Denmark is the only active one so gets the full attention and fastest possible code breaking.

Having a cracked code gives you some passive bonuses that are not possible for the enemy to see and confirm, such as air interception. To take full advantage you will need to commit and fully activate. Doing that gives you 30 days of full intel on the enemy as well as an assortment of other bonuses.
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A perfect time to use it when launching naval invasions or starting fighting somewhere because when activated the enemy will know and ciphers will reset within 30 days. After this time you will need to crack their code again,, which probably will have had its strength upgraded.

Outside of just having a bunch of mathematicians working day and night on breaking the enemy codes you can also help them out though clandestine operations
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This diary showed you more ways of gaining intel, next week we will be getting into the details about the intel changes. See you then!

Today we start streaming La Résistance!
Tune in to twitch at 16:00CET to watch us talking about Updated Garrison and Resistance Mechanics! The stream will be available on Youtube later.

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Hmm, will there be a release before Christmas...
Almost certainly not, since there are at least a month's worth of dev diaries left.
 
Interesting. I wonder, are the bonuses and extra information displayed good for only the country who broke the code or for the full faction (or master/puppets if no faction)? Only if they are spymaster perhaps?

Also, if another nation cracks the code and uses it, does that mean all other nations lose the cracked code? Say the Soviet Union breaks the German code and goes for the immediate bonuses. If the Western Allies don’t realize this do they lose all their progress for no gain?

Also, from the defender’s side, will anything be able to manually reset your nation’s code like technology or finding out from your own intel/captured enemies that your code has been compromised?
 
Typo - "they end up upgradign to a higher"
 
Luckily I had an agent looking at the forums so I caught this build up of DD... Unfortunatly I can't deploy troops to the twitch border in time...
 
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Sooooooooo. January/February?
The latter, I think. Presumably tools will be down for at least 2-3 weeks for the holidays, plus then a week or so to get back up to speed which already takes us into mid-January.
 
Army and naval chipper should be splitted for historic reason and by mechanical reason.

I really like it,I purpose something like this 1.5 years ago. Is a satisfaction to look this!

What about fly boat naval bombers, they were used by many navies for pure war recon to and mainly asw. Many people are request this, could be added with this dlc all mechanics needed are in game now.

How you renew your code?
 
a new mission “Air Recon” which can also be performed in peace time
Military planes flying over other nations while at peace? That doesn't sound right.
This mission will give you intel on nations under its area of operation, or their navy if covering trafficked naval regions. It also does spotting of ships and divisions so its a great way to figure out what the enemy is up to.
Other planes types can not do the air recon mission, although in war time other planes will be gaining you intel as well during regular operations.
Am I correct in assuming the scout planes are DLC-exclusive? Does "gaining intel" for normal planes include spotting ships/divisions or is it just an abstract thing?
 
So if I play as the United Kingdom how much encryption bonuses is Germany going to have? And most important of all, does the AI prioritize encryption enough?
 
I think Jan / Feb too, when the new Patch and DLC will come out. It´s good to see that the Devs will show the first Vid from the newest Version and DLC, which upgrade the Game to a complete new level.

To upgrade the Game to a complete new Level with the 3 Versions before (1.6 with MTG; 1.7 and 1.8) as a forestep was and is about time, which the Game realy needed.

And I find it very good that all Experts have to change their Playstile with the complete new System we get then. :):D

And yes the complete new things in Version 1.9 with Patch "La Ressisitance" are cool new Stuff. Can´t wait to play it, but I have to keep calm like all of of you until the Patch and DLC are ready. And better wait longer and get a very good playable Version than a CTD-Version.
 
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Questions:

1) Will Aircraft Carriers be providing intel in their sea regions (and possibly adjacent sea regions to a smaller extent, based on where the TF actually is in the SR)? Scout aircraft were sent up ALL the time, looking for the enemy.

2) Will catapult planes on CL/CA/BC/BBs offer any intel to the SR?

3) Will "spotted ships" by scout planes cause a) Strike Force to sail immediately for that target, i.e. instant spotting? b) be engaged immediately by Patrol TFs in the SR? c) immediately/quickly be attacked by Naval Bombers set to the Region?

4) Can Scout Planes, not necessarily Naval Intel through code breaking, spot individual subs that can be quickly attacked by other forces, or is it just noted for the record that "subs have been spotted in the region", and you need/should manually ensure you have Escorts in that region (if you indeed have convoys in that region)

5) What circumstances can recon aircraft be shot down? A) air superiority aircraft B) provincial AA C) AA in divisions D) interception aircraft E) naval fighters on carrier mission F) naval ship AA....oh, and I know I'll catch hell from this... G) convoy AA. Assuming A will have the highest chance of being shot down, more likely the more airsuperiority the enemy
has than you, if 50/50 AirSupp, should be a low chance I would assume.

6) Could Strategic Bombers be given the mutual exclusive opportunity to perform scout missions? Their extensive range make them ideal, and sometimes, you just don't what to be bombing ALL the time.

7) How do you split your Decrypt power amoungst dozens of enemy countries? In a German example, I might not want to spend any Decrypt power on minor countries that I plan to quickly conquer, and just make sure to focus all of my power on SOV. Or is there a away to assign exact %s, or is it just ON/OFF and given an equal share?

8) So, a nation only uses 1 code for all armed forces? Its not per service branch? No diplomatic codes (for country info, not military). But with espionage, we have infiltrate Navy, Army, Airforce?

9) For enemy navy ship locations, I assume if you don't pull the trigger and reveal intel/decrypt, you get vague info location of the ships, but if you ATTACK those ships, is the intel revealed? Thinking of Midway - Japanese were foolish if they didn't realize 100% that after Midway, their code was cracked, and USA definitely revealed their intel by attacking them in their largest numbers, in perfect position for an ambush.

10) Going back to #9, there are not any passive intel/decrypt bonuses for fighting ships....is it again that by not revealing the intel/decrypt, you are simply expected to make appropriate changes to your raiding/escort/SF mission areas? Thinking of Enigma, this would let the UK keep their escort mission areas focus on where the U-boats are and around those regions....hehe, will the AI be able to do this? It certainly wastes lots of escorts by running missions in Indian Ocean and South Atlantic, places where enemy doesn't even have range to operate (and docking rights are known, not secret). Speaking of which, thats an AI improvement you can do today - the AI should NOT run escort/Patrol/SF missions in regions that it knows the enemy cannot reach. Navy intel can give you a breakdown on enemy ship range capability (its pretty easy compared to any other secret the ship has).

11) Is any of this information SHARED with your allies? Passive DEcrypt info? Scout Plane info? Activating the Decrypt Intel, are the bonuses shared? If the results are not shared, does the strength of your decrypt efforts affect your allies? Any collaboration in this at all??

12) Are there only 3 levels of encrypt/decrypt? What happens when you break their code and use active decrypt intel for a 3rd time? Or it doesn't work that way? Perhaps if your levels are EQUAL, then you decrypt at a base rate (maybe 365 days), but if your encrypt is level 3 (german enigma), and you stupidly don't even realize that anyone will ever try mechanical decrypt, it might take 365x10 days to decrypt if you level decrypt level 0, but only 365 days if you have level 3?

13) BTW, Decrypt is much much more costly than encrypt. do you have them reversed in CIC cost??

14) cipher has no "Y" in its spelling
 
but they have a new mission “Air Recon” which can also be performed in peace time.
I hope this can turn into a diplomatic incident of some sort, a military plane spotted flying above another's country instalations should create tensions. Even more if said plane is downed by anti air-defense or figther planes.