Dispersed industry & Concentrated industry

[Yazem]

Awhile back these two techs were changed. Concentrated industry were nerfed while Dispersed industry was boosted. And it seemed to me back then that the changes were too big. Concentrated industry went from being the obvious choice when playing a major, to plain bad. I also remembering thread(s) about this. People saying exactly that.
And in one thread I think I saw a dev. commenting on the "issue", saying that perhaps it need some more tweaking.

Which brings us to this thread here today.
I just saw a video on the new DLC with the oak patch, and I notice that these two tech's still has the same stats.
Does that mean the developers are happy with the current stats?
(For those who doesn't know the stats)
Concentrated industry

• +15% Factory Output
• +20% Max Factories in a State

Dispersed industry

• +20% Max Factories in a State
• +10% Production Efficiency Retention
• +5% Production Efficiency Base
• +10% Factory Output
• −10% Factory Bomb Vulnerability

Basically you're deciding between +5% factory output vs. +10% Production Efficiency Retention, +5% Production Efficiency Base, and −10% Factory Bomb Vulnerability.

In every game I play (no matter what nation), I always go for Dispersed industry. The Production Efficiency Retention/Base just beats the extra 5% output everytime. You gain so much, since you are always researching new equipment and then having to make changes in the production lines.


So on to my question;
Am I right in thinking that dispersed industry is the obvious choice, or am I missing something?
And if not. Why isn't this tweaked in the 1.4 patch?

 

[holoween]

concentrated industry is straight better unless you get heavily bombed or keep switching around large ammounts of your factories for some reason.

 

[Denkt]

Simple math. Both tech maxed out, then one factory over a year will produce:

• Dispersed: 1.5*5*365 = 2737.5
• Concentrated: 1.75*5*365 = 3193.75

The difference is thus: 3193.75 - 2737.5 = 456.25

Test show that while dispersed do get an early lead that lead is not all that big and concentrated just dominate when lines are at 100% efficiency. Every test I know of show that dispered while holding a lead for around a year to a year and a half (maybe even 2 years) never have much of a lead in terms of raw quantity and then both lines hit peak efficiency concentrated just role away in terms of raw quantity.

And raw quantity is what production lines are about.

 

[inteljoe]

It depends.

If you play as a country that gets bombed, dispersed makes more sense.

If you play as a country that doesn't have to worry about being bombed. Then concentrated. Basically the lead bonus you get is great at first, but concentrated takes over. So if you play a country that relatively has a safe location that probably won't get attacked or you know you will last the bulk of the war, then concentrated is your game. Otherwise dispersed might be better.

 

[Alliegorical]

Given the time it takes to reach 100% efficiency, it only actually makes sense to take concentrated when you're going to be building mostly the same stuff for the entire game, which you're only going to do if you have both loads of manpower and little industry, like China.

If you take concentrated industry, you're always going to be much slower than everyone else at having the newest equipment. Concentrated looks better on paper, but you're just not sitting at high enough efficiency often enough for concentrated to outperform displaced in practice.

As an example: when I get 1940 infantry weapons unlocked, I usually have thousands of 36 weapons stockpiled; there's no sensible reason not to switch to the better stuff (and not enough manpower or strategic necessity to equip new infantry divisions); so when I switch, any value from concentrated is tossed out the window. And by the time efficiency is back up near 100%, I've already unlocked 42 equipment and it's time to start over.

So really, nine times out of ten, if you're using concentrated, you're wrong.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Basically you're deciding between +5% factory output vs. +10% Production Efficiency Retention, +5% Production Efficiency Base, and −10% Factory Bomb Vulnerability.

... +5% factory output is cumulative per level, so a +25% difference at the 1943 tech. (So factory output with Concentrated is +10% better at 1937 tech, +15% better at 1939 tech, and +20% better at 1941 tech)

Compare that with distributed levels in 1943: +25% production efficiency base (starting new factories at a much higher production), +50% production efficiency retention (keeping half or more of your efficiency when you switch factories around), and -50% factory bomb vulnerability (if you are being bombed, this is helpful).

tl;dr Concentrated pulls farther ahead the longer the game goes, as long as you aren't moving factories around constantly...

-So it depends on whether you can win the game early or not...
-Which means it should depend on which nation you play.

 

[holoween]

Given the time it takes to reach 100% efficiency, it only actually makes sense to take concentrated when you're going to be building mostly the same stuff for the entire game, which you're only going to do if you have both loads of manpower and little industry, like China.

that is just straigt wrong
if you for some reason keep having low efficiency on a large ammount of your lines youre just playing bad.
in general the majority of your lines will be running at close to max efficiency for the majority of the time.

 

[Alliegorical]

that is just straigt wrong
if you for some reason keep having low efficiency on a large ammount of your lines youre just playing bad.
in general the majority of your lines will be running at close to max efficiency for the majority of the time.

That's just straight wrong.
If for some reason you're building 1936 stuff in 1942 you're just playing bad.
In general the majority of your lines will be making the newest equipment the majority of the time.

 

[holoween]

That's just straight wrong.
If for some reason you're building 1936 stuff in 1942 you're just playing bad.
In general the majority of your lines will be making the newest equipment the majority of the time.

if you build inf1 for example you build several lines and slowly switch them to inf2. that way you keep a significantly higher production going. yes your equipment wont be quite as new as if you switched immediately but that extra production is very important as its far better to have full inf1 than 90% inf2.

on top of that mot and support equippment get produced without changing.

 

[Denkt]

I think the tests done showed that even if you switch, dispersed never really get a big advantage in terms of raw quantity.

It take to 1943 before your lines can reach 100% efficiency however concentrated always win at equal efficiency but the gap in raw quantity get larger the larger the efficiency can get.

if you build inf1 for example you build several lines and slowly switch them to inf2. that way you keep a significantly higher production going. yes your equipment wont be quite as new as if you switched immediately but that extra production is very important as its far better to have full inf1 than 90% inf2.

One strategy is to jump over tech levels in favor of other research and in such case you may be stuck with low tech stuff for a while. Like you ignore infantry weapon research between 1936-1941 or so and then just tech straight to equipment 3. It depend on you country's situation, like you may need infantry but they don't need to be well equiped in such case it may make sense to keep producing low tech weapon but save your research on more important stuff.

In terms of production strategies you will always get more factory output if you do long term production lines instead of using burst production. If you have time you should always do long production lines.

If you for example need 10k infantry equipment at 1940 it make more sense to put few factories on it so they can slowly produce these 10k equipment instead of putting your whole industry on it and then switching everything. Another advantage of long term production is that it have far less problems with potential future shortages because you tend to have a few factories on everything.

 

[holoween]

I think the tests done showed that even if you switch, dispersed never really get a big advantage in terms of raw quantity.

It take to 1943 before your lines can reach 100% efficiency however concentrated always win at equal efficiency but the gap in raw quantity get larger the larger the efficiency can get.

if youre teching tanks without tech rushing dispersed is slightly better because the time between the techs is small enough for dispersed to retain a small production advantedge.
all other equippment has so much time between them that concentrated will produce more until the next tech.

 

[Alliegorical]

if you build inf1 for example you build several lines and slowly switch them to inf2. that way you keep a significantly higher production going. yes your equipment wont be quite as new as if you switched immediately but that extra production is very important as its far better to have full inf1 than 90% inf2.

on top of that mot and support equippment get produced without changing.

That doesn't change the fact that you'll upgrade to inf2 much more slowly with concentrated industry than you would with dispersed.

 

[holoween]

That doesn't change the fact that you'll upgrade to inf2 much more slowly with concentrated industry than you would with dispersed.

yes but total produced equippment is drastically more important

 

[a432rar]

How far is concentrated behind dispersed in terms of RAW total output after 6months and 1yr? How far ahead is concentrated after 2 yrs, 3 yrs? I don't know the numbers but I feel like dispersed only every holds on to a very small lead, like maybe max 15% more by 6 months and dwindles to nothing within a year? Same on the other side I feel like even after 2yrs concentrated only has 15% more. Maybe the 3 yr mark is when you seen like 30-40% more? Anyone done the numbers for those key time periods?

 

[Denkt]

How far is concentrated behind dispersed in terms of RAW total output after 6months and 1yr? How far ahead is concentrated after 2 yrs, 3 yrs? I don't know the numbers but I feel like dispersed only every holds on to a very small lead, like maybe max 15% more by 6 months and dwindles to nothing within a year? Same on the other side I feel like ever after 2yrs concentrated only has 15% more. Maybe the 3 yr mark is when you seen like 30-40% more? Anyone done the numbers for those key time periods?

There are test about it somewhere on this forum. From what I remember dispersed hold a lead for quite a while something like 1.5 years but in terms of raw quantity is was quite minimal because production is so low at that efficiency while at peek efficiency concentrated build up a sizable lead which increase every day both lines are at peek efficiency.

As an example: when I get 1940 infantry weapons unlocked, I usually have thousands of 36 weapons stockpiled; there's no sensible reason not to switch to the better stuff (and not enough manpower or strategic necessity to equip new infantry divisions); so when I switch, any value from concentrated is tossed out the window. And by the time efficiency is back up near 100%, I've already unlocked 42 equipment and it's time to start over.

This don't make much sense. If you have more infantry equipment than you need you don't really get that much from upgrading one tech level. The optimal scenario for teching up is when the need equipment is not replacing the old one but is added to completely new divisions this because reserve equipment is potentially wasted production. In the example above it make more sense to tech up and produce something else that you don't have at all and keep your infantry with tech 1936 weapons with maybe a few factories producing tech 1936 weapons for a bad day.

Research and production is just to valuable to waste in cases like the one above in my opinion. Here it would make more sense to start teching up and producing tanks or aircrafts instead of 1939 infantry equipment.

 

[holoween]

The optimal scenario for teching up is when the need equipment is not replacing the old one but is added to completely new divisions this because reserve equipment is potentially wasted production. In the example above it make more sense to tech up and produce something else that you don't have at all and keep your infantry with tech 1936 weapons with maybe a few factories producing tech 1936 weapons for a bad day.

Research and production is just to valuable to waste in cases like the one above in my opinion. Here it would make more sense to start teching up and producing tanks or aircrafts instead of 1939 infantry equipment.

i think that statement is a bit too generalized since there are several cases where upgrading your equipment like that is valuable but were leaving the dispersed vs concentrated discussion and enter a production strategy one.

 

[Denkt]

i think that statement is a bit too generalized since there are several cases where upgrading your equipment like that is valuable but were leaving the dispersed vs concentrated discussion and enter a production strategy one.

You pretty much have to talk about production strategies in order to talk about the value of dispersed and concentrated.

 

[holoween]

You pretty much have to talk about production strategies in order to talk about the value of dispersed and concentrated.

well the problem is that in a situation where additional divisions arent helping because lack of mp of supply and other equipment is not usefull (aircraft as minors) getting new inf equippment asap is very viable. also having a stockpile of outdated equipment isnt necessarily a waste.

the issue is that unless you go for a dedicated tank strat concentrated will always give far more equipment because noone has the research capability to keep all equippment perfectly up to date and with concentrated completely outproducing dispersed afer around 1.5 -2 years even if you could research everything in time there are 3 years between major equipment types giving 1-1.5 years of full production advantedge to concentrated.

 

[Meglok]

The answer really depends on your playing style, the amount of IC you have to throw around, the country you are playing, the type of game you are playing, and how long the game lasts.

If you have limited MIC and have to switch it between production lines then dispersed is the way to go.
If you expect to be bombed then Dispersed.
If you tend to upgrade to improved variants then Dispersed.

If you have plenty of MIC and can set up multiple lines to offset efficiency loss due to upgrades then Concentrated.
If you are playing a zerg MP one nighter then Concentrated is often better to max out fast production.

Concentrated will out-pace Dispersed over the long run if the lines are left alone and tech/variants not upgraded. That is indisputable. But how often do you upgrade to new techs, or variant out your tanks and planes? And how long is the game going to last. Many times the game is basically over by 1941ish, getting to 1943 tech may not even happen and you may not have time to recoup the efficiency loss from switching at 1940-41.

If the bonus for Concentrated was moved back up to 17.5 or 20% per level, or the retention loss for changing was not so high, then this would be a tougher decision. But for many nations and playing styles Dispersed just makes more sense.

There is no one correct perfect way to play HOI4.

 

[holoween]

The answer really depends on your playing style, the amount of IC you have to throw around, the country you are playing, the type of game you are playing, and how long the game lasts.

If you have limited MIC and have to switch it between production lines then dispersed is the way to go.
If you expect to be bombed then Dispersed.
If you tend to upgrade to improved variants then Dispersed.

1st 100% agreed
2nd depends on weather you can counter them with aircraft yourself which is made much easier with concentrated
3rd simply build variants whenever you switch to a new tank/aircraft type and you get the best of both

Concentrated will out-pace Dispersed over the long run if the lines are left alone and tech/variants not upgraded. That is indisputable. But how often do you upgrade to new techs, or variant out your tanks and planes? And how long is the game going to last. Many times the game is basically over by 1941ish, getting to 1943 tech may not even happen and you may not have time to recoup the efficiency loss from switching at 1940-41.

because of the limited research slots you can only have a limited ammount of equipment always up to date the rest will just be outdated equipment produced for longer.
only for the equipment you keep up to date is there any doubt weather dispersed is better. but since equipment comes in 3 year intervals except for med tanks with 2 years and concentrated produces far more in that 3 year gap concentrated will yield far more equipment compared to dispersed.

If the bonus for Concentrated was moved back up to 17.5 or 20% per level, or the retention loss for changing was not so high, then this would be a tougher decision. But for many nations and playing styles Dispersed just makes more sense.

There is no one correct perfect way to play HOI4.

they nerfed it because it was such a no brainer.