Fuel and Resource Mod: Requirements Document and RFP

[Commissar Yossarian]

Given all the sprawling conversation about the supply/fuel/resource/infrastructure implementation in HOI4 so far I thought it would be nice to collect all the proposals and form a Requirements Document now that we have an understanding of how the Mods will work in HOI4.

First of all, the best news coming out of the mod DD is that each mod can have a dependency on other mods so each section can be built, tested and implemented on it's own, followed by incorporating it into the overall project with the right dependancies.

To start with I currently see the implementation of most peoples long term goals broken into 4 major areas:
1. Expansion of detail for various nations: adding focuses, events, units etc for different countries
2. Expansion of game play detail: Adding convoy escorts, adding air resupply, adding element X to game play
3. Expansion of time line: adding necessary things to the game to allow play from date X to date Y.
4. Overhaul of production and supply system

This thread should be ideally confined to discussing things falling directly under the umbrella of item 4. Production and Supply systems. When a link between another area and Production and Supply is identified, we should capture it and create an interface document to define the link and enforce comparability with the adopted mod to the other area.

I'll start things off with 4 internal modules I think need to be addressed to make the Mod viable.
1. New resources:
To remove oil from the production of units makes sense, but all things need energy to operate, and I think it would help the balance idea to re-introduce coal (energy) to the game as it plays a massive role in powering your industry, producing steel, and synthetic fuel if you chose to peruse that. Countries with significant Hydro electric power can have a national spirit or some such to add a 'power' bonus without changing the on map resource distribution of coal.
Also a standard way of scoping and adding a resource will be useful if people want to add a timeline extension mod where you need to add Titanium to the map, or want to represent resource development in game. This needs an interface document too.

2. Production:
a. Remove generic Synthetic Plant. Add Fuel Refinery, Synthetic Rubber Factory, Synthetic Fuel Plant.
i. Fuel Refinery treated like Military factory for technology, but IC cost tbd
ii. Synthetic factories IC cost to come way down towards Civilian Factory
iii. Synthetic fuel/rubber need seperated tech tree > Interface Doc to expanded Tech Tree
b. Change production resource requirements. Add energy (coal) requirement, remove oil requirement.
c. Determine conversion rate of oil > fuel, coal > fuel, oil > rubber

3. Fuel usage and distribution
a. Make fuel a type of equipment (?) This way it can be assigned to different units in different ratios. The fuel can be burnt by applying the appropriate attrition rate for training, moving, combat.
b. Determine how to 'equip' planes and ships with fuel (or appropriately associate it to the units and burn it...)
c. Determine how to simulate distribution problem. How to attrition out fuel as a function of supply or some such. Units that are further away cost more fuel to supply, and supply with fuel (?). How to do this?

4. Balance
a. Collect historical data
i. Fuel useage of various combat units while moving (fuel burn/km) and typical combat needs (fuel burn/day in combat).
ii. Production data. Feed stock in vs target product out. For fuel, rubber etc. Also important to balance map resource distribution and resource costs.
iii. Country industry development. Production and refinery capacity in 1936 as a starting point.
b. Number Crunching.
i. Lots and Lots of Montycarlo simulations
ii. Many ants development path analysis of the various countries that are changed
c. AI interaction. Make sure that we don't break the AI scripting for how it plans development and production.
d. Game play testing.

 

[Axe99]

Great post Comrade Yossarian - well structured, and succinct . On the by, any chance you could put definitions of montycarlo sims and many ants development path analysis in a spoiler for us uneducated folk ?

I've been mulling over these things a bit, and while we don't know anything for sure until we get out hands on the game and see what we can and can't change, my thoughts on the above, for what it's worth, are:

1. I think coal coming back is a great step, and am fairly confident the AI/trade systems will be able to cope. I'd say hydro could probably be dealt with a la HoI3 and just have an 'energy' resource, that could represent coal or hydro (or a few other less common alternatives), as functionally there's no a huge difference other than that a hydro plant could be destroyed (perhaps make it a building that's already in place in key provinces, that provides energy, if we wanted the scope to destroy them? Deffo not a core issue though).

2. All sounds good. We might need some specific tech bonuses to deal with efficiency of fuel refineries as well as the synthetic side of things as well, but we'll find that out when we start getting our hands dirty. I'd expect the AI to be able to handle all of these fairly comfortably as well, although it'll probably require tinkering in whatever files look after production settings, and a fair bit of testing and balancing (I don't expect this to be a revelation ).

3. This is the biggest question mark as far as I can see, as we don't know how much granularity with have with attrition for different equipment and for different circumstances, as well as the area the AI is least likely to be set up to cope with it, and the area we're most likely to need to be creative to make things work. It's also the area I'm most interested in, from the perspective of getting ships and aircraft to have a supply requirement.

4. This all sounds good (the bits I understand, at least ). The naval data I'm collecting includes (where I've been able to find it, but I'd expect there's comfortably enough for decent estimates by class for each point in the timeline) both fuel stock and range, so we should hopefully be able to use that to get a rough idea of 'cruising' fuel consumption for ships. It'll be different in combat, mind, but I'm sure we'll be able to find out how much.

I'm very happy to help with looking into this. My interest are in a system that works with the UI and AI, isn't a huge burden on gameplay but adds to strategic choice and challenges (which what you outline does, as long as we can get the bits in #3 to work), and am happy to code/test/investigate as required .

 

[Commissar Yossarian]

Excellent, I'll try to find time to put together a template document to start filling in as we get concrete details post release.

Montycarlo simulations are big what if games. So you create a system of equations and the randomly change variables in a bounded range to see what the impacts and influences are. An efficient way to test complex systems. Good for testing balance.

Many ants solution is an optimisation method where you have a branching problem from a known initial state. You start with N paths to follow (N ants) and let them work their way down a random path to the end state. Then you pick a few of the most efficient paths and send all your workers down those few paths picking different branches this time. You repeatedly this until no better path is found. Typically you seed some random starting points to make sure you cover the solution space.

The idea is that whatever system we over lay on the base game we need ways of testing it before playing to ensure a good level of balance and proper interaction between the various bits and bobs.

 

[Axe99]

Cheers for the explanations . I definitely agree we want something well tested, particularly if we're putting it on the workshop of similar for public consumption.

 

[rutger9]

I am not sure to what extent a laymen like I could help (only have some basic html and qbasic experience and never actually modded) but I greatly support the effort and am willing to help wherever I can.

 

[Commissar Yossarian]

Excellent, I'm quite sure one on the more experienced modders would be happy to take on the roll of mentor and find tasks to both teach you and progress the mod/section.

Something like this won't work as a collection of individuals running in many different directions. So more experienced people will hopefully take on others and act as team leads as well as solve the difficult problems.

 

[Commissar Yossarian]

To clarify, I would be happy to manage the Requirements Doc and Interface Doc for the various teams, but given my job I won't have enough time to commit to writing a tonne of code.
So for people who are interested don't shy away from helping just because you aren't going to be a one person show.

The best way this can go is we all define what needs to get done in a well documented way with distinct unit functionality, so that individual tasks can be completed, tested and submitted by numerous people without the project falling apart when one person has to leave etc.

 

[Axe99]

Aye, that's the way - have a general idea of what we want to do, then parcel out different things to different people. We won't really know what's possible until launch (well, other than the betas, but they won't be able to tell us), but (other than playing the heck out of it ), once HoI4 launches I'm planning to go through each of the various files we can tinker with and make notes on them (which I'll share if anyone wants them), and then use that as a basis to decide what's likely to work or not (as even then, there might be issues with AI, etc; Nothing is given to work until it actually works ).

 

[potski]

So fuel would be a type of equipment, built in a refinery factory where the input is oil. So the refineries take slots.

Let's say we have two factory slots. Now you can put two military factories and produce tanks in them, requiring say one steel and one oil per factory, for a total of two steel and two oil. Instead, you will have one factory producing tanks. You will need only one steel, and you produce only half the tanks. You have one refinery producing fuel equipment, requiring one oil.

Are you going to rebalance the whole production system?

You could set the definition of an armoured battalion to need 50 tanks and 50 fuel equipment. If they are training and taking 6% attrition then 3 tanks that didn't need any oil are destroyed, and 3 fuel equipment are destroyed.

How is that different to 3 tanks that needed oil being destroyed?

If there is no attrition, then the armoured battalion doesn't "burn" any of it's fuel equipment. Does that make any sense? For instance, there is a loss of org when using SR, not a loss of equipment, so no fuel/oil is used by SR. Hot weather causes increased attrition of equipment (from mechanical breakdown). Why does it lead to more attrition of fuel equipment?

Combat causes loss of equipment and manpower, if you suffer damage. Tank battalions have a high armour value. If they face infantry with no AT, then they can take virtually no damage, even if a battle lasts a week. So they don't "burn" any fuel equipment either?

If they breakthrough and advance a few provinces without combat they might suffer say 2% attrition, and lose a couple of tanks to mechanical breakdown. Do they also "burn" only 2% of their fuel equipment?

Can you reduce the amount of fuel equipment you "burn" by adding a repair company, because it reduces attrition?

Does the logistics company make no difference to fuel equipment use, because fuel equipment is equipment, not supplies?

If fuel is an equipment, then it can go into the equipment stockpile. What's to stop anyone with access to enough oil and refineries to put so much fuel equipment into their stockpile to last the war? Would Japan be able to accumulate enough by 1941, without requiring DEI?

The logistics system moves supplies, not equipment. There is a throughput of supplies through ports and supply areas depending on the infrastructure. How does fuel equipment get to the tank battalions?

Ships require oil to produce. Will you change this so, like tanks, the dockyards don't require oil to produce convoys? Does that mean your convoy system can operate for 10 years without ever needing any oil? No oil requirement ever, even if (like UK) you have 100s of convoys operating which bring resources from your colonies, resources traded from other countries and supplies to your overseas units?

You can define a tank battalion needs 50 tanks and 50 fuel equipment. But you can't define the composition of a fleet, so you can't say have a fleet which requires 10 DD and 10 fuel equipment. Players can choose to create a fleet without any fuel equipment. Will the AI understand that?

Will the fuel equipment be a capital ship, screen or sub?

Equipment is defined as land, sea or air. Tanks can't sail across an ocean, nor fly. NAV can't be given to a Div. If fuel equipment is land-based, then it can't go in a fleet, nor in an air wing. Will you define three separate fuel equipment types for land, sea and air?

Production lines can only produce one type of equipment at a time. Does this mean you need at least one refinery to produce land fuel equipment, one for naval fuel equipment and one for flying fuel equipment?

There is no attrition of fleets. But, unlike tanks, a ship can take a percentage damage in combat that needs repairs in their home base. So does that mean a fleet which you have included some naval fuel equipment "burns" its fuel only in combat, when the naval fuel equipment suffers damage?

What if you find on 6 June that ships repair without requiring any factories or resources, they just repair damage slowly over time, by remaining in their naval base? Does that mean the naval fuel equipment goes back to full strength without requiring any more oil?

How much armour does the naval fuel equipment have? What's it's reliability? Can it be sunk?

What if a player keeps all of his naval fuel equipment "in being" - in a port protected by AA and a CAP?

What will the 3D model of the naval fuel equipment look like?

Air wings are not allowed to be mixed, all FIG or all NAV etc. So does that mean the flying fuel equipment will be in it's own air wing?

Air wings take attrition losses based on their reliability when engaged in air missions (chance of accident taking off/landing or mechanical failure in the air). So does that mean if you give no air mission to the flying fuel equipment, it will never be "burned"? What if you don't even place it in an air wing, but leave it in your plane stockpile? Will the AI understand that?

What missions will the flying fuel equipment be able to take - air superiority/interception or bombing?

What will the flying fuel equipment 3D model look like?

I'm labouring the point on how illogical it is to have fuel as an equipment for planes. Especially as you already admitted you have no idea how this could possibly work for planes and ships:

Determine how to 'equip' planes and ships with fuel (or appropriately associate it to the units and burn it...)

And, let's face it, if you can't resolve this basic issue then this is not going to be a success. Most people's concern over fuel is the IJN.

Then this:

Determine how to simulate distribution problem. How to attrition out fuel as a function of supply or some such. Units that are further away cost more fuel to supply, and supply with fuel (?). How to do this?

You need to understand the limits of what you can and can't mod. Perhaps you should play the game first, examine the files that can be modded, and familiarise yourself with the game mechanics, then decide whether you can resolve these issues.

All factory types can produce outputs (equipment) even without any inputs (resources). So the fuel refinery will be able to produce fuel equipment without any oil. Not very efficiently, but pretty much everyone must be able to produce some fuel at the start of the game. This is because every country which has any ships or planes, must logically start with at least one refinery (of each relevant type) built and any tech you setup researched. Equipment cannot be traded.

If there is no oil as an input to producing tanks, planes or ships, then countries which currently struggle to produce these, might be producing alot more. China for instance might have enough steel to build capital ships efficiently, so in a reasonable timeframe. If players can game your system, and it looks obvious to me that they will because of the control they have over how they use equipment, then you are simply giving players a massive advantage over the AI. The AI will produce naval fuel equipment thinking it is a ship, attach it to it's fleets and send it out on patrol. A player won't.

 

[rutger9]

There is nothing wrong with starting some basic brainstorming before release and then hammering out a concrete plan when you get more information, it'll allow a very basic distribution of people to be done which can help with more efficient work once the project starts proper.

 

[Axe99]

Response meant in spirit of friendly discussion . If they sound short at any stage, that's just my lurgy making me blunter than I'd like. Note, I understand you're addressing the OP, but the OP notes this is a brainstorming exercise (and in this context, your contribution is very much welcome ).

So fuel would be a type of equipment, built in a refinery factory where the input is oil. So the refineries take slots.

Let's say we have two factory slots. Now you can put two military factories and produce tanks in them, requiring say one steel and one oil per factory, for a total of two steel and two oil. Instead, you will have one factory producing tanks. You will need only one steel, and you produce only half the tanks. You have one refinery producing fuel equipment, requiring one oil.

Are you going to rebalance the whole production system?

You could set the definition of an armoured battalion to need 50 tanks and 50 fuel equipment. If they are training and taking 6% attrition then 3 tanks that didn't need any oil are destroyed, and 3 fuel equipment are destroyed.

How is that different to 3 tanks that needed oil being destroyed?

If there is no attrition, then the armoured battalion doesn't "burn" any of it's fuel equipment. Does that make any sense? For instance, there is a loss of org when using SR, not a loss of equipment, so no fuel/oil is used by SR. Hot weather causes increased attrition of equipment (from mechanical breakdown). Why does it lead to more attrition of fuel equipment?

Combat causes loss of equipment and manpower, if you suffer damage. Tank battalions have a high armour value. If they face infantry with no AT, then they can take virtually no damage, even if a battle lasts a week. So they don't "burn" any fuel equipment either?

If they breakthrough and advance a few provinces without combat they might suffer say 2% attrition, and lose a couple of tanks to mechanical breakdown. Do they also "burn" only 2% of their fuel equipment?

Can you reduce the amount of fuel equipment you "burn" by adding a repair company, because it reduces attrition?

Does the logistics company make no difference to fuel equipment use, because fuel equipment is equipment, not supplies?

The fuel as equipment set-up really only works if we can define different rates of equipment attrition or use in different situations. This has been discussed in the oil and logistics thread and elsewhere. If we don't have different rates of equipment attrition in different situations, then we'll need to do something else. That's why we're throwing ideas around, so we have a few different options to investigate .

If fuel is an equipment, then it can go into the equipment stockpile. What's to stop anyone with access to enough oil and refineries to put so much fuel equipment into their stockpile to last the war? Would Japan be able to accumulate enough by 1941, without requiring DEI?

This is a pretty easy one - if fuel is created in factories that take up slots, then there's an opportunity cost that can be balanced. The issue with fuel and oil in HoI4 is that there was no opportunity cost, so you built it up because you weren't giving up anything to do so. There's also the possibility of putting in some kind of "If fuel > X then reduce stockpile to X" style event if this isn't enough (not guaranteed to be possible, but something that's not crazy to brainstorm).

The logistics system moves supplies, not equipment. There is a throughput of supplies through ports and supply areas depending on the infrastructure. How does fuel equipment get to the tank battalions?

Supply = (part of) equipment under the new model, but as far as we know the non-convoy element of the logistics system doesn't 'move' anything. It's (as far as I can tell from what we've been told) a stacking limit, which if it isn't succeeded means equipment will effectively teleport from the stockpile to the units. A division doesn't put weight on the supply system as a direct result of the equipment it needs, but rather the amount of the stacking limit it takes up. Ie, if there are two divisions, that both take up 2 supply stacking limit units, and one needs 6 pieces of equipment a day and the other 2, both will get their equipment if the stacking limit isn't exceeded, and both divisions put equal strain on the supply situation in that supply region.

Ships require oil to produce. Will you change this so, like tanks, the dockyards don't require oil to produce convoys? Does that mean your convoy system can operate for 10 years without ever needing any oil? No oil requirement ever, even if (like UK) you have 100s of convoys operating which bring resources from your colonies, resources traded from other countries and supplies to your overseas units?

The game really only has token amounts of oil in the ship production costs, which are optional in any event. I don't know for sure, but I'd expect removing the oil requirement for ships from the game without making any other changes would have limited impact on how the game played out. In this case, if it was necessary to have ships running oil/fuel-free (which I doubt), it's hardly a significant step backwards from the vanilla system. That said, it's likely that if something can be done, whatever will be done will attempt to make fuel a requirement for all the units that use it.

You can define a tank battalion needs 50 tanks and 50 fuel equipment. But you can't define the composition of a fleet, so you can't say have a fleet which requires 10 DD and 10 fuel equipment. Players can choose to create a fleet without any fuel equipment. Will the AI understand that?

Will the fuel equipment be a capital ship, screen or sub?

I doubt we'd be able to tag equipment use to a fleet. We don't know if we can tag it to ships and planes, but at this stage I expect we can't, but if we can, then we'd take that approach. I can't see making equipment as ships, per se, a sensible option, and I'm not aware of anyone that's suggested it (outside your post of course ).

Equipment is defined as land, sea or air. Tanks can't sail across an ocean, nor fly. NAV can't be given to a Div. If fuel equipment is land-based, then it can't go in a fleet, nor in an air wing. Will you define three separate fuel equipment types for land, sea and air?

Production lines can only produce one type of equipment at a time. Does this mean you need at least one refinery to produce land fuel equipment, one for naval fuel equipment and one for flying fuel equipment?

Do we know this? As far as I can tell, there are naval units, air units and land equipment. Naval and air units operate in game in a materially different fashion (from a logistics perspective). Beyond this, my understanding is we just don't know what is and isn't possible. My gut feeling is that it's not possible, but unless someone's in the beta (which I'm not, or I wouldn't be brainstorming about modding publicly, but rather testing HoI4 from there and back again ).

What if a player keeps all of his naval fuel equipment "in being" - in a port protected by AA and a CAP?

If ships can't be used as 'containers' (in a data sense) for fuel, then it wouldn't really work having fuel as equipment for ships - again, I don't think (but could be wrong, by all means set me straight ) anyone's suggesting separate barrels of fuel floating around with the fleet. Same story for air wings.

I'm labouring the point on how illogical it is to have fuel as an equipment for planes. Especially as you already admitted you have no idea how this could possibly work for planes and ships:

And, let's face it, if you can't resolve this basic issue then this is not going to be a success. Most people's concern over fuel is the IJN.

Actually, if planes or ships (or even fleets and air wings) can be used as data containers for fuel, and separate attrition rates are possible based on different situations, it'll work fine (as has been discussed in the oil and logistics thread). However, if none of these things hold true, then we'll need to try something else (as has also been discussed).

You need to understand the limits of what you can and can't mod. Perhaps you should play the game first, examine the files that can be modded, and familiarise yourself with the game mechanics, then decide whether you can resolve these issues.

We're both well and truly on the same page here

All factory types can produce outputs (equipment) even without any inputs (resources). So the fuel refinery will be able to produce fuel equipment without any oil. Not very efficiently, but pretty much everyone must be able to produce some fuel at the start of the game. This is because every country which has any ships or planes, must logically start with at least one refinery (of each relevant type) built and any tech you setup researched. Equipment cannot be traded.

If there is no oil as an input to producing tanks, planes or ships, then countries which currently struggle to produce these, might be producing alot more. China for instance might have enough steel to build capital ships efficiently, so in a reasonable timeframe. If players can game your system, and it looks obvious to me that they will because of the control they have over how they use equipment, then you are simply giving players a massive advantage over the AI. The AI will produce naval fuel equipment thinking it is a ship, attach it to it's fleets and send it out on patrol. A player won't.

While nothing is certain, the odds that the 'penalty rate' for not having the required resources for production be moddable are reasonable (it's the kind of "one or two numbers that can be loaded at the start of the game" that the engine will need and is easy to put in the files that can be modded), in which case it may be possible to tweak this so players can't go exploit crazy.

 

[TheBromgrev]

Just keep in mind that the system is most likely set up so raw resources go into factories, and you get equipment as a result. The devs haven't stated that it's possible for factories to create raw materials, or for equipment to be used as a raw material to make other equipment. If that's indeed how the system works, you would need to either have fuel be an on-map resource like oil, or make a new building like the synthetic plant that generates fuel out of nothing.

 

[rutger9]

Well we know you can produce a variant out of an already existing tank.
Which would mean you have a production line that takes in say, Pz II and produces say a wespe.
If that system can be adapted for other use then that could potentially be used.

 

[Himliano]

I think fuel is something too big and specific to be "just modded".

 

[Commissar Yossarian]

@potski

Quite frankly all your concerns are exactly what needs to be adressed. This requires time with the game, and to understand how the math under the hood works. I doubt highly that anyone in the modding team is going to magically solve the issue of fule usage in the HOI universe as constrained by the AI where the Dev's didn't. This said, we won't be constrained by the same economic pressures they are, so who knows? Given time and much wider access to resources (time and warm bodies) maybe we can shoe horn in something.

So I support people wish listing and brainstorming as much as they want before the game release, but I'm not going to work on anything until we've had a hundred hours of game play under our belts as a minimum. Then we can form a requirements document that defines the scope and outcome of the work. If it's not feasible, or not going to achive what people want, then it won't be launched.

It's ok to dream big, and work realistically. So dream on my friends, and we'll have the serious discussion at the end of June.

Cheers

 

[KiwiNoob]

@Commissar Yossarian

I appreciate the offer on the other thread to come over here and post. If it's alright to ask - is this your first time modding or have you worked on others PDS mods in the past (and if so, which ones).

Are you currently looking to put together a team or do you already have a team (or even a couple) of experienced modders in the wings? If there are already a few modders, what mods have they worked on?

 

[Commissar Yossarian]

@Commissar Yossarian

I appreciate the offer on the other thread to come over here and post. If it's alright to ask - is this your first time modding or have you worked on others PDS mods in the past (and if so, which ones).

Are you currently looking to put together a team or do you already have a team (or even a couple) of experienced modders in the wings? If there are already a few modders, what mods have they worked on?

1. Never modded a PDS game before. My background is programming numerical solvers mostly, for things like CFD.
2. I'm mostly interested in forming teams around the various components that would constitute a 'complete' mod. I am willing to code, but I will frankly be more useful in a project management role given my practical work experience and lack of coding familiarity with PDS modding. There is a huge amount of ancillary work to be carried out around the pure code, so that is where I would prefer to focus my efforts.
3. I have a few people signed up for July onwards once we've seen enough of the game to start making decisions. Frankly though, I hope others who have self organised around their own desires can be brought together, and we can all work from a single interface document. Each block, once validated should be able to be integrated or reused in any applicable location to prevent duplication of effort, and generally improve the overall mod package.
4. I will happily have this endeavour be subsumed into another more established group if it makes it better/easier to achive my goals.

How about you? Have you formed/joined a group?

Daniel

 

[Cardus]

1. Never modded a PDS game before. My background is programming numerical solvers mostly, for things like CFD.
2. I'm mostly interested in forming teams around the various components that would constitute a 'complete' mod. I am willing to code, but I will frankly be more useful in a project management role given my practical work experience and lack of coding familiarity with PDS modding. There is a huge amount of ancillary work to be carried out around the pure code, so that is where I would prefer to focus my efforts.
3. I have a few people signed up for July onwards once we've seen enough of the game to start making decisions. Frankly though, I hope others who have self organised around their own desires can be brought together, and we can all work from a single interface document. Each block, once validated should be able to be integrated or reused in any applicable location to prevent duplication of effort, and generally improve the overall mod package.
4. I will happily have this endeavour be subsumed into another more established group if it makes it better/easier to achive my goals.

How about you? Have you formed/joined a group?

Daniel

You should consider the following:
1) If there is an engine limitation there is nothing you can do
2) If Paradox is going to deliver a stream of DLCs to cover what you want to achieve it will be just a waste of time

 

[Commissar Yossarian]

You should consider the following:
1) If there is an engine limitation there is nothing you can do
2) If Paradox is going to deliver a stream of DLCs to cover what you want to achieve it will be just a waste of time

100% on both.
It's generally why there's no 'work' to be started until roughly July. Everyone needs a month at least to dig into the game. See if it changes their view of what needs to be done, see how the modding tools work, and importantly try to map out the important algorithms.

 

[Cardus]

100% on both.
It's generally why there's no 'work' to be started until roughly July. Everyone needs a month at least to dig into the game. See if it changes their view of what needs to be done, see how the modding tools work, and importantly try to map out the important algorithms.

My guess is that Paradox will devote some time to bug fixing for a month after release while at the same time podcat will work on a new DLC that should be ready around Christmas. And, if the engine is not completely unfit, one thing that is going to change is the oil issue which makes the game (in my opinion) broken.
IF I am right you should wait until September and maybe beyond.