Hearts of Iron IV - Dev Diary 13 - Conscription & Training

[Centurion1973]

There is big gap between suggestions that might actually be implemented and things that are ideal state - which wont be implemented.
I try to limit my suggestions to the first group

Since pilots/crews are not separate and are highly unlikely to be implemented as such, treating them as if plane = pilots (and ship = crew) makes sense.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

I think it is important to note here that on-map ground unit training imposes attrition, and is treated exactly like any other source of attrition (training attrition is not separate in any way). Losses due to attrition are scaled based on equipment reliability. So a unit under 1% training attrition, but equipped with high-reliability training equipment, is taking fewer actual equipment losses.

I don't think training aircraft need to be a separate type. Perhaps you could just keep a collection of relatively low-tech but high-reliability aircraft variants around to use for training.

The big issue with handling aircraft training so far seems to be that there doesn't seem to be an air equivalent of the land 'division' concept.

 

[Cardus]

There is big gap between suggestions that might actually be implemented and things that are ideal state - which wont be implemented.
I try to limit my suggestions to the first group

Since pilots/crews are not separate and are highly unlikely to be implemented as such, treating them as if plane = pilots (and ship = crew) makes sense.

I think it is important to note here that on-map ground unit training imposes attrition, and is treated exactly like any other source of attrition (training attrition is not separate in any way). Losses due to attrition are scaled based on equipment reliability. So a unit under 1% training attrition, but equipped with high-reliability training equipment, is taking fewer actual equipment losses.

I don't think training aircraft need to be a separate type. Perhaps you could just keep a collection of relatively low-tech but high-reliability aircraft variants around to use for training.

The big issue with handling aircraft training so far seems to be that there doesn't seem to be an air equivalent of the land 'division' concept.

Right in fact my original post was to stress that there is a big discrepancy on how land warfare (including training) is modelled and air/naval.

 

[Centurion1973]

1. Nope because in reality training requires trainers so to apply the same mechanic you need to build that unit and the amount of trainers will influence how many pilots you can train and for how long.

2. I cannot see how you can achieve that with your suggestion. Once more you need trainers and time. When training the related losses should be losses of trainers not bombers or zeppelins.

3. And this diverges from both game mechanic and logic

1. Game doesnt simulate such details like using armored cars in tank training (in some armies), so why do it with aircraft? And final parts of the training always were on actual planes that pilots will use, so - for gameplay reasons we can just use normal fighters and bombers.

2. And just like ground unit training cost you new Pz3 instead of much cheaper alternative that was often used for basic training, training pilots can cost you combat planes. There is nothing stopping Luftwaffe leadership from ordering more (or less) training for their pilots before they are sent to combat units. Its command level decission - exactly what player should make.

3. That IS the game mechanic (higher Reliability results in lower attrition) - if you disagree, you can explain that to Podcat.......

Trainer aircraft (or tanks) are NOT in the game and are not likely to be implemented. So I only propose mechanic that actually has some chance to appear in the game. Proposing mechanics that would require too much time and effort to implement is a waste of time.

 

[potski]

This is a long discussion about something DR covered in the DD:

•While individual planes do not gain experience, combat/missions have the possibility of generating Aces. Aces can be assigned to Air wings and improve the efficiency the planes. We'll talk more about them in a later dev diary

Later... Dev ... Diary ...

So why not just wait for them to tell us?

 

[Filou]

Since pilots/crews are not separate and are highly unlikely to be implemented as such, treating them as if plane = pilots (and ship = crew) makes sense.

No it doesn't.
Mainly because when you upgrade a plane (ie: scrap an old model to put in a new one in service) you will lose the experience.

It also goes against the logic in use for ground troops. Podcat said it best here in regards to ground troop using new equipment:

right now there is no experience loss. generally new stuff operates a lot like the older or is just plain better, and people quite often train with older stuff, so I dont think its actually something worth considering as factor. From what i'v read people just welcomed new stuff and had little trouble adapting, these are experienced soldiers already.

Considering this statement, I would have expected to see pilots.

Hopefully there is a mechanic that lets us retain the experience we gain in the air-war, but it has to be decoupled from the actual planes.
edit - saw the post above. I forgot about the Aces... We'll have to wait and see I guess.

 

[Secret Master]

I think the cleanest way to think about it is destroyed-equivalents. Like five tanks broke down and it took parts and labor equal to building and deploying a single new tank to fix them, so this is equal to one destroyed-equivalent tank.

This is what it's really all about in maintenance terms.

While individual units care about their own equipment, for the army as a whole, it boils down to "We can get one working tank out of five broken ones, so it's only four actually dead ones."

 

[Ibn_Solmyr]

In that case,

The production should be :

1 - Fighter Planes
2 - Pilots

Pilots use obsolete Fighter planes while training (with a bigger attrition rate)
When trained they get best plane available and can be deployed.

When shooted down, they either die and plane is destroyed, or the plane is destroyed but they can get another plane.
For simplicity sake, crew needed to maintain the planes on the airfield are abstracted to the "pilot" pool


Same with boats

1 Boat
2 Boat Crew

Sailor train on obsolete boat (1 Boat crew = 100 Manpower, big boat need up to 10 Boat crew, Submarine only 1)
No attrition for these boat while training
Can produce boat and train at the same time the Sailor on it
If sunk, Boat Sailor suffer loss with a minimum of 1 (submarine Sailor always die) and maximum of 9 (there is always hundred of survivors when a boat is sunk)

Either case, you can produce lot of Pilot / Sailor, or more Boat/Plane that you can use.


Is it really usefull for the gameplay ? That is the question i'm asking.

Yes it would be usefull ! Historically, nations struggled in their air war far mostly due to lack of pilots/crew, and not stuff ! I'd be very disppointed if Paradox doesn't implement something to represent it. We now are able to produce a few planes (for example fighters to suit the battle of britain, GB side), so each let's say week, we can fill in our air units, but will we have enough fighter pilots, that took about 1 year to train correctly for the war ? And if you lower heavily this training time/stuff/ressources investment, you'll have far more fighter losses, and far more crew losses...

Let's remind that battle of britain has almost been lost due to that reason : the lack of pilots. Sometimes, some British/Polish/French/New-Zealand/Australian pilots did 4 and even 5 sorties in a single day. Some died in their plane only due to tiredness !

 

[Cardus]

1. Game doesnt simulate such details like using armored cars in tank training (in some armies), so why do it with aircraft? And final parts of the training always were on actual planes that pilots will use, so - for gameplay reasons we can just use normal fighters and bombers.

For the simple and plain reason that air training has air trainers whilst land training doesn't require specific units for training. Do you get this or it's too difficult?

2. And just like ground unit training cost you new Pz3 instead of much cheaper alternative that was often used for basic training, training pilots can cost you combat planes. There is nothing stopping Luftwaffe leadership from ordering more (or less) training for their pilots before they are sent to combat units. Its command level decission - exactly what player should make.

No as trainers are a different kind of animals from bombers or zeppelins

3. That IS the game mechanic (higher Reliability results in lower attrition) - if you disagree, you can explain that to Podcat.......

I don't disagree from this but you said something quite different from it. Read what you posted (not what you meant)

Trainer aircraft (or tanks) are NOT in the game and are not likely to be implemented. So I only propose mechanic that actually has some chance to appear in the game. Proposing mechanics that would require too much time and effort to implement is a waste of time.

Right air trainers are not in game and are not likely to be added. This is what I said some time ago.

 

[Denkt]

Hopefully there is a mechanic that lets us retain the experience we gain in the air-war, but it has to be decoupled from the actual planes.

Aces are the experience keepers for the airplanes and they can be moved.
You also got air experience which you use to create variants and you can store it (to a limit) up to create a superplane later in the game.

 

[Centurion1973]

...
I don't disagree from this but you said something quite different from it. Read what you posted (not what you meant)
....

so whats the difference between following posts?

I just said that Reliability stat represent more than just pure aircraft reliabilty, but also other factors, like difficulty to fly it (and land in 1 piece) and that if you in game design aircraft that will have low Reliability value, it will always take more attrition - no matter if its in training or combat.

3. That IS the game mechanic (higher Reliability results in lower attrition)

------------------------------------------------------

Right air trainers are not in game and are not likely to be added. This is what I said some time ago.

So why did you mention them quoting my proposal for training, which explained that they wont be ingame so training should use normal aircraft?

 

[Cardus]

so whats the difference between following posts?

That, in game, reliability is distinct by training in fact losses due to training are scaled based on equipment reliability. Training, also, affects combat performance. Can you see the difference?

So why did you mention them quoting my proposal for training, which explained that they wont be ingame so training should use normal aircraft?

I don't get what you mean here. My discussion started when I posed the problem that training was well done for land units and not existent for air/naval units. In addition I have shown that by mixing training and production the result brings the old problem of the whole HOI franchise the lack of distinction between men and hardware. In my opinion your proposal is not convincing but you are free to think what you like.

 

[Centurion1973]

1. That, in game, reliability is distinct by training in fact losses due to training are scaled based on equipment reliability. Training, also, affects combat performance. Can you see the difference?

I don't get what you mean here. My discussion started when I posed the problem that training was well done for land units and not existent for air/naval units. In addition I have shown that by mixing training and production the result brings the old problem of the whole HOI franchise the lack of distinction between men and hardware. In my opinion your proposal is not convincing but you are free to think what you like.

1. none of those posts was about training - both just describe how Reliability works.

2. Your posts are confusing (at least 3 people said that on past few pages). I dont know, if english is your native language, but your replies often dont make sense.

 

[xtfoster]

However minors have probably always been the most nerfed nations in HOI

Minors nerfed...you have got to be kidding...if anything the micro/minor/medium nations are MORE POWERFUL than historically.

 

[Centurion1973]

Minors nerfed...you have got to be kidding...if anything the micro/minor/medium nations are MORE POWERFUL than historically.

Many minors are nerfed in HoI3 - I cant remember ever seeing 30+ division strong Czechoslovak army (Czechoslovak post mobilization strenght IRL was around 1 000 000 men in the army).

 

[Ibn_Solmyr]

I have shown that by mixing training and production the result brings the old problem of the whole HOI franchise the lack of distinction between men and hardware.

100% agreed.

 

[xmas]

Sorry if anybody touch this argoument ... the thread is very long ...

WHAT´S ABOUT SPECIAL TRAINED DIVISIONS AS WAFFEN SS (especially with germans soldiers) ...

LEIBSTANDART, DAS REICH, TOTENKOPS, NORDLAND, VIKING, HORST WESSEL etc. divisions was ELITE trained divisions.

Ex.12 SS HITLERJUGEND never get combat before 6 of june 1944, only tranined, 16-18 years old guys, and it was perhaps the worst nightmare for Allied.


This problem don't exist in other army (in Russia the GUARD named division was after tough combat experiences, same in Italy for "M battalions")

 

[Dark Jakkaru]

Sorry if anybody touch this argoument ... the thread is very long ...

I didn't see the devs comment specifically on types of unit fluff but clearly one of those exists in the German Army Builder as "SS" Division. How that exactly works isn't explained. The explanation for the fluff like that will probably come out later as we get closer to release date. For now, the DD's have been very much 10,000 feet summary of the feature set they are implementing in the release. In essence, you're just seeing a slice of the feature in question so don't be alarmed if the devs don't explain everything from the get-go.

 

[Cardus]

1. none of those posts was about training - both just describe how Reliability works.
2. Your posts are confusing (at least 3 people said that on past few pages). I dont know, if english is your native language, but your replies often dont make sense.

I didn't describe how reliability works as I said "reliability is distinct by training in fact losses due to training are scaled based on equipment reliability" In fact Podcat mentioned that 1% losses for training are compounded with reliability. Hence training is DISTINCT from reliability. Can you read capital letters?
Maybe your problem is not with English but for sure it is with reading and understanding.

 

[Le_Carabinier]

The "elite-trained divisions" thing is probably simply going to be represented by units deployed with 100% training, as opposed to deployed whenever their equipment is ready, with 65% traning for example.
The point is that there is only so much traning can teach you.

To make an elite division, give it the best equipment your nation can make, and train the soldiers until maximum available experience is reached. Then deploy them and watch them slaughter your enemies.