Hearts of Iron IV - Developer Diary 9 - Vacation and Air tech

[misterbean]

I do hope jets aren´t a joke like they were in vanilla HOI3.



Sorry man I usually agree with you but you are wrong here.

House rules are a product of poorly developed games. Period. Go see if any competitive multiplayer game has 'house rules".

TBH, I can't really judge since I only play single-player, so I will have to take your word for it.

It will probably be easier than in HOI3. I'll just not bother building B-29s and stick to upgrading my B-17s as far as they can be upgraded so my production lines are operating at maximum efficiency. Who cares about their capabilities once I have 12,000 on regular bombing duty in Europe?

You misunderstood. Remember how they also had a gazillion transport wings? Now you don't need those. Instead of "wasting" IC on transports, you can now go for 200 strats instead of 90 strats and 110 transports. Which basically means that you can send Germany back to the time of the real Barbarossa in 6 months or less. That's my concern.

 

[PlacidDragon]

That post was on 8/23. We are still working to wear 'em down....:ninja:

Yes, and shortly after that, he went on vacation, along with the rest of the office, so its not like its been any progress on the game (to speak of) since then

 

[Gamer_1745]

Yes, they are on vacation and that is a good thing since are not working on it and seem to still be reading the forum. So when they get back to work my hope (not that it is likely) is that they see if they could implement some sort of CoC to address our concerns (with an off switch for those who don't want it).

 

[PlacidDragon]

Yes, they are on vacation and that is a good thing since are not working on it and seem to still be reading the forum. So when they get back to work my hope (not that it is likely) is that they see if they could implement some sort of CoC to address our concerns (with an off switch for those who don't want it).

We can certainly hope, yes

 

[plasticpanzers]

Thats ok, we got Podcat when he posted this DD!

On converting bombers to transports and back again do you realize how many changes must be made? That the interior of a bomber
is not built for 16-20 paratroops to 'run down' and out the door? Can you see the piled MGs and gear all over the runway and having
to put it all back in perhaps on a daily basis? That bomber training is not troop carrier or cargo training? They had enough problems
just getting their own job done.

The planes were designed specifically for a designated task. These are not mulittask aircraft with modular interiors you can take out
and put back in. And you cannot just 'drop' 16 people out the bomb bay like 250 pound bombs. US and Germany used transports to
haul trucks and halftracks. Can you see gutting a B17 every month to do so and putting it back together?

Generally when cargo aircraft are not dropping paras they are moving supplies around. That the supply system was insufficent in HOI3
to where transports were either overused or underused hopfully would be fixed in HOI4 not just deleting a whole aircraft class. One
would have to think the entire world was 'stupid' to have transport aircraft at all when they had 'bombers' to do double duty. But we
know they were not 'stupid' and transports, when built and used properly (without gamey airborne armies) add to a game and do not
distract from it.

 

[1alexey]

(with an off switch for those who don't want it).

Did PI ever did that to anything that is not just a modifier like difficulty or lucky nations?

I can`t imagine PI going thrugh pains of having 2 AIs, one that understands command structure and other that works without it.
As some people said, this is not a build your own game adventure.

 

[redflag]

Speaking of converting a bomber airframe into a passenger plane/transport plane
[video=youtube;YKEpihHE4kY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKEpihHE4kY[/video]

 

[zinger98]

Has anyone explained what "reliability" is in terms of game mechanics?

 

[PlacidDragon]

Has anyone explained what "reliability" is in terms of game mechanics?

I dont believe so. I'd guess something along the lines of ruggedness / survivability.

 

[Beagá]

We´ll have to wait and see, but IMO it should influence organization loss from repeated missions and plane loss from "attrition" (read: accidents, crappy wings that break, engines that overheat etc etc).

 

[Axe99]

It's always interesting waking up and seeing what's happened to an interesting discussion on the HoI boards overnight .

Some thoughts:

- I don't think the 'pro-transport' crowd are asking for a separate slot in the tech tree (correct me if I'm wrong other pro-transporters), we're just asking for different aircraft on the ground, so they can't do what Secret Master described - transport runs on Monday, strategic bombing on Tuesday and off to drop some paratroops wherever on Wednesday. Make 'em variants, make them modifications, whatever.

- @ Redflag - every single picture/example you've provided is a conversion. These take time and money/IC. You're actually supporting the pro-transport cause, we also want bombers used as transports to be proper conversions, not the bomb payload replaced with lots of paratroopers laying down in the bomb bay.

- Those were converted RAF bombers involved in Market Garden (Stirlings, Albermarles and the like) but even with these converted aircraft they couldn't drop everyone as quick as they'd wanted. They had many, many more bombers available if they could just use standard bombers but didn't - because it wouldn't have been safe without converting them, which takes time/IC/training for the crews.

- this is not a 'fiddly' but rather a gameplay issue unless we make the contention that paratroops were not important to the war, and remove them as well. From a gameplay perspective, if transports are out, then really paratroops should be as well - for the reasons described below.

Gameplay issue 1: We have a 1944 scenario. There were 2400 transports and 900 gliders (which I think are worth wrapping up into a 'transports' category) used in Overload (http://www.ddaymuseum.co.uk/d-day/d-day-and-the-battle-of-normandy-your-questions-answered). How does HoI4 treat these forces? Do the allies get 3300 extra bombers? Do the bombers (I can't find figures quickly, and they're not really necessary for the general argument) on hand get given transport capacity equal to 3300 transports? Do the bombers get given a 'standard' transport capacity (noting there's no clear way to define this - a converted Albermarle could transport 10 paratroops, a C-47 20)? Whichever way this question is answered creates imbalances in actual gameplay, as long as we want paratroops in the game. How? Read on .

- Issues with Option A (Allies get 3300 extra bombers) - Clearly, if this is the case, the strategic air campaign against Germany will be much more effective than it was historically.

- Issues with Option B (Overlord Bomber-to-transport ratio is used to determine transport/paradrop capacity of bombers) - this _only_ works if the ratio of bombers to transports is anywhere near constant, by theatre and year, throughout the war, which it wasn't. Use the D-Day ratio, and Germany may not have the required paradrop capacity in Greece to drop into Crete (there were a _lot_ of available allied bombers for D-Day) and similar.

- Issue with Option C (Bombers are able to magically carry the same payload, whether it be paratroopers, supplies or bombs) - With a huge multirole paradrop/bombing/supply force, the whole dynamic of the war changes. Use your bomber force to drop an army group (over a couple of days) into Yugoslavia to liberate it, then use your bomber force to supply them long-term. There'd no longer be an issue for the Soviets with the encirclement at Kiev (at the time, the Soviet Airforce had very few transport planes, but they had bombers), just use your bombers to keep the defence alive.

As well as these issues, what happens with the airfield capacity that these 3000+ transports took up? Do the paratroopers just get free airfield capacity because they can hitch a ride with the bombers now, so the UK needs fewer airfields to undertake Overlord and Market Garden.

I cannot see a way whereby the abstraction out of transport planes doesn't do horrible things at the gameplay level which, of course, should be fairly evident, because transport planes were a vital strategic asset for most of the major participants in the war. If you remove transports, you break the supply and paradrop dynamic, both elements of the second world war that played key strategic elements at certain points.

On an aside, I don't think I've ever played a WW2 game (outside of the incredibly abstracted 'Europe at War', which only has air, infantry, armour and navies as its force distinctions) that didn't have dedicated transport units. World in Flames, a corps-level (less complex than HoI) tabletop board game has dedicated transport units.

Also - power to PodCat for even discussing it with us. Don't get me (and I'm sure, for the very large part, all of us) wrong - we're just passionate about the game and want it to be its best. None of what I've written is a personal attack, I'm a big fan of PDS and its work .

 

[Axe99]

Heavily edited to work in another point that came to mind while I was chopping some vegies.

The difference is of course that the division builder is important and fun while making transports isnt particularly. Transportation of course becomes more interesting gameplay wise if it ties up your otherwise important bomber force as well as allowing historical options like germany being able to use bombers for both transport and bombing.

There are a couple of things here:

- Why is it less interesting to build transports? For someone developing an airborne assault capacity, it's just as interesting. For someone who isn't, they don't have to deal with it, so it's not a problem. There is the capacity to go a step further and actually integrate transports into the underlying supply chain mechanic, which is what they were actually used for when they weren't dropping paratroops/supplies into encircled/hard-to-reach areas.

- When was there ever a situation in the actual second world war where there was a serious diversion of assets from a strategic or tactical bombing operation to undertake supply or paradrops (I may be forced to eat humble pie on this one, I'm not full-bottle on every air operation of the war, but I'm fairly sure I'm on at least reasonable ground - but if I'm wrong, by all means point it out ), outside of the use of He-111s, which were a hybrid design, unlike the vast majority of bombers in WW2. My understanding of HoI was it was about trying to give the player a chance to make some of the decisions similar to those in the actual conflict, not adding new decisions.

- Expanding on that, many have used the He-111 and Ju-52 as examples of a bomber being used as a transport (or vice versa), but in both of these cases, they were designed as hybrids - the 52 as mainly a transport and the 111 as mainly a bomber, but both able to fulfil both roles. By the sound of it, this should and can be taken into account in the unit builder, by giving the appropriate airframe some transport capacity (similarly, older bomber models can be converted this way). But this is a wholly different thing to the assumption that all medium/heavy bombers can be used interchangeably with no conversion, which is game breaking.

 

[redflag]

He 111 transport plane (cant show German one due to the symbol on the tail)

He 111 bomber

Please implement transport planes! I see you have implemented transport ships under the naval production and tech tree, please do the same for transport planes. I need to have Ju52 s transport my German Airborne, not a He 111 (Example Only)

 

[Secret Master]

You misunderstood. Remember how they also had a gazillion transport wings? Now you don't need those. Instead of "wasting" IC on transports, you can now go for 200 strats instead of 90 strats and 110 transports. Which basically means that you can send Germany back to the time of the real Barbarossa in 6 months or less. That's my concern.

I will darken the sky with so many heavy airframes that it will cause a vampire uprising that will wipe out humanity.

 

[redflag]

And you cannot just 'drop' 16 people out the bomb bay like 250 pound bombs.

 

[Gamer_1745]

A Rocketeer Mod? :laugh:

 

[Axe99]

@Redflag - they're converted Stirlings (you can tell from the tail and the absent front turret):

Edit: They're actually converted Whitleys, apologies, but same issue - they needed converting.

In late 1943, 143 Mk.III bombers were rebuilt to the new Mk.IV series specification (without nose and dorsal turrets), for towing gliders and dropping paratroops, as well as 461 Mk.IVs being built.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Stirling

Again, you're actually reinforcing the point that for bombers to be used in paratroop work, they need to be built or converted to purpose. A one-off shot of a thrillseeker wingsuiting it out of a B-17 is hardly a convincing argument that they could be used in this fashion in a WW2 game, unless we're working the wingsuit into the tech tree?

 

[redflag]

If a bomber can carry bombs in its bomb bay it can carry supplies in its bomb bay. Does it make economic sense no but can it be done yes. A bomber could transport even more supplies/cargo if its machine guns were removed and ammunition for the guns not loaded onto the plane. One could simply remove the bomb rack and voila you have a cargo space at minimal modification to the plane.

The below pictures are from a B 17 bomb bay. Notice that people could stand up in the bomb bay so its possible to have paratroopers leave from the bomb bay (does it make economic sense no but it can be done)

Here is an example of a 10 crew members escaping from a b 24. I am assuming if bombs were removed from the bomb bay and no machine gunners were on the plane at least 10 paratroopers could be loaded on the plane (a paratrooper replacing every machine gunner plus two in the bomb bay). Does it make economic sense no but can it be done at minimal cost yes.

 

[Axe99]

Here is an example of a 10 crew members escaping from a b 24. I am assuming if bombs were removed from the bomb bay and no machine gunners were on the plane at least 10 paratroopers could be loaded on the plane (a paratrooper replacing every machine gunner plus two in the bomb bay). Does it make economic sense no but can it be done at minimal cost yes.

There's a lot of assuming going on here (and depending where this goes, I'll address it), but even if this were the case (the reason I'm not addressing it now - it's redundant), are we going to force any nation that wants an airborne force to build more expensive aircraft just to fulfil that purpose? For D-Day, the Allies will need 3300, less economic bombers to perform historically. Again, implicit in your arguments, even if we accept them, is the skewing of gameplay, and by no means in a necessarily fun direction. How many less armoured brigades can Germany field because instead of being able to build cheaper Ju-52s, it's stuck building He-111s and Ju-88s to do all its supply runs and paradrops? There was a sensible, strategic reason why transport planes were built in their thousands. You can't remove this class of aircraft without having a significant impact on the capacity of the game to play as a WW2 game.

Edit: There are five gunners on that aircraft, not 8 .

 

[RickInVA]

The difference is of course that the division builder is important and fun while making transports isnt particularly. Transportation of course becomes more interesting gameplay wise if it ties up your otherwise important bomber force as well as allowing historical options like germany being able to use bombers for both transport and bombing.

Its also about total complexity - you add complexity somewhere you will probably have to remove it elsewhere to keep things manageable, which is what we are doing with HOI4. Removing tedious crap and adding more details where we think its most interesting. I'm sure people will disagree which is why hoi4 is very moddable. I dont like to play super detailed mods like BICE for example [emphasis added] but I totally understand that some people crave that kind of detail etc for their enjoyment, meanwhile that kind of detail means that a lot of other players cant enjoy the game.

also I should know better than to try and argue design on the forum, it never leads to a good place ;D

Podcat, I ask a serious question...should the game be designed to please you personally or to appeal to the players? IMHO the better answer is the latter. In some cases it seems to me that you take an implacable position on something that is easily changed, doesn't add any of that dreaded "complexity" to the game (still don't get why that is a problem), and is historically accurate and significant. There is nothing wrong, and a lot right, with having both transport planes and having the ability for bombers to be (very ineffective) transports.

I would hope that PI's developers would be open to suggestions. I'm beginning to feel that isn't the case.