Hearts of Iron IV - Development Diary 5 - Production Lines

[Nelfe]

Sorry if someone has already asked this, but will it be possible to have multiple lines of production of the same unit ?

For example, replace the screen with IL-2 instead of Hurricane and T-34/85 instead of Churchill. I want mass production of this medium tank, and the line of production can produce only 17/week as it's impossible to put more than 15 factories on a line. Can I use the IL-2 line for another line of production of T-34/85 (and I'll have 17x2 tanks per weeks) or you can produce an unit only in one line ?

 

[podcat]

Sorry if someone has already asked this, but will it be possible to have multiple lines of production of the same unit ?

yes

 

[Nelfe]

yes

Oh, thank you very much !
Germans, beware of the T-34/85 invasion !

 

[SonGoku]

Oh, thank you very much !
Germans, beware of the T-34/85 invasion !

Soviets, beware of the Panzer IV invasion!

 

[zinger98]

Podcat...

Can trucks please be explained?

Motorized units need them, HQ units need them and strategic supply need them (in addition to trains). I have heard that they will not be "produced" but abstracted and I'm curious how this may affect gameplay, especially considering how US trucks allowed the Soviets to keep things going to allow the Soviets to concentrate on tanks.

**edit** and how it was difficult for Germany to equip all of their motorized units (they had to scrape from other country's vehicles).

 

[Joppos]

Podcat...

Can trucks please be explained?

Motorized units need them, HQ units need them and strategic supply need them (in addition to trains). I have heard that they will not be "produced" but abstracted and I'm curious how this may affect gameplay, especially considering how US trucks allowed the Soviets to keep things going to allow the Soviets to concentrate on tanks.

**edit** and how it was difficult for Germany to equip all of their motorized units (they had to scrape from other country's vehicles).

As far as i know, divisions will have abstracted 'general equipment' in which trucks are assumed to be a part of. I'm sure this will be moddable though, to include them and other stuff as separate equipment. It would give more life to LL deals in actually sending vehicles rather than abstracted resources, if that will be possible at all.

 

[zinger98]

As far as i know, divisions will have abstracted 'general equipment' in which trucks are assumed to be a part of. I'm sure this will be moddable though, to include them and other stuff as separate equipment. It would give more life to LL deals in actually sending vehicles rather than abstracted resources, if that will be possible at all.

Is that also how they plan on mortars, machine guns, rifles and engineer equipment?

 

[Porkman]

Is that also how they plan on mortars, machine guns, rifles and engineer equipment?

Yes. Unfortunately. So you're going to have Chinese divisions that are functionally as well equipped as US divisions since the game can't differentiate enough to show the lack of mortars and machine guns.

 

[Joppos]

Is that also how they plan on mortars, machine guns, rifles and engineer equipment?

Yes, things like that will be abstracted into this one equipment type. They're building a good base for mods to increase the detail a lot though, i just hope that the interface will be adaptable or not too dependent on a division having relatively few equipment types.

 

[zinger98]

While I'm not looking for super grognard level gaming, the various equipment should be indicated. Difference between bolt action rifle infantry and semi-auto rifle equipped infantry should be modeled; as should reserve and secondary units.

I would handle it by having 3, possibly 4 tiers of equipment levels. The higher the tier, the more new equipment it gets. This would allow older equipment to flow to lower tier units. Want a specific sector of the front to receive new equipment? Make them tier 1. Want your garrison units in the interior to be the last to get new equipment? Make them tier 4.

I have personal experience in this when I went from active duty to a reserve unit... the reserve unit had older rifles, M113 APC's, older radios and other various equipment. In game terms, you may have 300,000 M1903 Springfield rifles available while producing the M1 Garand... the higher tier units would receive the new rifles first, same with machine guns, mortars, APCs, tanks, artillery pieces, AA guns, etc.

It would work.

 

[Lanksta]

Why should the difference between bolt action rifles and semi-automatic rifles be modelled into the game? A study conducted by the US Army found that whilst their infantrymen had the possibility fir superior firepower, commanders found that they still fired the Garand as if it were a bolt action rifle, firing single shots accurately and not firing as fast as they could.

Secondly if this were to be modelled in the game, could the case be made that British troops with the Lee Enfield have a superior rate of fire than the Germans with their K-98s? Many Germans believed British soldiers were armed with automatics given how fast they could fire. I think differentiating small arms just opens up a huge can of worms.

 

[Porkman]

Why should the difference between bolt action rifles and semi-automatic rifles be modelled into the game? A study conducted by the US Army found that whilst their infantrymen had the possibility fir superior firepower, commanders found that they still fired the Garand as if it were a bolt action rifle, firing single shots accurately and not firing as fast as they could.

Secondly if this were to be modelled in the game, could the case be made that British troops with the Lee Enfield have a superior rate of fire than the Germans with their K-98s? Many Germans believed British soldiers were armed with automatics given how fast they could fire. I think differentiating small arms just opens up a huge can of worms.

It's not small arms (like an enfield vs a K98) it's the amount of them that's important. A German division with it's absolute abundance in heavy and light machine guns (of whatever type) has a huge advantage over a Bulgarian division with far less. It's more of quantity of the mortars and machine guns than a real quality issue.
But it's not in the game, so whatever.

 

[Darkath]

Weapon quality was mostly a factor on a tactical point of view, ie on the field, when lives of the soldiers could depend on their weapon reliability and overal spec.
but overall as porkman said it was mostly the weapon's availability as well a supplies that were the most important factor. No matter how good your gun is, if there is no man to fire the trigger or no bullet to put in the chamber, that weapon is useless.

On global, strategical point of view, there could be a case about how weapon quality and diversity affected production. This was especially apparent for the japanese who mostly relied on the same 2 Arisaka bolt action rifles for most of the war, as their industrial capacity was not enough to sustain mass production of more advanced designs.

A mod could probably be able to handle these issues with HOI4 production system, but i think it's a layer of detail that going way to deep.

 

[Dalwin]

It's not small arms (like an enfield vs a K98) it's the amount of them that's important. A German division with it's absolute abundance in heavy and light machine guns (of whatever type) has a huge advantage over a Bulgarian division with far less. It's more of quantity of the mortars and machine guns than a real quality issue.
But it's not in the game, so whatever.

The way I understand the system to be working, let's look at that German vs Bulgarian comparison. First we have to have some game mechanics to distinguish them. It will probably be doctrines, but maybe we'll end up with infantry tech levels again too.

Once you have that differentiation, it is not hard, even with abstracted equipment, to say something like the German division needs 20% more of the generic equipment per division than the Bulgarian one does. Naturally that number is pulled out of thin air, but some calculation could be done that factors in the difference.

By the way, I totally agree that it is the quantity of mortars and MGs that makes the big difference with models being almost irrelevent.

It may all sound generic but certainly not more so than having everything from tanks to toilet seats simply cost IC to build (with identical raw material inputs) and have it all simply cost IC again to upgrade.

 

[Gamer_1745]

Why should the difference between bolt action rifles and semi-automatic rifles be modelled into the game? A study conducted by the US Army found that whilst their infantrymen had the possibility fir superior firepower, commanders found that they still fired the Garand as if it were a bolt action rifle, firing single shots accurately and not firing as fast as they could.

Secondly if this were to be modelled in the game, could the case be made that British troops with the Lee Enfield have a superior rate of fire than the Germans with their K-98s? Many Germans believed British soldiers were armed with automatics given how fast they could fire. I think differentiating small arms just opens up a huge can of worms.

Semi-Auto verses Bolt-Action re: M1 & 1903. You can fire both at the same slow rate of fire, but to work the action of the 1903 you have to take the rifle off target and with the M1 you can stay on target. This effects combat effectiveness very much!

K98 & M1903 both have the long stroke bolt-action and the Enfield has a short stroke bolt action. The Enfield allows you to be able to keep your eyes looking though the sights while working the the action and this increases your effective fire firing rate. In WWI and maybe later some Australian units could work the action of their Enfield with just their thumb & fore finger and pull the trigger with their pinky. This allowed the unit to fire unaimed shots at the rate of machineguns for a short period.

Boltaction rifles are not 'all the same'! Germany had millions of Gewehr 98 left over from WWI and felt the need to reequip their Army with the Karabiner 98k.


I hope they have a good person doing small arms techs! For either the base game or the later DLCs.

 

[plasticpanzers]

I am unsure but in all HOI games a rifle is a rifle and a cannon is a cannon with whatever name you choose to give it. It depends of
the model "level" rather than the acutal weapon, all else is just glitz. A Bulgarian MG in HOI is the same as a German or a US one of
the same level, none are better or worse. Small arms techs are not based on actual weapons, just increasing the tech 'level' of the
weapon.

 

[Gamer_1745]

Yes, that is true. With the new production line you can model equipment much better. I am hoping for a DLC that addresses this. If not I am considering making a mod after I see what factors weapons have. The idea weapons add to defensiveness is just wrong! Terrain, dig-in bonuses, armor, tactics can add to defensiveness. Weapons should just add to different types of damage and it is just which side can do the most damage the fastest that brakes the other side.

 

[Chromos]

In general I agree on the weapon comparison, but in just some more detail the e.g. US/UK etc, MG's that should be different ones as for GER.
As the former improved their light ones, and GER had Multipurpose. Wich were quite different in effectiveness.
Of course you can also abstract that wich just giving GER a better lvl of overall MG tech..
All depending on how your combat modell works.

And I think defensiveness is a quite good thing. Especially for automatic fire weapons. As that was one of the main benefits. You suppress the enemy and take less counter fire yourself too, while being able to do more dmg at the same time.
Overall the casualities in battletime decreased with the more modern firearms..
(Well if you're not told to march in direct MG fire of course..)

 

[Gamer_1745]

Is an artillery barrage offensive? I think so, but it can be used defensively. MGs do suppress the enemy. Is that offensive or defensive? It depends on how/where/when. That is why one of the factors for defensiveness I put down was tactics.

I would like all non-self-propelled weapons have a mobility factor. A heavy artillery piece would be less Mobile than a mountain gun. I am not taking about speed. Something like how many men it would take to move a weapon. So a Vickers MG would be less mobile than a MG-34. A MG-34 & MG-42 would have the same mobility, but the MG-42 would have more firepower.

I would love to have a conversation with podcat on how weapon systems can be modeled in HOI IV.

Things like firepower, mobility, reliability. Not all MG's were equally reliable. Ergonomics or handiness? All the factors get added up.

'suppress the enemy' should reduce the enemies effective firepower, not increase your defensiveness.

 

[Gamer_1745]

Thinking how to say this.

Country A's 2 divisions are attacking country B's 1 division. Make this simple divisions each has 100 points of fire power and 1,000 points of manpower(or whatever), how much damage it could take. So when country A's 2 division attacks it does 200 points of damage. Country B's 1 division has a defensiveness of 30 because of being dug-in so it only take 170 points of damage.

Now if country B's division weapons had a suppressive factor of 20 (reduce all incoming firepower by 20 from each division) only 160 points would be effective. And then reduced by defensive factors of 30 point so now it would be 130

Next setup 1 division from country A with 200 (a stronger division) point of firepower is attacking country B's division and country B's suppression is 20 so 180 point of firepower would get though. And with defense of 30 so 150 points.