Hearts of Iron IV - Development Diary 5 - Production Lines

[InnocentIII]

The new resource system is a simple and elegant solution to an old problem. Looking good =D

+1

While I will end up cursing the inability to pile up strategic resources at some point and shout stuff at the screen like "tungsten is like phone minutes with no rollover, really?" I think this will work out very well. And I appreciate the ability to run the US without going nuts (just put me in, coach).

Your point on efficiency works out very well thinking about the USA, too. A Sherman tank isn't that great, huh? Would you feel the same way about 50,000 of them?

 

[Alex_brunius]

A dev stated the the efficiency is tracked for each factory and the efficiency is a weighted average. If you remove the number of factories, their contribution to the efficiency average is removed. There won't be the possibility of gaming the system (in that regard anyway).

What I am reading here is that removing factories always improves the efficiency:

You can, efficiency is actually stored per factory, so adding more will "dilute" your efficiency a bit, while removing them will increase it somewhat.

Perhaps you are reading something else?

 

[Big Nev]

There's no quality level to resources, if you have what you need everything is hunky-dory, if you are short it is assumed the slower production is you scraping up the resources someway-somehow so you still end up with the same final result.

Here's an American report on Panther armour though:
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a954952.pdf
And:
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a954940.pdf
(but we won't model stuff like this ingame)

The “Mo/Trace” says it all.
I’m very surprised to learn that the Germans didn’t seem to know how to properly heat treat this particular alloy though. That’s shocking!

And I couldn’t resist looking-up duck-tape. Apparently, first used (in 1902) to wrap the steel cables used to support the deck of the Brooklyn Bridge! Not the duck-tape we know today though so there should be several stages of duck-tape development.

Podcat, you say that the effects of the metallurgical reports you posted (which were fascinating BTW) won’t be modelled. But… Molybdenum was (is) a critical element in the manufacture heat-treatable steels. I know almost all of the world’s Mo was mined in the USA (and that the market was artificially created) but, once it was realised how useful Moly’ was, everyone who could get it used it. Would making Mo a strategic resource make the USA too powerful and/or nerf Germany?

 

[mursolini]

Devs, do I understand it right that resources will be covered separately in a DD?
If we can build IC, can we increase the quantity of strategic resources and raw inputs, aside from just tech, by building extraction industry?

Planes are certainly going to consume aluminium. This is where the new system becomes interesting:
Jet fighters like the ME-263 had a serious heat-problem. Only tungsten could solve that. Without tungsten, the planes suffered heavy damage from overheating. The Brits were aware of that. So they pre-emptively bought all the tungsten they could, mainly from Germany's main supplier of that resource: Turkey.

Not all planes should consume Aluminium.

SU actually had a pretty good line of fully-wooden fighters, LaGG-3, La-5, La-7,
Germans used wood for their Jets(HE-162) an other planes,
British used Moskito, the "Timber terror", mostly made from wood.

Neither of the planes was bad compared to their aluminium counterparts.

Your point on efficiency works out very well thinking about the USA, too. A Sherman tank isn't that great, huh? Would you feel the same way about 50,000 of them?

20k Pershings would be better.
:rofl:

 

[ThalesMM]

Great improvements on production. Thanks!
I hope you improve manpower/population system as well. Using manpower in factories or in the army should matters!

 

[dizzle3]

One very important thing that's couple of people touched on, I like the system, but it needs to be set up to avoid abuse/micromanagement nightmares.

For example, suppose I set 5 factories in a production line and get them to churn out medium tanks. Suppose I let them run for a whole year and this makes me 5200 tanks (100 per week, or 20 per factory week)

I contend that it shouldn't be possible to beat this number by gaming the system, e.g.
-put 15 factories on the run for 1/3rd of the year should net me less than 5200 tanks
-put 6 factories on for 6 months, then put 4 factories on for the rest of the year should net me less than 5200 tanks (and equivalently putting on 4 then 6...)
-putting the 5 factories on light tanks for 3 months then swapping to medium tanks should net me less than 5200 medium tanks

Just making sure that there isn't going to be micromanagement loopholes like were left in the hoi3 production system, e.g. upgrading units was more efficient than building them to increase practicals, training laws exploits, reserves exploits...

 

[TKFS]

Looks awesome! I really hope that there is some sort of efficiency bonus for grouping your industry.

 

[Ciaphas Cain]

What I am reading here is that removing factories always improves the efficiency:

No, adding new ones without efficiency in that field will lower the average and removing them will bring the average up again. There's no transfer. Not dilute as in mixing everything up.

 

[ingwe]

No, adding new ones without efficiency in that field will lower the average and removing them will bring the average up again. There's no transfer. Not dilute as in mixing everything up.

Exactly. Darkrenown was talking about adding new factories to the line with old factories that already have high efficiency.

 

[podcat]

Devs, do I understand it right that resources will be covered separately in a DD?

yeah probably when we talk trade. We just wanted to touch on it enough to explain how production lines work

Podcat, you say that the effects of the metallurgical reports you posted (which were fascinating BTW) won’t be modelled. But… Molybdenum was (is) a critical element in the manufacture heat-treatable steels. I know almost all of the world’s Mo was mined in the USA (and that the market was artificially created) but, once it was realised how useful Moly’ was, everyone who could get it used it. Would making Mo a strategic resource make the USA too powerful and/or nerf Germany?

we will likely use Chrome in the role of resource needed for advanced armored stuff. Its more or less used for similar purposes (creating stronger alloys). However, should it be useful for gameplay balance we might introduce more resources. Nothing is really set in stone

 

[Kovax]

So if I have a high efficiency line and I get a better model and I shift all but one factory out, does that mean I can instantly ramp back up production if I need to?

Will strategic bombardment disrupt deficiency or just factories?

Will civilian industries be civilian exclusively or will there be some overlap with military production? Can factories change type? Can civilian industry build more military factories or increase raw materials production?

Will oil just be an industrial good or will there be any sort of strategic pool for use by units?

The first question was already answered. There will be some gain of efficiency (via concentration) when you scale back to a single factory, but a big loss of efficiency when you ramp up production again, because that "efficiency" will then be divided up among a larger number of factories. That PROBABLY means that expanding from 3 to 4 won't be too bad, but an increase from 1 to 10 is going to drop your efficiency pretty hard. The game seems to reward gradual expansion rather than sudden leaps.

They also said that it would be possible to change factory types from civilian to military, etc. They did not say what it would require to do so.

 

[Ciaphas Cain]

we will likely use Chrome in the role of resource needed for advanced armored stuff.

What about Firefox?

 

[podcat]

What about Firefox?

chrome is a better browser these days imo

 

[Kriegsspieler]

And I couldn’t resist looking-up duck-tape. Apparently, first used (in 1902) to wrap the steel cables used to support the deck of the Brooklyn Bridge! Not the duck-tape we know today though so there should be several stages of duck-tape development.

Thanks. And it was invented in the US? I'm so proud to be an American . . . >sniff!<
So back on topic: Could duct tape be given a dedicated research path leading to special repair/maintenance bonuses?

 

[Mug Bubule]

In your example, you show the choice that a player could make between T-34 and T-43, can he still build T-34 while creating a second line of T-43 which will gain efficiency slowly and so change smoothly the priority between the two tank production (in, let say, 1 year) ?

And can you stockpile equipement ? Like Russian who had a lot of rifle stockpiled for their different wave of mobilisation ?

 

[Joppos]

I like the idea to tie production lines to specific areas (regions). That neat little tweak would mean

- 1 line can't have more than 15 factories (or whatever the max per region is)
- practical gains are focused/shared in one region (e.g. when you set up a monster 15 factories/1 region panzer line, it will be very efficient, but also very vulnerable to start bombing)

My 2 cents.

Snoopy

I don't see why all associated factories would have needed to be located in the same region as the production line. The bulk should probably be so, but in many cases a lot of parts were produced in other areas of a country. Having a system where you assign a production line to a province/region and let it assign the closest factories to itself would probably go a long way in enabling real strategic opportunities/consequences from bombing, sabotage, invading and so on.

 

[Big Nev]

Thanks. And it was invented in the US? I'm so proud to be an American . . . >sniff!<
So back on topic: Could duct tape be given a dedicated research path leading to special repair/maintenance bonuses?

Well it certainly should have some benefits.

All the way to improved Soft Attack for infantry (especially marine infantry) units as it was used as a waterproof seal for ammo boxes that was easily torn by hand, thus improving both their resistance to spoiling by water and the speed at which they could be opened.

I'll let you complete the research on duck tape yourself.

An' don't get too emotional. I'm sure the actual tape was a British import that some Yank spilt jam (jelly) or corn syrup on

 

[mattyh1995]

This looks great. My only question is this: Will we be able to set production lines to modify existing vehicles in the equipment pool? Ie, creating support vehicles from captured tanks (providing you can do this), converting Pz III's to Stug III's, Shermans to Sherman fireflies.etc

 

[Kovax]

This system has some positive implications for the way minor countries handle techs and equipment. In HOI3, the minors couldn't research what they had historically, but they could somehow crank out a fairly large amount of advanced equipment via licenses, or if they concentrated on one field. Historically, they could often keep pace one or two cycles behind the majors in several fields, but couldn't build enough of it to matter. This system should allow them to design some close-to-current "useful" stuff, but be sharply limited (thanks to practical efficiency) from building more than a few examples before they become even further obsolete.

It should also make it practical for one to "tech rush" an advanced design into production, then proceed to ramp up and build it in enormous quantities (with occasional minor upgrades) for most of the war, until it becomes laughably obsolete.

I like the possibility of encountering "obsolete" equipment in everyone's OOB, since most countries didn't scrap their existing stuff when a new model came out.

 

[Ciaphas Cain]

It should also make it practical for one to "tech rush" an advanced design into production, then proceed to ramp up and build it in enormous quantities (with occasional minor upgrades) for most of the war, until it becomes laughably obsolete.

They could also be used to ease the transition for the majors by supplying them with obsolete designs for their older units.