HOI4 Dev Diary - Equipment Conversion & War Update

[princeseth]

@podcat get well soon man we need you in the front ... great DD by the way ...

 

[Balesir]

Yes, it is rather easy to mod that.
In my personal mod, I've done it for all Axis, USSR and some of the Allies.

Just create the dds-file and make a SpriteType for it = done.

Great - sprite type just in the tech_icons file? Or do you need the basic type set somewhere?

 

[Daelyn75]

Any base model or variant (up to one tech level back) to a self propelled. So you can convert a Medium Tank 1 to a Medium Tank Destroyer 1 or Medium Tank Destroyer 2 (the second one would then cost more resources).

Does this also include the ability to convert old tanks over to an AA tank? I assume it does, but assuming doesn't mean it will.

 

[RedBarron]

Does this also include the ability to convert old tanks over to an AA tank? I assume it does, but assuming doesn't mean it will.

By "Self-Propelled" he may be covering all three based:

SPAA - Self Propelled Anti-Air
SPAT - Self Propelled Anti-Tank
SPART - Self Propelled Artillery

Though he chose only one type as an example.

 

[bernu harti]

I was waiting for the equipment conversion since HOI4 was launched – because from my point of view the production of equipment instead of units was the dominant step forwards in comparison to HOI3. Move further on! A great point would be to incorporate the categories “damaged” and “heavy damaged” in land battles. “Damaged equipment” could be repaired at the front, “heavy damaged equipment” should go back into the production line for repair with the possibility of simultaneous conversion (upgrade) – exactly as it was historically (at least in German Reich) – perhaps for captured enemy equipment too (both for example monthly). The ownership of the battlefield after the battle was decisive for the rescue chance of damaged equipment. The consequence - not only unused equipment in the stockpile could be used for conversion and upgrade (as it was historically).

 

[PotatoesOfDoom]

@podcat would it be possible to allow us to mark as obsolete equipment freely regardless of whether it's a variant or a base? It'd be nice to be able to unclutter the production interface by being able to only show the equipment which the player wants produced, rather than the current state where for example light and medium tanks will clutter up the interface and lead to misclicks even after variant modern tanks are in full production.

 

[Wraith11B]

Great update, @podcat, can't wait to put it to use!

Also, since @Meglok 's thing worked I'm going to try my own... maybe @Axe99 should get involved:

Make Naval Combat Great

 

[JerryChan]

Am bored of the game at the moment just release this lovely dlc to me

 

[Meglok]

Imagine you have 8000 light tanks just sitting in your depot because you replaced them with medium tanks.
Sure, you COULD give it to an ally and they might find some use for it for a while, but I think that spending some time and resources to convert those tanks to TD's would be far more beneficial. Or if you are in an MP game, you can give it to an ally and let them convert them to TD's for example as the conversion cost will be far lower than making them from scratch, which would really help a smaller country that can't keep up with the production cost / demand, assuming a faction member is playing a minor nation.

If I have 8000 light tanks in my inventory I have done something wrong.

Usually by the time I have light tanks out of all of my templates there are only a few thousand left at most, and depending upon my nation I can find a use for them. As Germany Romania and Italy ALWAYS need more light tanks. As Russia I either burn thru them stopping Germany or use them to roll over the Japanese since they tend to lack piercing capability. Maybe I just pay more attention to my inventories and production.

@podcat I do hope the ai will consider conversion and be able to convert leased equipment. If the ai either can't or won't then this really lessens the improvement.

True, it's kind of like the converse civilian to military factories.

Though I can think of perhaps one scenario where it could be good. If you play as france, and start building 1936 heavy tanks and then rush for the 1941 heavy tanks while improving your industry, then maybe you could get a decent tank army if you are quick.

Other than that, I can't really see much of a use for it, since people should learn to minimize-maximize their production.

There are always situations where this might be useful, especially if MIC is tight like with the Italians, France, or UK. I can see it being use a lot in MP, an example being the US mass producing basic light or medium tanks with a high efficiency, leasing them to allies, and the Allies upgrading as needed.

Also, since @Meglok 's thing worked I'm going to try my own... maybe @Axe99 should get involved:

Make Naval Combat Great

LOL, I just picked low hanging fruit. @billcorr and others had done most of the work in the thread. They proved the basis of the argument, it was a simple improvement with noticeable impact. I just play tested it quick and publicized the heck out of it. I think your cause might be a wee bit too broad and it is already on the agenda for 1.5.

 

[SentosKarum]

So, to clarify:

Russian Medium Tank II being converted into German Medium Tank II, not possible? (*sadface*)
Russian Medium Tank II being converted into German Medium Tank Destroyer/SPG/AA II, possible?

Will this also work for equipment, i.e. Soviet Infantry Equipment II being converted into German Infantry Equipment II?

While you're there, did you change the data type of the equipment counter so that it's doesn't overflow after measly ~1.2 million stored units? Please say yes.

Basically will this allow me to convert the captured Transport Planes of 20+ nations into just my transport planes? I was not kidding with this report, I had so many captured planes from so many nations that I couldn't find my transport planes at all. (Also please overhaul that UI to make it easier to find the planes I want).

For ships I'd like the option to send a ship in for a replacement: The old ship gets scrapped when the new one starts construction. The new one inherits the name, is a bit cheaper and retains a portion of the XP of the old ship.
Also, why do we never capture ships* as parts of surrenders?
*except convoys

 

[REDDQ]

I would have though that you can't go prop to jet, and if you can then I think you shouldn't be able to! They are just to different.

Not that different, not yet. Anyway, Yak-15 and Saab 21R come to mind but they were based on piston engine fighters (similar with StuG where very small number was actually converted from actual tanks), there was never a need to convert and newer designs were swiftly coming.

 

[Wraith11B]

LOL, I just picked low hanging fruit. @billcorr and others had done most of the work in the thread. They proved the basis of the argument, it was a simple improvement with noticeable impact. I just play tested it quick and publicized the heck out of it. I think your cause might be a wee bit too broad and it is already on the agenda for 1.5.

Quite, but the naval combat is perennially a problem in HoI. I have to hold out the hope.

Make Naval Combat Great...

 

[Legionarii]

Great content guys. You should add CTRL-click to production screen for up and down though. So we can go x10 and not click the button like 50 times. This means more in mods like Black ICE, it adds another column.

 

[Axe99]

Yup, although it makes no sense at all
View attachment 264329
I'd also feel forced to rename the resulting variant to "Flappy bird"

Hahaha, love your work . Thank you very much for confirming. +1 for more choices in the tech trees as well. I'm hoping to put together a naval doctrine tech tree where there are more 'small exclusive choices' rather than one big one at the start - things like this may make tech choices more engaging over time (and from a naval perspective, I'm hoping to have it set up where different choices are better at different times - ie, going carrier-mad pre-1940 may be sub-optimal - although need to do a bunch of thinking/testing). Just mentioning it in case idea useful, appreciate it complicates balancing as well as AI tech management, so no suggesting it's a good idea.

Can we increase the Army/Navy/Air XP up to a limit of 999 (from 500) so we can play around with variants more? It doesn't make sense that producing a new tank variant uses an entire year's worth of accumulated Army XP, XP which also needs to be used to update division templates to fit in these new converted machines!

This is moddable (and easily, in the defines). However, for the vanilla systems I find the base values work pretty well. Also, increasing the XP limit won't change the amount of XP required to make a variant (but that's moddable too ).

Agreed, so to make the change it also needs to be supported or automated in some way, say for example I set a target variant I want to work towards ( once XP becomes available ), and the game automatically keeps iterating until It reaches this in the same order I put points into the "target". Or maybe this is used to dump XP once I reach the cap or something. Or some limits to how much you can improve newly unlocked vehicles. Lot's of ways to solve the issue, but upping the cap to 999 would only make it worse.

I really like this idea - would highly recommend making sure it finds its way into the suggestions box, if it's not there already .

Oh guys just say it, will you?

"As it used to be in previous games."

It's yet another feature that's missing from the earlier installments and I'm still to understand why.

Actually, if they get naval equipment working as sub-equipment to ships, it will be potentially substantially deeper than previous HoIs. Because of the complete rework of how units were constructed (and the greater depth this occurs at), I can see why they didn't have this in at launch. As long as they flesh it out over time, I'll be happy (but I'm not suggesting it's wrong if you or anyone else is unhappy ).

Great update, @podcat, can't wait to put it to use!

Also, since @Meglok 's thing worked I'm going to try my own... maybe @Axe99 should get involved:

Make Naval Combat Great

Haha, if improving the naval system was as simple as changing the resource values in a few files, I'd be all over that, but it's a much more involved process. The good news is a number of the devs know their stuff, so once they've got the capacity to turn their attention to it, I'm sure we'll get some significant improvements (and if I wasn't confident of this, I'd be lobbying pretty hard, but I'd bet good money it's already on their 'to do' list, and don't want to come across as a nag). I've made a few suggestions in the suggestions forum, and definitely recommend others doing the same, there's plenty of ways to look at modelling this kind of thing in game, and more ideas are always good .

 

[adam_grif]

Actually, if they get naval equipment working as sub-equipment to ships, it will be potentially substantially deeper than previous HoIs. Because of the complete rework of how units were constructed (and the greater depth this occurs at), I can see why they didn't have this in at launch. As long as they flesh it out over time, I'll be happy (but I'm not suggesting it's wrong if you or anyone else is unhappy ).

The main argument I can see against this is complexity and confusion over what produces which equipment. For example is NIC now just producing hulls, with MIC producing guns, radar etc, or will NIC produce all of that separately? If you did need MIC to produce, it will probably end up similar to CAGs, but with even less incentive to maintain long term production lines. Just produce a bunch of "big guns" and some "naval AA guns" (or regular AA guns even) and then just be done with it. But there's no attrition, unless you get battle damage on ships to attrit that sort of thing.

If you wanted to add this system, imo that would be justification for having an entirely separate screen for naval production similar to the division designer, the "naval production" or "naval planner" or something. You queue up ships you want of carious classes, and it will tell you the equipment needs in MIC and lets you directly assign NIC, and possibly even MIC but I'm not sure how that would work in relation to the other screen exactly.

Alternatively, the production screen would need to be subdivided, not just filtered.

 

[Axe99]

The main argument I can see against this is complexity and confusion over what produces which equipment. For example is NIC now just producing hulls, with MIC producing guns, radar etc, or will NIC produce all of that separately? If you did need MIC to produce, it will probably end up similar to CAGs, but with even less incentive to maintain long term production lines. Just produce a bunch of "big guns" and some "naval AA guns" (or regular AA guns even) and then just be done with it. But there's no attrition, unless you get battle damage on ships to attrit that sort of thing.

If you wanted to add this system, imo that would be justification for having an entirely separate screen for naval production similar to the division designer, the "naval production" or "naval planner" or something. You queue up ships you want of carious classes, and it will tell you the equipment needs in MIC and lets you directly assign NIC, and possibly even MIC but I'm not sure how that would work in relation to the other screen exactly.

Alternatively, the production screen would need to be subdivided, not just filtered.

A naval planning screen is a good idea . In terms of production, the USN, IJN and RN were producing naval guns constantly throughout the war, and particularly AA guns. For the base game, if it were me I'd probably go with only having equipment for things that were upgradeable (radar, AA, anti-sub weaponry, sonar, maybe fire control, although this generally wasn't changed much once it was installed and for smaller ships could be a right pain to change), and then variant-able hulls for things like main armament, propulsion and armour. That would keep it simple, and limit the things that would be built to things most ships needed (so would need constant production lines like most other things in the game, unless someone stopped building ships altogether).

If this happened at the same time as a system where NIC was turned into 'shipways' representing the hulls being built (with convoys finding their way over here as well perhaps), and all the equipment was built by MIC, that'd keep factory production under one 'IC' roof, and hull production under another. Just thoughts, probably best we don't get too carried away discussing it here, as it's not strictly on-topic.

 

[Karbinder]

Would the production conversion also include converting normal aircraft to carrier aircraft (and vice versa)? or is this strictly ground equipment only?

 

[Ancalimé]

LOL, I just picked low hanging fruit. @billcorr and others had done most of the work in the thread. They proved the basis of the argument, it was a simple improvement with noticeable impact. I just play tested it quick and publicized the heck out of it. I think your cause might be a wee bit too broad and it is already on the agenda for 1.5.

How about a "do not upgrade" button for air units though? Let's make that a reality.

Actually, if they get naval equipment working as sub-equipment to ships, it will be potentially substantially deeper than previous HoIs. ecause of the complete rework of how units were constructed (and the greater depth this occurs at)...

You'll need to elaborate for me to understand this.
I can't see how the current production system is better than the old "brigade" system -speaking for ship modules.
Are you alluding to the variant system? And are you suggesting that modules would be mass produced? It makes sense for AA and torpedo stuff, but not really for radar, fire control, ASDIC etc.

I feel I'm misunderstanding your point.

 

[Stug_Life]

Will you be adding more 2D art for armor variants for majors by any chance?

 

[Magnificent Genius]

I know I'm going to get hammered for this but...

I didn't choose the StuG life, the StuG life chose me.