HOI4 Dev Diary - Scout Planes and breaking the Enigma - and Stream premieres today at 16:00CET!

[podcat]

Military planes flying over other nations while at peace? That doesn't sound right.

Germany did it both to poland and ussr before attacks

 

[Ⰽⰻⱃⰻⰾⰾ]

Can recon planes be shot in peacetime? Powers' U2 intensifies

 

[Dahak]

I wonder what the needed wing size to do a proper recon over an area

 

[Dan1109]

Going back to my #9 question, about revealing Intel Decrypt Info, there should DEFINITELY be some ship attack/defense bonuses if you show your cards, like done at Midway. I only see Naval Invasion speed Else, we can never simulate such an overwhelming victory by 2 forces which were about equally matches (actually, the USA was much weaker). Or is it not going to work that way, and I have to play 10,000 games to try to have RNG give me the same results as Midway?

15) Will intel be used by the AI to actually plan proper naval invasions, to send enough troops to do the job? Right now the only way an AI Invasion is fairly successful, is if by chance (and a good one at that), that front line clutter has caused garrision divisions to remove themselves from the port, and the invasion ends up being uncontested. The invading AI General pats himself on the back, "Look how awesome I am!!!!"

 

[Spelaren]

What is the bulb thing on the jap reconnaissance plane on the upper place of it?

Right after where the rod that holds the line to the tail is. I have seen such a thing on american WW2 planes, but i don't know what it is.

 

[General Von Trapp]

It actually Happened!

 

[SanguiniusStyle]

Hmm, will there be a release before Christmas...

probably

remember this month comes a new update of launcher so...

 

[Dan1109]

Military planes flying over other nations while at peace? That doesn't sound right.

Remeber that air regions cover a lot of real estate, so I would hope that you can only run these missions at peacetime, if your border is in that air region. Yeah, running Recon aircraft deep into the interior of an enemy country is tantamount to war, just like mining a potential enemy coastline during peacetime.

EDIT - however, there are many situations in Europe, where the Air Region is the country border as well, so I suggest that you can't run the recon missions in peacetime in enemy airspace, but if you run it in YOUR OWN air region, which borders enemy land troops, you get land intel for the border forces.....that's abut as fair as you can ask.

 

[Delpheus]

Military planes flying over other nations while at peace? That doesn't sound right.

I thought the same thing. It's stupid how much the devs are ignoring defense and national security. IF I HAD A SPY PLANE OVER MY COUNTRY I WOULD SHOOT IT DOWN. IT WOULD BE CONSIDERED AN ACT OF WAR.

 

[krios41]

IF I HAD A SPY PLANE OVER MY COUNTRY I WOULD SHOOT IT DOWN. IT WOULD BE CONSIDERED AN ACT OF WAR.

Shees, remind me to never vote for you if you ever run for office >.>

 

[podcat]

Questions:

1) Will Aircraft Carriers be providing intel in their sea regions (and possibly adjacent sea regions to a smaller extent, based on where the TF actually is in the SR)? Scout aircraft were sent up ALL the time, looking for the enemy.

2) Will catapult planes on CL/CA/BC/BBs offer any intel to the SR?

3) Will "spotted ships" by scout planes cause a) Strike Force to sail immediately for that target, i.e. instant spotting? b) be engaged immediately by Patrol TFs in the SR? c) immediately/quickly be attacked by Naval Bombers set to the Region?

4) Can Scout Planes, not necessarily Naval Intel through code breaking, spot individual subs that can be quickly attacked by other forces, or is it just noted for the record that "subs have been spotted in the region", and you need/should manually ensure you have Escorts in that region (if you indeed have convoys in that region)

5) What circumstances can recon aircraft be shot down? A) air superiority aircraft B) provincial AA C) AA in divisions D) interception aircraft E) naval fighters on carrier mission F) naval ship AA....oh, and I know I'll catch hell from this... G) convoy AA. Assuming A will have the highest chance of being shot down, more likely the more airsuperiority the enemy
has than you, if 50/50 AirSupp, should be a low chance I would assume.

6) Could Strategic Bombers be given the mutual exclusive opportunity to perform scout missions? Their extensive range make them ideal, and sometimes, you just don't what to be bombing ALL the time.

7) How do you split your Decrypt power amoungst dozens of enemy countries? In a German example, I might not want to spend any Decrypt power on minor countries that I plan to quickly conquer, and just make sure to focus all of my power on SOV. Or is there a away to assign exact %s, or is it just ON/OFF and given an equal share?

8) So, a nation only uses 1 code for all armed forces? Its not per service branch? No diplomatic codes (for country info, not military). But with espionage, we have infiltrate Navy, Army, Airforce?

9) For enemy navy ship locations, I assume if you don't pull the trigger and reveal intel/decrypt, you get vague info location of the ships, but if you ATTACK those ships, is the intel revealed? Thinking of Midway - Japanese were foolish if they didn't realize 100% that after Midway, their code was cracked, and USA definitely revealed their intel by attacking them in their largest numbers, in perfect position for an ambush.

10) Going back to #9, there are not any passive intel/decrypt bonuses for fighting ships....is it again that by not revealing the intel/decrypt, you are simply expected to make appropriate changes to your raiding/escort/SF mission areas? Thinking of Enigma, this would let the UK keep their escort mission areas focus on where the U-boats are and around those regions....hehe, will the AI be able to do this? It certainly wastes lots of escorts by running missions in Indian Ocean and South Atlantic, places where enemy doesn't even have range to operate (and docking rights are known, not secret). Speaking of which, thats an AI improvement you can do today - the AI should NOT run escort/Patrol/SF missions in regions that it knows the enemy cannot reach. Navy intel can give you a breakdown on enemy ship range capability (its pretty easy compared to any other secret the ship has).

11) Is any of this information SHARED with your allies? Passive DEcrypt info? Scout Plane info? Activating the Decrypt Intel, are the bonuses shared? If the results are not shared, does the strength of your decrypt efforts affect your allies? Any collaboration in this at all??

12) Are there only 3 levels of encrypt/decrypt? What happens when you break their code and use active decrypt intel for a 3rd time? Or it doesn't work that way? Perhaps if your levels are EQUAL, then you decrypt at a base rate (maybe 365 days), but if your encrypt is level 3 (german enigma), and you stupidly don't even realize that anyone will ever try mechanical decrypt, it might take 365x10 days to decrypt if you level decrypt level 0, but only 365 days if you have level 3?

13) BTW, Decrypt is much much more costly than encrypt. do you have them reversed in CIC cost??

14) cipher has no "Y" in its spelling

1) 2) No, these are different systems although combat will. it will get clearer when we show the whole thing next week.
3) no, spotting is quite strong, but you still need more sources to get them instantly. altho all is subject to balancing still
4) its a lot more abstract than that, altho a sub force could be spotted to a high degree (but not 100% atm, see 3)
5) similar to things like strat bombers. So no divisional AA, but interception and regular aa can.
6) they already supply some intel as they are.
7) it is just on off with even split of resources
8) yeah keeping it simple. we have the per-branch stuff in the intel system and spy operations tho
9) not really decided the entire effect yet.
10) see next week for more details
11) bonuses from crypto are not shared, for intel see next week for details
12) 5 levels. when stuff is broken it resets after 30 days and needs to be broken again. but yeah after 5 levels its not possible to make the re-cracking more time intensive
13) encryption is 30% costlier for the higher levels. note that there is 2 upgrades each for them
14) been reading too much Dark Angels lore :S

Can recon planes be shot in peacetime? Powers' U2 intensifies

we are debating if static AA Should be able to do it. atm we try to balance it around accident chance

 

[podcat]

Hmm, will there be a release before Christmas...

also no. you would know the date if so

 

[Dan1109]

Shees, remind me to never vote for you if you ever run for office >.>

Well, it can easily be considered an act of war. IF they continue with this approach, and I hope they don't and use my suggestion of allowing you to recon your own air region and if it borders a country you reveal the front line enemy units, I would alteast ask them to increase the opposing country's war support. I brought this up before in threads concerning mining during peacetime. Yes, its an act of war....but is it really? No, it just pisses everyone off. Just like Germany annexing Austria and Czech. The response from the offender is "whata going do, DOW me?!?!??".

Well hell yes, repeated acts of sending recon planes deep into enemy territory during peacetime should simply ramp up the defender's war support, so THEY CAN DOW the SOB and launch a preemptive attack.

 

[Tekore]

Germany did it both to poland and ussr before attacks

1) Is there a defense against it?
2)Can/will fighters running interception missions have a chance to shoot down/capture/drive off neutral scout planes?

3)Planes were used for scouting in WW1 and areal reconnaissance in general goes back as far as 1794, Will scout planes be a 'default' unlocked plane type?
4)Will the catapult planes of the navy now need to be built and maintained or even be 'present' on the map?
5)How many scout planes would generally make up a wing?
6)Will we have Jet Scouts?

 

[wesleytj]

Trust us, you don't want a release date this year. In Sweden the whole country takes several weeks off for Christmas break, so any issues with the new DLC launch would be left untouched for that entire time. New DLCs like this almost always require a couple of hotfix patches, and those wouldn't happen.

 

[Tekore]

Well, it can easily be considered an act of war. IF they continue with this approach, and I hope they don't and use my suggestion of allowing you to recon your own air region and if it borders a country you reveal the front line enemy units, I would alteast ask them to increase the opposing country's war support. I brought this up before in threads concerning mining during peacetime. Yes, its an act of war....but is it really? No, it just pisses everyone off. Just like Germany annexing Austria and Czech. The response from the offender is "whata going do, DOW me?!?!??".

Well hell yes, repeated acts of sending recon planes deep into enemy territory during peacetime should simply ramp up the defender's war support, so THEY CAN DOW the SOB and launch a preemptive attack.

At the very least, it seems like it should potentially increase world tensions if you keep doing it.

If they do use your suggestion, I feel like there should be some sort of notification or visibility to the player/AI: "Dan1109 keeps flying a lot of scout planes along the southern border" or something similar

 

[Delpheus]

Germany did it both to poland and ussr before attacks

@podcat
Then make it so that you can only do it while justifying a war goal.
At "peace" is just stupid.

 

[krios41]

Well, it can easily be considered an act of war. IF they continue with this approach, and I hope they don't and use my suggestion of allowing you to recon your own air region and if it borders a country you reveal the front line enemy units, I would alteast ask them to increase the opposing country's war support. I brought this up before in threads concerning mining during peacetime. Yes, its an act of war....but is it really? No, it just pisses everyone off. Just like Germany annexing Austria and Czech. The response from the offender is "whata going do, DOW me?!?!??".

Well hell yes, repeated acts of sending recon planes deep into enemy territory during peacetime should simply ramp up the defender's war support, so THEY CAN DOW the SOB and launch a preemptive attack.

Lets forget for a moment that we know that in HOI a world war is going down.
But if in real life everyone took that aproach we wouldn't have had the cold war, it woudl've gone realy hot realy fast, get what i'm trying to poke at?

ps. my original reply was kind-of ment as a joke, but i feel i do have some form of a point though

 

[Dan1109]

3)Planes were used for scouting in WW1 and areal reconnaissance in general goes back as far as 1794, Will scout planes be a 'default' unlocked plane type?

Yeah, that is an excellent point. I mean how much R&D does it take to take your current aircraft of high speed, and REMOVE its weapons, and just carry more fuel and some cameras?? I'm actually not liking this, having specialized plane types....I really think you should be able to scout with ANY plane, but that missions is mutually exclusive with any other air mission. And if you choose it on a tac or strat bomber, you get a % range buff because you are carrying no ordinance.

I MEAN SERIOUSLY, THAT IS WHAT WAS DONE IRL!

 

[SanguiniusStyle]

been reading too much Dark Angels lore :S

good or evil