HoI4 DevDiary - Tank Designer

[SilkySteve]

Some people have complained that this might add unnecessary micromanagement in an already heavily micro intensive game. Having the automatically pause and unpause when you enter and leave template designed is a possible solution to this that would make it easier to manage.

That doesn't get rid of mico it just saves you having to press pause manually

 

[Zauberelefant]

Great, here come the Twin 8,8cm FlakMaus brigades

Twin 12,8 cm Flak 44 auf Waffenträger VII Maus

 

[Spy01]

I would strongly prefer not using the MtG navy design system, I already find it too unnecessarily complex for ships and adding it to tanks (and probably planes later at this rate) just adds a ton of complexity with little fun added unless you love this thing, which I don't.

I get why it seems great on paper but in reality It means having to waste time on forums trying to figure out what designs work since the auto designs are horrible and the game doesn't clearly tell you what is smart. It will just be about following whatever is meta.

 

[Balesir]

IMO there is nothing gameplay wise that a module based tank designer can add that the old variant system with minor tweaks could not have done equally well if not better. You can design any conceivable stat tradeoff into the variant system equally by adding a few more +- sliders to cover the aspects the designer tries to cover and spending some time thinking and testing them so they are well balanced.

A variant system could just as easily be connected to research as well so that you need certain levels of AT or Artillery research before unlocking certain levels of variant improvements to Tank/TD or SPG guns for example. Ofcourse this is not something modders can do so I agree that this is something that limits us, but I doubt it would be as hard for Paradox to do as making a whole new system from scratch and then adding a connection to research into it instead.

What the levels-variant system cannot do for AFVs (and even more for 'planes, actually, but it's bad enough for tanks etc) is allow for designs that fit different use cases than the "standard". I ended up adding a couple of extra tank classifications for Waltzing Matilda, but that was really only a bugfix/workaround. With aircraft it gets worse with theatre specific requirements and adaptations to fit enemy capabilities and terrain difficulties, and these were explicitly strategic concerns which resulted in decisions about particular manufacturers and factories being dedicated to particular theatre supply in some cases. The variant system leads to some models being way more useful than they should be, while others lack the flexibility that they enjoyed in practice, and in some use cases being absent or irrelevant in the game. Germany made more assault guns than tanks in the latter stages of the war, and yet the use-case for them is simply absent from the game and unfixable by the variant system. Sure, you can mod them in, but then tank destroyers are a totally different technology, which doesn't really reflect the reality at all.

Basically, you can kludge quite a lot in, but there comes a point, when you are hammering screws home with a hammer, that you just think "You know what, it'd just be much better if I went and got a screwdriver!"

Should be easy enough to do a reskin of the ship designer for aircraft, they are already working on that for tanks rn

The reskin is easy; the hard part is understanding enough about 'plane design tradeoffs and possibilities to make a model that actually makes sense. In addition to which, I think you'd be wasting time if the air combat system wasn't adjusted first to account in some way for altitude, navigation, blocking defences and differentiation of targets (surface ship/submarine, armoured/soft/fortification - for example).

I would strongly prefer not using the MtG navy design system, I already find it too unnecessarily complex for ships and adding it to tanks (and probably planes later at this rate) just adds a ton of complexity with little fun added unless you love this thing, which I don't.

I get why it seems great on paper but in reality It means having to waste time on forums trying to figure out what designs work since the auto designs are horrible and the game doesn't clearly tell you what is smart. It will just be about following whatever is meta.

If there is one single "meta" the design has failed. The difficult part should not be making a unit with the attributes that fit the design brief as best the available technology can make it - the difficult part is deciding what you want. And that should be different depending on what you are trying to do and where you are trying to do it. That's where the "strategy" bit comes in.

 

[MrNewVegas]

If there is one single "meta" the design has failed. The difficult part should not be making a unit with the attributes that fit the design brief as best the available technology can make it - the difficult part is deciding what you want. And that should be different depending on what you are trying to do and where you are trying to do it. That's where the "strategy" bit comes in.

You are describing a situation that the developers have shown is impossible for them to achieve. The amount of work required to get an ounce of extra bonus from these tanks will be completely pointless in singleplayer because the developers have already made it clear they do not intend to put in any work making the AI use the mechanics they introduce. Also, the AI is pure garbage. In Multiplayer, the same thing will happen now that happens every time: it will either be horrendously broken initially, so that there is exactly one optimum strategy in MP or SP, which MP will immediately introduce house rules to fix, or it will be worthless trying to squeeze the extra iota of bonus because all the +10% soft attack in the world can't beat a dedicated assistant to micromanage your tank armies.

 

[Harin]

Great, here come the Twin 8,8cm FlakMaus brigades

We are going to need them when the airplane designer lets us design up-armored CAS. Flying tanks will be the new META.

 

[Morrowind3]

Looks good. I never bothered with the shipdesigner, but I think it's in part due to all but the smallest ships taking so long to build I don't want to sink time into micromanaging my fleet only for them to become obsolete by the time they're built.

Tanks are produced much faster though, so being able to taste the fruits of my minimal effort might encourage me to actually use this one.

 

[Volkskaiser]

That doesn't get rid of mico it just saves you having to press pause manually

Every little bit counts, especially considering how often I forget to press unpause then sit there for three minutes wondering why I'm making no progress on my frontline

 

[Znail]

We are going to need them when the airplane designer lets us design up-armored CAS. Flying tanks will be the new META.

It's worth noting that armor on planes did not make them impossible to hurt, it was only there to protect the pilot, the plane itself could still be totally shot up. We really need planes to get damaged and need repair. Planes doesn't get shot down as much as they should either.

 

[PichuTrainer]

It's worth noting that armor on planes did not make them impossible to hurt, it was only there to protect the pilot, the plane itself could still be totally shot up. We really planes to get damaged and need repair. Planes doesn't get shot down as much as they should either.

Armour was also used to protect the engine and on occasion fuel tanks.

 

[Harin]

It's worth noting that armor on planes did not make them impossible to hurt, it was only there to protect the pilot, the plane itself could still be totally shot up. We really need planes to get damaged and need repair. Planes doesn't get shot down as much as they should either.

Oh, I totally agree with you. I was just playing with the guys dreaming up heavy duty AA. Flying tanks has been a description given to a few aircraft that could take damage better than the average, so played on the words.

Aircraft losses are indeed different than during the war. I think the US destroyed twenty plus thousand aircraft just training their pilots at home and tens of thousands more destroyed in accidents on the war fronts. I guess the cost of creating such a large air force was having a vast majority of your pilots learning on the job and crashing often.

 

[RedTemplar]

Awesome feature that I can't wait to get ahold of and use, both for gameplay and AAR'ing!

And hats off to the dev team for calling out the sad reality of often toxic feedback. Keep your chins up!

 

[Lowrence]

Hm. Since this became so more complex, I propose we add a quality of steell feature .

Quality of steel inluenced quality of armor. Ze Germans for instance wanted Norway in order to get high qulity Swedish steel, and that gave them the edge.
Also steel-works if worked on normal regime supplied greater quality steel for armored plates.(this could actually influence ship designs to)
Example (again Germans) at the end of war german tank armor became less elastic and more "cracky" since qiality of steel decreased.
I mean, I dont know does we need to go so much in detail, but would be even more realistic.And fun.

 

[TheNewIKB]

I was going to allow it, but was then visited by the Ghost of Albert Speer, who convinced me otherwise.

And you listened to him???!!!

 

[Wombat69]

To be perfectly clear here when I'm talking about the variant system I'm referring not to Paradox current +5 everything balancing, but to the potential of the system with tweaks and minor improvements and love from Paradox, and proper historical balancing by us modders.

I'm talking more about what someone knowledgeable and detail oriented like yourself can do with it for example...
Something more like this:

Do you actually think that Paradox ship designer module systems allows for more meaningful gameplay tradeoffs ( not to mention more historical options ) than what your own modded variant system in TWAS allowed for? I for sure don't.

I fully understand what you are saying.
Your proposed system has a lot of detail, and the numbers most likely represent improvements more than sufficiently.

However, and I mean that in a very neutral way, there are players that would like to see a graphical change too when they upgrade their equipment.

It would be very hard to please both factions.

 

[safe-keeper]

The irony is that the variants designer is arguably more realistic than the tank/ship designer (and just so it's said, I say this as someone who loves the ship designer). It's far more realistic for a head of state or commander in chief (which you essentially are in HoI) to say "we need faster tanks" and leave it to the engineers at the design company, than it is for them to say "we need this particular type of suspension and tanks need to run on gas".

Back when a tank designer was proposed, I argued that you can't neccessarily do too much with it that you don't already do with the variants designer. Of course, a tank designer is more immersive, but when you're putting a shiny new gun on your Panzer IV, all you're really doing is make a variant that has higher Attack or Firepower or whatever the stat was. I suppose the main improvement is that it's more streamlined than having to research vehicles like self-propelled AA or tank destroyers.

Edit: though obviously, as others have pointed out, the variants designer can't change a vehicle's role, the way you can with a ship designer, where you can turn a destroyer hull into a minesweeper, for instance.

 

[Balesir]

You are describing a situation that the developers have shown is impossible for them to achieve. The amount of work required to get an ounce of extra bonus from these tanks will be completely pointless in singleplayer because the developers have already made it clear they do not intend to put in any work making the AI use the mechanics they introduce. Also, the AI is pure garbage. In Multiplayer, the same thing will happen now that happens every time: it will either be horrendously broken initially, so that there is exactly one optimum strategy in MP or SP, which MP will immediately introduce house rules to fix, or it will be worthless trying to squeeze the extra iota of bonus because all the +10% soft attack in the world can't beat a dedicated assistant to micromanage your tank armies.

Welcome to the real world. A suggestion: chill. Take some time out. Covid has been rough on almost everybody; take a break and walk in the country or something, until you can stop hating on the things you love.

It's worth noting that armor on planes did not make them impossible to hurt, it was only there to protect the pilot, the plane itself could still be totally shot up. We really need planes to get damaged and need repair. Planes doesn't get shot down as much as they should either.

Actually, it seems that "flying tanks" were closer than we might think. The US did some studies early in the war in Europe, analysing where the bullet holes were in 'planes when they got back from a mission. The idea was to armour all the places that got the most bullet holes. It was down to a guy called Abraham Wald, a Hungarian Jew who had fled to the States, that they didn't do this. It would have been a mess, since bullet holes were spread almost everywhere over the aircraft. It was Wald who realised that this was a sampling effect; the places where there were no bullet holes wasn't because 'planes weren't hit there: it was because the 'planes that were hit there didn't come back. Those were the places that they armoured.

 

[Harin]

Actually, it seems that "flying tanks" were closer than we might think. The US did some studies early in the war in Europe, analysing where the bullet holes were in 'planes when they got back from a mission. The idea was to armour all the places that got the most bullet holes. It was down to a guy called Abraham Wald, a Hungarian Jew who had fled to the States, that they didn't do this. It would have been a mess, since bullet holes were spread almost everywhere over the aircraft. It was Wald who realised that this was a sampling effect; the places where there were no bullet holes wasn't because 'planes weren't hit there: it was because the 'planes that were hit there didn't come back. Those were the places that they armoured.

Thanks for that little history lesson! I remember reading about this when I was a little kid. The surprise ending, that the known bullet holes that we could see were not actually the important ones, blew my mind. It is so obvious, once your mind actually goes there, but it is not so obvious until it does. It was probably my first lesson about trying to see past what was in front of me to find the answer. Tip of the hat to ya.

 

[Auxerre Is A Nice Place]

I think this will be an excellent addition to the game!

 

[Coozer]

With everything going on I just wanted to post to say that I love your games and the continued effort you guys put into them keep me playing them again and again. I cant wait for the latest patch and DLC!