HoI4 DevDiary - Tank Designer

[goodcigar]

Welcome to PDX!

Operational range is actually more about fuel carried and how far that will get you across various terrains. This has practically nothing to do with speed.

Per the Dev Diary:

This is because we represent the operational speed of a vehicle, i.e. how far the vehicle can get in 24 hours - tanks don’t drive around all day at maximum speed, they have to stop for refuelling, resting the crew, basic maintenance etc.

 

[Corpse Fool]

Per the Dev Diary:

This is because we represent the operational speed of a vehicle, i.e. how far the vehicle can get in 24 hours - tanks don’t drive around all day at maximum speed, they have to stop for refuelling, resting the crew, basic maintenance etc.

And?

That sounds a lot like the analog for machineguns I provided you with on reddit. Sure, you have a maximum technical cyclic rate, but over a larger time span that is going to be interrupted by reloads and barrel changes. Just like how driving a tank will be interrupted by crew rest and refuelling.

Several of the factors that play into operational speed, aren't a part of the designer, and some of them are counter intuitive. Increasing speed reduces reliability. Even though not needing to stop to fix something (more reliable) means you're going faster. In this way, the designer is fundamentally flawed for the task you're trying to apply it to. I'd suggest accepting that you're probably never going to get the perfect tool for this purpose in this game, unless you're willing to mod it in yourself.

 

[goodcigar]

And?

That sounds a lot like the analog for machineguns I provided you with on reddit. Sure, you have a maximum technical cyclic rate, but over a larger time span that is going to be interrupted by reloads and barrel changes. Just like how driving a tank will be interrupted by crew rest and refuelling.

Several of the factors that play into operational speed, aren't a part of the designer, and some of them are counter intuitive. Increasing speed reduces reliability. Even though not needing to stop to fix something (more reliable) means you're going faster. In this way, the designer is fundamentally flawed for the task you're trying to apply it to. I'd suggest accepting that you're probably never going to get the perfect tool for this purpose in this game, unless you're willing to mod it in yourself.

You can clearly read that the Devs are saying their "Operational Speed" is in fact a distance measurement. It's basically confirming that their "Operational Speed" is actually Operational Range.

Which has been verified by the calculations. It lines up almost perfectly.

 

[Corpse Fool]

You can clearly read that the Devs are saying their "Operational Speed" is in fact a distance measurement. It's basically confirming that their "Operational Speed" is actually Operational Range.

Where did they say that? Speed is distance over time. If you're fixing the time, the only variable left is distance. In that way sure, the speed used in game could be thought of as a measurement of distance. Just like it could be if you were trying to see how far you could run in 30 minutes. A problem with the way that PDX has chosen to display their speed is that the game uses each hour of those 24 hours individually, to actually travel a distance in that time.

Which has been verified by the calculations. It lines up almost perfectly.

Say it with me... correlation is not causation. It doesn't take much googling to find out that operational range is entirely defined as how far you can go and return on a single fuelling. This sort of definition has most application to aircraft, that you can't really shut off mid-flight to save fuel, and would crash and be destroyed if you didn't give them enough fuel to get where they needed to be and back to somewhere safe.

Operational range over a vehicle is not its operational speed.

 

[billcorr]

On top of this I have just realized that there is a fundamental new problem now with Armored Divisions. Armored Divisions have to be paired with Motorized Infantry to be effective and realistic. However, Motorized Infantry can only go at 12 Km/h maximum. And they can't be made faster. This means Tank designs can be significantly faster than your Motorized Infantry. Which obviously makes no real life or logical sense. And which means that designing fast Tanks is basically pointless because they can't effectively operate alone. A Motorized Battalion attached to a Tank Battalion should always be able to keep up with it. Trucks are vastly faster than Tanks. Especially World War 2 Tanks.

Good point about motorized's top speed of 12 kph, whereas tanks can go 15, 20, 25 kph.

 

[CraniumMuppet]

Mech3 can go faster if you really want to.

Is this viable? Probably not because you need to stack modifiers to get it and upgrade the speed of the mech. Though honestly if you want to get a division move at this speed you are doing something funky and probably deserve to get some non optimal results

 

[Kazakk]

The only good reason I see for having a super fast tank is for non-combat purposes, like taking land behind enemy lines after a breakthrough. In which case you can just spam 2 width divisions of those.
But still, one day I'd like to see a way to upgrade the speed of motorized

 

[goodcigar]

Mech3 can go faster if you really want to.
View attachment 789494

Is this viable? Probably not because you need to stack modifiers to get it and upgrade the speed of the mech. Though honestly if you want to get a division move at this speed you are doing something funky and probably deserve to get some non optimal results

I'm not sure you guys understand the fundamental new problem that has been created as a side effect of the way the Tank Designer speed mechanic is designed.

An Armored Division can't be ONLY Tanks. It has to have Motorized Infantry inside it as well. Or it becomes completely ineffective and weak as well as unrealistic. You can design fast Tanks in the Tank Designer. ("Max Speed" isn't actually supposed to represent the max speed of a Tank in the Tank Designer - but that is a separate highly confusing and convoluted issue). You can create Tanks that have over 12 km/h "Max Speed". If you actually design historical Tanks - many of them will be over 12 km/h.

So now we literally have Tanks that are too fast for the Motorized Infantry Battalions. They can't keep up with fast Tank designs. Which means if you include them in your Armored Division (as you have to for them to be viable) it slows the entire Division down to 12 km/h and effectively makes it completely pointless to create Tanks that are over 12 km/h speed.

Which obviously doesn't make any real life or logical sense. Tanks can be fast but they are not faster than Trucks and Motorized Infantry. So Tanks over 12 km/h are basically pointless and nonviable and higher Engine levels are pointless as well.

This is a fundamental flaw in the design of the system.

And just based on common sense - you shouldn't have to dump a ton of XP into Mechanized (or Motorized) just so they can keep up with Tanks. That doesn't make any sense. By default they should be able to keep pace with any Tank. Especially ones that are designed historically.

 

[Corpse Fool]

I'm not sure you guys understand the fundamental new problem that has been created as a side effect of the way the Tank Designer speed mechanic is designed.

This is not a new problem. Tanks used to be able to get speed upgrades in the Before Times as they can now.

Which obviously doesn't make any real life or logical sense. Tanks can be fast but they are not faster than Trucks and Motorized Infantry. So Tanks over 12 km/h are basically pointless and nonviable and higher Engine levels are pointless as well.

You still seem to be missing the entire concept of operational speed, and getting twisted around the axle about the particular wording of 'max speed'. I'm a little surprised that you've managed to play the game this long and this is the hiccup that ruins everything. There are so many other things in the game that don't make sense, like combat width, supplies/production, armour, and piercing, and other tooltips that outright lie to you.

The advance of a combined arms formation is... complicated. Lots of different things are all happening at the same time. The formation as a whole could be said to be moving at whatever rate, but different parts of it are leapfrogging each other while the tanks and such run circles around the whole thing, doing recce/patrols and whatever else, while staying within support range of the other arms. Yes, technical top speed of a chassis can help them move around in their sub-tasks for the formation, but there are still a whole lot of things that are slowing the formation down. Simply having everything mounted on a truck that has a high top speed, isn't magically going to make the whole formation massively faster.

 

[CraniumMuppet]

I'm not sure you guys understand the fundamental new problem that has been created as a side effect of the way the Tank Designer speed mechanic is designed.

An Armored Division can't be ONLY Tanks. It has to have Motorized Infantry inside it as well. Or it becomes completely ineffective and weak as well as unrealistic. You can design fast Tanks in the Tank Designer. ("Max Speed" isn't actually supposed to represent the max speed of a Tank in the Tank Designer - but that is a separate highly confusing and convoluted issue). You can create Tanks that have over 12 km/h "Max Speed". If you actually design historical Tanks - many of them will be over 12 km/h.

So now we literally have Tanks that are too fast for the Motorized Infantry Battalions. They can't keep up with fast Tank designs. Which means if you include them in your Armored Division (as you have to for them to be viable) it slows the entire Division down to 12 km/h and effectively makes it completely pointless to create Tanks that are over 12 km/h speed.

Which obviously doesn't make any real life or logical sense. Tanks can be fast but they are not faster than Trucks and Motorized Infantry. So Tanks over 12 km/h are basically pointless and nonviable and higher Engine levels are pointless as well.

This is a fundamental flaw in the design of the system.

And just based on common sense - you shouldn't have to dump a ton of XP into Mechanized (or Motorized) just so they can keep up with Tanks. That doesn't make any sense. By default they should be able to keep pace with any Tank. Especially ones that are designed historically.

Then use Mech?

I mean, that's what the upgrade is for. That is the drawback that you have to play with if you want a very fast tank that also has some org

12km/h is the average speed, not combat speed. 12km/h would have been very fast for a tank division

For example, Rommel advanced around 240km during 24h to advance on Cherbourg during the invasion of France. That's 10km/h and that was fast. So a Motorized would be able to keep up with historical Blitzkrieg

I don't think that players should be able to achieve super fast operational speeds without some major industrial effort

There's also several modules that draws down speed so if you want to have a very heavy armored and high speed tank you might need to go above whatever base 12km/h upgrade you'd normally take

 

[Balesir]

The other advantage IRL of tanks with a very high top speed is tactical mobility, so it might actually make sense for engine levels to give Breakthrough and/or Defence as well as maximum speed. (This is something I'm playing with in the Waltzing Matilda mod, but it's early days, yet).

 

[goodcigar]

Then use Mech?

I mean, that's what the upgrade is for. That is the drawback that you have to play with if you want a very fast tank that also has some org

12km/h is the average speed, not combat speed. 12km/h would have been very fast for a tank division

For example, Rommel advanced around 240km during 24h to advance on Cherbourg during the invasion of France. That's 10km/h and that was fast. So a Motorized would be able to keep up with historical Blitzkrieg

I don't think that players should be able to achieve super fast operational speeds without some major industrial effort

There's also several modules that draws down speed so if you want to have a very heavy armored and high speed tank you might need to go above whatever base 12km/h upgrade you'd normally take

The Max Speed of a Tank in the Tank Designer is not average speed. It's what this Tank Designer Dev Diary called "Operational Speed". Which appears to be a number derived from - max Operational Range (Off-Road or On-Road or Average) ÷ 24 hours = "Max Speed". The Tank Designer should not be calling it Max Speed when it isn't. It's completely misleading and confusing. And this was explained in the Tank Designer Dev Diary but for some reason it's still being called Max Speed. At the very least a tooltip should be added which explains this and the calculation used. A tooltip should be added for Engine and Armor as well explaining 1 Armor = 10mm and 1 Engine = 50 Horsepower.

You're ignoring the issue that was pointed out. There is a fundamental new problem with the Tank Designer and the speed of Tanks and how they relate to Armored Divisions. "just use something else" is not an answer for anything. It also doesn't make sense for Mechanized to be able to go faster than Motorized. I'm aware of Rommel. I have been WW2 wargaming for many years. That is not relevant to the issue at hand.

Tanks built in the Tank Designer above 12km/h (including all the historically designed ones) are completely pointless. Because the Motorized Infantry Battalions inside their own Division can't keep up with them. You can't use Tank Battalions alone as Armored Divisions because it doesn't work and it's also completely unrealistic.

Motorized Battalions paired with Tanks in a Division need to be able to keep up with them. Either by default or allow us to upgrade the "Max Speed" of Trucks. Or maybe Tank Battalions inside a Division that are above 12km/h should get a bonus to tactical combat.

Some kind of solution needs to be found for this.

@Arheo @GC955 @Axe99 @Ringwraith_JP @ETAIPOS @Archangel85


P.S. And as pointed out before. A person can't design historical Tanks if the Speed stat doesn't make sense and isn't explained properly.

 

[CraniumMuppet]

The Max Speed of a Tank in the Tank Designer is not average speed. It's what this Tank Designer Dev Diary called "Operational Speed". Which appears to be a number derived from - max Operational Range (Off-Road or On-Road or Average) ÷ 24 hours = "Max Speed". The Tank Designer should not be calling it Max Speed when it isn't. It's completely misleading and confusing. And this was explained in the Tank Designer Dev Diary but for some reason it's still being called Max Speed. At the very least a tooltip should be added which explains this and the calculation used. A tooltip should be added for Engine and Armor as well explaining 1 Armor = 10mm and 1 Engine = 50 Horsepower.

You're ignoring the issue that was pointed out. There is a fundamental new problem with the Tank Designer and the speed of Tanks and how they relate to Armored Divisions. "just use something else" is not an answer for anything. It also doesn't make sense for Mechanized to be able to go faster than Motorized. I'm aware of Rommel. I have been WW2 wargaming for many years. That is not relevant to the issue at hand.

Tanks built in the Tank Designer above 12km/h (including all the historically designed ones) are completely pointless. Because the Motorized Infantry Battalions inside their own Division can't keep up with them. You can't use Tank Battalions alone as Armored Divisions because it doesn't work and it's also completely unrealistic.

Motorized Battalions paired with Tanks in a Division need to be able to keep up with them. Either by default or allow us to upgrade the "Max Speed" of Trucks. Or maybe Tank Battalions inside a Division that are above 12km/h should get a bonus to tactical combat.

Some kind of solution needs to be found for this.

@Arheo @GC955 @Axe99 @Ringwraith_JP @ETAIPOS @Archangel85


P.S. And as pointed out before. A person can't design historical Tanks if the Speed stat doesn't make sense and isn't explained properly.

Operational speed and Operational range are two different concepts.

Operational speed is the speed that it can travel when you include stuff like refueling, resting, bumping into trees etc. It is an abstraction
Operational range is the distance that a vehicle is able to travel round trip on a single fueling.
But fuel does not work like that in HoI4, there is no round trip. and the different concepts are not the same so it does not make sense to derive one from the other. Especially not in HoI4

Rommel was an apt comparison because we are comparing the speed at what his force was moving at during X interval, thereby getting an approximation of his forces operational speed. Anything moving over 12km/h on the battlefield should rightly be because you invested something heavily in that to get that result, since his thrust at 10km/h operational speed was so quick that it essentially took the allies by surprise.

If you actually want to derive speed id suggest going something like
Distance of offensive from point X to Y/Time it Took

But I imagine that you won't be satisfied with that answer anyway so, happy new year!

 

[Axe99]

Operational speed and Operational range are two different concepts.

Operational speed is the speed that it can travel when you include stuff like refueling, resting, bumping into trees etc. It is an abstraction
Operational range is the distance that a vehicle is able to travel round trip on a single fueling.
But fuel does not work like that in HoI4, there is no round trip. and the different concepts are not the same so it does not make sense to derive one from the other. Especially not in HoI4

Rommel was an apt comparison because we are comparing the speed at what his force was moving at during X interval, thereby getting an approximation of his forces operational speed. Anything moving over 12km/h on the battlefield should rightly be because you invested something heavily in that to get that result, since his thrust at 10km/h operational speed was so quick that it essentially took the allies by surprise.

If you actually want to derive speed id suggest going something like
Distance of offensive from point X to Y/Time it Took

But I imagine that you won't be satisfied with that answer anyway so, happy new year!

Many thanks for taking the time to post on the forum and explain things in the middle of your holidays - I hope you have a Happy New Year as well

@goodcigar - I appreciate the tag, but the closest I come to being a tank person is LCTs or LSTs - it's unlikely I'll be able to add much useful to the conversation (beyond observations that the best use of a T-34 turret is on a gunboat, and that kind of thing )

 

[him_15]

Please consider giving additional slots as the tank tech progress.

 

[Voigt]

If you argue you can design tanks that are faster than 12 km/h, and motorized Inf can't keep up with that, but historically Rommel was quite speedy with 10 km/h, then I wouldn't argue to make Motorized Inf even faster so you can have 20 km/h tanks.

Instead I would argue to make tanks overall slower. But I could see a problem then this becomes kinda unfun.

Still, better than to argue to make Motorized Inf faster, I think.

 

[JohnnyDepressio]

Could the defs elaborate a bit about the ideas behind the balancing of SPGs? To me it seems like designating a design as an spg does not make much sense as you loose breakthrough and suffer a 50% increase in combat width. So if you want the best performance for you spearhead you might prefer to use soft attack tanks instead of SPGs. I understand that that comes more costly when using SPGs but if you are looking for a budget solution you will probably go for mobile artillery anyway.

My expectations for SPGs are that they are a costly solution compared to other artillery but also provide the best performance for your breakthrough divisions.

 

[Corpse Fool]

So if you want the best performance for you spearhead you might prefer to use soft attack tanks instead of SPGs.

I think medium cannon tank destroyers will outperform more SPG, and be much cheaper than tanks for the same 2w.

 

[PK_AZ]

If you argue you can design tanks that are faster than 12 km/h, and motorized Inf can't keep up with that, but historically Rommel was quite speedy with 10 km/h, then I wouldn't argue to make Motorized Inf even faster so you can have 20 km/h tanks.

Instead I would argue to make tanks overall slower. But I could see a problem then this becomes kinda unfun.

Is it that much of a problem, thought? Ok, you can make impractically fast tank that you cannot use in any context but few almost-exploit situations. So? Making impractical stuff is recurring theme of military engineering.

Could the defs elaborate a bit about the ideas behind the balancing of SPGs? To me it seems like designating a design as an spg does not make much sense as you loose breakthrough and suffer a 50% increase in combat width. So if you want the best performance for you spearhead you might prefer to use soft attack tanks instead of SPGs.

SPGs get boost from artillery tech, up to +40%. With heavy howitzer, they got about 70 SA per 3 CW, as opposed to slighty less than 50 for motorized artillery. They are also cheaper than CW-equivalent of medium tanks (36 hulls against 75), through they DO deal less damage (70 vs 75; of course 'tank' here means medium hull with superstructure and heavy howitzer, difference is only in designation). But I agree that they seem not properly balanced.
I never made TD battalions, so cannot compare them.

 

[ppccctu]

Adding this tank design feature was brilliant, but I still found something to clean up. I noticed it when playing United States, but I also discovered it in the Soviet Union research tree as well. Thus, it might be found across all the major powers. At the beginning of the game, the major powers, at least, have already researched the tank entry that gives you the variety of suspension systems, including the Christie suspension usually preferred. Moreover, the United States and the Soviet Union (I'm assuming the same is true of the other major powers) also begin the game with a light tank design already included, and that tank already has the Christie suspension. Because the Christie suspension is already on the tank, most players probably won't notice that if you were designing the tank yourself (from the basic chassis), you would not be given the option of a Christie suspension. But if you research the improved light tank chassis, you will find out that a Christie suspension is not an option there either. Obviously, this omission is a mistake that needs to be corrected. Ironically, this flaw doesn't appear in the medium tank research tree, since all of the suspension choices are available there (I admit I have not yet checked the heavy tank tree).

By the way, another flaw for the United States has never been corrected. They start the game with the research that provides the motorized infantry template, but they aren't given the template and, therefore, you have to spend precious experience points designing that template. It seems supremely logical to simply add that template for the United States at the outset.