HOI4 Mod - Historical Vehicle Stats
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Haha, well it's probably inspired by something I've seen someone else mod-wise do in HoI3, so I shouldn't go claiming credit (and we don't know for sure it can be done). It's something I may do if I ever get all my ship stuff done, for a small selection of iconic vehicles, but to do it for every piece of equipment in the game for every nation would be a mammoth task. Not impossible, but better for a team over a good period of time.
I approach the game from a completely different philosophical viewpoint. The game is suppose to be about what if's. And what if's should not be dependent upon what actually happened in real life. Nations should not have inherent advantages over others in the creation and manufacture of models -- meaning if two nations spend the same amount of research slots and the same amount of combat experience to develop a model, then they should both get a model that is roughly equivalent -- with maybe minor differences based upon the design company. Basically, the general model categories for each nation's tech tree should be identical. That is a feature not a bug.
Historically, Germany made some very good tanks and Italy and Japan fought in death traps. The solution to that is not to make Italy's models inherently weaker, but rather balance other game factors (such as research capacity, industrial capacity, resources, accumulation of combat experience, etc.) so that most likely Italy is fighting with an obsolete tank model or an unimproved model when other nations are using highly improved variants. So, if your player controlled Italy decides to deviate from history and sacrifice in other areas (such as its navy) and put as much emphasis (research, industry and combat experience) into developing a heavy battle tank, it should end up with a tank that is roughly equivalent to a Tiger I even though no such vehicle exists in history.
To delve deeper into the Germany / Italy comparison, the level II heavy tank for Germany is the Tiger I and for Italy it is the P.40/26. Now, those two tanks are not even remotely comparable. The Tiger is a Tiger, and the P.40/26 is an Italian T-34 knock off. If you were to accomplish your goal and give these tanks their historical stats, Italy would be at a severe disadvantage. Italy would have to expend all the research, industry and resources necessary to produce a Tiger but get the performance of a mediocre medium tank.
A better project would be to rework the nations' tech trees so that each nation's model in the same slot are relatively equal. Paradox put the P.40/26 into the Tiger slot, because P stands for Pessant or heavy. But it's not a Tiger equivalent and should not be in the same slot. It might belong in the same slot as the Pz.IV, M4, ot T-34, because although it might be a heavy in the Regio Esercito, in any other army it would be a medium. Now, there are a lot of reasons why Italy never developed a heavy tank, but if it really wanted to and sufficiently prioritized such a project, I'm sure it could have. It had a 90mm gun every bit as good as the German 8.8cm gun and it built battleships for chissakes. I'm sure it could manage a 50 ton tank. So, an Italian Tiger equivalent model should be a figment of a game designer's imagination like an SP.41/50.
Tl;dr -- don't try to give models historical stats, rework the tech trees so that the equivalent models in the tech trees are relatively equivalent.
Historically, Germany made some very good tanks and Italy and Japan fought in death traps. The solution to that is not to make Italy's models inherently weaker, but rather balance other game factors (such as research capacity, industrial capacity, resources, accumulation of combat experience, etc.) so that most likely Italy is fighting with an obsolete tank model or an unimproved model when other nations are using highly improved variants. So, if your player controlled Italy decides to deviate from history and sacrifice in other areas (such as its navy) and put as much emphasis (research, industry and combat experience) into developing a heavy battle tank, it should end up with a tank that is roughly equivalent to a Tiger I even though no such vehicle exists in history.
To delve deeper into the Germany / Italy comparison, the level II heavy tank for Germany is the Tiger I and for Italy it is the P.40/26. Now, those two tanks are not even remotely comparable. The Tiger is a Tiger, and the P.40/26 is an Italian T-34 knock off. If you were to accomplish your goal and give these tanks their historical stats, Italy would be at a severe disadvantage. Italy would have to expend all the research, industry and resources necessary to produce a Tiger but get the performance of a mediocre medium tank.
A better project would be to rework the nations' tech trees so that each nation's model in the same slot are relatively equal. Paradox put the P.40/26 into the Tiger slot, because P stands for Pessant or heavy. But it's not a Tiger equivalent and should not be in the same slot. It might belong in the same slot as the Pz.IV, M4, ot T-34, because although it might be a heavy in the Regio Esercito, in any other army it would be a medium. Now, there are a lot of reasons why Italy never developed a heavy tank, but if it really wanted to and sufficiently prioritized such a project, I'm sure it could have. It had a 90mm gun every bit as good as the German 8.8cm gun and it built battleships for chissakes. I'm sure it could manage a 50 ton tank. So, an Italian Tiger equivalent model should be a figment of a game designer's imagination like an SP.41/50.
Tl;dr -- don't try to give models historical stats, rework the tech trees so that the equivalent models in the tech trees are relatively equivalent.
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@Axe99 ( ninja´d by tommy )
Well yeah, and main point - as always - is the AI capable ( or willing^^) of using it if you actually implement it ?
If the possibility exists I´m happy to help .... to see such iconic and unusual things like e.g. KV-II and T-34 ( and their drawbacks ) modded in ... as the default tanks are a bit lacking ( even though the principle of generic/default/standard tech-vehicles as a base operating platform is perfectly reasonable in the game ).
Well yeah, and main point - as always - is the AI capable ( or willing^^) of using it if you actually implement it ?
If the possibility exists I´m happy to help .... to see such iconic and unusual things like e.g. KV-II and T-34 ( and their drawbacks ) modded in ... as the default tanks are a bit lacking ( even though the principle of generic/default/standard tech-vehicles as a base operating platform is perfectly reasonable in the game ).
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Aye, sorry - I wasn't trying to suggest I was backing a 'deterministic' model approach to a HoI4 mod (although it sounds like the OP is, and I don't want this to get too off-topic). My interest with naval stuff is getting other ships in the game, having a tech tree that better matches ship development (without being prescriptive about which nations focus on what) and more plausible ship build times.
Not saying it would be bad though - I think a historical playthrough with historical models could be kind of cool (and it wouldn't preclude players building something different as well). The thoughts for what I do would be to just have a few iconic models in there (Sptfire, FW-190, Iowa class BB, T-34 and the like) for flavour as much as anything, rather than have everything specified. I'm afraid @panzerzombie it's a long way down my list of things to do, but it might be something Ownage goes for, or he might have another approach in mind.
Also - we should be careful about getting too prescriptive about doing anything. I'm throwing ideas around both here and in my head, but until we see what we can actually do, it's best to just have these things as vague ideas before getting too excited.
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Sorry, missed this thread earlier. I'm putting a bunch of naval data together, if that helps, and you're welcome to it (it's in a spreadsheet, PM me if you want a link). Nowhere near finished - the naval data alone is a looooong job, and I've got good sources that make it easy to put together. I was going to try something similar for naval vessels, but likely only broadly accurate. Different guns and ammo had relatively different effectiveness even at the same calibre, so there's a fair bit to getting everything squared away.
The mod itself isn't where the work is (particularly if you don't add any new units), but there's a stack of research required for the relative effectiveness of things. Good luck.
I do understand that this is the hard part, this and the balancing. This spreadsheet would be wonderful to have when I work with the ships. Mostly because that's the hardest stats to find. I would greatly appreciate your work.
If there is no seperate file for each tank available, like "Tiger 1" , "T-34", "Generic Light Tank 1", I'd guess I would have to use the event system. Even tho that makes the process alot more time consuming.
I've thought alot about this, and I'd guess the production AI is smart enough to decide which stats are worth going for or if it's completely blind in what it requires and it all goes down to how many it wants for a certain price.
It's something vey hard to guess, since the AI is kind of secretive as of right now. This is a very post-release thing.
If I need to do a complete rework the AI, I'd guess it would take all summer before i'd make the first tech tree work but only time will tell.
I'd really enjoy the programming help initially as the reasearch part is alot more work but alot simpler and requires less of a skillfull programmer to create.
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I mean, you might not even be able to mod the tech tree for just one nation without applying the change to everyone else, so if you put all the German tanks on the tech tree, you would probably end up with a lot of fillers for Japan. At least this has been the norm of Paradox games
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I think it's possible to do changes to the stats since the different companies provide different bonuses for each nation. Like I've said, if there is no possible way of changing the stats with just a few change of numbers. I would need to add events changing them ingame. I'm pretty sure that exists, like a modifier kind of thing.
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I think the best way to achieve what you want to do is to keep the same models, but as Axe99 suggested, have a nation specific event unlock a variant with your desired stats. If you do it this way, the HoiIV equivalent of the production minister lua -- the script that tells a nation what to build -- would not have to be rewritten. The Soviet script will tell it to produce a generic medium tank II, and the Soviet medium tank II variant will have the stats you desire for a T-34.
If you try to add nation specific models, all those national scripts would need to be rewritten. It might not be as big a deal in HoiIV, but would be a nightmare in Hoi3.
If you try to add nation specific models, all those national scripts would need to be rewritten. It might not be as big a deal in HoiIV, but would be a nightmare in Hoi3.
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How are you going to deal with areas that can not be modified by variant system?
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I'm going from a very old, very vague memory (so please no-one assume it's necessarily the case - I could have misremembered, or the devs could have decided differently between then and now) but I think one of the devs said that we could mod in other variant parameters (so we could have six different things we could adjust instead of four, presumably linked back to different stats for the unit). Very, very vague memory, best taken as delirious ramblings of a crazy person unless someone else has similar.
Hahahaha, yes, this would be a very special type of "fun" in HoI3! (And I'd be surprised if it wasn't close enough to that approach in HoI4 to make the potential for that kind of fun fairly high). I am curious what kind (if any) of modding control there is over which variants get built.
PM incoming (it's a Google Drive link, so I'm not comfortable putting out in the open). If you're looking for online naval data, the two best sites I've come across are Navypedia (http://www.navypedia.org/) and Navweaps (http://www.navweaps.com/) - the vast majority of my data in that spreadsheet corresponds with that in Navypedia (sometimes I've also got info from Wikipedia, or other sources - there's an article on the web on small boats that the US Coast Guard used, for example
). I haven't done it yet, but I plan to use the weapon data in Navweaps (and anything else I can find, but Navweaps looks like a good place to start) to try and get an idea of the differences in range and firepower for different eras of naval guns of the same calibre, when looking at naval attack for different points in the tech tree for different ships. There may be similar sites for aircraft and tanks, worth looking if you haven't already, there's all sorts of stuff out there?
Do you mean that the Soviets have a script that tells them to produce for example mediums, no matter the price or need?
I thought it would be more dynamic than that.
I was going to change the construction time and pricing for balancing purposes, so like a Tiger 1 takes longer to produce than a churchill.
This is what might confuse the AI regarding production.
PM incoming (it's a Google Drive link, so I'm not comfortable putting out in the open). If you're looking for online naval data, the two best sites I've come across are Navypedia (http://www.navypedia.org/) and Navweaps (http://www.navweaps.com/) - the vast majority of my data in that spreadsheet corresponds with that in Navypedia (sometimes I've also got info from Wikipedia, or other sources - there's an article on the web on small boats that the US Coast Guard used, for example
These websites will be very good to have and your spreadsheet (if you're willing to share) will help me greatly. Is there a way to find out the pricing of a ship, for example Iowa?
You can go ahead and give a dissertation in miltiary history when you are done as well
You should have received it by the time you posted this message - it should be linked in a message in your "Conversations". If it isn't, let me know
.
After a quick glance at the HoI3 TFH script folder, it appears to be a condition based ratio system. I.E. If war older than 12 months build X land units, Y air units, Z naval units. If manpower is low build things that don't require manpower. Includes a ratio of land unit types in there as well. I imagine it pulls division composition from another file or some other place.
The SOV file is commented so it's rather easy to tell what the script is trying to do.
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a good example of the sometimes massive differences between variants of a vehicle: the soviet Yakovlev Yak-9 fighter- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Yak-9#Variants
particularly the
http://wiki.warthunder.com/index.php?title=Yak-9K
http://wiki.warthunder.com/index.php?title=Yak-9T
http://wiki.warthunder.com/index.php?title=Yak-9U
http://wiki.warthunder.com/index.php?title=Yak-9P
even in war thunder, the yak-9 variants show just about every end of the variants spectrum.
the yak-9K maxes out soft attack with its 45mm airplane destroyer that doesn't do diddly to any kind of tank.
the yak-9T with its 37mm can fit an AP round that can KO a tank if shot from behind
the yak-9U is a general upgrade in all directions. an all around better if slightly heavier plane.
and the yak-9P is just a total beast
particularly the
http://wiki.warthunder.com/index.php?title=Yak-9K
http://wiki.warthunder.com/index.php?title=Yak-9T
http://wiki.warthunder.com/index.php?title=Yak-9U
http://wiki.warthunder.com/index.php?title=Yak-9P
even in war thunder, the yak-9 variants show just about every end of the variants spectrum.
the yak-9K maxes out soft attack with its 45mm airplane destroyer that doesn't do diddly to any kind of tank.
the yak-9T with its 37mm can fit an AP round that can KO a tank if shot from behind
the yak-9U is a general upgrade in all directions. an all around better if slightly heavier plane.
and the yak-9P is just a total beast
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You should have received it by the time you posted this message - it should be linked in a message in your "Conversations". If it isn't, let me know
I did, thanks alot. It seems very useful to have later!
Okay, I thought they changed these kinds of things for HOI4. But we'll see once the game is out. Thanks anyways.
The thing is, the K is one variant, T is another, U is too and so on.
The stock version is the one I'll be changing.
The others are the ones the variant system will change. This is already simulated by Paradox, and with the tools I should be able to change the different modifiers such as soft attack etc.
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Sorry if I was unclear about the scripting. There is still scripting but it's not LUA scripting. Time to wait and see until the AI DD / game release.
The AI
The AI in HOI3 was run though Lua scripts, but we decided to abandon these for several reasons in HOI4 (lack of lua knowledge at the company and low performance was the big ones). The AI is still however very moddable and has a lot of scripts to modify. I think its best to wait and talk about that in the dedicated dev diary on AI stuff I'll make @SteelVolt write before release though