I don't want more designers

[Pzt_Kami]

"It's too hard to buildup our desired navy" --actual leaders of many nations during World War II

as if land/air part of the game is super realistic
As @Harin rightly mentioned ,it seems naval side of the game works totally different ! for example one could make an strong army with a minor nation (like Sweden) which can be several times stronger than it could ever be in historical timeline ! but when it comes to navy everyone suddenly want it to be realistic ! which means in many cases (mostly minor nations and at least half of majors as well) going for navy is outright useless anf waste of time ! I also love ship designer as well (designing different type of ships in sometimes unique ways ,I also mostly try to search and use historical ship names for different classes) but while designing I realize what's the point of all of this when I can't use them [sometimes] at all

 

[Mr.Bajskorv]

Even if you don't like the designer. Somehow i belive that and aircraft or tank designer would actually be easier to use and easier to costruct than naval.

Overall the MtG level detail of research feels of by the rest the research of the game. Sort of feels like an mod. MtG isn't so intuitive and problably puts off newer players.

 

[Hoi Neuling]

Dr.Stjärtlukt, I aggree with you that the Army and Airforce need such an Resarch & Desiging too like the Navy have. It´s an Feature from Hoi 2 and was for the Navy as first Complete-Refit absolutly Nessecarry.

And the Upgrading or Produce a new Boat / Ship is completly Easy. It´s lighter then in Reality when you build an Boat / Ship. That easy System for Upgrading / Buildup a Ship every 5-Year-Old Child can handle.

 

[safe-keeper]

as if land/air part of the game is super realistic

Yes, you can also make unnaturally large armies and air forces. I'm opposed to that too, especially when I invade minor nations and have to deal with way bigger armies than they had in reality. It's also bad for game performance. I'm glad there are mods like Expert AI that allows you to modify how much minor nations can do.

Given how long it takes to build ships, I'm not sure how making them easier to obtain would be done. Increasing the number of dockyards you can build, or shortening build time, both feel incredibly gamey. Either way, I like that ships are a huge investment and that sinking enemy ships actually feels very impactful.

Now, if there was some way to implement smaller ships like frigates, corvettes, and commerce raiders made by putting guns on merchant ships, that'd be a more feasible way for minor nations to build navies. They wouldn't even have to be implemented as actual ships, maybe more the same way as air wings - assign them to a port, and they project a zone of control that interdicts convoys and maybe even has a chance of damaging or sinking the odd enemy ship, particularly in Fjords & Archipelagos terrain.

But building a sizeable navy as Norway or some other minor? Nope. The smallest ship represented in HoI4 is the destroyer, and even that is a really big ship. It shouldn't be easy for minor nations to build those.

but when it comes to navy everyone suddenly want it to be realistic !

To the contrary, lots of people dislike the division spam part of the game, both for the unrealistic nature and for the performance hit.

Yeah, but this is a game it shouldn't take 2-4 years to build 1 battleship. Everything except submarines is just a waste of time and resources.

A game based closely on real-world industry and history. I absolutely think a capital ship should take several years to build, as they did in reality. But yes, building battleships was a bit of a waste of resources in WWII. Investing dockyards in them is something you should have to consider carefully.

 

[mixtil]

No, just no. Why can't I tell in some menu "gradually upgrade all DD-1 '36 to template DD-1 '38" - and then the DDs automatically detach over time, go to a port, get their upgrades, and come back. Not all at once, but always for the amount (or a percentage to cover traveltimes or so, like 150%) of shipyards I specifically assigned to upgrades. And let me define an order based on theaters. Atlantik first, then Pacific, then Cape of Good Hope, or whatever. I am no longer micro-managing a singular DD to get him a new gun, I am giving an order to the logistics department of my navy.

Adding to this, I'd love to have a 'refit while repairing' option - EG one of my EC patrols is in for repairs (I never split fleets)? I should be able to refit it at the same time - they're sitting in the same dry-docks after all.

 

[Vlad123]

A problem: when MTG is out, the mod "+1 research slot for all" are very downloaded for balance the tons of new tech...i think if PDX add tons of new tech for the designers they need to add 1/2 research slot...

 

[Corpse Fool]

Yeah, but this is a game it shouldn't take 2-4 years to build 1 battleship. Everything except submarines is just a waste of time and resources.

What kind of battleship are you building that takes up to 4 years? The most expensive capital ship is almost 25k IC, a super heavy with 5 main guns and 4 AA. This is a terrible ship you wouldn't even want to build, but with 5 yards and +50% output (some combination of industry tech, trade law, and stability), it only takes 3.65 years. Most of the capital ships you would want only cost about 5k IC (heavy cruisers), while the capitals like BC/BB/CV might only reach around 12.5k-15k, pretty much half the cost of that super heavy, and would therefore take half as long or so.

Submarine spam is only going to work in single player, and even then it isn't so much that it is good, it is that it is easy.

 

[D.Knight]

Speeding up the navy side is going to make ship building and research seem crazy fast, but slowing down the land side to what was realistic is going to bring howls from the players. How to get these elements to cross streams without blowing up the game is a real head scratcher.

I would actually prefer if they slowed down the land side. Constant offensives are quite ridiculous from the strain they put on logistics and command to the natural entropy on control and organisation. Nevermind offensives realistically have goals and objectives and as such have resources marked out in slight excess to achieve these objectives. Said resource stockpiles can and obviously do run out from the obvious fuel and ammo to gun lubricant and spare parts (though I think it was somewhat rare to run out of ammo on the operational level). I do agree that a large number of people would be up in arms about such a change though. At this point, I just want my air generals and organisations.

 

[Ketchup & friends]

I remember when MtG came out and I was excited about the ship designer, however I think the ship designer has completely killed navy.

That's not because there is a designer, but because it's still raw and unfinished.
The devs need to adress the issues and fix them.

I agree 100%. The Devs say 99% of players play SP. In SP it is already a big problem that the AI is not very good. If you look what designers did to Navy, the AI is totally uncompetitive. You refit your ships so they have 5-6x the attack of the AI's and win naval battles with 10-20x k/d ratios.

This could be fixed by creating a database of pre-made templates for sensible late-game combo. AI wouldn't actually create new desings but draw designs from the database.

 

[D.Knight]

That's not because there is a designer, but because it's still raw and unfinished.
The devs need to adress the issues and fix them.


This could be fixed by creating a database of pre-made templates for sensible late-game combo. AI wouldn't actually create new desings but draw designs from the database.

I agree with you but what's with the weird bolding?

 

[Ketchup & friends]

I agree with you but what's with the weird bolding?

It highlights the important parts. It helps me (Ketchup) to rewrite my group's input into readable forum posts.

 

[Louella]

I'm really not sure what an air designer would add, in the vast majority of cases.

You want to improve your frontline fighter aircraft. So you need.... more speed, more firepower, more range etc.
You get that already, when upgrading from FTR1 to FTR2. And then you can make variants to upgrade things further.

I'm not really sure what adding in separate engine, guns, and airframe research trees would do, that the existing research doesn't.

Same for tanks in most cases.

 

[safe-keeper]

I would actually prefer if they slowed down the land side. Constant offensives are quite ridiculous from the strain they put on logistics and command to the natural entropy on control and organisation. Nevermind offensives realistically have goals and objectives and as such have resources marked out in slight excess to achieve these objectives. Said resource stockpiles can and obviously do run out from the obvious fuel and ammo to gun lubricant and spare parts (though I think it was somewhat rare to run out of ammo on the operational level). I do agree that a large number of people would be up in arms about such a change though. At this point, I just want my air generals and organisations.

This is what I was hoping for when the battle planner was announced, and what I'm still hoping they'll implement at some point. A more static front, and the ability to plan operations (and even name them for immersion), declare objectives, decide what divisions/armies would participate, build up supplies and give your generals time to plan, and then launch the operation, with your divisions fighting until logistical issues, fatigue, and so on force you to end the offensive, with your divisions taking up defensive positions. You could even have a kind of army-level Organisation, with the operation ending when it reaches zero, and with the army then having to spend time replenishing Organisation, the same way individual divisions do.

Speaking of organisation, division organisation is replenished way too fast in HoI4. I also wish they would bring back the forced rest period between attack orders that we had had in HoI3.

 

[safe-keeper]

I'm really not sure what an air designer would add, in the vast majority of cases.

You want to improve your frontline fighter aircraft. So you need.... more speed, more firepower, more range etc.
You get that already, when upgrading from FTR1 to FTR2. And then you can make variants to upgrade things further.

I'm not really sure what adding in separate engine, guns, and airframe research trees would do, that the existing research doesn't.

Same for tanks in most cases.

As I said in my post, if an airplane designer was as deep as the ship designer, it would let you decide what roles your planes could have. With the ship designer, a destroyer hull could become an hunter-killer ship for hunting u-boats, a minesweeper, a torpedo- and AA-heavy patrol ship for use in archipelagos, or an open-sea warship bristling with heavy guns.

With an air designer, you could start with, say, a Small Two-engine Fuselage and turn it into a deadly night fighter, a long-range interceptor, an armoured tank buster, or a fast reconnaissance plane, depending on materials and components. Of course this wouldn't be for everyone, so it should be in a DLC and probably an option even for owners of that DLC (same with the ship designer, to be honest, there are people who love MtG, but don't care for the designer, so why not an option to disable it separately).

 

[ep1c_fail]

The naval designer is an immersive feature, but it does add layers of complexity which are generally unnecessary for defeating the AI. The same would almost certainly be true of a tank or plane designer (particularly given that SPGs, TDs and SPAAs are already fringe units). I would rather PDX focused on improving the core structures of the game (peace deals, UI improvements, focus trees, AI upgrades, further optimization etc.) than spent time on new designers.

The first things that should be fixed with regard to air combat are the placement of airfields (let us build them in any tile we want, like ports), the air zones (some areas are far too large) and the abysmal air-wing deployment interface that displays the scores of different variants of aircraft types without allowing players to group all types together.

With regards to naval affairs, the priority should be to make the United Kingdom far more difficult to invade (if only for balance). Perhaps adding some scripts to the RN might help, or forcing the player to have naval dominance in a sea region for a set number of consecutive days before being able to launch an invasion. The current naval invasion technologies could be replaced with landing craft research which unlocks landing craft as a producible item, like transport planes. I would also like to see the introduction of coastal batteries in some capacity.

 

[Pzt_Kami]

@safe-keeper I'm disagree in that ship building should be as realistic as it is now. I'm just pragmatic here ! just ask regular players or check most streams of the game and you will barely see people build a composite navy from scratch (they either use current ships with mostly refitting bigger ones and focus their NiCs on building light hulls or subs) ! sure the current system is realistic but this made naval aspect of the game almost useless (even for major countries)

You may say that have made up fresh fleets at least with majors like US ,Britain or Japan but these fleets usually are ready when the war is almost done. in many cases I thought myself maybe I could finish the war just by making light hulls and not bother will costly captal ships as usually starting capitals are enough to get the job done !

A problem: when MTG is out, the mod "+1 research slot for all" are very downloaded for balance the tons of new tech...i think if PDX add tons of new tech for the designers they need to add 1/2 research slot...

while I think ship producion cost should be reduced ,But this idea can help besides that to maybe help making new especially tech-up capital ships more reasonable and cost efficient ! actually I once propsed the idea to let naval theorist or at least those that needs 250pp to have the ability of adding a special naval research slot ! this slot only works for naval techs and can be distinguished with a blue background (unlike regular slots that have dark-green background). as soon as this special theorist is removed the naval slot is removed with him as well. This not only helps to make naval aspect more appealing but also makes naval theorist (especially the one that needs 250pp) a worthy choice ( as currently seems he is the least used theorist alongside Air-combat one)

 

[Vlad123]

@safe-keeper I'm disagree in that ship building should be as realistic as it is now. I'm just pragmatic here ! just ask regular players or check most streams of the game and you will barely see people build a composite navy from scratch (they either use current ships with mostly refitting bigger ones and focus their NiCs on building light hulls or subs) ! sure the current system is realistic but this made naval aspect of the game almost useless (even for major countries)

You may say that have made up fresh fleets at least with majors like US ,Britain or Japan but these fleets usually are ready when the war is almost done. in many cases I thought myself maybe I could finish the war just by making light hulls and not bother will costly captal ships as usually starting capitals are enough to get the job done !


while I think ship producion cost should be reduced ,But this idea can help besides that to maybe help making new especially tech-up capital ships more reasonable and cost efficient ! actually I once propsed the idea to let naval theorist or at least those that needs 250pp to have the ability of adding a special naval research slot ! this slot only works for naval techs and can be distinguished with a blue background (unlike regular slots that have dark-green background). as soon as this special theorist is removed the naval slot is removed with him as well. This not only helps to make naval aspect more appealing but also makes naval theorist (especially the one that needs 250pp) a worthy choice ( as currently seems he is the least used theorist alongside Air-combat one)

if i not remember a mod create special Research slot can research only a branch of research...if a thing can do the mod, the dev can make more easier

 

[Kazakk]

Designers are good but Paradox poorly executed it
If there is a navy designer should be a Navy research only research slot
Also should be an option like Hoi3 that we can able to give AI to command our ships
For minors like Hungary etc they should able to technology exchange and research modules and hulls of their faction leader with %300 research boost
I Like to have a plane or tank designer currently game feels like downgraded from Hoi3 in terms of Plane and Tank research

A research overhaul would be nice

 

[safe-keeper]

I don't really care what streamers on YouTube do. I like the ship designer for the depth and immersion it adds to the game.

Also, as Kazaak says, if researching all the relevant techs take too long, that's more of a balance/research system issue than a problem with the ship designer itself.

 

[Hoi Neuling]

Or you take a Mod which reduces Research-Times.