I fear the research system rewards overspecialization

[kviiri]

With research cost being per-model for ships, airplanes and tanks (plus their derivatives) I fear it might reward specialization beyond what countries historically did. For example, the Royal Navy operated ships of more HoI4 classes than it seems worth to me to research. I wouldn't really want to see a situation where a country's navy consists entirely out of light cruisers and battleships, or their air force is entirely light fighters and strategic bombers, just because that saves research costs.

Doesn't the system reflect in any way general advances to airplane/ship/tank tech? Surely when one develops a good light cruiser they gain insight that can be applied to other ship types as well?

Please confirm my fears or enlighten me about how it really works.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

This seems to be a problem for all past HoI, leading to the all-CV/DD fleets since many people don't bother to research other ships at all, and there are ridiculous ones like having separate AA techs for every class of ships, and separate small arms for infantry, cavalry, and militia.

Most mods managed to "fix" them since units in HoI3 are modular and the displayed level depends on the highest level of tech used (IIRC), and a single tech can affect multiple classes of units, but with HoI4's model, it seems less fixable overall.

For example, in reality, "swapping Oerlikon with Bofors" is a decision need to made just once, and every class of ships built/rebuilt afterwards should be fitted with the latter than the former. In HoI3, modders made it so that a single tech affects all the ships, but in HoI4, it seems impossible to do so: ship models are discreet by year, and variant effects is tied to a single model.

 

[vector1]

What we might actually see, is lendleasing between countries to allow specialisation. For example, why does ITA need infantry weapons 3 if they could put all their research into naval bombers to close the Med, and import all the weapons they need from Germany... Japan could also use their early capture of China to mass produce cheap tanks and export them to GER/ITA since they won't do much good in Asian jungle/mountain warfare... Or use that early air experience to mass produce early 1939 fighters with maxed out experience and export them to Europe. The possibilities are endless.

 

[Dr. Frog]

In HoI3, you gained 'practical' and 'theoretical' experience from researching other techs, which I'm pretty certain was supposed to have an impact on research time? Didn't seem to be the best system.
Anyway, in HoI4 I think all nations have naval focus trees to represent naval growth (and focusing on submarines or surface ships), but it obviously still requires some investment for those who want a reasonably sized and diverse navy.

 

[Luckschaden]

Well, there has to be some cost of research, which is simulated by limiting research slots. But I agree that this implementation might be an issue.

It seems that in many cases it would be best to rush down one path, and then afterwards researching other stuff. Same for doctrines.

 

[Thorin]

You need six tech to reach the next lvl in your navy, each takes around 1/3 year to research. Add some carrier planes, naval doctrines and industry and you spent your slot for that four year window.
Similar for air units.
Infantry and armour need one full time slots each, also. So with 3 slots, you need some choice or reduction. With 4 slots, you can do almost everything, but not hte fancy speciel tehcs or leave some stuff out. With full 5 slots you can do pretty much every tech on time.

 

[Victor Cortez]

What we might actually see, is lendleasing between countries to allow specialisation. For example, why does ITA need infantry weapons 3 if they could put all their research into naval bombers to close the Med, and import all the weapons they need from Germany... Japan could also use their early capture of China to mass produce cheap tanks and export them to GER/ITA since they won't do much good in Asian jungle/mountain warfare... Or use that early air experience to mass produce early 1939 fighters with maxed out experience and export them to Europe. The possibilities are endless.

Yes. But this you can only do in multiplayer.

 

[General Samson]

Although it would break the entry-level i somewhat think that the HOI1 research system was very nice, where you really have researched single components like individual mortar. ;-)

 

[SchwarzKatze]

In HoI3, you gained 'practical' and 'theoretical' experience from researching other techs, which I'm pretty certain was supposed to have an impact on research time? Didn't seem to be the best system.
Anyway, in HoI4 I think all nations have naval focus trees to represent naval growth (and focusing on submarines or surface ships), but it obviously still requires some investment for those who want a reasonably sized and diverse navy.

Well, there has to be some cost of research, which is simulated by limiting research slots. But I agree that this implementation might be an issue.

It seems that in many cases it would be best to rush down one path, and then afterwards researching other stuff. Same for doctrines.

It appears that the bonus was just not enough. In reality many related techs should become rather cheap once one in the group is researched, say naval guns for example, while their caliber differs a lot, an improvement in one of them should be able to make improvement of other guns easier, as there are many improvements to other parts intergral to gun operations that can be easily scaled, like rangefinders, shell elevators, training mechanisms, breechblocks, and the shells themselves. Ship engines are similar, if you have the latest whatever engine researched, other engines should get a hefty discount, since you already mastered higher working temperatures and pressure, you don't have to do that again. In radical cases, people used "wrong" engines, like the carrier Katsuragi was fitted with destroyer engines, which cut the horsepower by 33%, but only a small decrease in speed (34kt -> 32kt)