Improving tech teams

[unmerged(61296)]

The amount and variety of Tech Teams in HoI2 is just astounding, so I'll just say it'd be just that tad grater to be able to have them improve over time. Take the Spanish CROS tech team which is the only one with the Management skill, albeit at level 2. It ends up developing all of the assembly lines / machines tools. And yet, after having scorched all this new ground, its level is still 2. What would be nice would be the opportunity to get "crack" tech teams just by granting them experience based on the number of projects they complete, the same way you get crack army units based on the number of fights they're involved in.

 

[unmerged(57263)]

Yes, there should be a slight improvement in the tech sector. Tech teams should gain some experience for researching something, but this factor should not be to powerful.

 

[Acheron]

PErsonally, I am a bit scpetical about tech teams earing experience, though I cannot put my finger on it...

I'd like to get some sort of points I could distribute to improve tech teams. Ideally, this points would also be useable to improve officers, other teams (I'd like espionage, production and diplomatic teams, too) and maybe industrial efficiency, too, so it would be a damn hard choice where to allocate them.

 

[Keisok]

I like the ideas that I've seen, and I honestly agree, and perhaps by utilizing the points system in the way that allows the player to add another area of expertise, to show how the tech team improves in a certain area (or it's perhaps added depending on what the team researches.

 

[unmerged(62045)]

The techteams should receive XP for time allocated to a project. Maybe have the effeciency progress timed the total time and then work out a formula. It is important that you cant abuse it. Allocate a worthless techteam to a historical year '48 tech and thus having them become uber. But I like the idea of improving techteams over time, slowly.

 

[egslim]

If you consider a large pool of tech-teams from which a maximum number of five are simultaneously selected to perform all the country's research, then it makes sense to give the most active ones experience.

But that's silly, because the HOI2 research system is a mere abstraction of reality. The concept of using a small number of teams regularly while others remain idle most of the time is a peculiarity of this abstraction, it has no basis in reality. As an artificial concept it should not be given any additional effect on gameplay in a realistic simulation like HOI2

 

[unmerged(43891)]

the tech teams could retain their level, but just get a bonus for having lots of experience. because lets face it, there shouldn't be many counrties in the world that have a geniuses likes Guderian in army doctrines, Oppenheimer for nukes etc. you should be by your energy and persistence of researching a field often and be rewarded by getting an small experience bonus multiplier -but not as powerful as getting another level.

 

[unmerged(61296)]

If you consider a large pool of tech-teams from which a maximum number of five are simultaneously selected to perform all the country's research, then it makes sense to give the most active ones experience.

But that's silly, because the HOI2 research system is a mere abstraction of reality. The concept of using a small number of teams regularly while others remain idle most of the time is a peculiarity of this abstraction, it has no basis in reality. As an artificial concept it should not be given any additional effect on gameplay in a realistic simulation like HOI2

Silly ? Maybe so. But AFAIK real-life industrial conglomerates, engineering firms and study groups DO gain experience over time, as their engineers and workers get better at their jobs. Heck, they even train them, and try to keep them from walking to a competitor. Why would they do that if technical know-how was a corporate given that do not change over time ?

As an example, present-day European aircraft makers are very eager to develop UAVs partly because they know the European markets won't need any new military planes for the last 10-15 years, and working on UAV designs ensures their designing teams will keep their edge by working on new frames. So in 2015, these teams will be able to develop new planes - or to train new engineers to do so.

You can't "mothball" technical know-how and find it state of the art a few years after - it's true today, and that was still true in the 1930s-1940s. A company that works on a line of machine tools is supposed to gain an edge on this technology. A company that produces fighters will usually get better at it, and you'd be better off, as the lader of the country, to use their know-how to build your next-generation fighters than you'd be if you gave the contract to a company that was making cars or building destroyers.

Just my 2 cents off, but I'm pretty confident I'm hitting the nail on the head here.

 

[egslim]

But AFAIK real-life industrial conglomerates, engineering firms and study groups DO gain experience over time, as their engineers and workers get better at their jobs.

Of course, but that's besides the point: In the game a tech-team may be kept idle for long periods, in reality all teams would work continuously on projects - either government contracts or commercial projects. So they would all gain experience, all of the time.

The concept that some teams are busy while most are kept idle is purely for abstraction purposes, it is entirely unrealistic. If an R&D team isn't busy on government contracts you put them to work on related commercial projects - like Messerschmitt with the Taifun. Ford would have continued to gain experience on mass production wether they produced B24's or T-Fords.

A company that produces fighters will usually get better at it, and you'd be better off, as the lader of the country, to use their know-how to build your next-generation fighters than you'd be if you gave the contract to a company that was making cars or building destroyers.

That's about specialities, which have nothing to do with the subject of this thread.

 

[unmerged(60878)]

I've always thought there should be a way to improve research teams, but maybe rather than them just getting better with experience, you should be able to spend money and/or IC over time to improve them.

This would be abstracted as, eg, building better universities and research facilities to train scientists and engineers, or modernising the existing establishments such as engineering companies and dockyards etc.

Obviously the amount of improvement would be limited and/or fairly slow as over the time span of the game there wouldn't be that much scope for huge change.

I know this happens slightly already with the computing techs that give an all round research bonus, but it would be nice if you could also spend resources improving specific teams.

 

[unmerged(19997)]

I think it should be more of a random event. After all there always should be a chance that a Tech team is able to hire some hot shot new engineer or Scientist out of School, or maybe some important manager dies off in a car crash. Or maybe Somebody brilliant gets hired away to work for a different company.
Just take a look at Aircraft or electronics industry.. The hotshot company one year is is 5 years down the road an oversized dinosaur.

 

[egslim]

I think it should be more of a random event. After all there always should be a chance that a Tech team is able to hire some hot shot new engineer or Scientist out of School, or maybe some important manager dies off in a car crash. Or maybe Somebody brilliant gets hired away to work for a different company.
Just take a look at Aircraft or electronics industry.. The hotshot company one year is is 5 years down the road an oversized dinosaur.

Except that HOI2 tech-teams don't really represent their historical namesakes. For one, historically no R&D departments were kept idle - while in HOI2 they are. Two, many departments are missing from the tech-team list.

Instead the available tech-teams for a country are meant to represent that country's total R&D capability. The specific names are merely for flavour. A country's R&D capability doesn't change because someone brilliant moves from one company to another.

 

[unmerged(61296)]

That's about specialities, which have nothing to do with the subject of this thread.

No, that's about experience - which is linked to the subject I had in mind for this thread when I started it, thank you very much.

Let's suppose I can use two tech teams for my Industrial projects, one with two needed specialties at level 2, one with only one level, but at level 4. And now let's suppose I always pick up the first one for my Industrial projects, while I use the second one for other purposes because of some other specialty it has. Shouldn't the first team get some benefit from the experience it's supposed to have acquired developing the industrial technologies ?

Since it's working on cutting-edge technology and blazing new ground at every new technological improvement, shouldn't it get (over time of course) at least as good as the level 4 company in, say, management, while the second company gets better in whatever other specialty I use it for ?

 

[unmerged(61296)]

Another option, albeit probably one requiring more work and planning from the player, would be for a nation to have a pool of tech skills for each specialty, which could be used to assemble tech teams. After all, historically, WW2 R&D departements did work one for another - German and Russian planemakers ended up building projects other firms had developed for example.

That would force the player to think about making a super-team that would deplete his tech pool of a certain skill that might also be urgently needed to develop new weapons, projects, or doctrine.

Just a few thoughts.

 

[egslim]

Let's suppose I can use two tech teams for my Industrial projects, one with two needed specialties at level 2, one with only one level, but at level 4.

Again you focus on the abstraction, instead of the reality it models. Tech-teams can't be trained like that, because they don't represent trainable entities. They're mere abstractions of a country's technological capabilites. And the HOI2 timespan is too short for those to alter significantly.