Please Consider: Weapon Variants

[Wilbry]

Variants add a unique dimension to the HOI franchise, and are an important tool for allowing players to express their creative and strategic personalities into the game.

Players want to imprint their stamp onto the choices in the game. The Division Designer and Variants System are nods to this by PDS. Weapon Variants would further allow people to express their need to design their version of their army.

Consider, I could design my infantry weapons packages to focus on the German philosophy of basing everything around the machinegun, significantly buffing support weapons and reliability. Or...I could augment my assault weapons and support weapons equally, and throw in an equal measure of anti-tank; representing my US infantry and their standard issue semi-auto rifles, and bazookas, but greatly more expensive. Or...I could simply leave them vanilla, and pump out cheaper (and thus more) packages to meet my massively expanding Soviet style conscript army needs.

Similarly I could create different variants for different divisions, such as a heavily defensive buff for my garrison battalions, deciding to give them lots of mg42s but no panzerfausts, or SMGs or such. This would come across in the variant system as several pips in support, and perhaps some in reliability.

I could redesign my infantry philosophy to meet changing conditions. I may find myself going on the attack more, so perhaps later on I make another variant giving my front line infatntry more assault weapons, but perhaps I have such a massive manpower glut and I do not care about replacing equipment I just want as many packages produced as quickly as possible so I do not buff the reliability (keeping the cost down)..and Hey Presto! I have entire divisions of Russian SMG troops.

This creates depth in gameplay, strategy, and on-going choices. The player can feel more masterful of his armed forces, make gambles regarding his overall game strategy, and even change that strategy to meet an evolving battlespace.

 

[panzerzombie]

definitely yes.

Also all variants should cost additional IC ( except maybe countered partly by reliability which may include improved production methods )

 

[ArrowRL201]

It would certainly be impressive if I managed to order factories to build all my favourite firearms - from Stens and Brens to the ultra rare FG42 and the omnipresent BAR - but my question is, what would this do to the game's accessibility? Also,would there be enough variance to justify giving everyone different guns for different time periods?

In addition to writing or rewriting history in game, I gotta say a lot of the appeal of the game to me is going to be creating my favourite tanks, planes, and ships. Having favourite guns to the mix would be a cherry on top.

 

[Wilbry]

[QUOTE="...but my question is, what would this do to the game's accessibility? Also,would there be enough variance to justify giving everyone different guns for different time periods?[/QUOTE]

I didn't mean to imply different actual guns.
Basic Weapons, Weapons I, Weapons II, etc are a collective group of weapons. So the variant system would simply go along with that. You are not producing, the Sten Mk IV....you are producing a platoons worth of firearms, mortars, grenades, and rocket launchers. Its a collective "package of equipment.

Accessibility would be unchanged as the variant system is already in place...and variants are not needed to play the game, they are mostly there for the players to express themselves and be connected to the iconic equipment of the period.

 

[ArrowRL201]

Sorry I guess I'm still having trouble understanding what people are talking about sometimes heh

Yeah that's why I was asking about approachability. building individual guns seems...out of scope.

 

[adam_grif]

The game already has a mechanic in place for you to specialise your army towards or against certain kinds of tasks, like make them better at urban combat or make them better at river crossings or make them deal with tanks better - the division template designer. Rather than decide what the small arms composition of your units is, you decide what kind of brigades and companies to bolt on for those things. In that sense, I don't think small arms variants is necessary. Other aspects of the same idea are kind of covered by doctrines and what not. A doctrine research that gives you better soft attack may in "reality" be an increase in assault weapons, for instance. It's all pretty abstract, really.

 

[wright1331]

The game already has a mechanic in place for you to specialise your army towards or against certain kinds of tasks, like make them better at urban combat or make them better at river crossings or make them deal with tanks better - the division template designer. Rather than decide what the small arms composition of your units is, you decide what kind of brigades and companies to bolt on for those things. In that sense, I don't think small arms variants is necessary. Other aspects of the same idea are kind of covered by doctrines and what not. A doctrine research that gives you better soft attack may in "reality" be an increase in assault weapons, for instance. It's all pretty abstract, really.

^THIS^

 

[Wilbry]

The same could be said for tanks, planes and ships...they all have doctrine which deal with them specifically.
Also, tanks are a component of a battalion just like weapons are, so the same argument regarding the div designer can be made for them.

 

[Dessertspoon]

The game already has a mechanic in place for you to specialise your army towards or against certain kinds of tasks, like make them better at urban combat or make them better at river crossings or make them deal with tanks better - the division template designer. Rather than decide what the small arms composition of your units is, you decide what kind of brigades and companies to bolt on for those things. In that sense, I don't think small arms variants is necessary. Other aspects of the same idea are kind of covered by doctrines and what not. A doctrine research that gives you better soft attack may in "reality" be an increase in assault weapons, for instance. It's all pretty abstract, really.

The same could be said for tanks, planes and ships...they all have doctrine which deal with them specifically.
Also, tanks are a component of a battalion just like weapons are, so the same argument regarding the div designer can be made for them.

Both sentiments are valid. We can modify 'Light Tanks I' or 'Fighter 2' for use by our various battalions. I think most of us agree it's a cool little aspect of the game that forces us to think about fundamental choices between the efficiencies of a modular system based around adding "on to" old weapons platforms, or new platforms that our factories need time to gear up to producing as effcientyly. Why not extend this to the Infantry Weapons, Support Weapons, and other kinds of equipment we kit divisions out in?

Smaller countries that cannot spare enough research slots for fancier infantry weapons, which is a big determinant of battlefield success, or who cannot afford to re-tool their production lines, could adapt older weapons by upgrading them in various ways in a compromise effort to keep pace with technological change.

 

[adam_grif]

The same could be said for tanks, planes and ships...they all have doctrine which deal with them specifically.
Also, tanks are a component of a battalion just like weapons are, so the same argument regarding the div designer can be made for them.

Your idea is not to create individual rifles and mortar variants, it is to vary the ratio of distributed weapons through the same basic interface as the variant designer. Not the same thing. There are additional problems with this abstraction such as needing to "produce" and "distribute" those changes. I can't just order 10% more assault rifles, I have to completely trade out my entire division's equipment for an entirely newly produced variant of that equipment that is almost the same, but with a few extra crew served weapons or a higher ratio of submachineguns to rifles. That's how equipment works in HoI4.

 

[sresk]

Variants add a unique dimension to the HOI franchise, and are an important tool for allowing players to express their creative and strategic personalities into the game.

Players want to imprint their stamp onto the choices in the game. The Division Designer and Variants System are nods to this by PDS. Weapon Variants would further allow people to express their need to design their version of their army.

Consider, I could design my infantry weapons packages to focus on the German philosophy of basing everything around the machinegun, significantly buffing support weapons and reliability. Or...I could augment my assault weapons and support weapons equally, and throw in an equal measure of anti-tank; representing my US infantry and their standard issue semi-auto rifles, and bazookas, but greatly more expensive. Or...I could simply leave them vanilla, and pump out cheaper (and thus more) packages to meet my massively expanding Soviet style conscript army needs.

Similarly I could create different variants for different divisions, such as a heavily defensive buff for my garrison battalions, deciding to give them lots of mg42s but no panzerfausts, or SMGs or such. This would come across in the variant system as several pips in support, and perhaps some in reliability.

I could redesign my infantry philosophy to meet changing conditions. I may find myself going on the attack more, so perhaps later on I make another variant giving my front line infatntry more assault weapons, but perhaps I have such a massive manpower glut and I do not care about replacing equipment I just want as many packages produced as quickly as possible so I do not buff the reliability (keeping the cost down)..and Hey Presto! I have entire divisions of Russian SMG troops.

This creates depth in gameplay, strategy, and on-going choices. The player can feel more masterful of his armed forces, make gambles regarding his overall game strategy, and even change that strategy to meet an evolving battlespace.[/QUOTE/]

I'd love to see tthis idea either as dlc or a mod

 

[Wilbry]

Your idea is not to create individual rifles and mortar variants, it is to vary the ratio of distributed weapons through the same basic interface as the variant designer. Not the same thing. There are additional problems with this abstraction such as needing to "produce" and "distribute" those changes. I can't just order 10% more assault rifles, I have to completely trade out my entire division's equipment for an entirely newly produced variant of that equipment that is almost the same, but with a few extra crew served weapons or a higher ratio of submachineguns to rifles. That's how equipment works in HoI4.

Yes, that is my proposal in a nutshell.
I agree it is not quite the same thing as tanks, planes and ships are discreet items; whereas a "package" of equipment is not. But for game purposes, since we are only dealing down to the squad level (a single tank or squad of infantry), then "enough weapons to equip the squad" can be considered a discreet item.

I think you can just order 10% more STG44s instead of K98s. That is what the efficiency change represents, and also any variant cost changes. Each package of the new ratios of weapons represents exactly that...more SMGs or mortars....some battalions will have different kit...nothing unrealistic about that.

I disagree that you have to completely trade out your entire division's equipment for the newer (or preferred) variant.
Your division currently has 40 Pz Is, 60 Pz IIs and 12 captured BT-7s. As more Pz IIc models are produced they will replace your outdated Pz Is and captured BT-7s.
Its a granular process, that works just as well for "Infantry weapons packages".

 

[adam_grif]

Yes, that is my proposal in a nutshell.
I agree it is not quite the same thing as tanks, planes and ships are discreet items; whereas a "package" of equipment is not. But for game purposes, since we are only dealing down to the squad level (a single tank or squad of infantry), then "enough weapons to equip the squad" can be considered a discreet item.

I think you can just order 10% more STG44s instead of K98s. That is what the efficiency change represents, and also any variant cost changes. Each package of the new ratios of weapons represents exactly that...more SMGs or mortars....some battalions will have different kit...nothing unrealistic about that.

I disagree that you have to completely trade out your entire division's equipment for the newer (or preferred) variant.
Your division currently has 40 Pz Is, 60 Pz IIs and 12 captured BT-7s. As more Pz IIc models are produced they will replace your outdated Pz Is and captured BT-7s.
Its a granular process, that works just as well for "Infantry weapons packages".

It is a granular process, yes, however the model is essentially that a full kit of Weapon I represents the whole division being at that ratio, which does not really line up with how you are conceptualizing it. To accurately model it, you would need to break down weapons to a finer level of detail, because the stockpiles would separate them properly and only add the new weapons that are needed. In the current form, the game will do its best to throw out all of the existing weapons packages and replace them with the newly manufactured package, meaning you have tossed out ten thousand perfectly good rifles and then built 8000 identical ones, just because you wanted more SMGs.

While your system can function, it will be "wonky" because of the present limitations. It would take more coding than simply making variants apply to "Weapons" or "Support Equipment" to avoid this. In the general case, I would say that it would also be slightly odd as a system regardless. The assault gun to tank ratio is controlled by the brigade / regiment / company structure, as would the ratio of artillery to anti aircraft to anti tank guns. But the Infantry unit is an abstract mesh of things more than the other types are.

 

[panzerzombie]

In the current form, the game will do its best to throw out all of the existing weapons packages and replace them with the newly manufactured package, meaning you have tossed out ten thousand perfectly good rifles and then built 8000 identical ones, just because you wanted more SMGs.

No, thats not how it works IMO. The divisions are filled up with what is best ( most advanced) or whatever is at hand at the moment of recruitment according to its priority policy - variants ( I assume) are not "better" than same tech equipment. So it won´t throw out anything because there is no need to. New divisions however may find only the variant you produce in the pools ( unless you have ridiculous amounts of old stuff )

So unless you check the box to deny certain units certain equipment it will gradually fill with the currently produced items as the phased out equipment gets attrited away someday.

 

[Alwar]

It's an incredible idea and I think it's extremely easy to do. Just take the weapons packs, convert them to have variants (surely this will be a flag in the archive) and then assign a set amount of variables . make it so that the lvl 5 of weapons 1 for example is better than bare weapons 2 but much more expensive and lower reliability and identical to weapons 2 lvl 1. You don't even need to touch anything else except the weapon packs.

Really good idea, the problem might be to make AI to use it. That might be solved with premade templates for ai, but probably will be more difficult than that

 

[Lifthrasil]

In the current form, the game will do its best to throw out all of the existing weapons packages and replace them with the newly manufactured package, meaning you have tossed out ten thousand perfectly good rifles and then built 8000 identical ones, just because you wanted more SMGs.

No, thats not how it works IMO. The divisions are filled up with what is best ( most advanced) or whatever is at hand at the moment of recruitment according to its priority policy - variants ( I assume) are not "better" than same tech equipment. So it won´t throw out anything because there is no need to. New divisions however may find only the variant you produce in the pools ( unless you have ridiculous amounts of old stuff )

I think you misunderstand each other. To clear things up:
Infantry weapons are produced in packs of 10. That means: 1 INF weapon equipment is enough to outfit 10 men.
A division of 10.000 men will need 1000 INF weapon equipment to be fully armed.

So you could indeed equip 5000 men with Weapons I Variant A, and 5000 with Weapons I Variant B.
So the variants model would indeed work here as well, although I am undecided whether it is necessary and helps the game or not.

 

[mursolini]

The same could be said for tanks, planes and ships...they all have doctrine which deal with them specifically.
Also, tanks are a component of a battalion just like weapons are, so the same argument regarding the div designer can be made for them.

The difference, was that WW2 infantry weapons didn`t really change much, while tanks and planes were upgraded every 6 month.
German WW2 troopers started with WW1 rifle and finished with WW1 rifle, semi-automatic rifles and "assault guns" are already a weapon tech, Germans had like 2 main MGs, MG-34 and MG-42. There was so little variation, most of weapon changes can easily be given their own tech, unlike 10 variants of Panzer3, Panzer 4, or T-34, or Sherman, or something along the line of 30 modifications of BF-109 or FW-190.

US started war with M1 garand, and ended war with M1. BAR1918 was more or less the only light MG before M60.

Other countries had more or less same story. There simply was no 15ish changes of infantry weapons to provide each tier of tech with variants.

 

[Denkt]

Infantry get alot of techs while tank and aircrafts get no techs at all other then the techs that unlock them.

 

[adam_grif]

No, thats not how it works IMO. The divisions are filled up with what is best ( most advanced) or whatever is at hand at the moment of recruitment according to its priority policy - variants ( I assume) are not "better" than same tech equipment. So it won´t throw out anything because there is no need to. New divisions however may find only the variant you produce in the pools ( unless you have ridiculous amounts of old stuff )

So unless you check the box to deny certain units certain equipment it will gradually fill with the currently produced items as the phased out equipment gets attrited away someday.

The system removes the preexisting weapons from the division and deposits them in the stockpile as soon as they can be replaced with the upgraded model. In order to fully equip the whole army with the new "mix' of weapons (i.e. the variant) you would need to produce that variant for the entire army. But even if you only produce enough for half of each division, you have still have essentially removed 5,000 rifles from each division, and replaced it with 4,000 brand new (identical) rifles and 1,000 SMGs. Do you understand what I'm saying here?

It makes perfect sense to say that you are drawing 100 Panzer IIs out of a division, and replacing them with 100 Panzer IIIs. It also makes sense to withdraw an old rifle and replace with a new model of rifle, but it doesn't make sense as a control mechanism for the ratio of weapons within an abstracted "infantry weapon" package. You have to replace each unit with a whole new constructed unit! That's how the equipment works in the game!

 

[panzerzombie]

The system removes the preexisting weapons from the division and deposits them in the stockpile as soon as they can be replaced with the upgraded model. In order to fully equip the whole army with the new "mix' of weapons (i.e. the variant) you would need to produce that variant for the entire army. But even if you only produce enough for half of each division, you have still have essentially removed 5,000 rifles from each division, and replaced it with 4,000 brand new (identical) rifles and 1,000 SMGs. Do you understand what I'm saying here?

I get your point but sorry your example is still irrelevant in regards to Infantry Equipment variants.

As some already pointed out: When you get your Weapon-II Package the game WILL replace its old Weapon-I Packages ( containing e.g. the same K-98 Karabiner / new MP-40 / new 80mm mortar etc. and returning the same K-98 and older MP38/50mm leGrw. etc. to the pool ). If Weapon-III would only contain lets say StG-44 then it would make sense, but I assume there will still be K-98 Karabiners and 80mm mortar in the package.......

If you are fine with the principle of swapping Weapon-I with -II then you should be more than fine with Weapon-I Variant A and Weapon-I Variant B since they WON´T be replaced automatically because they are not newer and thus co-exist ( unless you check that box). That is the ingame difference I wanted to point out.

Do you understand what I´m saying here ?