Questions about costs for upgrading and building and fractioned values.

[Truchses]

So far upgrades were often applied automatically and without costs. Some people started with granting the benefit of additional weapons and equippment only on upgrade. But how is this computed? What are the additional costs if the division would get Basic MGs, or SubMGs, Assault Rifles, Infantry Guns, Artillery Guns, Assault Guns, maybe even tanks?

What is still overseen if Infantry Weapons are applied to units on upgrade, are the costs of new units. Do they rise automattically? Or should they also be increased within the tech? For example, the Basic Machine Gun tech is researched, but the bonus is granted on upgrade. A standard infantry division has build costs of 5 IC per day. The Basic MG could raise the costs by about 10%, which would be 0.5. So far I think only integer values where used, so would this work?

It would be realistical. But I am not sure if this is a good idea, because of the unrealistic and inconvenient implementation of the upgrade function of HOI, which makes upgrading a real torture for the player, and takes always unrealistically the units out of the world.

 

[unmerged(13914)]

What is still overseen if Infantry Weapons are applied to units on upgrade, are the costs of new units. Do they rise automattically? Or should they also be increased within the tech? For example, the Basic Machine Gun tech is researched, but the bonus is granted on upgrade. A standard infantry division has build costs of 5 IC per day. The Basic MG could raise the costs by about 10%, which would be 0.5. So far I think only integer values where used, so would this work?

No. My understanding (this was tested, but not by me) is that if you increase build cost from 5.0 to 5.5, the new build still only costs 5.0. Fractions are ignored.

But if you build a unit, then complete a tech that increases build cost for that type of unit "now" rather than "on upgrade," the cost of RE-building the unit does go up. This is true even if you use non-integer costs. Since many units get rebuilt several times during the course of the war, this is helpful and relevant.

However, Basic MG is a good example of something that did not cost very much and added a lot to combat ability. 10 % of the cost of equipment and training did not go to machineguns. I think a machinegun cost perhaps $500, while a truck cost $3,000 and a tank cost $50,000. So I would not increase build or rebuild costs for adding MGs, or at least not by 10 %.

It would be realistical. But I am not sure if this is a good idea, because of the unrealistic and inconvenient implementation of the upgrade function of HOI, which makes upgrading a real torture for the player, and takes always unrealistically the units out of the world.

Yes. It is a huge torture. Not a good thing to make players do, in my opinion. It is reasonable to force armored units to be taken out of the front line when upgrading models, because completely retraining and re-equipping armor really could take months. But distributing a few dozen antitank rocket launchers to an existing infantry division should not be so much trouble.

 

[Truchses]

Thanks, I will refrain from assigning build costs and upgrading. Spares much work. I just thought a new weapon should not just magically be applied by just inventing the tech, but instead the weapons should really at first be produced and then be distributed to the units.

But I still don't like the taking out of the armor divisions for upgrading. Are you sure this took months. I got the impression that the german armor divisions stayed permanently in the front line. They permanently lost tanks which got permanently replaced. Just with better models over time, but tank by tank, not the whole division at once, and the lost tanks have been replaced, not the functioning tanks.

Also the costs for new tank division models seems much too high to me. I have not checked this precisely, but I remember I got the impression it costs about 2/3 of a new division. A german tank division had about 150 - 200 tanks for the armor regiment. Beside that there are many other troops. So much costs seem to make upgrading unrealistic, at least questionable. Realistically armor units have been upgraded gradually, continously, by demand, and with regrouping, so the tanks of elder models were not just dumbed, but reassigned, and thus further used. For example the PzII remained in use and became a favourable recon tank. Damaged PzIII tanks have been reused for assault guns, tank destroyers, self propelled infantry and artillery guns, PzIV have been refitted with longer guns. Also the german army used often captured weapons. After the first shock of encountering T34 without adequate counter weapons, they adapted french artillery guns as AT guns. (You might remember even better than me the model). But all this is completely ignored by the game, and I think the upgrade costs should be much lower, more about 1/3.

 

[jdrou]

Model upgrades always have 3/4 IC cost and 1/2 time of a new build. Unfortunately these are not modified by any tech or ministers either.

 

[Truchses]

Thanks.

The cost and time model is irritating. The costs should feature total costs, independent of the time. The costs are often misunderstood a full costs. But multiplied with the time the total costs are very different. That's also why brigades should not take much more build time than a week. But I just notice that I have overseen that with 1/2 the build time the costs are not 3/4 of the overall costs, but 1/2 * 3/4 = 3/8 which seems to make even some sense. I always saw unit model upgrades costing pretty much, what I guessed to be about 2/3 of a new built, and which is close to 3/4, as jdrou corrected, and I found that very much, as I did not take in account that this is actually lower with the half build time.

But still, at least the upgrade time seems insane to me. If you assign 240 days build time to a tank division, than upgrading will take 120 days. For what? They can stay out of the field for about a week or 2 at max. I mean there are wars, sometimes.

I suggest that the upgrading is completely rethought and the tech tree gets changed accordingly. Different armor division models, that depend on different tank models is anyway unrealistic. I never heard of that. But realistically different countries used different armor division models, but independent of tank models. In HOI all unit types of different countries are treated as if they were the same. But for example a soviet armor division had about twice the number of tanks than a german armor division. No wonder, the soviet armor division had 2 armor regiments and 1 infantry regiment, while the german armor division had 1 armor regiment and 2 infantry regiments. The soviets also had the german type with only 1 armor regiment, but called that 'mechanised division'.

I guess your numbers apply to upgrading a unit model to another unit model. But one of my questions have been overseen. What about upgrading a unit type with new applications, equippment, weapons. For example upgrading a ship or flottilla or air wing with new gadgets, especially for example armor divisions with a new tank destroyer model, without upgrading the unit itself as a whole new model? How are the cost and time computed? I hope that would be much lower than upgrading to a new unit model.

That would make much more sense for not upgrading a tank division to a new division model, but just upgrading with new tanks of a new tank model or a fighter wing with new fighters of a new fighter model. If you upgrade a division to a new division like upgrading the soviet mech division with 1 armor regiment to a soviet armor divsion with 2 armor regiments, the cost and maybe even the time might be justified. So new tank models would just be applied to tank divisions like actually new tank destroyers. Depending on the unit model, the costs would be differently. For example a upgrading with new tanks of a soviet armor division with 2 armor regiments would cost more than upgrading a soviet mech division with 1 armor regiment.

With many tank models there would be still a realistical low amount of armor division models. Same with aircraft. And you wouldn't have to take them out always that long, if upgrading a division with a new tank model as application doesn't cost that much or take that much time as upgrading to a new divsion model.