One of my favourite part of WWII history was all the crazy secret weapon schemes that the germans came up with. Unfortunately this has never been included in the HoI series.
In fact, there is nothing secret about the "secret weapons" in HoI; there is really nothing to differtiate them from common techs. So for HoI3, I suggested including some of these real secret weapons: things like the Paris gun, ultra super big huge heavy tanks, super long range bombers, and various whacky experimental seaplane and CAS designs. The key for these secret weapons is that they require huge amount of research, but there is a chance that they will never work.
But that's ahistorical, you say. Well I say it's even less historical to have absolute certainty about having the desired return on your research. Germany invested in these experimental research precisely because there was no way of knowing whether they would work or not, just as the US was no more certain that the atomic bomb theory would work when they started the project: there's always an element of gamble in experimental research.
To model this, the secret weapon techs could simply require a basic amount of research. After this is satisfied, a chance of success is randomly determined for this project. This chance would work like a random event; and the player can continue to research this project in hope of having it succeed one day or they can cut the losses if he thinks it unlikely to produce result.
Of course the base time requirement and the chance of success would be modified by the "tech expertise" system of HoI3 as mentioned in the dev diary; but there's no conflict with the new system as far as I can see.
In fact, there is nothing secret about the "secret weapons" in HoI; there is really nothing to differtiate them from common techs. So for HoI3, I suggested including some of these real secret weapons: things like the Paris gun, ultra super big huge heavy tanks, super long range bombers, and various whacky experimental seaplane and CAS designs. The key for these secret weapons is that they require huge amount of research, but there is a chance that they will never work.
But that's ahistorical, you say. Well I say it's even less historical to have absolute certainty about having the desired return on your research. Germany invested in these experimental research precisely because there was no way of knowing whether they would work or not, just as the US was no more certain that the atomic bomb theory would work when they started the project: there's always an element of gamble in experimental research.
To model this, the secret weapon techs could simply require a basic amount of research. After this is satisfied, a chance of success is randomly determined for this project. This chance would work like a random event; and the player can continue to research this project in hope of having it succeed one day or they can cut the losses if he thinks it unlikely to produce result.
Of course the base time requirement and the chance of success would be modified by the "tech expertise" system of HoI3 as mentioned in the dev diary; but there's no conflict with the new system as far as I can see.
xD
