Shipbuilding issues

[adam_grif]

I like the idea of not being able to start construction of a navy after Barbarossa and still being able to pull off Seelowe in a short period of time. I feel like successful Seelowe should require foresight and long term planning / sacrifice in other areas early in the game. It should be an incredible challenge to be able to do both in the same game successfully, since to challenge the RN you would need to build more dockyards instead of more military factories in the first couple of years in the war, reducing your long term army construction potential. If you can just conquer USSR in '41-42 and instantly switch into giant fleet mode and invade in '44 with 15 new capital ships that didn't start construction until December '41 that's going to be kinda crummy, IMO.

In the base game it's probably going to be ok just like it is, I mean I just want the game to COME OUT at this point even if it's flawed in some areas. But in a production focused DLC (let's call it Arsenal of Democracy or something), they could imo overhaul naval production. Destroyers and Submarines could operate on regular production line principles as ships currently do in HoI4. Larger ships would need a dockyard assigned per ship, up to a maximum of two per ship (simulating "rushed production"). 2x docks for one ship would not double production, it would reduce construction times by a smaller modifier, perhaps a 33% reduction in build time (e.g. if a ship takes 12 months, it will be done in 8 months if you have twice as many dockyards assigned). This will allow for semi-rushed production, but only to a certain extent, and it would be more efficient long-term just to do 1 dockyard = 1 ship.

 

[paulatreides0]

Honestly, even if the dockyards are drastically limited so that only one dockyard can build a ship at a time, Sealowe still won't be difficult to pull off. Sealowe isn't going to be even remotely difficult unless the power of ground based NAV bombers, relative to HoI3, is drastically nerfed. I remember in HOI3 I could easily scrap the entire RN with just the initial Kriegsmarine fleet and a decent number of NAVs (~8 to 12, depending on how impatient I felt) to bomb the RN's fleets to shreds in their ports, within a year or two, the RN would only have a couple of destroyers left and couldn't keep produce enough ships to defend itself.

 

[griffor]

Honestly, even if the dockyards are drastically limited so that only one dockyard can build a ship at a time, Sealowe still won't be difficult to pull off. Sealowe isn't going to be even remotely difficult unless the power of ground based NAV bombers, relative to HoI3, is drastically nerfed. I remember in HOI3 I could easily scrap the entire RN with just the initial Kriegsmarine fleet and a decent number of NAVs (~8 to 12, depending on how impatient I felt) to bomb the RN's fleets to shreds in their ports, within a year or two, the RN would only have a couple of destroyers left and couldn't keep produce enough ships to defend itself.

nav bombers were how i played the med as italy why build ships when i can just use radar and nav bombers to win the sea war

 

[Denkt]

About naval bombers: From my understanding, anti air attacks will reduce the effectivness of aircraft attacks so naval bombers are probably not as strong as they was in previous HOI.

About dockyard stacking: The developers have said that it is a game that they are making and this seems to be a gameplay thing. Dockyard stacking make the expensive captial ships more available as you can have one finished in half a year, this however don't mean it is cheap. This should make the naval gameplay more dynamic and may be very important for game balance as each ship seems to have rather specialized roles such as destroyers: anti submarine, heavy crusier: anti screen, battleship: anti heavy cruiser and so on.

 

[Alwar]

About naval bombers: From my understanding, anti air attacks will reduce the effectivness of aircraft attacks so naval bombers are probably not as strong as they was in previous HOI.

About dockyard stacking: The developers have said that it is a game that they are making and this seems to be a gameplay thing. Dockyard stacking make the expensive captial ships more available as you can have one finished in half a year, this however don't mean it is cheap. This should make the naval gameplay more dynamic and may be very important for game balance as each ship seems to have rather specialized roles such as destroyers: anti submarine, heavy crusier: anti screen, battleship: anti heavy cruiser and so on.

If by "dynamic" you mean being able yo build hundreds of battleships as usa, yes you are right.

That will break the game balance anyway and make japan useless completely. Also pearl harbour wont happen or won't be useful even if perfectly done.

Guys, the thing with realistic build times is all about balance. Real life is the best balance factor. If you get a decisive victory at sea, that means you will be able to turn the tables and progress, but if you can build battleships and carriers in half a year the game will stagnate because you won't be able to use your initiative and the war won't change at all.

It's not because we want to imbalance the game, but otherwise, we want it balanced and interesting. Where is the fun when if you lose something won't have any impact whatsoever? You better go play lol or dota before wasting 60 euro + several hours.

In the ideal world we could have 2 kind of shipyards. One that can build everything up to cruisers and other that can build capital ships (bbs, bcs, carriers).

Capital shipyards could then be used to build other ships too at a faster rate but the shipyard construction should be limited by time, cost or event. Those big shipyards were rare and expensive to build an maintain, and you couldn't build then everywhere.

That way you can model the lack of capital shipyards of spain at the time, the low numbers of capital shipyards of Japan, Germany and Soviet Union. You want to focus on navy and alter history? You can, but at a cost. Your Luftwaffe might be smaller or your tank division might be with much lower numbers.

If you can take all options without sacrifices this game won't be balanced or fun, just pointless click and win. 1 yard = 1 production line + efficiency gained at a lower rate fix most of it. 2 kind of shipyards plus all the above fixes 99% issues

 

[Denkt]

It seems like you think capital ships are cheap because you can build them quickly but that is not correct

If by "dynamic" you mean being able yo build hundreds of battleships as usa, yes you are right.

It would be quite a challenge to build 100 battleships, using more dockyards don't make ships cheaper, just make them built quicker.

Where is the fun when if you lose something won't have any impact whatsoever?

It do have a big impact.

 

[Alwar]

It would be quite a challenge to build 100 battleships, using more dockyards don't make ships cheaper, just make them built quicker.


It do have a big impact.

How does it have a big impact? You lose a battleship or a carrier and you have another, newer and better in 8 months.

Otherwise you might have it in 2 years, maybe more.

Also, the problem with capital ships its not that might be cheap or expensive, is the time of construction. its all around that. it seems some people here doesnt understand that 1 each 8 months its not the same as 3 each 24 months. its radically different, because in those 16 months of difference there are a LOT of things tha can happen.

 

[Denkt]

Think ships like manpower. Losing 100k manpower is a big deal and you can never get back that lost manpower. In the same way losing a ship is a big deal because you never get it back. Loss of ships make your navy weaker and there is no way to compensate ship losses. Yes you can build new ships but you will build new ships no matter if you lose some or not. One improved ships is inferior to one improved ship and one basic ship. Loss of the basic ship mean your navy will be far weaker as the enemy's two ships can probably take out your ship without losses making the difference even bigger then both get their third ship out.

Loss of a few ships could give the enemy naval supremacy and allow them to conduct naval operations with very little risk. The loser may be forced to wait years just to build up a navy that can actually contend about naval supremacy.

Naval game is alot about risk managment, each time you send a ship out on the sea it may be the last time you see it and poor decisions may force you to keep your navy at port permanently.

 

[Alwar]

Think ships like manpower. Losing 100k manpower is a big deal and you can never get back that lost manpower. In the same way losing a ship is a big deal because you never get it back. Loss of ships make your navy weaker and there is no way to compensate ship losses. Yes you can build new ships but you will build new ships no matter if you lose some or not. One improved ships is inferior to one improved ship and one basic ship. Loss of the basic ship mean your navy will be far weaker as the enemy's two ships can probably take out your ship without losses making the difference even bigger then both get their third ship out.

Loss of a few ships could give the enemy naval supremacy and allow them to conduct naval operations with very little risk. The loser may be forced to wait years just to build up a navy that can actually contend about naval supremacy.

did you even read what i just write? submarines, destroyers, even cruisers arent the problem. you can build them "fast enough" (not really, cruisers are very labor intensive too). The problem is capital ships. If you want to fight the enemy supremacy at the sea you have to use capital ships.

Capital ships are the way to project your power as a nation in the sea. All your ships form a fleet to protect and support your capital ships. Why? because capital ships have either big bad guns thant can penetrate and destroy any other kind of ships while outranging them or they have planes to do that even farther away. Heavy cruisers have what, 200mm guns? thats nothing compared to 360-400 mm guns in range, damage and accuracy potential.

If you dont have capital ships or doesnt have the infraestructure to support a capital fleet, you have to do what germany did. Avoid confrontation and hit the convoys. That wont give you proper sea power, but might give you an edge in the war.

Of course capital ships alone are worth nothing, but are the main reason the fleet exist. So, now you understand why capital ship production times are so critical? a heavy cruiser that is built in 6 months in the game its not crucial albeit unrealistc, because that ship can be hunt down by capital ships easily. Its unbalanced but not critically unbalanced. A capital ship that is built in 8 months, even using half your shipyards is unbalanced, because capital ship construction have always been a bottleneck in strategic naval warfare and directly dictates that nation capacity to proyect power in the sea. Losing a capital ship should be a major point in the sea theater and being able to recover loses in so little time makes the naval aspect of the war redundant.

Then we get into balancing. Being able to build battlehips so fast will hurt axis not allies. Allies have more ships and capital ships, so the only chance axis have to win naval warfare is to get a decisive victory in the sea, that way they have the time to not only build new ships but also dominate the sea before the allies rebuild their fleet. If you can rebuild the fleet in little time, all the sacrifices done in the navy by axis is down the toilet and now axis will lose in land or air, because those sacrifices came from somewhere.

I have to point out that allies have acces to more resources aswell so even if given a hefty price to those 15 shipyards working at the same time, allies will be able to affort it too more than axis.

There is no gain in gameplay, balance or whatever not by the allies or the axis by maintaining the actual mechanic of naval construction. There is a lot to gain limiting production lines to 1 shipyard with realistic build times in gameplay, balance and historical plausibility.

Heck, why add a "historical" mode if half the world war will be useless? do you think japan, with the majority of the front being the sea, will have any kind of chance vs usa if usa can build carriers and battleships in 8 months? its complete nonsense

 

[Sic Domine]

Heavy cruisers have what, 200mm guns? thats nothing compared to 360-400 mm guns in range, damage and accuracy potential.

I agree with your post, but I would like to note that heavy cruisers had that kind of armament because of the Washington Naval Treaty. There were cruisers with 300mm + Armament in WWI.


In the end, what you need to simulate is a bottleneck. Only one shipyard can work on the hull, that is usually a given. However I think HOI IV wants Shipyards to be just resources. I would like to see a diminishing returns thing with shipyards. For example, one Shipyard builds it in 3 years, assigning another in 2 years, a third one in 1,7 years etc. so you can't spam the shipyards on it to simulate proper bottlenecks and spaces in which you can actually build the hull.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

About dockyard stacking: The developers have said that it is a game that they are making and this seems to be a gameplay thing. Dockyard stacking make the expensive captial ships more available as you can have one finished in half a year, this however don't mean it is cheap. This should make the naval gameplay more dynamic and may be very important for game balance as each ship seems to have rather specialized roles such as destroyers: anti submarine, heavy crusier: anti screen, battleship: anti heavy cruiser and so on.

It seems pretty unlikely to me that the devs carefully considered the gameplay implications of lag time in capital ship production, chose the optimal number of dockyards that could be stacked based on that, and just happened to come up with 15. I think the design process worked the other way around: 15 is a good number that fits nicely in the UI and works for land and air production and is something around the max of what most countries can devote to a single type of equipment. Then they turned to capital ship production rates, realized that 15 was a rather high number here, asked if the hit to realism was more important than consistency and player convenience in the UI and decided to stick with 15. Just as with "equipment = supplies" a system that kind of works for land and air units was also used for naval units, even if it created more realism problems.

I'm a fan of limiting it to 5, but I recognize that UI would be marginally more annoying and inconsistent if it was so. Saying it's because of better gameplay just seems like post-facto rationalization to me.

 

[Alwar]

I agree with your post, but I would like to note that heavy cruisers had that kind of armament because of the Washington Naval Treaty. There were cruisers with 300mm + Armament in WWI.


In the end, what you need to simulate is a bottleneck. Only one shipyard can work on the hull, that is usually a given. However I think HOI IV wants Shipyards to be just resources. I would like to see a diminishing returns thing with shipyards. For example, one Shipyard builds it in 3 years, assigning another in 2 years, a third one in 1,7 years etc. so you can't spam the shipyards on it to simulate proper bottlenecks and spaces in which you can actually build the hull.

You are right about the naval treaty limiting it to 8 inches, you could certainly build heavy cruisers with bigger guns, but 8 inches were an ideal caliber balancing range, accuracy, damage potential and penetration because usually cruisers were designated to fight other cruisers and smaller ships, not bigger ships, and also supporting capital ships. Some exceptions are battlecruisers that are literally capital ships too that require the same resources as battleships, just sacrificing weaponry (germans) or armor (british) to increase speed.

Thats why i mentioned 200mm guns, because that was the main difference between light cruisers and heavy cruiser in the period, having guns over or under 6 inches

It seems pretty unlikely to me that the devs carefully considered the gameplay implications of lag time in capital ship production, chose the optimal number of dockyards that could be stacked based on that, and just happened to come up with 15. I think the design process worked the other way around: 15 is a good number that fits nicely in the UI and works for land and air production and is something around the max of what most countries can devote to a single type of equipment. Then they turned to capital ship production rates, realized that 15 was a rather high number here, asked if the hit to realism was more important than consistency and player convenience in the UI and decided to stick with 15. Just as with "equipment = supplies" a system that kind of works for land and air units was also used for naval units, even if it created more realism problems.

I'm a fan of limiting it to 5, but I recognize that UI would be marginally more annoying and inconsistent if it was so. Saying it's because of better gameplay just seems like post-facto rationalization to me.

yes, i think like you. I think removing entirely from the shipyard UI the number of assignable factories would work just fine, after adding efficiency back. Its ridiculous that, for example, Bolivia after getting access to water and building a shipyard can build a ship at the same rate as for example, USA, given the same tech bonus.

Factoring national focus, techs, etc and efficiency over a long time can easily put the time of construction of capital ships in a range of 1,5 to 6 years, for example.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

It seems like you think capital ships are cheap because you can build them quickly but that is not correct

It would be quite a challenge to build 100 battleships, using more dockyards don't make ships cheaper, just make them built quicker.

I do agree with this. I think the distinction between build time and throughput gets lost in these discussions. People sometimes argue as if a 3x shorter build time means 3x larger navies, when the two factors are basically independent.

 

[Alwar]

I do agree with this. I think the distinction between build time and throughput gets lost in these discussions. People sometimes argue as if a 3x shorter build time means 3x larger navies, when the two factors are basically independent.

it means 3x larger navies in short term and time is extremely important in naval warfare, because it implies if a naval operation failure or success is worth anything or not. If you wipe the enemy fleet with current mechanic it doesnt matter because in less than a year you can build a capital ship plus a few screens and focus your fleet damaging the enemy, while he needs to spread out his fleet to catch you and protect his trade, negating the previous combat.

 

[Super Izumo]

Just going to chime in with two things.

1. Yes countries will have the Theoretical ability to build a large number of ships in the short term. Setting up numerous Production lines and dedicating all their Dockyards to building Capital ships (15 per line). BUT, and this is the major BUT that makes that damn near improbable of happening. RESOURCES. What game are you playing where either of the major nations with lots of Dockyards suddenly find themselves with the MASSIVE amount of RESOURCES to fund these large short term constructions? And say that you do decide to fund this, you have just severely set back and/or crippled your production in other areas because of common RESOURCES used between building ships and other materials/units. Oil and Steel are two that come to mind, do I build lots of tanks or a large navy and make it either impossible or highly highly difficult I'll ever have a land army capable of defeating whoever I am fighting against?

2. In relation to people saying multiple dockyards building one ship isn't how it works. Ships are built in sections so you could technically have different Dockyards building different sections of the same ship at the same time to speed things up. Also in relation to those who brought up the Wisconsin as being built in just over 2 years. For the first year of the Wisconsin's construction it was being built at the same place and time as the New Jersey's last year of Construction (At Philadelphia) meaning depending on how you want to classify that Shipyard as either One Dockyard or Several, you either have one Dockyard building Two ships at once or numerous Dockyards building Two. Now this is a special case since the game isn't and shouldn't try to make each and every dockyard unique based on where it is like IRL, too many factors there and it would be a confusing mess for a video game.

In Summation: Yes you could focus on churning out a large fleet in a short amount of time but you'd need a ridiculous amount of resources to achieve this (possibly even impossible to achieve) and it would be largely wasted (You can't march into Berlin with Battleships). And going off of the New Jersey's and Wisconsin's specific case however you want to classify the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard you have something that people have argued here is impossible either way.

Honestly I'd never see myself trying to amass some large fleet in short time since the resource drain would prevent me from (probably) winning the war (I wouldn't lose the war since no one could invade me) since the majority of my crucial resources went to building a large fleet in short term instead of building tanks and troop equipment leaving me ill-prepared for a ground campaign.

 

[EddyBaggio]

But the problem is that you could build 1 BB and/or a CV in less then a year and I don't see why you are able to do that. Can the developer please awnser that...

 

[Alwar]

[...] RESOURCES [...]

USA and USSR say hi.

 

[Axe99]

On the multiple dockyards thing, keep in mind that IRL not all shipyards or slips are the same size or capability. Five dockyards in-game could be seen to represent a 'large yard' and one a 'small yard', rather than five dockyards representing five different small slips building 20 per cent of a BB each .

@Alwar mentioned efficiency not being a thing, so everyone can build ships at the same rate. I don't think I'd bring efficiency back, but I'd be open to something like each nation having a 'shipbuilding industry' rating, that impact their capacity to build ships quickly - this way, you could model the difference between the rate of construction of different nations during the period.

Just going to chime in with two things.

1. Yes countries will have the Theoretical ability to build a large number of ships in the short term. Setting up numerous Production lines and dedicating all their Dockyards to building Capital ships (15 per line). BUT, and this is the major BUT that makes that damn near improbable of happening. RESOURCES. What game are you playing where either of the major nations with lots of Dockyards suddenly find themselves with the MASSIVE amount of RESOURCES to fund these large short term constructions? And say that you do decide to fund this, you have just severely set back and/or crippled your production in other areas because of common RESOURCES used between building ships and other materials/units. Oil and Steel are two that come to mind, do I build lots of tanks or a large navy and make it either impossible or highly highly difficult I'll ever have a land army capable of defeating whoever I am fighting against?

If the US is able to build half it's historic carrier capacity in-game, it'll need to have at least 15 dockyards dedicated to CVs (even the UK laid down 4 BBs in 1937 - using the HoI4 model, the first KGV would be commissioned before the start of 1938, instead of in 1940 as it was historically). If the resources aren't there, then it just means HoI4 has other issues that need sorting (if we're looking for a game that can plausibly be called a WW2 game).

 

[jamesd]

On the multiple dockyards thing, keep in mind that IRL not all shipyards or slips are the same size or capability. Five dockyards in-game could be seen to represent a 'large yard' and one a 'small yard', rather than five dockyards representing five different small slips building 20 per cent of a BB each .

@Alwar mentioned efficiency not being a thing, so everyone can build ships at the same rate. I don't think I'd bring efficiency back, but I'd be open to something like each nation having a 'shipbuilding industry' rating, that impact their capacity to build ships quickly - this way, you could model the difference between the rate of construction of different nations during the period.

If the US is able to build half it's historic carrier capacity in-game, it'll need to have at least 15 dockyards dedicated to CVs (even the UK laid down 4 BBs in 1937 - using the HoI4 model, the first KGV would be commissioned before the start of 1938, instead of in 1940 as it was historically). If the resources aren't there, then it just means HoI4 has other issues that need sorting (if we're looking for a game that can plausibly be called a WW2 game).

One thing I've thought of in regards to slow peace time build times is that maybe available dockyards or dockyard efficiency should be tied to economic mobilisation laws. I believe that at the moment all dockyards are available all the time, but IRL in peacetime a dockyard might work for 40 hours per week while in war time they might operate up to 160 hours in multiple shifts each week. A 50% peacetime efficiency penalty would allow 5 dockyards to build a battleship in 4 years, which seems reasonable, while in war that could be cut to 2 years. If something like that was adopted the resources required for each dockyard in peacetime would also need to be reduced, so it may be easier to reduce the number of available dockyards. That would still allow nations to pump out battleships in 2 years by concentrating the available workforce on 1 project, but they would only be working on 1 battleship at a time rather than 2.

 

[Super Izumo]

I was mainly responding to people who think for some reason you could churn out a large fleet in a short amount of time, a small handful (3 to 4ish) of capital ships before the war is fine but people who think they can build large fleet which I take as meaning 10+/15+/20+ capital ships each year (Or whatever large number they have in mind) would need to devote a large amount of their resources to just that to get all of those made each year. Such a thing will most likely cripple you elsewhere.

USA and USSR say hi.

If you choose to sink the majority of your resources into trying to amass this large fleet in the short term you are wasting resources since you'll suffer in the army equipment and army size area later on when you need to help in Europe or elsewhere. Plus the USA early game is dealing with the Great Depression so it doesn't start with those resources to do this yet making it more pointless to attempt. Even for the USSR it is pointless it was better for them to focus historically on Army and Airforce not Navy.