So having rolled this around a bunch for a while now, I'm still very bothered by the way Paradox has chosen to model synthetics in the game. I do appreciate that it's not going to change before release, but assuming a mod to bring fuel into the game, then the below should be viable.
Synthetic fuel is derived from syngas and primarily relies on large quantities of coal or natural gas, while Synthetic rubber generally utilizes the byproducts of oil refining to produce it's butadiene, though can also be produced from ethanol etc.
Synthetic fuel has never been a particularly economic way of producing fuel stocks (Diesel, Jet A etc) while since 1925 synthetic rubber has been both comercially viable and widely adopted. Though both were readily understood processes by 1936 all over the world.
In terms of the war context with the fall of SE Asia and it's near global rubber supply the USA needed to make up it's lack of access and so massivly ramped up it's synthetic rubber industry in 1940 and very quickly started out producing the amount of natural rubber that was harvested pre-war.
Because of this I think that synthetic plants really should be split into synthetic rubber and synthetic fuel.
Each plant should be able to be built from 1936 and have their own technology trees. Then improvements in each industry would have appropriate efficiency impacts (increasing per plant production output) and maybe some nice bonuses if you want to get very detailed (improved synthetic capacity and tech gives broader access to things like nylon, acrylic etc which are all vital for things like parachutes [replacing silk], glass windscreens [lighter aircraft]).
Synthetic plants should consume a certain amount of the appropriate resource, coal for fuel, oil for rubber, and take a efficiency penalty [-50%*(1-ProvidedResource/NeededResource)] if it's not available.
These should be added along with oil refineries to the available factories to build in a state that then show up in your build queue to produce fuel (synthetic or refined) and rubber that either go into your national stock pile (fuel) or is added to your national resource pool (rubber).
This would improve the game play I think, while doing a better job of representing the history and problems facing the countries at the time better.
It would also make the choice for Germany much more interesting regarding the potential allied bombing campaign. Right now if you take enough territory and therefore factories there's no reason to need to protect your home territory as the conquered factories are equally useful as your pre-war heartland industry. Where as if you loose all your rubber production because Britain kills those 3 factories in Germany, the 10 extra civilian and military factories in Yugoslavia aren't going to make up for the 3 destroyed ones in Germany.
Synthetic fuel is derived from syngas and primarily relies on large quantities of coal or natural gas, while Synthetic rubber generally utilizes the byproducts of oil refining to produce it's butadiene, though can also be produced from ethanol etc.
Synthetic fuel has never been a particularly economic way of producing fuel stocks (Diesel, Jet A etc) while since 1925 synthetic rubber has been both comercially viable and widely adopted. Though both were readily understood processes by 1936 all over the world.
In terms of the war context with the fall of SE Asia and it's near global rubber supply the USA needed to make up it's lack of access and so massivly ramped up it's synthetic rubber industry in 1940 and very quickly started out producing the amount of natural rubber that was harvested pre-war.
Because of this I think that synthetic plants really should be split into synthetic rubber and synthetic fuel.
Each plant should be able to be built from 1936 and have their own technology trees. Then improvements in each industry would have appropriate efficiency impacts (increasing per plant production output) and maybe some nice bonuses if you want to get very detailed (improved synthetic capacity and tech gives broader access to things like nylon, acrylic etc which are all vital for things like parachutes [replacing silk], glass windscreens [lighter aircraft]).
Synthetic plants should consume a certain amount of the appropriate resource, coal for fuel, oil for rubber, and take a efficiency penalty [-50%*(1-ProvidedResource/NeededResource)] if it's not available.
These should be added along with oil refineries to the available factories to build in a state that then show up in your build queue to produce fuel (synthetic or refined) and rubber that either go into your national stock pile (fuel) or is added to your national resource pool (rubber).
This would improve the game play I think, while doing a better job of representing the history and problems facing the countries at the time better.
It would also make the choice for Germany much more interesting regarding the potential allied bombing campaign. Right now if you take enough territory and therefore factories there's no reason to need to protect your home territory as the conquered factories are equally useful as your pre-war heartland industry. Where as if you loose all your rubber production because Britain kills those 3 factories in Germany, the 10 extra civilian and military factories in Yugoslavia aren't going to make up for the 3 destroyed ones in Germany.
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