Dev Corner | Hydrodynamics

[mojomikey123]

Patrol and Convoy escort should be combined, since they often require the same types of naval vessels, it would be very worthwhile to have those two combined in functionality.

Establish zone dominance, then once that's done, build up the raid defense threshold. That way, you dont have to get new players to confuse themselves for two already similar tasks, trying to divide fleets and functions.

 

[rhuan]

Well, here's some Wishlist for this new DLC, both for Qol and flavor
- a rework on island hopping, making it something more unique to the Pacific (as it wasn't like how hoi4 shows)
- addition to a new form of occupation for Japan and USA
- addition for the khalkhin gol conflict, as "testing" the soviets wasn't like that in real life, and instead was in the mongolian border
- an addition of Mengukuo and Mongolian focus trees
- Tannu tuva and Mongolia being puppets of the soviets, as it was in real life
- A new system of puppets for the Soviets
- a reworks on how uprisings/resistance works, so a 10 pop island doesn't have 50 resistance
- cheaper screenings and subs
- expanding on the sino-japanese war, as Japan never declared war, and was china that did in 1941, to support the american war effort
- making it harder for the player to invade china, while making sensible to Japan
- making the sino-japanese war more "realistic", as japan only focused on railroads, major port and some cities, not invading most interiors
- a focus tree for siam, as it's the only "player" of ww2 without a focus tree
and lastly, but for me the most important
- removing generic leaders which did not exist for nation who did have focus trees (i can recount Norway, Sweden and Brazil having it for both fascist and communists, why not just having the communist/fascist leader as the leader of the part, instead of being a guy who did not exist?)

 

[Gorgo Primus]

One of the worst parts of the navy hasn’t been touched here, which is the ship designer - which primarily sucks because of the tech system.

When researching for a tank a great deal of the tech is shared with other things and so can be incidentally researched (like anti-tank guns), and there’s only a small number of techs for researching for planes. There is a massive page of research you need to do for every single little kind of boat, which means you need to basically have 2+ slots dedicated to the navy from 36 onwards to even come close to having a fleet - which means only majors can even try for one. A minor can’t even try to get a regional fleet going like historically because they won’t have the slots for even getting two kinds of ships going.

Please take a look at massively consolidating naval research (for example, having all capital ships sharing one armour tech line with screening ships all sharing another, having naval guns get researched when you research tank guns, etc).

 

[Darkally]

• Updating Carriers and address the interactions between land-based aircraft and naval taskforces

Are we getting naval_anti_air_hit_chance_factor?

 

[germaniec7]

I don't really know enough about naval warfare (both IRL and in-game) to really have a strong opinion on the proposed changes, or suggest more changes. That said, I do want to share my personal experience as a beginner HoI4 player. Keep in mind that I don't have MtG and I am very much a beginner:

1. Since naval production is based on dockyards and not on mils, it creates a situation where I find it hard to find a good balance between investing on dockyards and investing on mils. How many dockyards should I build as the UK? As the US? As Italy? Now, this is mostly a skill issue/lack of knowledge, but it feels weird that a mil that produces anti-air guns can't help produce ships that include... anti-air guns. I feel that having more interaction between navy and land warfare, as well as some interoperability between dockyards and mils, could improve this.

2. I have a hard time understanding the feedback from the navy once the war starts. For me, the war starts then navy-related pop-ups appear everywhere and I have a really hard time parsing what is happening. Am I winning the naval warfare? Am I losing? Should I worry about enemy ships sinking 12 convoys of mine? Where is my navy? Why aren't they engaging the enemy? I'm sure most of these have perfectly reasonable answers, but I find the UI confusing.

3. Once the war starts, I feel like a spectator. I set up my fleets (using some handy online guides), put them in the desired naval missions and... that's it. Naval combat happens, but I'm not sure what, if anything, can I do to improve my position. I don't want to micro everywhere, but having more options to change strategy, fleet composition and other aspects of the navy on the fly could be interesting, to make me feel less like a spectator and more like I'm actually contributing to the navy aspect of the game.

Once again, maybe I'm just bad at the game (in fact, I know I am), but those are my feelings towards navy warfare.

I do agree with everything and just pressing like is not enaugh for me.

 

[kimidf]

Is it possible that this naval improvement coming in the new DLC will introduce something similar to what happens with land divisions? And that each ship will receive a ship captain?

 

[International_Spying]

I don't really see the point of naval range being tied to your home base, or home bases in general. Take the US for example. If my home base was Hawaii, I doubt you could reach Japan. Plus, if you're fighting in Europe at the same time your supply is coming from Hawaii.

 

[lilcritt]

My biggest gripe with Navy has always been the lack of visual immersion. On land, you get a full-scale representation of operations with big green army men and tanks actually ‘fighting,’ but at sea, it’s just a few tiny bubbles, often cluttered with convoys or naval bombers. You can click into a bubble, but what you get is more like watching an abstract chess match than an engaging battle. Sure we see the ships but they don't really seem to be doing anything in the battle.

In an ideal world, the proposed changes wouldn’t just clarify why things are happening - they would turn it into an actual spectacle. We sink three years into building a ship, and all we get is a tiny icon quietly slipping beneath the waves in the battle screen. It doesn’t feel proportionate. It would be amazing if, whether on the main map or in the naval battle popup, we could actually see our fleets go at it. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just something like the current battle screen but in 3D, with large, abstracted units firing, maneuvering, and sinking in real time.

Just something I'm throwing out there.

 

[Heretic Strategy]

I think the main reason why Hoi 4 Naval Mechanics is not used enough is the diplomacy mechanics and the shipyard limit set for capital ships. It is very absurd to take a country's navy as it is with diplomacy. In real life, losing countries usually sink their navy rather than surrender it to the enemy. The number of ships that can be taken diplomatically should be limited and for this, the losing country should definitely be given the right to live.
One of the most important shortcomings is that destroyers and torpedoes are insufficient in the game, contrary to the real situation. It is unthinkable that a fleet of 10 destroyers cannot destroy a warship. And when it is not protected by screen ships. The spamming of heavy ships with all its modules empty in the game needs to be solved.
On the other hand, I think the air force-antiair defense-radar balance of ships is insufficient. The radars given to ships should give more bonuses to air defense.
It should be made impossible to establish a strong navy by spamming a single type of ship so that the real situation can be reflected in the game.

 

[balmung60]

Will naval gunnery support finally be freed from having to micromanage fleets into exact sea tiles in contrast to nearly all other naval activity?

 

[Demonthese]

Are there plans to add functionality/QoL to task force creation? As is if I want to make a "25 Knot" task force or a task for with at least 2500km range, as examples, it is extremely tedious to do so and requires essentially memorizing the precise stat lines of all ship designs. The ship list when creating new task forces is also (it appears to me) unordered except for ship class which makes it quite annoying if I want to grab all of Destroyer A from a task force.

 

[Firefly11_11]

Looks very interesting. I've always found it weird that controlling islands in the pacific is so unimportant and that USA can just launch naval invasions onto the Japanese home islands straight away. Historically, this would have been very foolish.

As for homebases: I hope ships will automatically return to homebases for repairs. I hate it when a large fleet returns to a random lvl 1 naval base where only one ship can be repaired at a time. If I set a home base at a lvl 10 naval base, the fleet should return there to do its repairs.

 

[Judas-Israel]

This seems like some realy good changes, i think naval designer and battle systems seems fine (besides doomstacking) but navy was always hard in the way it handling was. Very good to see this adressed, naval supply especialy seems interesting. Cap per Island is althought good, no more 2 k plains from malta.

Another part of the game where some rebalancing seems necessery is here:

The best Tank in game is basicly a T-35 ( 34 heavy chassy biggest gun u can get + 3 times extra turret bad armor) which performed poorly in the reality. In the game its the best. Tank chassis in general offer no real benefit researching (very minor bonus for resetting your efficieny+ more ressource cost). Arti und anti tank guns are so bad theres no sence in producing them.

On planes cannons are complete trash (compared to machine guns) even though researched later and cost more.

Maybe its just me bit this killing the feeling of ww2 for me since its so far from reality.

Some adjusting of stats and design rules may alter this easy.

For example make guns available per chassi, in example heavy chassy 34 can only take heavy gun 1. In reality a t-28 could never fit a 120 mm cannon an IS-2 could. this would make chassys viable again since they bring a big benefit.

Arti should be set to 2 width and anti tank guns need to do more heavy damage or there should be heavy anti tank guns like in some mods to make the infantry viable again in killing tanks, not just beeing a rifle only damage sponge. In reality most tank kills were done by anti tank guns, which is kinda impossible in this game.

On planes just cannons need buffs, i mean later tech should be better then earlier right?

Maybe its just me but im kind of a history buff and this kinda kills the feeling, especialy in mp with this meme tanks and divisions.

 

[rhuan]

will there be tweaks on the islands sizes? seeing a giant okinawa is weird, knowing they have only 2 tiles

 

[24rma42]

I'd like to see a command added allowing players to 'order' specific task forces/task units into a specific naval battle. I like to arrange my carriers into separate task forces within a fleet similar to early-WW2 USN doctrine (as opposed to stacking them in one task force, which is closer to how the IJN handled carriers) for historical realism and so they can operate independently or in conjunction with one another as the situation demands. However, I frequently find when enemy forces are detected some, but not all, of my individual task forces will sortie to engage (or some will sortie to one engagement and others will sortie to another simultaneous engagement). There should be a concentration of naval forces command that players can opt to select to either (1) order specific task force(s) to sortie to a specific battle or (2) when in a specific ongoing battle screen, call all available/non engaged task forces to come participate in that battle. I think (1) is preferrable but even (2) would be an improvement for players, like myself, that enjoy micro'ing, while not being a burden on players who do not.

 

[Jackinator]

maybe introduce the sale and purchase of ships? And also make it so that bots also take licenses?

 

[mursolini]

The one thing that needs to be fixed, is that divisions need to have a cool down period, where they are told to board ships, but but they still have to pack everything on ships before they leave.

Calculate it based on the heaviest equipment type, and quantity. Reduce it by naval base size.

 

[Ossiv]

Will the 4 carrier limit be removed entirely? Currently if you want to use more than 5 in a meta fleet, you need to use junk hulls to soak up the penalty

It should be possible to use 6 carrier group effectively in game. IRL the Japanese attack to Pearl Harbor was done with 6 fleet carriers.

 

[Lamartine]

Will the Home Base scale the naval capabilities of the ships based there? So a Level 1 Naval Home Base will have less range, less supply and ability to dock fewer ships than a level 10 base?

 

[COMV99]

Consolidate the absolutely essential naval research in naval research, and put all the other stuff in researches you would do anyways. Keep the ship research at a similar pace and decrease the research time for naval equipment technologies.

• Consolidate the Torpedo techs in naval, and remove them from the air branch.
• Merge the depth charge upgrades into the destroyer techs, the naval gun upgrades into Anti-Air and Artillery tech, the Sonar into Electronics and/or Radio tech
• Decrease the research time for the 1922 ship techs by half. Keep the others as is.

Now, if I want to make a 1936 destroyer, I need to have Radio 1 for the sonar, Improved IW artillery for the naval guns, Towed Anti-Air for the AA, that I would get either way, and the torpedo and destroyer techs, that I got specifically for the destroyer. If my country starts with the 1936 Destroyer, and 1922 torpedo, that's even better.

What is left on the naval support tech are:

• The Damage Control and... Ship Damage(?) techs
• The Naval Armor techs
• The Torpedo techs (that now include the upgraded airplane torpedo launchers)
• The Minelaying techs (earlier in time as well, Germany had plane based minelaying by 1939)
• The Retreat Speed tech
• The Naval Invasion techs

Naval guns did require seperate design studies and basically never shared caliber with land guns. Tank armament was more explicitly based off of other designs. Hedgehog was a significant step up from depth charges, so having it's own tech is warrented. The depth charges can be moved under destroyers, though. Sonar is rather different from radar despite similar names, magnetron improvements won't improve sonar.

Aerial torpedoes are seperated so you don't need more DLC to use them. Moving them under naval techs could lead to four seperate tech trees based on the DLC you have.

Researching certain techs could lead to bonuses in other techs. Later techs would also have smaller bonuses for their counterpart techs. Light Naval Guns provide a bonus to artillery and vice versa. The bonuses could also be limited to techs before certain years(or just specific technologies) to prevent researching too far ahead. Artillery is a vanilla tree, so DLC interactioning with it isn't as bad as cross DLC interaction.

The lack of auxiliary support ships is rather disappointing. They could be made into a US focus tech, albiet toned down for balance.

The new changes would make something like  this impossible.

Eniwetok was the staging for the Marianas invasion, three hundred vessels supplied before departure.

Task Force 58, commanded by Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher, consisted of 15 carriers, 7 battleships, 11 cruisers, 86 destroyers and over 900 planes. The amphibious invasion force, commanded by Vice Admiral Richmond K. Turner, consisted of 56 attack transports, 84 landing craft and over 127,000 troops.

The atoll itself is less than 6 square kilometers in area. Under vanilla rules, making this possible is prohibitive, even if theoretically doable. There should be some way to improve supply throughput without increasing range.

Ships on strike force should also attempt to intercept more naval invasions. An unescorted amphibious invasion can get through without being harassed if a task force isn't set to convoy raiding. Intercepting more amphibious invasions would force players to use the naval invasion mission and lead to harder fights for naval supremacy. A task force should take greater risks to intercept larger naval invasions in comparison to simply striking a nation's fleet. With fake divisions, a naval invasion with those would pull out an enemy fleet (the convoys might have to be real though). Or 50 thousand men equiped only with rifles could be sent to draw out the enemy fleet, so the tanks can land. Does Britain use their capital ships to naval raid around the Home Islands after a naval invasion? If not, the weighting to do so should increase as they lose cores. Japan should be similar.