Dev Corner | Thermodynamics

[DiabloLama]

It also may be worth rethinking the approach to resource availability through focuses and nation-exclusive decisions.

Currently, lots of new resource fields are hidden behind nation-exclusive options. Which is neat, it gives the nations flavor. But it's also not that logical. Either there are resources, or they aren't, regardless of who currently has their flag raised above that piece of land.

Let's take the Matzen Oil field of Austria for example. Only Austria can develop it via focus. Historically, the Soviets discovered and developed it in 1949. But when you as Soviets take Austria, you can't access it, because it's a focus choice for Austria only. Same for Anschluss, you peacefully integrate Austria, and now you lose access to something that physcially is there?

And I think China has similar problems. There are focuses in the Japanese tree to develop China, but when China takes over? Then nope, all those opportunities are suddenly gone.

Resource fields and extraction should get a unified framework I think. Focuses should help finding and developing those fields at low costs, but ultimately the fields should be accessible to the owner, whoever that might be at any given time.

Totally agree.

 

[CaptainBruh]

ATM equal distribution

Please consider adding the ability to prioritize coal for certain factory types. If I am playing as Germany for example and have a deficit in coal, I do not want the same prioritization of coal going to my dockyard than my more essential military factories. Hoi4 only allows a player to destroy 1 factory every 30 days I believe, so as Germany I would essentially be stuck with my military factories producing below their potential because my dockyards that I can't get rid of are hoarding coal

 

[Hydra01]

Any chance we can start moving away from the building slot limit system which honestly always felt forced rather than fluid unlike most of the other game's dynamics.

 

[Silens]

Any chance we can start moving away from the building slot limit system which honestly always felt forced rather than fluid unlike most of the other game's dynamics.

What is there not to love about the US hitting max squalor and overcrowding after building 25 factories in Texas? Have you even seen Texas? It's so small, it barely could hold the entire UK three times in it!

Yes, on a more serious note, the building limits can at times get ridiculous. Now that we're turning the attention towards resources and civilian economies, that is one more thing that warrants a closer look.

 

[Pasiblitz]

Planning to introduce more resources? Perhaps grain to feed your soldiers or ammunition?
That would be awesome.

 

[Bobbert Canuck]

I... I don't know how to feel about this.
It's a very interesting idea, granted, but I don't think this will actually solve the problems you are hoping it will, I feel it is more likely to trade one issue for another or compound the original issue to begin with.

This also, I feel, negatively impacts minors that start with fewer civilian factories disproportionately. This wouldn't be much of a problem if the starting factory count globally was higher with output values adjusted to compensate and there were more starting resources on map.

This, however, would be a sizeable change I'm unsure the dev team would be willing to commit to. It would require pivoting the game more toward factory conversion rather than construction and require deep and extensive rebalances for factory outputs and industrial distribution.

 

[Immortal2]

I would like to ask whether it would be possible to treat oil as a raw material to be refined in order to obtain diesel fuel, which will then power ships, trucks, tanks and so on. By building refineries, you process oil using electricity and get a certain amount of diesel that you can either store or sell on the arms market added by "Arms Against Tyranny." In addition, it would be good if, when designing a ship or train, one could choose whether to power it on coal or diesel according to one's energy availability.
One last thing I would like to ask (not related to the dev diary) is to increase the amount of war material that the IA puts on sale; it often happens that there are 50 artillery pieces on the market, put a minimum of 500 pieces that the IA can sell

I would also like to add that, in addition to what has already been said, it would be interesting if, a bit like the war material distribution hub, there were power plants that have a range to power the factories. This would therefore mean that building factories in areas without efficient power supply or power at all would prevent factories from operating completely. Otherwise, by borrowing a feature of Victoria 3 (nothing extreme) you might have a window where you choose the level of mechanization of industries. Italy, the United States or Abyssinia had different industrial capacities, production methods, etc. This would allow for minimal production even in inefficient factories

 

[Immortal2]

Planning to introduce more resources? Perhaps grain to feed your soldiers or ammunition?
That would be awesome.

I'd love it but blackIce into vanilla it's to much for the general audience

 

[MarcoPineapple]

Since having coal to limit IC now, will we have food resource to limit divisions in the future?

 

[jooshy33]

Faction update, navy update and now an economic update. Will this all be only for the next DLC? Or will part of it come to the base game

 

[Immortal2]

Faction update, navy update and now an economic update. Will this all be only for the next DLC? Or will part of it come to the base game

Probably will be in free patch because the old oil and railways reworks were free

 

[Balesir]

Does this open up the possibility of CIVs using resources? I have long thought that a 'Commodities' resource representing all of the myriad materials that were used by industry prior to the arrival of plastics (which happens right in this period!) would be a good and useful addition to the game. It represents the needs for imports to keep industry going, allowing a functional U-boat campaign and opening up a good research/project topic to replace them with oil (via plastics and man-made fibres such as nylon) in the later game. General 'Supplies' should also require Commodities for production, making them clash with CIVs.

 

[WolfClaw]

So the next title will be Electronics?

 

[General Tao]

Will unassigned factories contribute to energy requirements?

For instance, say that I have 10 factories, but enough energy to fully power just 5.

If I assign only 5 of those factories, will they function as fully powered, or 50% powered?

Scaling energy requirements for factories that are in use vs not in use is more complex, but might create a more dynamic system with interesting choices.

I really like this idea, especially if it plays into the whole concentrate vs dispersed debate.

Dispersed would lower the efficiency penalty for taking factories offline to reduce power consumption, and concentrated could provide some overall energy efficiency savings by the fact of concentrating industry can reduce transmission losses.

Difficult to balance but could really make the industry game interesting.

 

[avalonkid22]

Long-time lurker, first-time commenter, but as a self-professed expert on the coal industry I would offer the following:

My first impression seeing the subject was "oh, no...more complexity, another thing to worry about." But after reading the Dev explanation, I think this has the potential to elegantly deal with a number of issues, just don't let it get much more complicated. That being said....

It's difficult to understand the ramifications of adding coal as a resource without some idea of how it will be distributed, and in what quantities, on the map. I don't think you've addressed this...rather than something to be developed after the mechanics are better refined, I would think this would be the starting point for work on this project.

And at the risk of adding complexity, there are two interactions that you haven't addressed:

1) use of coal in synthetic refineries....after all, coal is the exclusive raw material for the refineries, their conversion efficiencies were not great, so they should consume a lot of coal; and

2) during this time, virtually all steel production was the integrated blast furnace technology...which requires coking coal for the iron ore reduction, and steam coal for energy needs. Without addressing the relative scarcity of good coking coal, you should perhaps consider giving steel production a bonus in coal-rich countries, or penalize it coal-deficient countries. Of course, having some coal being "special" would address this nicely (good coking coal can also be burned for steam), but that would complicate the feature, betraying my very first impression on the danger of feature bloat

 

[Slike Spitfire]

What about factories on consumer goods? Do they take up the same amount of power? Or do they use less or no power

 

[Dimmie_Dumm]

Does this open up the possibility of CIVs using resources? I have long thought that a 'Commodities' resource representing all of the myriad materials that were used by industry prior to the arrival of plastics (which happens right in this period!) would be a good and useful addition to the game. It represents the needs for imports to keep industry going, allowing a functional U-boat campaign and opening up a good research/project topic to replace them with oil (via plastics and man-made fibres such as nylon) in the later game. General 'Supplies' should also require Commodities for production, making them clash with CIVs.

Maybe the idea has been in the air and I'm not the only one modding this in, but I'm still amazed at how aligned we are here:

 

[LastButterfly]

It's difficult to understand the ramifications of adding coal as a resource without some idea of how it will be distributed, and in what quantities, on the map. I don't think you've addressed this...

Eyup, the topic of logistics has been sidestepped, which is jarring considering we're talking about a new ressource that'd have a significant impact on industryial power as a whole. I know the main stated goal is for it to serve as a limiter to exponential industry growth, but really... There are consequences - and opportunities - to consider here.

Maybe as soon as a lump of coal is extracted, it vanishes instantly, and some electricity suddenly appears in a factory halfway across the world. I don't like how likely that sounds, honestly...

 

[marxwasright]

So the next title will be Electronics?

Electrodynamics.

Then if they want to go all out and update air as well, Aerodynamics. But I doubt the development priorities were decided by some kind of scrabble game.

 

[~~|maiq|~~]

Right now Dams and Civilian Nuclear Reactors provide a reduction in the energy factories from this state are using. (Local Energy Consumption Modifier), so let's say if the modifier would be -25%, then factories located in such state instead of consuming 100 energy would now consume 75 energy. (Random numbers are random)

It would be easier to understand for the player and to calculate for the game if it just contributed to the total energy of the country, I understand you want to simulate coal can be transported anywhere needed in the country while the electricity from nuclear plants and dams can't be transported far away.
That said the local energy production should be a flat number, not a % modifier. If it's a percentage then the nuclear plant should be more expensive to build the more factories or building slots in the province.