Developer Diary | Small Features #1

[C0RAX]

Will modding presets block ironman and achievements?

Yes the short version is since the presents templates are also used by the AI they will invalidate ironman.

 

[C0RAX]

I love these changes

Will presets be locked to country or can any country access them?

So as Germany, could I pick the T-34 as a preset and just have it load the T-34 stats with a German icon and 3d model? Same for the Soviets loading American presets. And the UK loading Japanese tank presets (if they want to nerf themselves)

How will XP spent to unlock the preset calculated?

Is it a flat cost to unlock each preset or is the cost discounted based on the designs you already have saved that game?

in base game you majors will have unique presets and most minors will share common presets but there's nothing stopping shared historic presets across multiple countries.

XP is spent the same as normal so the preset is loaded in and the equipment designer will tell you how much XP it will cost to Save that design

 

[C0RAX]

Given how there is literally no drawback to escalating your economy to war economy indefinitely, will ever there be a change to factor war exhaustion or have some kind of benefit to having a civilian economy at any point?

Right now, it's just a PP sink that you want as quickly as possible.

Late game economy is something that would be nice to improve but we don't have any immediate plans with changes to it.

 

[C0RAX]

Will it be possible to upload custom presets to mod sites like Steam Workshop or Nexus?

yes

 

[C0RAX]

So I take that, on release, we cannot create a new preset in-game but can mod our custom presets in, if we so wish. However, can we restrict a template to be player-only? Exactly how the AI chooses a custom preset? I'd imagine that there is a weighted AI block like decisions have.

yep you just change the AI use weights to 0 and it wont pick them ever

 

[C0RAX]

Nice! Any chance that the presets could be excluded from the checksum calculation?

Would allow both using these in achievement-compatible games and MP on my side only.

Not in this version, we've used the existing AI template system for the designers to avoid having to write the pre-sets system from nothing but that means it touches things that could break the AI. It would be a much larger effort to separate these 2 but it not impossible so maybe in the future this could happen but right now I don't know.

 

[C0RAX]

First of all, the changes you present here seem very promising. But I do not really get the calculation for „Factors multiplied together“. You say, that „if there are multiple factor modifiers they are multiplied together“. In the picture presented as an example there are two factors,–33% and –13%. If I multiply them (0,33*0,13) I get 4,29%(0,0429). But result given in the picture is 57%. The only way to get that would be to multiply both factors and to shift the comma one unit to the left making 4,29% to 42,9% or rounded 43%. If I then take 100%-43% I get 57% as a result. So the description of „Factors multiplied together“ seems to be a bit misleading. So how does the calculation for the „Factors multiplied together„ actually work?

For those who want a detailed copy of the calculations it's like this:

ConsumerGoodsPercent = (Base1 + Base2 + ….) *((1+Factor1) * (1+Factor2) * ….)

ConsumerGoods = Max(ConsumerGoodsPercent , MINIMUM_NUMBER_OF_FACTORIES_TAKEN_BY_CONSUMER_GOODS_PERCENT ) (ConsumerGoods * Total factories).RoundedDown

Note that its (1+Factor) * (1+Factor) not (Factor * Factor)

 

[C0RAX]

Then I would get 1,5029 as a result (1,33*1,13). I would guess that you mean with Base1, Base2… the „Base Expectation“ which is 25%. So if I take 1,5029*0,25 I get 0,375725 as a result which is not really close to which is not close to the 14% consumer goods which are being used or the 57% for „Factors multiplied together“. But maybe I get the equation wrong. Can you maybe clarify what „Base1 + Base2 + ….“ exactly means?

((1+-0.33)*(1+-0.13)) = 0.5829
0.5829 * 0.25 = 0.145 rounded down to 0.14 = 14%

We are probably losing some values somewhere to fixed point accuracy or rounding which would explain the 57% instead of 58% shown in the tooltip

 

[C0RAX]

Are these presets also available for airplanes and boats? or are they exclusively for tanks?

yes

 

[Arheo]

I may regret this, but I guess it's a teachable moment and I've about had it up to my eyeballs with this kind of attitude.

Okay... We're going to ignore the debatables of the rest of this diary to talk about the middle-finger you just gave your community as a whole (especially modders) with Presets... (This will be a bit passionate, but I don't care at this point. Disagreement tally be damned.)

In short, you just said...
"We're going to give you half of what you asked for, with historical presets ONLY that we determined through half-backed research and didn't bother to playtest, but it's moddable so you modders can do custom presets for yourself."

"In short" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. If you reword someone's statement - to summarize or not -you do not change the intent or sentiment: that is an intentional misquote.

We did not say any of what you suggested, nor did we intend it.

Do you have any idea how Lazy that makes you guys sound? This is a bare-basic feature people have been asking for since NAVAL designers... to SAVE and LOAD designs across games. You finally get around to the idea after adding three more designers, but can't be bothered to do anything more than hard-set Historical templates? With no way for common players to save alterations we'd like??? Say "we'd like to do it" as if there is no reason (and without giving explination) as to why you couldn't do it right now????? And then say "But it's moddable for metas!" as if that's the only thing modders care about???????

Free features are generally harder to apply resources for than paid ones. I know it isn't the done thing to acknowledge it, but I think it's better that we're open about the truth. We're a business. We're also passionate about HOI. Those two things just have to coexist - it isn't one or the other. That means a balance has to be struck: doing part of this now and part of it later is.. .well, a balance.

I clearly state that we all want to do saving/loading of templates as a next step.

Why isn't it happening right now? Because I decided there were more important things to focus on. I stand by that. I do not owe you my time to work on something you want for free.

And to clear up another oddity: making this feature moddable was not just for you. There are a dozen reasons why it's a good thing to have presets be moddable - maybe MP communities want to have restricted presets, maybe detailed historical mods want to give you some suggested designs, etc. If you choose to translate that into some sort of tacit insult, that's your choice: but it will make you look silly.

Modders don't care about "Meta," we care about "Gameplay." Something you guys have seem to lost understanding of since you don't playtest. Yeah, cool, we have another tool to use... Can you not pressure us into using it so you can avoid adding this feature youself?

This was an odd segue, but fair enough. If we didn't playtest, you'd find out pretty fast. I invite you to apply for a job here and come and show us all how it's done, though.

The latter attitude is something we (sadly) see often. It's fairly common amongst hardcore fans of almost any game or vice; the assertion that since 'I' mod/understand/use/engage with this game an inordinate amount, I have a better understanding even than that of the developers. It becomes a bonding sentiment amongst groups even, and is quite harmful. It's the same psychology that gives us fan gatekeeping.

And it's so easy to do. I even hear industry professionals speak exactly the same way when they're talking about a game they play instead of work on.

I honestly wish I knew how to tackle it constructively, but I'm not sure there is an answer. It's human nature - but that doesn't make the sentiment fact.

Because if you're going to treat modders like they're part of your QA and Testing Staff... We're all going to tell you to get over yourself, as a collective company, reguardless of which of your Execs or team-leads thought it was a good idea to braodcast "We're lazy so the modders can do it," in a "Developmer Diary" which at this point should be renamed "Community Outreach Blog."

We have a wide and constructive relationship with a lot of our modders. A lot of them seem pretty happy with this feature, and I recognize several in the comments here. You do not speak for the modding community: stop trying.

 

[C0RAX]

I will be cruel:
Why create new support regiments? What benefit does this give? How does it make the game better?

If you ask me: this gives zero benefit and is a pure waste of programming resources. I don't see the logic.

There was zero programmer time used to change the categories of battalions since it's all in script. It was a task I could do myself, so I did.

 

[C0RAX]

Ah! So Will Commonwealth Countries use - say- British Presets? Or on the other hand, will Minor Countries like the Commonwealth countries also have their Preset designs along with British ones? Does Canada, for example, have access to the Sexton, Ram, and ergo the Grizzly? More interestingly, will there be a "tech block" for accessing these design presets- Imagining something like Black Ice for example?

theoretically yes, although I've only ever used static country tags for the allowed fields. the preset themselves are shown for each chassis so you unlock presets with each chassis you research. so you could in example have a panzer IV chassis tech that unlock the Panzer IV chassis and that chassis has all the presets for the Panzer IV defined for it. selecting those presets is still dependent on you having all the modules and upgrades unlocked so that acts as a further barrier. so using our Panzer Iv example, if you want to make the Panzer IV F2 you need to have unlocked that gun module compared to the short 7.5cm gun on the Panzer IV D or E.

 

[Arheo]

Guys, as mentioned I'm glad about all those changes to the game, the historical template in particular.
What slightly worries me is the complicated maintenance of said templates. We still have issues with a few ship's designs (e.g. BB Richelieu having BC armor), or whose designs rely on modules before the research has been done (e.g. Radio in some Tanks).

It might be questioned again and again, so please: don't let QA reply "as designed" . If you allow a specific design to a template, let's logically make sure all necessary research behind each module is unlocked, or else start with them researched in 1936.

There can be a tech block. The system currently works as a sort of hybrid between 'auto upgrade' and a saved preset, using AI designs as blueprints.

In short, this means that some modules that are considered required will block you from selecting the preset (ie: a particular main gun). Modules that aren't required will only be used if you've researched them. It will show you what you're missing if you can't select the preset.

As things stand now, this also means that preset modules will also try and use the best possible version of that module if you have one researched (not including the tank hull). That's behaviour I'm still tinkering with a bit, so I'm not sure if we'll keep it. It's one of those situations where things boil down to historicity vs accessibility.

 

[Arheo]

Really looking forward to presets! Will there be ‘subversions’ of the presets, for instance mk.I when a new radar is available, and if so, any chance to have the production line automaticly shifted to the new design?

Not really, I think that would be overkill for presets tbh. They work better as monolithic templates - there's nothing stopping you from making those upgrades yourself the usual way.