Developer Diary | Summer Open Beta

[C0RAX]

Is this true? Are there any physics geeks here? In my mind I am thinking about how commercial aviation CHASES weight reduction with full blown passion. It's true that the speed of commercial aircraft doesn't change a whole lot, but that's because the manufacturers match thrust to weight. So, the reason commercial aviation chases less weight is to reduce the amount of thrust needed in order to increase fuel efficiency. I think . . . . .


If Corax's statement is true, however, typically adding cannons to fighters did increase drag, so you would want to account for that. Also, anything that is an external pod (bomb locks, drop tanks, etc) would give quite a bit of drag and so should decrease speed, but I don't believe there is a "drag" variable in the calculations? Which would mean, the only way to reflect this would be to give a malice to speed based on weight. Just thinking out loud . . . .

Thanks!

Weirdly enough there's a great writeup on the effects of weight on aircraft performance on linkedin, but there's also the FAA's guidelines that give an idea. Basically more weight reduces climb speed, optimal cruise speed, manoeuvrability, rate of climb, max altitude, basically any flight characteristic of an airplane but max speed. Since airlines don't want to go faster due to drag increasing much faster as you approach the speed of sound they try to reduce weight because it allows them to go further since they get more lift for a given wings size which means smaller wings which means smaller engines which means less cost to operate, among other things gained from less weight such as climb rate and runway length requirements. Additionally It can be the case that in order to make the lift of the aircraft high enough for the weight you increase the drag (large straight wings or higher AOA etc...)and so indirectly is reduces speed.

If I'm misunderstanding anything I'd been happy to get an explanation of it.

 

[C0RAX]

Thank you, Corax!

I agree that excess thrust equals better climb rates and acceleration! I happen to be geeking out on the internet at the same time you were posting this. This is what I found:

"The drag will increase with the square of the mass increase." and we know drag is a direct counter to thrust. (found here)

" . . . the thrust is in direct relation to weight . . . Now we can see , , , that increasing the weight and/or the velocity will increase the thrust horsepower required to maintain flight." (found here)

"The thrust needed to maintain this speed in straight and level flight is also a function of the aircraft weight." (found here)

I don't know what the true answer is because I never studied this in college or anything - just food for thought.

Thank you so much for responding and being helpful!

lovely source, 4.12 Minimum and Maximum Speeds talks directly to it being a function of drag and thrust for max speed.

 

[C0RAX]

Matching thrust to weight is a HoI4 nonsense. Planes are neither helicopters nor rockets, they don't need that much thrust to take off, since they do that by aerodynamical force (i.e. lift), not by applying thrust against weight. As long as the plane can reach its take-off velocity, there's no magical thrust-to-weight threshold which will render it inoperational, while HoI4 implies just that.

Yeah it wasn't meant to represent true thrust and weight as a value. It's more an abstract representation of how aircraft weight and thrust have a range of good to bad aircraft performance, with the bad end leading to an aircraft to bad to fly. Measuring as a 0 summing value makes it much more understandable than having the cut off be a seemingly arbitrary value between 0 and 1 as would be if we used true thrust to weight values. Alas HOI4 is a game and not a aircraft simulation so abstractions are made for this purpose.

 

[C0RAX]

What do those updated division templates look like out of curiosity? I always feel like the ai can't compete with my division templates and it makes wars too easy

Previously generics nations were building 7/2's and then upgrading to 14/4's. now it builds just 7/2's but it will be upgrade further to make the 7/2 not the target template, probably something closer to 9/1 but that depends on how the CW changes shape out. majors mostly make 9/1 or 9/2's but also now add AA and AT but its specific to each nation.

you can check out all the target templates in SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Hearts of Iron IV\common\ai_templates

 

[C0RAX]

The new torpedo modules for naval bombers seem to put guided anti-ship missiles to absolute shame, and they require a lot of tech.

Any chance of a buff to anti-ship missiles? The guided anti-ship missiles are way heavier too.

yes

 

[C0RAX]

Hotfix:

10/07
Naval Combat:
- fixed damage reduction happening before stat initialisation
- fixed +1 to threshold values for ship penetration

 

[C0RAX]

No idea what this mean?

see here

 

[C0RAX]

With latest Hotfix, the torpedoes are again a bit too weak. I made a test with 5 BB and 16 pure torpedo DD vs 7 BB of same IC cost. Both fleets are about same strength now, here 2 examples on 'always engage':

View attachment 1004087

View attachment 1004088

For correct working of the naval battle system for same IC cost, BB should beat CA, CA should beat CL, CL should beat DD and DD should beat not close to 100% screened capital ships. And it should already work with reasonable fleet destroyers, not just with pure torpedo boat style DD. Because, even if you build those 'torpedo boats', which are useless for anything else, you are better off building BB only, as it was right from the release of BBA. And this battleships meta is really awful from a historical point of view, since we have in Hoi4 now the least import ship class, the BB (allthough still useful), as the most important one, when it comes done to create naval supremacy. (Of cause you still need antisub DD for convoy battles against subs)

torpedoes ignore armour still so the hotfix wont have changed their damage, any change in behaviours will be from guns doing more/less damage.

 

[C0RAX]

Slight issue with Converted Battleship Carrier - Because they now use Cruiser armor, the cost of converting from BB -> CV is always far more than the base cost of just building a Converted Battleship Carrier from scratch.

The game now factors the cost of removing the BB armor, which is obscenely expensive - even if you dont add any Cruiser armor to the Carrier.

Would it be possible for Converted BB Carriers to use Battleship instead of Cruiser armor so this issue doesn't arise?

oh that's an easy fix, without adding bb armor to carriers..

 

[C0RAX]

###############
Mid beta update
###############
- updated combat width defines as per
- implemented type 2 combat widths as per
- improved some templates for planes
- balance pass on new modules
- rebalanced dismantle and conversion costs for BB engines
- adjusted damage reduction thresholds for ships


This will be the last update short of any hotfixes.

 

[C0RAX]

Are you indending to leave both SHBB hull and armor as is now?

for the beta yes

 

[C0RAX]

So there's now an air speed cap for airframes. So max speed is pre-determined by the airframe and can't be increased. I don't think that's a good idea. Also extra thrust now converts into agility which doesn't make any sense to begin with, but also agility doesn't do much for a plane's combat ability in general. Also air range is significantly reduced across the board now. I don't think that's a good idea either. They should add a new "Drag" stat to airframes and connect speed/agility to that.

The maximum speed of a plane is the combination of the base speed of the airframe + the engine and any other speed modifiers from design companies/MIO's or national spirits etc... in this case the base speed of an airframe is functionally a representation of drag since its the only additive value with all others being factors on that base.

So an engine 4 on a modern airframe will give you a higher speed than an engine 4 on an IW airframe, and a 2 engine small airframe will have a different speed than a 2 engine medium airframe of the same tech level.

 

[C0RAX]

The 4 weeks are over, glad to see how much interest was shown. We will be sending out a feedback form if you want to have any final say. the changes will now be refined for the full release of 1.13 alongside Arms Against Tyranny

 

[C0RAX]

Any predictions for the release of the AAT?

autumn

 

[C0RAX]

Funny, about the beta: loading a save game now disables Ironman, even though the very same save was made in Ironman.
For the sake of curiosity, will the next patch (whichever 1.12.x or 1.13.x) enable this save to work again in Ironman, or is it a lost cause?

I like to revisit some game saves when AI did some smart moves/caused good challenge.

View attachment 1011020

no the checksums will not match so the saves will not be ironman compatible