Developer Diary | Summer Open Beta

[HmJ_JP]

Alright, just re-did a game with France with save save start point. Navy seems indeed to have some problems, losing tons of screens while nothing before.\
Also Germany seems to have beefed up, finally they break through my 9/1 infantry divisions.

 

[Colonel_Kraken]

Corax: "Now the aircraft stuff, so power/weight is very not intuitive for aircraft, adding more power will make a plane faster but taking weight off a plane won't make it faster since speed is almost entirely determined by thrust against drag not weight."

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!

 

[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.

 

[Colonel_Kraken]

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!

 

[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.

 

[HmJ_JP]

Something scares me with additional research items: it's nice and sounds very good, but for these majors with a Research debuff (France has 3 slots until 1939 at best...) some rebalance would be needed.

 

[Death_Hussar]

I agree, there should be air exp discount just like in the naval research or reduce some of the research time at least.

 

[The Colonel]

The thing is, the naval XP buffs are basically all for techs that give % stat buffs, not unlock new modules, with I guess the idea being that experience helps you learn how to use your tools effectively faster. There aren't any air techs like that, only modules.

 

[Death_Hussar]

Well, the depth charges and the armour could be researched with exp. Also there could be an argument that with more experience you would observe the flaws of your current equipment and try to overcome it. In many cases prototypes didn't enter production but the experience from the trials helped shape a model that actually contributed the war effort.

The point is that the player doesn't become overwhelmed with different techs he doesn't have time for. Because they could add a few techs here and a few techs there with each patch and create this problem. I think it's better if we prevent it in advance.

 

[HmJ_JP]

I agree, there should be air exp discount just like in the naval research or reduce some of the research time at least.

That's a good idea, especially when from mid-game we have tons of XP and don't know what do with it, except navy's as you mention.

 

[HmJ_JP]

Alright, just re-did a game with France with save save start point. Navy seems indeed to have some problems, losing tons of screens while nothing before.\
Also Germany seems to have beefed up, finally they break through my 9/1 infantry divisions.

Allow me to update here: had again another run: this time the chances were much different. So, it could be there's not much difference with naval fights.

 

[HmJ_JP]

Oups, just found a bug with CAS: I had a CAS already on production, automatic upgrade, then I find this info. It looks like I can't even produce it, yet it's in my production queue.

 

[Colonel_Kraken]

It looks like the new Armor Piercing Bomb Locks only give -5 Agility versus "normal" Bomb Locks -15 Agility hit for Naval Strikes. Is this purposefully done?

 

[KnyazSuvorov]

I honestly, will not mind these combat width changes, but I know other MP players will.

The real problem with the changes is as follows:

A) The way combat targeting works is it favors having large divisions over small divisions.

I have done a test recently and I am fairly certain: 40-42 width divisions will not go away, simply because only those divisions can maximize defense & breakthrough in a way that you can't do with 20 widths divisions. Combat width on tiles in that regard is almost irrelevant: it's will stay multiples of 20 because of current equipment stats, not because of anything else (if the player understands the game mechanics of course).

Assuming the current 42 widths have optimized their breakthrough/defense to equal that of potential enemy effective attack, anyone who uses 21 widths universally will have their divisions about 37.5% worse than the same composition of unit types that the enemy has.

Reason being: every reduced defense/breakthrough point matched enemy attack and with their removal, the chances of enemy success in inflicting damage went up by 300%.

Assume this; you have two 42 width divisions with 100 defense and 100 soft attack. They face two enemy divisions with 100 breakthrough, 100 soft attack. Assume no hardness for both, no modifiers. These divisions should fight equally well against each other because:

([2(100 enemy soft attack*(coordination = 0.35) + 2*100 enemy soft attack/2]-100 defense)*4+100 attack negated by defense= make the number of actual attacks hitting each side is equal(180 on one division and 50 on the second for both sides.

=max[(2(100)*0.35 + 2*100/2]-100,0)*4 + min(100,2*100/2*4)
= 180

second division:
=max[(2*100/2]*4-100,0) *4+ min(100, 2*100/2)
= 50

Now try using 21 widths for one side. They have double the division count now, with half the stats, except org.

Now their calculation is:

([2(100 soft attack*(coordination = 0.35) + 2*100 enemy soft attack/2]-100 defense)*4+100 enemy attack negated by defense= make the number of actual attacks hitting each side is unequal(180 on one division and 50 on the second for both sides.
=max[(2(100)*0.35 + 2*100/4]-50,0)*4 + min(50,2*100/4*4)
= 330

second/third/fourth division:
=max[(2*100/2]*4-100,0) + min(100, 2*100/2)
= 25

As a result, now one side takes (330+25*4 = ) 430 damage while the other takes (180+50*2 =) 280 damage. The side taking more damage gets 50% more org on the other hand, but it will lose in the end because every one of these divisions will be deorged eventually one by one, not to mention higher equipment losses.

The only way to counter this: reduce the coordination value to 50% of what it is right now,(0.175) but that will make the game go from exponential to arithmetic (AKA a "meta template" will be less relevant compared to optimizing IC usage and will make the game slower paced) and I suspect people will still try to counter this by making "5 tank/1 motorized" templates).

B) People don't like having many division size templates. They look for cookie cutter solutions that work on Speed 4 by principle "Click and beat anything that comes your way"

That's why the lazy players will simply build something universal no matter what, even if it's inefficient.

C) People playing MP don't like small templates. They lag the game down. Only way to avoid that: build a mobilization mechanic. Otherwise Brazil, Mexico, Peru will print dozens of divisions that have no impact 90% of time, but still consume game resources.

For that reason, most MP lobbies ban division widths under 10 for garrisons and raise to 20 for frontline units often.

What needs to be done is a mobilization mechanic: you can't just have 90% of your army deployed in 1937 for no reason. There has to be a cost for doing that.

D) You as devs are deliberately avoiding OOBs given the HOI3 disaster. That's reasonable.

But you need to introduce corps level formations in the form of "attachables": aka being able to attach one division to another and stay in the same province at all times(and move at same speed).

CTRL + 1-10 is great, but the unit speeds are different leading to issues on manual attack. EUIV has it for years, for HOI4 it's overdue and shouldn't be that hard to implement.

 

[HmJ_JP]

I'm troubled with this one: I have naval bombers on production since 1936, even though I never searched this one, so something's strange.

 

[WSnova]

Anyways, been playing around with the range for Strategic combers. Its not as bad as I thought they would be, to keep them 4 engined you will probably need to rush engines ASAP.

Anyways, any plan to adress the imbalance between people who don´t have BBA vs people who do? As it is right now, you can´t really replicate the pre-designed ones with the plane designer. They are cheaper and frankly have stats that you will never get with the plane designer.

I mean, I know its the same for the tank and ship designer but with the plane designer the difference is so blatant.

 

[Colonel_Kraken]

I'm troubled with this one: I have naval bombers on production since 1936, even though I never searched this one, so something's strange.

View attachment 1003356

Good eye, JP. Corax addressed it here.

 

[Swamperino]

We need smaller airzones to change the air meta. With the massive reduction in range, drop tanks have become mandatory if you want to cover the current air zones. It's not a choice now, it's a necessity (and it already was before this change).

 

[hannibal_pjv]

Ok, I found a problem: There are a lot of new techs now but the duration of the research time has not been reduced, or there is no option to use air craft expierence points to make the research faster

It should be reduced somebit, or adding the option to use your aircraft expierence points to make the research faster, because there is already a problem to keep your army up to date. Specially, the nations with the outdated focus trees have a big issue to keep up with their historically techs. Italy got an massive research boost with his focus tree, even in 35 days they get more as other majors in 70.. but not all have this option.

So reducing the research duration or giving a option to use the expierence points would be a good idea. (For all nations)

The real testing of airgraft was the fastest and best way to get development in every war equipment so using air xp as development boost seems the best way of doing this1

 

[HmJ_JP]

yep research setup for the new torpedoes has not been implemented yet so that will be the case in the final patch

Please give a special eye for France. Only 3 slot for most od early game, and now more basic research to find... I understand the purpose but you might reconsider the baseline for some majors.