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Developer Diary | Summer Open Beta

Hello there, it's me C0RAX.
A bit of the different DD than you’re used to this week. I'm here to introduce a new thing I will be doing over the summer. This summer for 4 weeks we will be giving you the chance to test some of the balance changes coming with the 1.13 Stella Polaris patch. These changes are hand picked for testing in order to get feedback from the community on specific changes that might have large impacts. These changes will affect all three major combat groups (Army, Air, and Navy), and vary from value changes to some new functionality and behavior so be sure to read the change list so you know what you're getting yourself into.

So let's go into how this is going to work. From July 6th until August 3rd there will be a special Summer Open Beta branch on steam, this branch will have the new changes listed below. Additionally it won't have anything new coming with Arms Against Tyranny just changes for base game and previously released DLC’s. In the last week of the test we will post a feedback form to be able to collect feedback data that we can use to analyze your responses. Of course this doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t post about it outside the form, I want to encourage as much discourse, theorizing and number crunching as possible so give it a try and let us know what you think.

Now lets go over the change log.

################################################################
######## Summer Open Beta ######### Balance
################################################################

##########
Air
##########
- Excess thrust will now increase agility instead of max speed (0.5 AGI per excess thrust)
- airframes now how base max speeds to better represent airframe size speed effects
- major air rebalance pass for airframes and modules
- increased tech date for survival studies to 1939
- Improved aircraft turrets
- slight decrease in agility hit for large bomb bays
- small airframe can only take single turret modules
- adjusted turret stats so they are less powerful for fighters but better for bombers
- rebalanced thrust and weights of modules and airframes,
- added new modules
- Large autocannon
- Large bomb rack
- Armor piercing bomb rack
- 3 levels of torpedo mounting
- Added new techs for plane designer (see above)
- Combat better Agility and Speed has increased effect on air combat

##########
Land
##########
- reduced terrain combat widths slightly, change support widths also
- Super Heavy tanks are now support units. Super Heavy tanks are no longer line battalions
- Armor skirts provide 1 more armor
- Most tank chassis' now grant 10-20% more armor
- Super heavy tanks now cost more overall, but require 20 per support company.

##########
Navy
##########
- added damage reduction to piecing thresholds for naval combat
- convoy hitprofile reduced from 120 to 85 bringing it inline with new hitprofile calculations
- Ship torpedoes accuracy increased to bring them back in line with new hitprofile calculations 145 > 100
- slightly decreased AA disruption from ship AA
- removed visibility effects of super heavy bb armor
- rebalanced, ship engines
- removed visibility impacts from medium guns
- rebalanced IC costs to reflect engine changes
- super heavy armor now part of normal heavy armors
- rebalanced armors
- added cruiser armor to carriers


##########
AI
##########
- AI more likely to upgrade division in the field even with equipment deficits
- added generic AI upgraded infantry template for late game infantry
- added ENG and USA upgraded infantry templates for AI and improved their infantry templates in general

Right now let's get into some explanations.

Thrust and weight:
Let's get the big one out the way thrust and weight for planes. This change requires a bit of game explanation and some explanation of aircraft. So why affect agility, agility previously was a stat that was seldom increased but often reduced by making it something you are rewarded by not using all your thrust budget you can lessen the agility effects of modules by not loading up your entire plane creating a choice between maximizing raw damage or maximizing damage bonuses during air to air combat by bring higher Agility.

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. What less weight does provide is better climb rate acceleration plus some other things. These are abstracted into agility in game. So now if you want your plane to go faster you either use a newer airframe with lower drag (higher base speed) or by putting a bigger engine in the existing airframe.

Combat widths:
Now the next big change, terrain combat widths. This is the change that originally spawned the open beta idea. These changes are generally intended to flatten the efficiencies further for combat widths while also reducing division sizes. There will obviously still be certain numbers that fit better than others but overall these differences should be less extreme.

  • Terrain = CW+Reinforcement Width
  • Desert = 82+49
  • Forest = 76+40
  • Hills = 72+36
  • Jungle = 74+34
  • Marsh = 68+22
  • Mountain = 65+25
  • Plains = 82+49
  • Urban = 86+28
Ship penetration:
Finally the last change I want to discuss is the new penetration effect for ships. To put this imply they now reduce damage directly on top of reducing critical chance. The damage reductions are smaller than for land combat but that's because they have a much greater effect on the combat but be careful defeating an armored foe with just small guns should be much harder now.

Thresholds and damage are as follows

Pen to Armor ThreshholdCritical Change FactorDamage Factor
221
111
0.750.750.9
0.50.50.7
0.10.10.5
000.3

##########
HOTFIX
##########
07/07
- hotfix for legacy damage reduction for ships was conflicting with new system (they will now add to each other) set legacy value to 0
- hotfix for missing agility mods for bomb bays

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

- 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

That concludes the run down of the upcoming “Summer open beta” and it's coming to you tomorrow!. I hope to see you try it out and give feedback on the changes. See you next week for more Arms Against Tyranny content coming your way. It's going to be a pretty one.
 
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One wonders what was the rationale behind boosting torpedoes in the first place. All those synthetic tests of torpedo DDs vs unscreened capitals couldn't have ingnited much zeal, given how screening provides an unrivaled +40% hit chance regardless of any naval terrain and other tactical considerations, such as speed or range (oh wait, we don't have any), and one would want to be screened at all times. So it must have been something else.

This all looks grossly unhealthy. Torpedo tech, DD admiral perks and SS tech all spiral up significantly quicker than corresponding boosts to heavier ships (not to mention them taking ages to produce, thus always lagging behind in tech against small craft), so the inclusion of 1940/44 tech and all the beefy stuff might show particularly spicy outcomes.

I can't help adding that the Japanese torpedo runs (featuring those omnipotent Type 93 mentioned above, yes) were marred by friendly fire in a battle listing as little as 9 DDs (plus few cruisers) against just two cruisers of the enemy (Sunda Strait). Torpedoes are not shells, and they need unobstructed access to their intended targets, lest [not so] funny things happen. Coordinating dozens of suicide-minded DDs in the way HoI4 allows it might have been quite a task IRL, provided the Decisive Battle had actually happened.
Yep. Maybe that's good for role playing, but in the end it's more improvements that I'd rather investigate with my XP rather than dedicate precious slots/time to research fully.
 
I think there is a prob with the airfield.

View attachment 1003845

View attachment 1003846
kcV1QY7.jpg
 
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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.
 
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.

Can you test it with "save as new" that help me with license upgrade.
 
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Hotfix:

10/07
- fixed damage reduction happening before stat initialisation
- fixed +1 to threshold values
I have some strange games with navies. From save point start, I might have very fierce naval combats, with 30 DD lost on each side. Or nothing special. It's rather rare otherwise to have so many losses: could it be due to the patch?
 
Anyways, some Plane Range Values for y´all, its list the rane for planes with extra fuel tanks, for small airframes I put in drop tanks +extra fuel:

Large AirframeBase
1​
2​
3​
4​
5​
6​
Inter-War900.001,350.001,800.002,250.002,700.003,150.00
Basic1,300.001,950.002,600.003,250.003,900.004,550.00
Improved1,600.002,400.003,200.004,000.004,800.005,600.006,400.00
Advanced1,900.002,850.003,800.004,750.005,700.006,650.007,600.00
Medium AirframeBase
1​
2​
3​
4​
5​
6​
Inter-War650.00975.001,300.001,625.001,950.00
Basic800.001,200.001,600.002,000.002,400.00
Improved1,000.001,500.002,000.002,500.003,000.003,500.00
Advanced1,200.001,800.002,400.003,000.003,600.004,200.00
Small AirframeBaseDrop Tanks
1​
2​
3​
4​
5​
Inter-War300.00600.00900.00
Basic450.00750.001,125.00
Improved550.00850.001,275.001,700.00
Advanced650.00950.001,425.001,900.002,375.00
Advanced650.00975.001,300.001,625.001,950.00

Sompe important tresholds for Strategic bomber:

From Yorkshire
7,600 to reach the Urals
3,900 to be able to bomb Romania (Which reminds me that we can´t actually bomb Oil)
2,700 to reach Western Poland and Italy(The axis Majors)
2,250 to Bomb germany and North Italy

From N Ireland:

3,150 to barely reach Mid Atlantic Gap

From Mutenia:

1800 to reach Central Russia
3,900 to Urals
5,600 to trans Urals


From Luzon(North Phillipines)

3,150 to reach Japan and Korea

Guam
3,150 to reach Japan and Korea

Iwo Jima
1350 to reach Japan(barely, use around 1,800)

New Guinea
5,600 to reach Japan.

To me it seems the sweet spot for range is between 3k to 4k in range.

Dunno if I am missing any other relevant treshold.

For Medium Fighters and Bombers to me it seems like 1k to 1.5 k is more than good enough for most airzones. maybe not in the Pacific, but you will never get good coverage on the pacific.
E: Smoll airframes are allright with 900 to 1k. They start struggling with the huge Airzones in Russia but I dunno if there is value in nerfing their defense further.
 
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Great beta update! With all the commentary on other subjects, I’m just adding a few observations and or suggestions:
  • Battlecruisers are much slower than historically. The Admiral (ENG), Renown (ENG), and Kongo (JAP) class Battlecruisers average 24-26 knots in the game. Historically, all three classes averaged 29-31 knots. In game, the Yavuz (TUR) speed is 22 knots though IRL ran 25.5 knots. Recommend increasing the speed bonus to battlecruiser armor.
  • Allow aircraft equipped with bomb locks or small bomb bays to conduct the following four missions: CAS, logistics strike, port strike, and naval bomber missions. Planes equipped with either or both systems remained capable of performing all these missions. For example, a Japanese Aichi D3A1 dive bomber (equipped with bomb locks) sank the USS Arizona at Pearl harbor by dropping a modified armor piercing bomb made from a 16” shell. Conversely, mid-late war carrier dive bombers such as the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver (USA), Yokosuka D4Y Suisei (JAP), and Aichi B7A Ryusei (JAP) all incorporated bomb bays and external hard points into their designs. On a side not, many torpedo bombers also incorporate bomb bays into their designs. The difference between bomb locks and bomb bays should remain mostly in IC cost and agility penalties. Bomb locks enjoy lower IC cost, but suffer higher agility penalties, just the opposite for small bomb bays.
  • Really need a medium size maritime patrol plane to fit the many 2-3 engine models that existed. I created these in my own mod and not difficult to do. The large maritime patrol plane remains just too expensive for practical use for most nations.
  • Give armor piercing bombs an attack bonus verses forts.
  • Allow aerial rockets to conduct port and naval bomber missions. A 5” HVAR rocket hitting a “big gray boat” hurts… a lot.
 
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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':

Screenshot 2023-07-10 225911.png


Screenshot 2023-07-10 231433.png


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)
 
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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.
 
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Have done a bit of testing with the hotfixed armor - seems good from preliminary testing. Pure Light Attack won't beats heavily armored capitals, torpedos combined with it will beat unscreened slower ships.

Might be a bit of an oversight with the new Heavy Cruiser Batteries - although the Visibility penalty has been removed, the HP bonus hasn't, and stacks on every CA Battery you add. This means you can get near Battleship level HP and Attack while being faster and lower visibility.

Designs like the one linked have been mulching everything of equal IC I throw at them - Battleships, Superheavy Battleships, Battlecruisers, Light Cruisers all get shredded by the massive amounts of fast, cheap HP and attack. If released as is, we might be back to pure Heavy Cruiser meta!

I don't think that them beating Light Cruisers or poorly armored Battleships is a problem, but they shouldn't be able to beat up well armored Battleships (that's Carriers' job!).

I would maybe consider either:

- reverting the Visibility change
- stop the HP buff stacking on multiple modules (similar to the Light Cruiser Battery HP Bonus)
- (my preferred change) reduce the piercing
 

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For example, a Japanese Aichi D3A1 dive bomber (equipped with bomb locks) sank the USS Arizona at Pearl harbor by dropping a modified armor piercing bomb made from a 16” shell.
Incorrect. The modified 16" shell that hit Arizona's magazine was dropped by a B5N2 'Kate' in level-bombing mode.

The modified 16-in shells were just under 800kg, so the Vals would not have been carrying that. The biggest bomb the Vals carried was 250kg.

However, the Kate did level bombing, and torpedo bombing, just not dive-bombing. The US Avenger was much the same.
 
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I can see early Jets having a shorter range. But does it make sense that Jet Engine 1 has less thrust than Engine IV?

Also what's up with the balance between Cannon II and Large Cannon II?
 
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I'm looking forward to keep playing this beta patch, I've made some modifications myself and will likely keep adjusting them until I'm happy.

I've played around with modding the air modules myself and agree that percentage modifiers are better than flat numbers. Hadn't considered dropping the penalties for some of the modules like non-strat materials. Going to try it next time I start tinkering.
 
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Incorrect. The modified 16" shell that hit Arizona's magazine was dropped by a B5N2 'Kate' in level-bombing mode.

The modified 16-in shells were just under 800kg, so the Vals would not have been carrying that. The biggest bomb the Vals carried was 250kg.

However, the Kate did level bombing, and torpedo bombing, just not dive-bombing. The US Avenger was much the same.
Thanks for the correction. Most planes were capable of performing a variety of missions not just what their primary role dictated.
 
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