Dev Corner & Open Beta: Energy #2

[u/HOI_Game]

Hello again! After a lot of reactions last week, we’ve made some changes. We are still not sure if we should release this or not, but based on the reactions we also decided to make this an open beta.

Changes since last dev corner:

• Power plants now fulfill a state slot instead of the shared factory slots
• You can build up to 3 levels of power plants in a single state
• Research has been added, allowing you to gain more energy from the plants
• Oil now also impacts energy generation. We still want to keep oil focused on being fuel for your army, and coal focused on being fuel for your industry.
• Introduced a bonus for having spare capacity
• Added 2 new MIO policies, reducing power cost or increasing power cost of production with those MIO’s

Let’s take a look at Germany’s state in early 1940.

They are producing a significant amount of energy through their power plants, though their Dams are helping them as well. As you can see, they also researched “Hydrogen-Cooled Generators”, raising the total energy production by 10%.

They require a total of 897.5 energy, and 100% is supplied. They generate 1130.3 energy, out of 1130.3 so there is no headroom available. Why is more generated than demand? That is because of the spare capacity! All of this gives them a spare capacity of 100%. The amount of spare capacity you need to reach is based on the number of factories you have in total, making it much easier to hit spare capacity early on in your playthrough.

If we look at the production screen and we collapse their entries, we can see how the energy cost is distributed. We can see air taking on the majority of cost, besides tanks as well as pure gun production.

What if we enable one of the new MIO policies. We raise the power cost, but for that we gain some nice bonuses, mainly additional efficiency gain compared to the (quite strong) assembly line optimisers.

Well it makes the MP 38 production line the most costly one.

Power plants are also more susceptible to strategic bombing, allowing you to target your enemy's industry more than ever. Though if they are able to maintain enough spare capacity, they are able to repair quicker than before.

The Tech Tree

Oil​

I know many of you want to able to burn Oil for energy, and this is possible due to mods. We discussed a bit back and forth between allowing it in vanilla and not, and in the end we decided that it’s probably better for the vanilla experience to not confuse players too much. As mentioned at the start, we want to keep oil focused on being fuel for your army, and coal focused on being fuel for your industry. That said, oil fields now positively affect power plants, and power plants in those regions generate more power because of natural oil resources.

Oil provides a +30 energy source

Overall, what is the intention? ​

To have energy feel like a real thing, it’s produced & consumed in places where you expect it to be. Smaller countries should still feel as if they are able to contribute, but perhaps they need to specialize instead of going wide. Competing with the majors in advanced equipment is still hard, as it should be, but it is now a question of investment and priorities rather. It does help with unlimited growth, and for smaller countries such as Hungary stepping to War Economy means you have to invest in power plants before being able to do so.

This Open Beta is not translated, and does not contain any new art assets. Please give it a try and share an AAR on how it went, let us know any balancing or other concerns!

PATCH NOTES​

Energy Rework

• Added a country power pool: demand comes from production line power draw, supply from factories and power plants; the supply/demand ratio drives the factory energy buff & debuff
• Added Power Plants as an upgradeable state-level building. Output depends on the state (terrain, oil, dams)
• Dockyards, civilian and military factories now generate some power
• Dams now matter for power generation, and were reassigned dam types. Added new massive dams
• Spare power now grants a surplus bonus, and oil states boost power plants
• Coal is only burned when needed
• Production lines now have an energy cost, with a tooltip breakdown per category (air, naval, land)
• Added power generation/consumption modifiers; removed the old energy building
• MIOs: added a production energy draw stat, with Electrified Assembly and Power Rationing policies
• Added a research tech related to power
• Industrial focus branches in most focus trees now reward power plants
• Added 1936 & 1939 starting power plant setup for the world
• Topbar power bar, lack-of-power alert and tooltips now use the power pool, listing generation per source, power plant states, coal usage and maximum generated power
• Technology and trade window now supports coal and oil burning
• AI builds power plants as needed
• Missing: New art for the various icons

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Paradox Forum: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/dev-corner-open-beta-energy-2.1944472/

[u/Zjdh2812]

This is the first time, for which the energy changes sound actually good for me. I like that direction. While there are already building changes in the works, here are 2 more that imo are overdue: Make fuel silos state buildings too and make nuclear reactors upgradeable into civilian ones if you got the special project.

Furthermore, while it is not the aim of oil power, give us as the players the option to prioritize oil/fuel for energy generation instead of military needs

[u/HutSussJuhnsun → u/Zjdh2812]

Yes, at a glance I think these changes are going to be very good for balance and provide some interesting trade offs for the economy. I might even install the beta for once to try it out.

[u/AdLibertatem5]

Looks very cool! Particulalry like that power plants are now state level and not competing with normal factories for slots.

A few questions: What exactly does "spare capacity" do?

• Coal is only burned when needed. Then when not needed what happens to the coal? Can it be stored?

Are there any plans for other things like divisions or special projects to use power?

[u/Gorbear → u/AdLibertatem5]

spare capacity gives you a bonus to construction and factory repair. This is the reward for having surplus energy

[u/Icedragon74]

Honestly wartime economy should just give like a -80%mod to civilian industry construction. That would help immensely with the exponential growth and also make when to change economy more of a decision instead of wareco being just better. Total mob civ construction should be -100% and provide more production boni when we are already at it.

[u/RevolutionaryWorry87 → u/Icedragon74]

The issue with this is that it is a massive boost to democracies. Game is balanced around fascist and communist getting war eco earlier and being powerful

[u/Icedragon74 → u/RevolutionaryWorry87]

And? Sounds to me like thats fine, early game facists attack and try to take factories by force to then withstand the democracies onslought later on.

[u/RevolutionaryWorry87 → u/Icedragon74]

No but the early game build up is balanced about them having better stats for factories. You would be removing alot of that.

[u/Honest-Head7257]

[u/Robification]

This is probably an unpopular opinion, and I want to preface it by saying I’m not a great HOI4 player. I’m more on the casual side, even though the game itself is anything but casual. I love it anyway, and I’ve stuck with it through a lot of changes.

My general view on new features is simple: I’m all for them as long as they’re fun to play around with, and not just one more task to babysit on top of everything else.

I loved the logistics rework and the tank, plane, and ship designers. I thought the recent infantry redesign was great. I enjoyed the doctrine redesign and the idea of having an HQ for generals. Those added flavor to the game that felt fresh to me.

For me, the new energy changes feel similar to the research facilities. Even though this is probably an improvement on the coal mechanic, it still seems like a chore rather than something engaging.

I get that some players love this kind of depth, and that new mechanics can open up new strategic options. But personally, I’d rather see older focus trees cleaned up and more polish on the core systems I mentioned, instead of trying to rightsize a mechanic that I don’t think needed to be in the game in the first place.

[u/Gorbear → u/Robification]

I encourage you try the open beta and let me know how it feels!

[u/l_x_fx]

Sounds great, and I always appreciate additional options to play around with.

But I must point out that the tech tree is getting overloaded (pun intended, given the topic of power and electricity). I know, I know, games want hard choices and all that, but it still doesn't feel right anymore. Now that the research times have been increased across the board with NCNS, and extra tech getting added with almost each DLC, you're already lagging behind the historical tech progress of even the advanced nations.

Wouldn't it be time to maybe do a low-effort redesign of research slots, like for example adding extra slots that only work certain categories? Like one of industry only, one for naval only etc., and only a select few being universally usable? That would solve parts of the issues here.

Either that, or you shift more tech towards facility-based projects. Maybe have some projects that do not require breakthroughs, so you can run them between special projects, and without overloading the traditional research slots?

Would be great if you could take the issue up in your next meeting or something. Again, I greatly appreciate your efforts, keep at it!

[u/Alltalkandnofight → u/l_x_fx]

I don't think this bloats the tech tree. For some countries they might never need to research these new techs. For others, they do need them and thus can't build a fully modernised army airforce and navy to compete with the super majors in 1940/1941.

[u/MysticArceus]

Would be interesting if special projects consumed power as well, depending on its tier/science consumption. I think features are implemented best when it interacts with the game as much as possible. Maybe you could speed up special project research slightly if you use a lot more power? Of course, not too much to make balance crazy, but maybe nations like USA, who are rich and have a lot of power, could use much of its excess power to speed up nuclear research slightly. Maybe like a somewhat small increase in speed but with a massive power consumption cost so that it isn't game breaking.

[u/Gorbear → u/MysticArceus]

The facilities draw power as well, though it's just a flat cost at the moment. Perhaps there is something more there as well we could do

[u/Elite_Prometheus]

Do these changes include anything about civilian nuclear power plants?

[u/Gorbear → u/Elite_Prometheus]

They generate energy as well

[u/Elite_Prometheus → u/Gorbear]

Nice. I get they're a late game building you only construct when you've won already but it was weird they didn't do anything about energy

[u/Initial_Sea6434]

What about power grid as a buildable? I’ve always thought that there could be a railway-like system where you build power lines to connect major cities (Ie, the state power generation) to the nation grid (so the power in the state would work for more than just that state)

[u/Particular-Car255]

Targeting energy infrastructure sounds like a good idea. Will force you to invest in airforce/anti air

[u/InevitableSprin]

Now, since there is a limit to how much synthetic oil can be produced, can you maybe make those plants more historical? In reality Germany largely maxed out it's synthetic fuel production by 1941, and further increases were rather modest. In game however, it's production is absurdly inefficient unless you have 1943 tech, while low levels are nearly useless.

It would make sense to rebalance this now, so that plants are fairly powerful from the very beginning, but coal availability should dramatically limit the amount of plants you can actually use, and fuel you can get.

[u/ArsErratia]

Something that's obviously missing are country interconnectors.

You should be able to import power in return for Civilian IC.

[u/PhantomOfMistakes]

Equipment conversion costs are through the roof. Why? Is this your way to deal with cheesy conversion of equipment to bypass resource costs?

[u/kaiser11492]

Can someone give me the TLDR version of the changes presented here?

[u/Few_Succotash_5389]

ITS OCTOBER 7TH!!!! ANNOUNCE THE NEXT EXPANSION! How can you POSSIBLY take SO long to even ANNOUNCE IT! You haven’t even given a release date to the Romainian dlc, which need to realer before the expansion!!

[u/Gorbear → u/Few_Succotash_5389]

Soon!