Hearts of Iron IV

Hearts of Iron IV

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Araxiel's Arty Upgrades for SPs
   
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Dec 27, 2016 @ 8:52am
Jan 27, 2017 @ 11:19am
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Araxiel's Arty Upgrades for SPs

Description
This little mod gives all Self-Propelled Guns the same bonus that towed artillery receives from the artillery tech tree, for extra immersion, realism and historical accuracy.

I always found it surprising that improvements in artillery technology does not improve self-propelled artillery, thus rendering it useless if you decide to use self-propelled artillery. And while I understand that artillery howitzers and self-propelled guns are not the same, they are still very similar in many advancements.

Good example of guns that were both used as towed-variant and mounted in tanks would be the German 7.5 cm Pak 40[en.wikipedia.org], used in both the Panther and on it's own carriage or the British QF 17-pounder[en.wikipedia.org], used on it's own carriage and as armament of the Sherman Firefly and the Achilles among others. Or how the US M101 howitzer[en.wikipedia.org] was used as field howitzer and was also the armament employed in the M7 Priest. Thus, if you improve one of these guns, you should also be able to improve the vehicles those guns are mounted on.

What this mod does
  • Starting from around 1940, most technologies in the artillery tech-tree (and two in the Superior Firepower doctrine) will also improve their relevant self-propelled variants of all types; e.g. AA tech improves light self-propelled AA, medium SPAA, heavy SPAA, super-heavy SPAA and Modern SPAA.
  • V1.3 Update: AA artillery upgrades also improve anti-air capabilities of Destroyers and Light Cruisers.

I tried to make it balanced by using slightly downgraded stats that the towed artillery get; you can explain it as the gun being improved, but the improvements not being as noticeable or convertible for the vehicle-mounted variant. Is it actually balanced? I don't know. I did a playthrough with it and it seemed to be okay. But I might adjust the stats slightly if I feel it's too unbalanced later down the line.

Compatibility
One of my aims of all my mods is always as much compatibility as possible.

I tried everything in my power to make it compatible with other mods, patches and such, but I could only get so far. At the very least, this mod is only incompatible with other mods that edit the artillery tech-tree and that change anything for the self-propelled gun units, but it is compatible with every other type of mod.
Edited Files:
  • common\technologies\artillery.txt
  • common\units\sp_anti-air_brigade.txt
  • common\units\sp_artillery_brigade.txt
  • common\units\tank_destroyer_brigade.txt

This mod is not ironman compatible.

To-Do:
  • I'll probably make some better/proper icons for the sp categories. V1.3.2 Custom Icons added
  • I might do a more extensive overhaul of the complete artillery tech-tree in the future. I got some ideas bouncing around in my head and ways to implement them. I don't know if I'll add it to this mod or if I will branch it off into a mod of it's own. Either way, more small artillery improvements will come. Moved to Specialised Troops mod

V1.2 Codename "Operation We Are Number One"
Found further ways to increase compatibility. Also, new vehicles by other mods can very easily be incorporated now. If you run HoI4 in the debug mode, you will see a couple of messages in the error log. This is normal, but not intended. Everything works fine and as intended.

Trigger Warning; small rant about other mods
The game is way more flexible in file-loading than people give it credit to. This means now this mod will not even interfere with other mods that edit the vehicles.Other modders should really learn to understand how the Clausewitz Engine loads and reads files to reduce compatibility issues. If you want to add or change only a specific value, you don't need to overwrite entire core files with your mod. More than once I saw a mod that is still using old/unpatched values even. Reducing your mod-footprint in the core game also means that you don't need to update it constantly and that it can run alongside mods that affect the same units.

Small Update: I'll tell Greatexperiment that I plan on making a compatibility patch between this and Road to '56, but I first want his blessing since such a patch would require me to publish part of his code, something I'll not gonna do without his agreement.
I was also further digging into the Clausewitz Engine trying all kind of ways to have it natively be compatible, but I think the engine is at its (arbitrary) limits. I already mentioned on the official forums the problem I seem to run into and at this point I either hope they're gonna slightly change the way the game loads the technologies, or I'll have an epiphany and find a way around it. But for now; this mod will overwrite the Artillery Tech Tree of any other mod.

Check out my other HoI4 mods:
Popular Discussions View All (2)
1
Feb 9, 2017 @ 1:05pm
Requests and Problems
Araxiel
37 Comments
LT Silverious May 22, 2020 @ 3:47pm 
Does this mod work with 1.9.2?
Field Marshal Paul Von Lettow Jul 1, 2018 @ 2:24pm 
I am guessing this is abandoned. Does anyone know of any alternatives?
Field Marshal Paul Von Lettow Apr 20, 2018 @ 6:33am 
1.5.3 update.... please.
STEVEN8899 Mar 4, 2018 @ 11:08pm 
plz update
Irwell Jan 13, 2018 @ 8:24am 
This still works in 1.4.2, right?
mmmfriedrice Jan 9, 2018 @ 4:22pm 
Hey Araxiel, can I shoot you a message to discuss mod compatibility tips?
null Oct 28, 2017 @ 11:43am 
HAIL BORIS
SeiGius Aug 22, 2017 @ 10:21am 
Would love to see this mod and the others updated to 1.4.2
CrabMonarchy Jul 28, 2017 @ 11:19pm 
What font are you using for the title image?
[JG27] Schellenberg Jul 7, 2017 @ 2:44am 
Your mod's is work with blackice?