Research
Research is used to unlock technologies.
Research slots[edit | edit source]
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Technology is unlocked by assigning a research slot to it for the required number of days.
The base number of research slots depends on the country:
- USA, democratic Germany: 4 slots, plus 2 additional possible via national focus. (Democratic Germany requires
Waking the Tiger).
- German Reich, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom: 4 slots, plus 1 additional possible via national focus.
- France, Soviet Union, most other countries in Europe, plus Canada: 3 slots, plus 2 additional possible via national focus (in Canada's case, the last 1 requires independence; the Soviet Union has more 1 on The Right Opposition path but requires
No Step Back).
- Other countries outside of Europe as well as Luxembourg, Portugal and Albania: 2 slots, plus 3 additional possible via national focus (for British subjects, the final 2 also require independence).
- New Zealand: 2 slots, plus 4 additional possible via national focus. (Requires
Together for Victory).
For most countries, unlocking the final research slot requires having a substantial number of factories (usually 50+). The Commonwealth countries must (with Together for Victory) additionally become fully independent to maximize their available research slots.
Each research slot can store up to 30 points of Days Saved without being assigned to a specific tech.[1] Days Saved functions as days added to research progress once a tech is chosen for the slot. See research speed.
Research time[edit | edit source]
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Each technology has a base time cost. They are multiples of the standard base cost of 100 days.[2]
Cost (days) | Techs |
---|---|
50 | Armor Submodels |
100 | Artillery (II) & Upgrades (II,III,IV); Anti-Air Artillery (II,III) & Upgrades; Rocket Artillery (II) & Upgrades; Anti-Tank Artillery (II,III) & Upgrades Support Equipment; Carrier Airplanes; Electronic Mechanical Engineering; Encryption |
125 | Decimetric Radar (I,II); Centimetric Radar (I,II,III) |
150 | Infantry Weapons (I) & Upgrades (I,III); Support & Anti-Tank Weapons; Motorised Rocket Artillery; Marines (II), Mountain Infantry (II), Paratroopers (II) Support Companies (II,III,IV); Artillery (I) & Upgrades (I); Anti-Air Artillery (I); Anti-Tank Artillery (I) Shiphulls (I); Transports (I) Decryption; Experimental Rockets; Rocket Engines (II,III) Machine Tools (I,II); Equipment Conversion; Oil Processing; Rubber Processing |
175 | Radio, Radio Detection |
200 | Infantry Weapons (II,III) & Upgrade (II); Night Vision (II); Motorised & Mechanized (I,II); Marines (I,III), Mountain Infantry (I,III), Paratroopers (I,III); Special Forces Programs Support Companies (I); Artillery (III); Rocket Artillery (I); Great War Tank, Light, Medium & Heavy (I) Armor Shiphulls (II,III,IV); Transports (II,III) Airplanes Rocket Engines(I); Jet Engines Machine Tools(III); Production Line (I); Industry; Construction; Excavation |
250 | Night Vision (I); Modern, Super Heavy & Heavy (II,III) Armor; Computing; Production Line (II) |
300 | Mechanized (III); Fuel Refining |
500 | Atomic Research, Nuclear Reactor, Nuclear Bombs |
Research speed[edit | edit source]
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The base research cost only represents an abstract number of days the research will take. In practice, due to modifiers, research will progress by more or less than exactly one research-cost-day per day. Research speed modifiers stack additively to research speed (instead of subtractively to research cost). For example, 106 days base cost at 15% research speed bonus will take
days.Days Saved are subtracted from the modified expected number of days. Thus, Days Saved benefit from (or are penalized by) the same research speed modifiers.
The aggregate research bonus is calculated and updated every day. Thus changes in research speed (except limited-use bonuses) apply to all ongoing research.
Research speed can not fall below 10% of the default speed.[3]
Research modifiers[edit | edit source]
Difficulty[edit | edit source]
The player can get a research speed bonus or penalty depending on the game difficulty setting as follows:
- Civilian +15% bonus
- Recruit +7% bonus
- Regular no bonus or penalty
- Veteran -15% penalty
- Elite -30% penalty
Trade law[edit | edit source]
- Main article: Ideas#Trade_laws
Trade laws can also increase research speed. The more open the trade the higher the reduction as can be seen below.
Modifier | ![]() Free Trade |
![]() Export Focus |
![]() Limited Exports |
![]() Closed Economy |
![]() Embargoed Economy |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Resources to Market | +80% | +50% | +25% | 0% | +25% |
Factory Output | +15% | +10% | +5% | — | — |
Dockyard Output | +15% | +10% | +5% | — | — |
Construction Speed | +15% | +10% | +5% | — | — |
Research Speed | +10% | +5% | +1% | — | — |
Civilian Intel to Others | +40% | +20% | +10% | — | +40% |
Navy Intel to Others | +20% | +10% | +5% | — | +40% |
Consumer Goods Factories | — | — | — | — | +5% |
Agency Upgrade Time | — | — | — | — | +15% |
Prerequisites |
If
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If
If
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One of the following must be true:
If
If
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All of the following must be true:
If
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Only for ![]() Can only be removed manually if either of the following is true:
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Technologies that increase research speed[edit | edit source]
Technology | Year | Research speed |
---|---|---|
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1936 | +3% |
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1936 | +4% |
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1938 | +5% |
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1940 | +8% |
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1940 | +4% |
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1942 | +8% |
Limited-use bonuses[edit | edit source]
Limited-use bonuses are awarded by National Focus. Once available, a limited-use research bonus is activated when a Research Slot is assigned to an applicable technology. Once activated, the limited-use bonus is tied to the technology even if the slot is re-assigned. (However, Hearts of Iron IV client is known to drop limited-use bonuses on technologies not currently assigned to a research slot upon reload. Exercise caution when activating a limited-use bonus for future use.)
A limited-use bonus can alternatively or simultaneously be an ahead-of-time bonus, which reduces the ahead-of-time penalty by the stated amount.
Equipment licensing[edit | edit source]
When licensing equipment from another country, researching that equipment gets a speed bonus of +20%.[4]
Technology sharing[edit | edit source]
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Available only with the Together for Victory DLC enabled. |
When a country is part of a research group, it gets a research speed bonus for each other country in the group that has already unlocked that technology, up to +50%.[5] Tech sharing bonus functions in the same way as Limited-use bonus: once applied, the bonus is locked to the tech; changes in the country's tech sharing situation will only reflect in future research. Aside, subjects benefit less from technology sharing, depending on their autonomy level.
Other sources of research bonus[edit | edit source]
Various national ideas, like designers, theorist, and concerns continuously improve the research speed for applicable technologies while they are active. Design companies can additionally improve equipment being unlocked while they are active.
Ahead-of-time penalty[edit | edit source]
All technologies have a date attached to them when they become current. Researching them earlier comes at the cost of reduced research speed. Each year ahead adds +200% ahead-of-time (AOT) penalty.[6] Ahead-of-time bonuses from National Focus reduce this penalty modifier. For research ahead of time, the in-game tool-tip displays estimated time to completion using the formula below.
With yearly AOT at 2, a technology starting to research
years before the date it becomes current, with a base research cost of days and aggregate research bonus at % will take days to complete. This assumes the research starts with a speed higher than the minimum and finishes before the technology becomes current. It is also subject to a small approximation error (unlikely to be noticed in-game). The formula is derived by solvingfor . |
If part of the research is not under penalty (ie.
from the above integral), the estimated time-to-completion is days.For example, at exactly one year before a tech becomes current, research speed on that tech is modified by multiplicative factor of
. As research speed is re-calculated every day, the speed penalty goes down while a technology is being researched. Half a year later, the penalty is down to . Regular research speed modifiers apply linearly. Thus regular country-wide research bonus does not alleviate AOT penalties. If a 50% ahead-of-time bonus is active as shown in in-game tooltip, 0.5 is taken off the AOT penalty. Thus, at 1 year ahead-of-time, the research speed is modified by instead of without the bonus; similarly, at half a year ahead-of-time, the AOT penalty is reduced to from without bonus.Below is a Python script to calculate the time it will take to research a technology, given its base cost, bonuses and AOT penalty.
res_perc = 0.0 time = 0 base = 170 # Base Cost bonus = 0.34 # Research Speed Bonus aot = 0.47 # Ahead-of-time penalty (not years ahead) base /= 1+bonus while res_perc<1: res_perc += 1/base/(1+aot) aot -= 2/365 if aot<0: aot = 0 time += 1 print(time) # Prints total time needed |
Technologies[edit | edit source]
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Technologies allow countries to unlock production of new units such as mechanized infantry, paratroopers, tanks and all kinds of airplanes; new equipment, from infantry weapons to carrier air groups and specialized armored units; as well as defensive and productive structures.
On the other hand, most technologies serve to improve the efficiency of current units. This can be achieved through a number of ways, such as improving the damage inflicted by the unit, its ability to penetrate the armor of armored units, its defensiveness and organization or simply its ability to detect enemy units.
It is possible to research improvements of already researched technologies. There could be small buttons on technology (e.g. possibility to operate from carriers for airframe). These improvements have to be researched separately.
Land[edit | edit source]
- Infantry technology: Technologies that improve infantry weapons and equipment, unlock or improve motorised and mechanized units as well as special forces (marines, mountaineers and paratroopers).
- Artillery technology: Technologies that unlock and improve all types of artillery, including anti-tank, anti-air and rocket artillery.
- Support Companies technology: Technologies that unlock and improve all types of support battalions: Engineers, Reconnaissance, Military Police, Maintenance, Field Hospital, Logistics and Signal companies.
- Armor technology: Technologies that unlock all types and models of tanks, from light to super heavy chassis, as well as their variants: tank destroyer, self-propelled artillery and self-propelled anti-air.
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- Naval technology: Technologies that unlock or improve all kinds of ship units: destroyers, cruisers, battlecruisers battleships, carriers, submarines or improve transports for naval invasions.
Air[edit | edit source]
- Air technology: Technologies that unlock or improve all types of airframes: light, medium or heavy, as well as their jet propulsion versions.
Industry[edit | edit source]
- Engineering technology: Groups all technologies related to electronic engineering (computers, radios, cryptography), rockets and atomic research.
- Industry technology: Groups all technologies that improve production efficiency and volume of all factories, resources excavation and unlocks synthetic refineries.
References[edit | edit source]
Land | Infantry · Support companies · Armor · Artillery · Land doctrine |
Naval | Naval · Naval doctrine |
Air | Air · Air doctrine |
Industry | Engineering · Industry |
Politics | Ideology • Faction • National focus • Ideas • Government • Puppet • Diplomacy • World tension • Civil war • Occupation • Intelligence agency |
Production | Trade • Production • Construction • Equipment • Fuel |
Research and technology | Research • Infantry technology • Support Companies technology • Armor technology • Artillery technology • Land doctrine • Naval technology • Naval doctrine • Air technology • Air doctrine • Engineering technology • Industry technology |
Military and warfare | Warfare • Land units • Land warfare • Division designer • Tank design • Army planner • Command group • Commander • Battle plan • Combat tactics • Ship • Naval warfare • Aircraft • Air warfare • Experience • Officer corps • Attrition and accidents • Logistics • Manpower • Nuclear bomb |
Map | Map • Province • Terrain • Weather • State |
Events and Decisions | Events • Decisions |