The Armored Front
When I launched the first devlog back in January, I laid out a roadmap for three pillars: granular research customization, a community catalog, and the final piece for planning land divisions down to the last detail: the Tank Designer.
The Arms Race delivered the research trees. The Arsenal launched the catalog. Today, with The Armored Front, we've officially closed out Phase 1, and all three pillars are now live.
Beyond Base Stats: The Tank Designer
The Tank Designer has been the most requested feature since day one.
Up until now, division stats in the designer were calculated using base tanks. That's fine when running a vanilla campaign, but for most of us running No Step Back, the specific engine, armor, and gun modules are what actually make an armored division work. It meant your 'perfect' template on paper didn't always match what you experienced in-game.
That changes today.
The new Tank Designer lets you build from the ground up, chassis, engine, armor, and modules, with the same logic you use in-game. As you tweak your design, stats update in real-time: Reliability, Armor, Speed, Soft/Hard Attack, and Production Cost. The stats you see in the designer are the stats you'll see on the front line.
Full Integration: The Planning Loop
A tank design is only as good as the division it's in. Once you save a design to your library, it becomes available to be plugged directly into your templates.
Real-Time Sync: Any template using tanks will automatically reflect your custom design's stats.
The Complete Picture: Your doctrine, research paths, and tank modules now "talk" to each other in one seamless loop.
True Sharing: When you publish a design to the community catalog, your custom tank builds go with it. Anyone loading your template sees your exact module layout and can save your specific armored vehicle to their own library.
Shareable Design Cards & Comparison Grids
Design Cards: Every design now generates a clean, shareable image with your module layout and key stats. Perfect for dropping into a Discord debate or Reddit thread without needing to crop screenshots.
The Grid: The comparison tool is also available for tanks. If you're torn between a high-velocity "glass cannon" or a reliable breakthrough heavy, you can now line up the stats side-by-side to see exactly where your production cost is going.
Support the Project: The Supporter Badge
Building and maintaining Hoidesigner takes time and server resources. If the tool has helped you save a few thousand Manpower (or just a few hours of planning), there is now a way to help keep this going.
I'm introducing the Supporter Badge: a one-time contribution that adds a permanent emblem to your community profile. It's a way for early adopters to support continued development and help cover maintenance costs. For more details, have a look at the supporter page.
A Note on Saves
Accounts have been live since The Arsenal, and they are the best way to keep your designs safe and synced. While local saves continue to work for your divisions, they are vulnerable to browser cache clears. Migrating takes one click from the designer, and everything carries over intact. Tank Designer saves will live in your account from day one, as this is the recommended path going forward, removing any risks of losing your work.
What's Next: Phase 2
Phase 1 was about closing the loop on land warfare. Phase 2 is where we look toward the horizon. Air and ship designers built with the same level of detail as what we've built so far, alongside powerful tools to better integrate planning across all branches of your military.
Hop into Discord if you want to chat about what's coming, get an early peek at new features, or talk about anything HOI4.
Looking forward to where this journey takes us.
Until next time!