Since the industrial revolution, the military and industrial capacity have been inseverably linked. The state requires a strong military to defend itself and secure prosperity. With the onset of the industrial revolution, fewer and fewer farmers and laborers were required to extract and process natural resources, not limited to crops and various metals. Within a generation, farms became orders of magnitude more productive in terms of crop yield per manhour. This means lots and lots of former farmers with no job, so where do they go? Factories and the military. As the population grows and the demand for products increases, industry encompasses more and more of the economy as more and more complex processes are broken down to factory steps.

This also displaces the entire artisan class, who retreat into more and more complicated specialized products until they can no longer compete with economies of scale. These are two gigantic strata of the population that are suddenly without work, and yet the absolute productivity still rises exponentially. Countries become fabulously weathy and must spend that wealth securing their statehood. This means investing in the military, and if a country opts not to, they will be steamrolled by their industrial neighbor who did invest in the military. This begins a feedback loop where industrial breakthroughs allow greater and greater production, meaning that states must buy and grow militarily at greater and greater speeds if they are to keep pace with their neighbors. Industry meets this demand until the next breakthrough, where the cycle starts anew.

All the while, states must maintain larger and larger militaries to prevent any preemptive war in which they cannot mobilize their population in time to defend themselves. So where do all of these farmers and artisans go? The military. The only place where they can now ensure food for themselves and their family, because even the mightiest factories do not require extensive numbers if employees to achieve groundbreaking productivity. More soldiers means more demand for guns, bullets, and rations, which means more and more industrial capacity geared towards this end.

But then something peculiar happens: a war. Suddenly, there is an astronomical demand for military goods. Statesmen, who often have a stake in various industries, see their coffers expand wildly from industrial revenue. A switch turns on. War creates demand for industrial goods far above what preparing for war demands. Factories churn out supplies ever faster, generating ever higher profits.

And then the war ends, and the extensive revenues generated by factories tapers downward. But there's a problem, expanding to meet war demands was expensive, and current demands leave large sections of industry unused or unprofitable. To avoid insolvency, which would be disasterous in a future war, states must prop up the arms industry with subsidies, ensuring that their economy is ready for war whenever and where ever it strikes. This is expensive, and wasteful, as military goods are now produced and bought despite not being needed, and these cash flow problems have to go somewhere.

They go right back to the working classes in the form of taxes and excises, which leaves people poorer and very displeased with what's going on. So to avoid civil unrest, states much justify their rapacious cronyism with war, perhaps against their neighbors, perhaps across the world. War begets war, now more than ever with the industrialization of Europe.

And that's where you come in. We need a new means of waging war. And you will be paid handsomely if you can deliver.

Welcome to bureaucracy young one, I hope you're ready to learn about lobbying. Lobbying is when an individual, committee, or corporation pays money to politicians to secure favors. This is different from bribery, because *notes shuffling*
It's democratic
Bribery is wrong
Europeans are doing it
Lobbying is legal and bribery is not, they are very different. Anyway, moving on.

The administration building is where you administrate your other buildings. You can also apply for a loan (or two in the interwar era!). What you'll most commonly use this building for is hiring replacement workers whenever there's an accident. You can expand or contract your work force as desired, but do remember that fired employees do not go back to the hiring pool. If for whatever reason you're laying off a bunch of fathers with families to feed, do not expect to be able to replace them all at once.

This building also shows you executives who are hired or are available for hire. Administrators can be assigned to buildings around your factory grounds with varying benefits. Administrators can be hired from the globe screen on a per-country basis, if your reputation with said country is high enough. In the WWI era, only one administrator can be assigned to a building at a time. The game is even nice enough to tell you the buildings they will be optimal in.

Outside of true tycoon difficulty, the salary for administrators is rarely an issue, especially if they directly or indirectly save you money, á la building maintenance or resource efficiency respectively. Salaries in general are not a very big part of your expense, especially compared to building maintenance, so feel free to supply England with jobs.

The admin building has several useful facilities that I would consider indispensable. The fire and medical buildings greatly reduce the likelihood of fires and accidents on on your factory grounds. Fires can wreck a contract if it decides to hit your production hall mid-order, and factory accidents are unbelievably annoying to have to deal with.

You can also build the maintenance office, which reduces facilities maintenance costs. This amounts to HUGE cost savings going into the interwar era, where you start expanding and upgrading the facilities at all your buildings. The lobbying office is also handy, as it passively builds your reputation with all countries, at an initial rate of 3 per month. If you build it early, you'll have tier II reputation with all countries by the late 20s, even sooner if you also have an administrator that buffs lobbying and you upgrade the office come tier II.

The other available facilities are very situational at best. You will basically never be pressed for time when building or upgrading facilities, so the heavy equipment office is of little use. The price of building or upgrading facilities is also not particularly restrictive, though in a situation where you build the construction office first, it can definitely save you some cash through the early game. As noted earlier, administrator salaries are virtually a non-issue, so the executive office and accompany administrator salary discount is of little worth.

Ah, the factory. Nothing quite beats the smell of asbestos and industrial grease. Combine it with the soft, whimsical chorus of rivet guns and you've got yourself the perfect napping conditions.

The factory floor is where the magic happens. Your crack team of smart fellas has done their part laying the foundation, and now it's up to the hundreds of eager young men who were sent here instead of the trenches. They will work tirelessly to mount those engines, rivet those plates, and grease those sprockets. That is, until the materials run out.

The factory manages to be deceptively complex, yet intuitive. Every worker produces 12 man-hours of labor a day, meaning that 300 workers produce 3,600 man-hours per day. Pretty simple, then you just adjust for various buffs from facilities or administrators and you've got yourself a good guesstimator for production time.

On the factory screen, you can select any tank models you've designed and produce them. The factory workers are kind enough to tell you exactly how many resources it costs and how long it will take. Very handy! On the tank model cards, it will tell you if that model is currently needed in a contract, and if so, how many.

The factory facilities are some of the most important, because they will add up to a TON in saved costs across a campaign. Ergonomics and sub-assembly line are indispensable, the former allowing more workers per production line, and the latter knocking off a whopping 15% of labor requirements.

Then you also have a smattering of buildings that affect certain production techniques. The riveting hall cuts down the cost of any parts that utilize riveting.
UNIMPORTANT COOL FACT: BRITAIN UTILIZED RIVETS FOR THEIR TANKS WELL INTO WWII (WHEN MOST OTHER POWERS HAD SWITCHED TO PRIMARILY WELDING). THIS IS NOT BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T, BUT WAS A REASONABLE ALLOCATION OF SKILLED LABOR, AS MOST BRITISH WELDERS WERE EMPLOYED BUILDING SHIPS, WHICH BRITAIN RIGHTFULLY CONSIDERED MORE IMPORTANT GIVEN THEIR POSITION
In addition, there are other halls specializing in various production techniques, such as casting (often used for engines), cutting (used frequently for running gears), and rifling (used in primary and secondary weapons).

I won't judge you if you're not inclined to min-maxing your facilities to support a specific strategy. You are free to set and forget the riveting and rifling halls, they will be useful for the entirety of the current game. If you are so inclined, if you have a looksy at the research screen and select various nodes (hulls, engines, etc), they will tell you what techniques are used in their manufacture. Bending, rolling, and milling each have their merits, and if you are setting down a specific path, it is indeed worthwhile to consider what facilities would benefit you the most.

Whether you need to deliver some tanks, or you need to order raw materials for your war machines, the warehouse is the place to go. It's one of two buildings that contain two interfaces that don't require a loading screen! You can freely swap between materials ordering and tank delivery as many times as your little heart desires.

Before your products can kill people, they need to be made. Before they can be made, you have to have the materials for them. You can order on a per-tank basis, where the game automatically apportions materials to have X number of Y tank. Very handy after ordering a production run. You can also order in absolute quantities, which is useful if you have a giant void in your stockpile that needs filling.

You have a vast selection of regions to order from, varying in cost, delivery time, and delivery reliability. Oceania and Africa are generally the cheapest to buy from, but you will frequently run into delays when ordering from them, and materials are not produced as quickly in these regions, so you will not always be able to rely on them for large orders. The middle east and Asia are a bit pricier, but will generally be more reliable, and they also produce resources at a higher rate. Finally, Europe and North America are the priciest, but offer faster and more reliable delivery times. You will also be hard-pressed to exhaust their resource supplies.

Ultimately, materials procurement is up to you. I personally opt to always have a delivery in process from the cheaper regions, and order from North America or Europe when needed. Some will prefer to just buy everything in bulk from the larger regions to limit the amount of time they have to spend in the warehouse. Completely understandable.

The loading yard is the last stop for your babies before they go off to bigger and better things. Here, you can select from a variety of delivery companies, varying in cost, speed, and reliability. Again, how you get your tank's to customers is up to you. There's nothing wrong with always going with the default option; $1,000 per tank, up to 50 at a time, and with a reasonable delivery time. Other options have their merits, such as being cheaper or being faster. However, if you are pressed for time to finish a contract, it may be worthwhile to pay a premium for speed to avoid a hit to your finances and reputation for a late delivery.

The two most important facilities to build for your warehouse are the resource stockpile and tank yard. These substantially increase the amount of tanks and materials you can have at one time, meaning that you can have much larger production runs without having to split them up due to lack of room or resources.

You also have facilities that increase the speed and reliability of resource orders or tank deliveries. Resource speed does become somewhat more important in the lead up to the interwar era, as you will likely be making quite expensive tanks, and it's very possible for your industrious workers to make tanks faster than you can get the materials for them.

Recycling center. Across multiple campaigns I have scrapped maybe 50 tanks total, due to making extra for expected future contracts that came too late for the model to be competitive. Being able to extract a bit more resources from a scrapped tank might be one of the least helpful buildings you can invest in.

Every part of your tank will start its beautiful life in the research bureau. Parts that you research will unlock both the component itself and any modifications that may come with it. Broadly, there are 5 kinds of research nodes:

• structure
  
• mobility
  
• firepower
  
• expendables
  
• techniques

Each of these also has an associated facility that reduces the research cost for the corresponding nodes, discussed later. Structure nodes are things like hulls and turrets, mobility nodes will unlock running gears and engines, firepower nodes unlock various guns, expendables unlock different kinds of ammunition and fuel, and techniques will unlock different manufacturing processes such as bolts, headless rivets, and higher-grade steel.

Each research nodes has a manpower cost, generally in thousands of hours. Selecting a node will give you more information on what it unlocks, such as the stats of a new ammunition type, or the stats and modules of an engine. You can also see crew requirements for tank components, if any, as well as their size and compatibility. Size and compatibility is in the process of being reworked, because right now it's kinda, uh, obtuse. So best just ignore it for now.

To allow some flexibility in research progression, there are certain "core" nodes that will unlock the corresponding "core" nodes in the other two sections. This allows you to effectively bypass sections of the research tree if they hold nothing of interest for you. I personally utilize it most to skip large chunks of the firepower tree, especially in the WWI era, for two primary reasons: getting the MG08 off of a German trophy tank instantly destroys the competitivity of your domestic MGs, and most ammunition expendables nodes just don't pull their weight. The biggest offender is the daggone armor-piercing shells for your primary guns. It hugely buffs the kinetic penetration rating for your designs, which is great!.. except that kinetic penetration is not even requested until the interwar era. AP shells are like the 2nd node in the firepower tree btw.

Each type of node has its own facility that can be built for research cost reductions. There is also a "fundamentals" lab that gives a small bonus to each fundamental: structure, mobility, and firepower. You also have the usual breakthrough and ergonomics offices, both indispensable. Even the minor chance of instantly completing a node is hugely helpful, it can turn 100 days of research into 1. There is also an analytics office, where they test how anal can benefit tanks they analyze things. It currently does not have a purpose, but I'm sure anal analyzing things will be very exciting!

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So, you see an ad in the Daily Mail:


Sounds like a steal, don't it? From time to time, you'll receive a notification that a rival tank has been captured. These can be purchased, generally for between 100-200k, and you can then reverse-engineer them to make their parts available to you. You not only get the macrocomponents like gun and engine, but also the modifications, which you can use to improve your domestic designs.

Unfortunately, there are several contracts you are basically locked out of unless you get the correct rival tank. Saturation tank contracts, for example, are basically impossible to win without the Renault FT-17. Likewise with rationalized tank contracts and the LK II Krupp.

Do also keep in mind that multiple trophies of the same or almost-the-same tank can wind up in your catalogue. If you go to the globe screen and look at the country which captured the tank, it will tell you how many new components are new on that tank. Saves you a good chunk of cash, not having to buy the A7V multiple times.
Reverse-engineering is a pretty straightforward process: you buy the tank, head to your engineering bureau, and tell your engineers to get cracking on that captured tank. In the current version of the game, you'll find that some components are stupidly superior or inferior to your domestic products. The MG 08 shoots circles around all of your domestic MGs until well into Tier II. It's so good dude, I slap that sh*t on everything. Then you have the big ol gun on the Saint Chamond, which somehow manages to be worse than basically every other main gun.

After completing the various tinkerings of the Engineering Bureau, it is time to bring together all of your parts into one cohesive unit.
You first select the hull you will be working with. This determines a number of things, including the number of turrets you'll be able to bolt onto it. The hull also determines what engines and running gears are compatible with a given design.

Secondly, you select what turret to use, if any. The turret subsequently determines much of the armaments that can be crammed into your tank. Depending on the target market or design limitations, it may not always be best to occupy all available turret slots. Turrets are generally quite heavy, which can spell trouble if a design creeps too close to the running gear's maximum weight.

Thirdly is your choice of running gear. This determines the hard cap for the tank's weight, and plays a substantial role in the mobility score of your tank. Not all running gears are equal, not just in weight limit but in the distribution of mobility stats. Some running gears have a higher baseline agility or road / off-road speed. These variances can help determine which running gear best suits your design.

Next you have a selection of engines. As the game trudges on, you will likely accumulate a large array of engines. The engine, like the running gear, plays a large part in your tank's mobility score. More importantly, it determines the ideal weight at which further increases place a tremendous strain on the engine. Some engines have a god-like sturdiness, and will carry whatever you'd like to burden it with. Others have tighter tolerances, pitching quite the fit at every additional pound. The engine will trouble you dearly should you choose to disregard its complaints. This mechanic will be explained later on.

So now, after having designed your masterpiece, it would behoove you to run it through the Proving Grounds and see just what your tank is made of. While this is not required, running your tank through the trials will reveal defects, which can then be amended to make various shortcomings less bad. This mechanic is explained further along in this guide.

Depending on the complexity of your design, it can take 1-2 weeks for the trials to finish. This can be an important consideration if you're racing to finalize a design in time for some lucrative contracts. Currently, the time it takes to complete the trials is fairly linear. Fewer defects, fewer days. Sometimes, especially early in the game, this is unavoidable. Also early in the game, the cost of running the trials can be quite substantial. Nonetheless, the decision is yours whether or not to run your tank through the trials.

Naturally, there are certainly things that the lollygaggers at the Proving Ground are going to miss. Therefore, why not test the thing yourself? The object of the test drive is to reach 300 points within 10 minutes. Points are awarded for reaching checkpoints, gunning down cardboard infantry, and blowing up captured armored boxes.

In addition to simulated combat, the test track has various obstacles designed to measure your tank's mobility. Crossing trenches, climbing inclines, and maneuvering through tight turns are all thrown upon you in an attempt to thwart your design.
Currently, test driving your tank yields no reward. However, in-game tool tips suggest that it will eventually reward you with prestige and an improved deployment stat. What is a deployment stat you ask? Read on, as it will be explained in due time.

This building does not currently have a function.

If I may direct your attention to the little globe icon right next to the factory grounds button, you will see that it takes you to a map of the globe. Exciting! There are a number of important pieces of information you can find here. Clicking on a country will display your current reputation with them, with tiers from I-IV. It will also show you if there are any administrators or rival tanks available for purchase from aforementioned country.

The real neat bit is that you can examine a country's army and tank corps, and you can see the different army units the country has or may be developing, and the same can be found for the tank corp. You will see the different tank archetypes that any given country has adopted, which can give you some advance notice of contracts that that country may be presenting in the near future.

This screen also lets you see the country's external politics, which tells you who they are allied to, who they trade with, who they have non-aggression pacts with, and who they are at war with. There is not much you can do with this information as of yet, but it's there.

Even less useful are the country's internal politics, at least in the current build.

HOWEVER
From this screen, depending on your reputation with a country, you can initiate 2-4 contracts with that country, per year. You have the power to go up to David Lloyd George himself, and tell him, "You need this," and there is NOTHING he can do about it. "Duh der uhm everlasting peace," frick outta here with that sissy talk, we want war! How else am I going to afford my 17th Bentley?

Initiating contracts can be huge for your business, especially if you've got the industrial might to pump out metal boxes. Better yet, you don't have to wait idly for contracts to come in. If business ever gets slow, like around the world map and see if there're any schmucks you can bribe recommend into buying tanks.

If you've been playing the long game with a lobbying office, by mid-interwar era you can more or less live on initiating contracts with the nation's of the world. Sit down for this next bit, because it is some serious 4D chess. Do you need a particular trophy tank? Find a country that has an available contract for it, and have a look at the competitor's offer for said contract. Is it the tank you need? If it is, bring your good ol' Mark I out of the garage and offer it to them. They will reject it, but that's what we want! They'll buy your competitor's tank, and with some luck, it'll see action sooner rather than later. As the current build of the game allows you to buy trophy tanks from any country, the hope is that some country captures your competitor's tank, which you can then buy, improve on a bit, and then sell. Perhaps even to the very same country!

Now, this is heavily affected by RNG and is by no means guaranteed to work. It's a lot better than the alternative, where a specific tank type has to be asked for outside of your control.

Last but not least, if you'll place your attention to the tier IV reputation perks, you will see a little thing called holdings. This is not yet implemented, but I'm sure it will be a fun new way to use money to influence a country! Just the same, tier IV states that you get a say in what tank archetypes that country adopts. You can't, at least not yet. I am literally frothing at the mouth and barking thinking about how much extra-governmental bodyslamming I will be permitted to do at 1.0.

From time to time, you will get notifications about various happenings going on in the world. These annoyed me to no end, so I adjusted my notifications so they'd stop popping up and pausing my daggone game. Little did I know, that what I thought was mere flavoring was actually an important source of information.

The news ticker informs you of a number of things, such as the capture of rival tanks, contracts, and battles, which are covered elsewhere. It will also inform you of army and tank corp developments for the various nations of the world. Between these, tank corp news tends to be more valuable, as it will tell you which nation has adopted which tank archetype. This is less important for Britain, France, and Germany, which only adopt their domestic models, but it is still handy for telling you if and when these archetypes will actually be requested. Not every game will see Britain asking for a heavy vanguard tank, or skirmish tank.

Where this news is really handy is when you start looking outwards towards the export market. Greece decided that it'll throw its dice toward land battleships? Splendid! You can get right to work, it's not your job to tell them that deploying 50-ton monsters on mountainous terrain is a bad idea. Who are you to judge a customer's desires?

The secondary powers will all develop their own tank corps at some point, and decide what kind of tanks they want and when. The news will generally give you a month or two of advance notice before any contracts actually hit your desk. Maybe it's a task you can pull together over a couple months and keep that cash flowing, or maybe it's totally irrelevant to the hardware you've been developing.

Army developments are quite different. Each country has certain types of non-tank units it can produce. These grow and change across a campaign, and there is a LOT of potential variation. The units you'll see the most of are infantry, artillery, and cavalry. Armored cars and trains can also appear, but less frequently. Each unit type has different "perks" it can unlock over the course of an era. Infantry can develop anti-tank rifles, for example, which can put the hurt on your tanks as well as other countries'. A little good and a little bad; more losses means lower prestige, but it also means tank regiments need restocked, and you know what that means! [Imagine a fat man in a top hat chuckling heartily]

These perks also affect the unit's performance against a wide array of foes. A unit can get cool trucks or tractors that buff its score during the deployment phase of a battle (this whole mechanic is an enigma, look for the section in this guide where I talk your ear off about how it works.) Point being that army developments are in fact a worthwhile consideration; when the AT rifles start popping up, it may be a worthwhile investment to thicken your tanks a bit, lest they become renowned for becoming scrap.

Volume is one of the more obtuse mechanics that can really bite you in the ass. Each hull and turret has a volume limit that functions similarly to design limit. Each other component or subcomponet has a volume to it. Bigger parts, more volume used. As you approach the volume limit, you will start seeing defects pop up. This will most affect you with your hulls, as most hulls have a lot of subcomponents that you can tack on that take up space. Biggest repeat offenders are going to be the ammo and fuel storages, which take up a lot of internal volume as well as weight.

In casual play I've never run into a situation where the volume limit has actually stopped me from designing something in the same way that the design limit can. Nonetheless, it is useful to keep an eye on to help keep important stats from getting nuked due to defects.

Each major component will have a crew requirement factor. That is, how many commander/driver/gunner/loader/mechanic points are needed to minimally and fully satisfy a tank design. Hulls and turrets will generally call for commander points, with larger hulls requiring more points. Running gears will call for driver and mechanic points, engines calling for even more mechanic points, and guns calling for varying amounts of gunner and loader points. Each crew provides 4 points in any category, and some crew can split their attention between two roles at 2 points each, such as a gunner/loader.

These can make a substantial impact in the final score of your tank, especially with more intensive parts. As an example, take the fully decked-out Mark I you can make at the very start of the game. You will have the hull needing 4 commander points, the running gear needing 4 driver and 5 mechanic points, the engine needing 5 mechanic points, each 6-pounder needing 4 gunner and 4 loader points, and the final front MG needing 2 gunner points. To mostly satisfy all these, you will need 8 crew: 1 commander, 1 driver, 2 gunners, 2 loaders, and 2 mechanics. Crowding the crew into the tank WILL cause defects. Alternatively, you can run a skeleton crew of 1 commander/gunner, 1 driver/mechanic, 1 gunner, 1 loader, and 1 mechanic. Neither of these options are very good, they will both cost you severely.

However, there is another way! Certain components have higher or lower crew requirements. The Renault FT-17 as-assembled only needs 1 of each point not including a loader, because it is the best tank ever. If you have a look at the 3-pounder gun in the firepower research tree, you will see it needs 4 gunner points and 2 loader points. Between 2 guns, that saves an entire loader, which lessens the concern of crew crowding, PLUS the already-higher stats of the 3-pounder.

It is not intuitive what the crew requirements will be for any given part, you will need to examine them in the research tree.

If I was a betting man, I would bet that this mechanic will undergo a lot of change prior to release. Currently, it functions similarly to the design limit, explained below. Essentially, each engine has a specific weight that it is "tuned" for. The total weight of the vehicle is used for power-to-weight calculations, where a weight above the recommended weight will be subject to an increasingly high penalty to mobility and reliability. If the final weight is below this threshold, you will be subject to bonuses in your mobility and reliability scores.

Curiously, no modifications to the engine by your engines will affect the power-to-weight ratio. Using lighter parts will have a minimal effect, only to the extent of the weight loss in absolute terms. It is also worth noting that bonus/penalty calculations are percentage-based. If your engine's ratio is 30t, and you build a 33t tank, that's a 10% difference, or 3t in absolute terms. If your engine's ratio is 10t, an extra 3t would be a 30% difference. Due to this interaction, mobility and reliability are substantially more volatile for lighter vehicles, as it is very easy to pack on weight. This gain will be 3 times as pronounced on a 10t tank as it is on a 30t tank.

The design limit is functionally similar to the power-to-weight ratio, and is determined by the running gear. The design limit is an absolute cap, a tank even 1lb above the limit will be invalid. The design limit is also what will end up causing many of your defects. As the weight of a tank approaches this limit, more and more defects will appear to trash your score in a variety of areas. The severity of defects can be estimated when designing a tank, by examining the little lights that run below the design limit indicator. Green lights will cause no issues, each yellow light will trigger a defect of mild severity, and each red light that is lit can potentially trigger multiple defects of high severity.

The design limit, unlike the power-to-weight ratio, can be adjusted somewhat by tweaking the running gear. Each running gear will have its own design limit, and when modifying it you are able to select the suspension system. As you research or reverse-engineer more parts, you will have more suspensions available, each of which having their own weight and individual contribution to the design limit. The larger the difference between the weight of the suspension itself and it's contribution to the design limit, the more weight you will have to play with before hitting the design limit.

Each suspension also has scores for various agility traits, so it is not as simple as selecting the suspension with the biggest gap. You will also need to pay mind to the requested weight of the class of tank you are making. Several suspensions are very heavy, and can cause you to go over the requested weight in a contract, potentially imploding your contract score.

When designing a tank, there are 3 potential causes of defects: tank too heavy, tank too cramped, and too much crew. As previously noted, the closer you get to the design and volume limits of the tank, the more defects will emerge. The same is true for having too much crew; yes, you most certainly can cram 10 dudes into your Mark I and overfulfill the crew requirements, but as a result they will a.) perform their duties worse and nuke your crew score with defects, and b.) add weight and volume to the tank which can nuke your scores even harder.

Sometimes defects are unavoidable, and you must simply make due with the penalties. You are able to run your tank through the proving grounds, which will reveal the exact kind and severity of defects, and allow you to return to the design bureau to rectify them. Defects cost a certain amount of money to fix, and will reduce the penalty of that defect. This can be critical when trying to sell tanks that require high mobility or reliability, as these are the two categories hit hardest by defects, followed closely by crew performance. Secondarily, fixing defects will also reduce the impact of the defects on the fame of your tank.

The contract score is in practice the summation of differences between what a contract asks and what your design delivers, subject to weighted counting for certain categories and specific attributes. Sounds like a lot, but I promise that at the end of the day it's just a bunch of basic math. At a baseline, all of the attributes across all of the parts of your tank are weighted at 1 per attribute. Attributes that are in a desired category, such as mobility, have a weight of 4. So each point in that category is counted 4 times if the contract calls for it. Each point in a category that is also the exact attribute called for by a contract is counted 4 x 3 times, or 12 points on the contract for each 1 point of the exact attribute asked for.

These add up fast, and if your design is lacking in any of these critical areas, it can turn an otherwise great tank into a total flop. Makes sense; a customer asking for a tank that can cross trenches and be repaired easily will love your Mark Is, but a customer that needs a tank that zooms around without breaking down will laugh in your face for offering a Mark I. It's all about what the customer wants.

Two key points that I'd like to touch on: firstly, if the same part is repeated multiple times in a design (think the two turrets on a Mark I or the many machine guns on a Hornet), they score of these parts will be the average between the parts on your tank (the scores of say a Lewis gun vs a Hotchkiss), and then a gradually lowering repetition bonus for each instance of a part category. Again, I promise it's just math.

On your Mark I male, you might have 1 of the 6-pounder guns and 1 3-pounder. The sum of attributes for them will be fully counted, and then averaged between the two. Then, the average score will be boosted depending on how many primary guns are on the top. It follows the law of diminishing returns: the 5 MGs on your Mark I female do not give 5x the score as 1 MG. For each MG added to the tank, the increase in total score diminishes.

For a somewhat extreme example, take the Mark VIII hull that has been fitted with two female spins on turrets and the command turret. You will end up with 10 MGs, maybe mixed between types, maybe all the same MG. The score added by the 9th and 10th MGs will be small enough that it might actually be offset by the overcrewing penalty from actually manning those guns.

At least! A mechanic that is relatively simple! Fame is actually super straightforward, both in acquiring/losing as well as its function. Fame is a stat that is on a per-design basis. Fame can be lost by having a tank with a lot of defects. Resolving these defects will resolve the accompanying fame cost. The category of fame you will likely see the most is commercial fame, which is gained by selling a bunch of your tanks. If you sell a lot and acquire fame, any further designs will receive a "series fame" bonus just because it's in the same series as another tank. Military fame is the most finicky, but is also very straightforward. Your tanks performing well in battle nets you positive military score, whereas poor performance can net you a negative military fame score.

As far as use, fame is literally just a flat bonus to your contract score. That's it, no strings attached, no deceptively complex mechanics,. Better yet, it does not have much of an effect on contract score, and indeed you can completely ignore it and suffer very little, if at all.

A small side-note, trials fame is currently unused, but may be used in the future as an incentive to test drive your tanks. You can even see the little fame marker when selecting the testing ground.

Wip. Not sure I'll even expand here given that the devs have said that the campaign / battle system is going to be overhauled.

Occasionally you will receive a newspaper stating that there is a new contract available for you to apply for. The process is very simple: a country has certain tank archetypes that are part of their tank corp; during the formation of a regiment, one of these archetypes will be selected, and the contract will be presented to you. You will be able to adjust the price per tank, number to be supplied, and delivery date, the 1st and 3rd of which will affect the contract score. You may select any tank model you have, regardless of shape or form, in an effort the win the contract.

To no one's surprise, tank models that fit the bill will score much higher than others. This score is an aggregate of all of the points in all of your tank components. Points within a desired category (mobility, repairability, etc) will be counted 4 times. Points within those categories that exactly match desired traits (crew aiming, front thickness, etc) will be counted 3 times over, meaning that exact trait matches will be counted 12 times in comparison to an unrequested trait.

Giving the customer what they want is the best way to secure their business. Who knew? Some tanks will be effectively roped off from certain contracts due to trait incompatibilities that are innate for certain parts. The most severe of these is weight. No matter how cool and awesome your Mark 1 is, it will never win a saturation tank contract, as saturation tank weight is heavily penalized when going over ~10 tons.

Developed in tandem with fussilade tanks, these were the first battle-ready tanks to be deployed. The chief concern for these tanks was to cross unfavorable terrain, and as such were made in a distinctive rhomboid shape. Breakdowns were expected, and while we may scoff today at the appalling conditions within these tanks, it was a rational trade-off to make the engine and drivetrain easily accessible for repair.

• mobility
  • obst. trench width
    
  • obst. step height
    
  • transportability
• firepower hard
  • accuracy
    
  • damage
    
  • shock penetration
• repairability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • primary weapon

Soon after their deployment, tanks faced increasingly powerful and accurate resistance. Thus began a road of one-upmanship where tanks would wield increasingly thick armor against increasingly strong guns. Mobility was discarded as a priority, with these tanks now prioritizing survivability to keep pressure on a defensive long for as long as possible.

• protection
  • front thickness
    
  • front ricochet
    
  • spall resistance
• firepower hard
  • gun depression
    
  • damage
    
  • shock penetration
• repairability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • primary weapon

Like vanguards, fussilade tanks were purpose-built to navigate unfavorable terrain, while sporting nearly-total coverage of the vehicle with machine guns.

• mobility
  • obst. trench width
    
  • obst. step height
    
  • transportability
• firepower soft
  • rate of fire
    
  • gun depression
    
  • ammo
• repairability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • secondary weapon

Without heavy weapons, fussilade tanks became increasingly vulnerable to enemy fire, and so had to be up-armored in order to survive ever more dangerous frontlines.

• protection
  • front thickness
    
  • front ricochet
    
  • small resistance
• firepower soft
  • rate of fire
    
  • gun depression
    
  • ammo
• repairability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • secondary weapon

The first foray into a new chapter of tank doctrine, exploitation tanks were tasked with, well, exploiting broken lines and causing as much havoc as possible. They needed to be able to operate for long periods and over long distances, as once they set out to battle, it could be hours before they could be recovered.

• mobility
  • operation range
    
  • cross country speed
    
  • agility
• firepower soft
  • gun depression
    
  • damage
    
  • ammo
• reliability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • secondary weapon

I couldn't find any documentation of a "heavy whippet" being made or designed, but it stands to reason that somebody sometime thought it'd be cool to mount a big ol cannon on the modest whippet.

• mobility
  • operation range
    
  • cross country speed
    
  • agility
• firepower hard
  • accuracy
    
  • gun depression
    
  • shells
• reliability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • primary weapon

While their purpose is somewhat morbid, it was nonetheless important that a tank be able to quickly and efficiently "clean" a trench.

• mobility
  • obst. trench width
    
  • operation range
    
  • cross country speed
• firepower soft
  • accuracy
    
  • gun depression
    
  • ammo
• reliability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • secondary weapon

Again while I couldn't find direct documentation of a "female" Mark VIII, given that they utilized sponsons I'm sure that sometime somewhere they were fitted with female sponsons.

• mobility
  • obst. trench width
    
  • obst. step height
    
  • transportability
• firepower soft
  • rate of fire
    
  • gun depression
    
  • ammo
• crew performance
  • crew safety
    
  • crew awareness
    
  • crew aiming

The purest form of Landship, these behemoths, had they ever seen much combat, would have commanded the battlefield with their size and firepower. Unfortunately, substantial armor on such a large vehicle would have rendered it practically immobile, and so despite their imposing figure they would have been very vulnerable to artillery.

• mobility
  • obst. trench width
    
  • obst. step height
    
  • transportability
• firepower hard
  • gun depression
    
  • damage
    
  • shock penetration
• crew performance
  • crew safety
    
  • crew awareness
    
  • crew aiming

Eventually, the tank corp wised up that they could, in fact, put cannons and machine guns on the same tank.

• Crew performance
  • ???
    
  • ???
    
  • ???
• firepower hard
  • ???
    
  • ???
    
  • ???
• firepower soft
  • ???
    
  • ???
    
  • ???

France's first solid attempt at tank design, it was not particularly groundbreaking. Its mobility leaves much to be desired, and it was massively outperformed by British designs.

• protection
  • front thickness
    
  • front ricochet
    
  • shock resistance
• firepower soft
  • accuracy
    
  • ammo
    
  • rate of fire
• reliability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • secondary weapon

The unfortunate victim of cronyism, the Saint Chamond had to have its front end dramatically lengthened, as the cannon it mounted was virtually impossible to operate as a casemate, and so the entire gun, chassis and all, had to be crammed into the tank. The guns designer also conveniently designed the Chamond, so as far as he was concerned he was getting twice the credit.

• protection
  • front thickness
    
  • front ricochet
    
  • shock resistance
• firepower hard
  • accuracy
    
  • damage
    
  • shock penetration
• reliability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • primary weapon

Towards the end of WWI, French tank doctrine shifted heavily towards what was termed "mosquito tanks," which would overwhelm a foe with seemingly endless numbers. It was critical that these tanks be cheap, light, and easy to operate and maintain. The result of this doctrine was the Renault FT-17, the greatest tank to ever exist, and which technically last saw action in the 80s, well over 60 years beyond its introduction.

• mobility
  • cross country speed
    
  • road speed
    
  • agility
• reliability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • structure
• repairability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • structure

Not utilized until the war was over, German light tanks operated out of a unique design philosophy that logistical requirements for any large tank force would need to be managed efficiently. Thus, designs were focused around reliability and ease of operation and repair.

• mobility
  • operation range
    
  • road speed
    
  • transportability
• reliability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • secondary weapon
• repairability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • secondary weapon

Further expanding on tank doctrine, a rationalized tank was to focus on the crew inside rather than just the mechanical beast itself. Various creature comforts that modern tanks take for granted were [supposed to be] incorporated into such a tank.

• crew performance
  • crew safety
    
  • crew aiming
    
  • crew awareness
• reliability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • structure
• repairability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • structure

The only German tank to see action in WWI, the A7V was a victim of role dilution. The chassis, engine, and drivetrain all had to be made to support a platform that could serve as either a combat vehicle or a logistical vehicle. The result was that it did neither of these roles particularly well; it did not have much advantage over just using a truck to transport supplies, and any tank-like features would need to be thrown on top of the base chassis.

• protection
  • front thickness
    
  • sides thickness
    
  • rear thickness
• firepower hard
  • accuracy
    
  • shells
    
  • rate of fire
• firepower soft
  • accuracy
    
  • ammo
    
  • rate of fire

After the war, the British sought to standardize and simplify the bulk of their tanks. Thus, miniaturized rhomboid hulls would be fitted with a rotating turret, and design and manufacture were to be streamlined.

• repairability
  • structure
    
  • power unit
    
  • primary weapon
• firepower hard
  • accuracy
    
  • anti-ricochet
    
  • kinetic penetration
• crew performance
  • crew safety
    
  • crew awareness
    
  • crew comm int

Like its more heavily-armed companion tanks, the females were design to be able to sustain suppressive fire in support of infantry advances.

• repairability
  • structure
    
  • power unit
    
  • secondary weapon
• firepower soft
  • accuracy
    
  • rate of fire
    
  • ammo
• crew performance
  • crew safety
    
  • crew awareness
    
  • crew comm int

One of the first multi-turreted tanks, the thinking was that the tank could engage multiple different types of foes at the same time. In essence, they were a rational evolution of the multiple sponsons fitted to earlier tanks.

• crew performance
  • crew safety
    
  • crew awareness
    
  • crew aiming
• firepower hard
  • shells
    
  • damage
    
  • shock penetration
• firepower soft
  • rate of fire
    
  • ammo
    
  • accuracy

Created for the purpose of replacing cavalry, cruiser tanks were an evolution of the exploitation tanks seen in WWI. With more modern technology, they could be made into very swift, efficient killers that could operate independently if needed.

• mobility
  • road speed
    
  • cross country speed
    
  • agility
• firepower hard
  • accuracy
    
  • anti-ricochet
    
  • kinetic penetration
• reliability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • primary weapon

Infantry support was the chief responsibility of the British tank corp throughout the interwar years and into WWII, and they would need to be designed with situational awareness in mind for operation around large numbers of friendly infantry.

• crew performance
  • crew safety
    
  • crew awareness
    
  • crew aiming
• firepower hard
  • shells
    
  • damage
    
  • shock penetration
• firepower soft
  • rate of fire
    
  • ammo
    
  • accuracy

One of the largest multi-turreted tanks ever built, the Independent unfortunately only demonstrated the drawbacks of multiple turrets. Maintaining command and control of 5 different turrets proved to be too much for tank commanders.

• crew performance
  • crew awareness
    
  • crew safety
    
  • crew aiming
• firepower hard
  • shells
    
  • damage
    
  • kinetic penetration
• protection
  • front thickness
    
  • kinetic resistance
    
  • sides thickness

Intended to operate somewhat as an armored reconnaissance vehicle, light cruisers were generally lightly armored to afford greater speed and maneuverability.

• mobility
  • road speed
    
  • cross country speed
    
  • agility
• firepower soft
  • accuracy
    
  • rate of fire
    
  • ammo
• reliability
  • power unit
    
  • running gear
    
  • primary weapon

In a world where war could erupt anywhere, it was necessary that the colonial powers have tanks that could be operated in foreign climates. They also needed to be able to resist and react quickly to unrest, which was a common occurrence across the European colonies.

• protection
  • front thickness
    
  • shock resistance
    
  • kinetic resistance
• firepower hard
  • shells
    
  • rate of fire
    
  • shock penetration
• crew performance
  • crew safety
    
  • crew comm int
    
  • crew comm ext

IT'S A MYSTERY BECAUSE CHARLES DE GAULLE CAN'T BE A*SED TO ACTUALLY ORDER ONE

• protection
  • ???
    
  • ???
    
  • ???
• firepower hard
  • ???
    
  • ???
    
  • ???
• crew performance
  • ???
    
  • ???
    
  • ???

Though never produced, Germany continued to develop their own tank arm. As resources for such endeavors were in short supply, designs would be focused around utility and practicality.

• mobility
  • road speed
    
  • cross country speed
    
  • agility
• firepower hard
  • accuracy
    
  • rate of fire
    
  • shells
• crew performance
  • crew safety
    
  • crew awareness
    
  • crew comm int

To operate in conjunction with lighter tanks, it was considered necessary that the heavier tanks be able to rapidly deliver a lot of ordinance downrange and neutralize threats to friendly infantry and lighter vehicles.

• firepower soft
  • rate of fire
    
  • ammo
    
  • range
• firepower hard
  • accuracy
    
  • damage
    
  • shock penetration
• crew performance
  • crew aiming
    
  • crew safety
    
  • crew comm int

There are many, many stats across the many components that you can make use of. I have taken the liberty of compiling them here as a list as well as having little blurbs that can prime you on if you need it or keep it.

Front/sides/rear/top/bottom thickness- the thickness of the parts of the hull or turret that help determine if your take gets penetrated if a shot does not ricochet
Front/sides/rear/top/bottom ricochet- the deflection of parts of the hull or turret that help determine if a shot ricochets, negating damage entirely, or proceeds to a penetration check
Kinetic/shock/spall resistance- resistances to various ways a tank can be damaged
Stealth- how likely a tank is to be detected. A surprisingly important stat if you're aiming for genuine combat performance, if your tank is not detected, the entire train of damage checks is ignored. No mobility check for dodging, no ricochet check, no penetration check

Agility- generalized stat relating to how quickly a tank can navigate outside of speed
Road/cross country speed- zoomies. Relates to how quickly a tank can deploy and get to where it needs to be
Transportability- how easy it is to transport. Very important in the deployment phase of combat
Obstacle trench width- how wide of a trench your tank can cross
Obstacle step height- how high of a step-shaped obstacle your tank can climb
Obstacle slope angle- how steep of a slope your tank can climb
Operation range- how far a tank can realistically go before needing resupply

Accuracy- how likely a fired shot is to hit the target
Range- how far away a tank can effectively engage a target
Rate of fire- how quickly a tank can put shots downrange
Damage- ability of shell or bullet to actually cause damage to target
Gun elevation/depression- how high or low a gun can aim
Kinetic/shock/spall penetration- capacity of shell or bullet to overcome defense of a target
Anti-ricochet- directly competes against enemy's ricochet stat to see if shell is deflected
Shells/ammo- how many little metal projectiles are in tank

Crew awareness- ability of crew to see outside of tank
Crew aiming- ability of crew to identify, track, and fire at target
Crew safety- measure of direct mortal hazard of existing inside tank
Crew comfort- general stat denoting ergonomics, smoothness of travel, and ease of use
Crew comm int/ext- ease of communication between tank crew members, between tanks, or between tanks and supporting infantry

All parts- likelihood of component standing up to wear and tear and continuing to work. Important in deployment phase as poor reliability will knock out tanks before they even see combat

All parts- ease of repair from wear and tear or damage. Very important at end of battle, as damaged tanks have a chance to be repaired to working order

Im glad you asked because the Renault FT 17 is actually the best tank ever designed. It faced challenges from the get go primarily French bureaucracy which is famously inefficient but luckily Renault decided to build his tank anyway despite the government saying they don't want it. This was a really good moves cause surprise surprise just a few years later the rebault ft 17 sets the standard for do many principles of tank design like a 360 degree rotating turret and a separate compartment for the engine. It is also highly optimized to be produced in large quantities for "swarm" tactics which unfortunately did not really get thrir chance to shine before the war ended. Luckily the Renault FT 17 hung out in militaries throughout the world for decades seeing service not only in wwii but also conflicts as recent as Afghanistan where they were used as pillboxes. The game just doesnt end and I can get you that your favorite (inferior) tank wouldn't even exist without the shining example set by the Renault FT 17. Thank you.