Slitherine

When you upgrade a unit to another type, like a Panzer 3f to a Panzer 4e it loses 1 star if I'm correct.

I have a Panzer 3, strength 8, stars 3

-If I first max out to strength 13 and upgrade to Panzer 4 I lose 1 star but stay at strength 13
the cost for the to strength is 16 per step and it takes 4 steps to get to strength 13
16x4 + 272 upgrade cost is a total of 336 for a strength 13 panzer 4E with 2 stars

-If I first upgrade to a Panzer 4 then I lose 1 star and cannot get the strength higher then 12
the cost for the to strength is 27 per step and it takes 3 steps to get to strength 12
27x3 + 272 upgrade cost is a total of 353 for a strength 12 Panzer 4E with 2 starts

So the second option is more expensive but gives a Tank with less strength
I tried this in the Balkan setup of the 1939 campaign

pupski wrote:When you upgrade a unit to another type, like a Panzer 3f to a Panzer 4e it loses 1 star if I'm correct.

I have a Panzer 3, strength 8, stars 3

-If I first max out to strength 13 and upgrade to Panzer 4 I lose 1 star but stay at strength 13
the cost for the to strength is 16 per step and it takes 4 steps to get to strength 13
16x4 + 272 upgrade cost is a total of 336 for a strength 13 panzer 4E with 2 stars

-If I first upgrade to a Panzer 4 then I lose 1 star and cannot get the strength higher then 12
the cost for the to strength is 27 per step and it takes 3 steps to get to strength 12
27x3 + 272 upgrade cost is a total of 353 for a strength 12 Panzer 4E with 2 starts

So the second option is more expensive but gives a Tank with less strength
I tried this in the Balkan setup of the 1939 campaign

Hmmm strange, did you use Reinforcement or Elite Reinforcement? I never loosed Stars during the campaign, at least i didnt detected it.
At the 39er HARD campaign i ve playing now i will observe this ....


I have the strange expierience that my railroad artillery used since Poland till Overlord never get a star exp ... but i used it as often as i could maybe a bug?

I think when you upgrade in the a Panzer 3 to a newer model you don't loose stars, you seems to stay in the same series. If you upgrade to an other series you loose 1 star and maybe more, didn't test that yet with other combinations. You will notice it easy at the early campaign 1939 when upgrading all these small one star tanks to better ones. They end up without stars in most cases.

I upgraded with elite replacements at the scenario deployment screen in the example

Pupski is right and you do lose experience when upgrading in most circumstances (unless, as he noted, you stay within the same class). After the Poland scenario in the 1939 campaign, I upgraded all my tanks to PzIII and lost all my experience. Same thing happened when I upgraded infantry to paratroopers and my artillery to self-propelled. However, if you stay within the same class, you don't lose experience.

I also made a post about this and hope it gets changed for the final version for a couple of reasons. It penalizes you for making changes in your units for a particular scenario. Say I need some paratroopers for a scenario, but want to change back for the next scenario....boom, you're hit by a double experience loss because you upgraded out of class twice. This lead me, at least, to have a rather lack of diversity in my units because I usually would stay in the same class rather than suffer a dilution of experience.

In addition, it doesn't seem right from a military point. You give a new improved tank, say a Tiger, to an elite crew using a PzIV. Do they all of sudden lose all of their experience? Not really. They just are given a more lethal version of something they all ready know how to use. In fact, didn't the army usually give the newest, best equipment to their most experienced crews. By diluting their experience when upgrading, its like saying that a green, newly recruited crew would use the new equipment as well as the crack, elite crew.

I don't entirely agree. If you take troops who have been engaged in Alpine (mountain) combat training and suddenly pull them for a few months of airborne training classes, they will be pretty rusty if you swap their parachutes for skis and goggles again the next battle. It just isn't very realistic. On the other hand, I think the loss of all experience from the change is far too drastic, certainly there are a lot of areas where the experience and training will carry over into the new vehicle or type of combat training.

Building on the system that is already in place, perhaps different unit types should be a part of a larger combat class or group. If you upgrade to another unit type within the same combat class you lose some, but not all experience. If you upgrade to an entirely different combat class then the penalty becomes more significant, etc.

You don't lose all experience when upgrading, experience penalty (if it is applied) is 1 star (100 exp points). Also, upgrades within the same series of equipment (e. g. between different modifications of Bf109, PzIV etc.) are much cheaper than cross-series.