Equipment & Modernization
Every province's machinery and productive capital ages each year. Whether a country replaces it fast enough is a slow policy choice whose consequences show up a decade later.
Factories, machine tools and industrial processes do not stay modern on their own. In Atomic Dawn every province tracks how far its productive capital has fallen behind current practice, and that gap quietly widens every year unless the country invests to close it.
Modernization is one of the slowest levers in the game. A choice made in the late 1940s, such as closing the economy to foreign capital or nationalizing industry, can look harmless or even beneficial for years while the problem builds up underneath.
Obsolete equipment
Each province has an Obsolete Equipment value from 0% to 100%. At 0% its capital is current; at 100% everything is out of date. Starting values are set per country by the scenario, so the war-damaged and less industrialized countries of 1946 do not begin on an equal footing with the most advanced economies.
Obsolete equipment hurts in two ways:
- Growth. It applies an Economic Growth penalty that scales with the value, reaching -6% at 100%. See Provincial Economy for how growth modifiers add up.
- Unrest. A province's people expect the growth that a province of its development would reach with modern equipment. Old equipment lowers actual growth without lowering that expectation, so the shortfall becomes Unrest: every point of annual growth missed adds two points of unrest a month.
The second effect is often the larger one in practice. A country can carry obsolete equipment for a long time before the lost growth is noticeable, but the discontent in its provinces builds steadily.
Aging and replacement
By default, obsolete equipment rises by 4 percentage points a year in every province. A country's Equipment Replacement modifier offsets that drift in every province it owns:
| Equipment Replacement | Annual change in obsolete equipment |
|---|---|
| 0% | +4 points |
| 2% | +2 points |
| 4% | none: replacement just keeps pace |
| 6% | -2 points: the country is modernizing |
The value stays between 0% and 100%. The province's Obsolete Equipment tooltip shows its current annual change and where the replacement comes from.
Where replacement comes from
Equipment Replacement is a sum of modifiers like any other. The main sources are economic and industrial Policies, research, and some national focuses and events.
Laws
Four economic laws carry most of a country's replacement. Their defaults together provide about 1.9 points a year, so a country on default laws with no other sources sees its equipment age by about 2 points a year.
| Law | Low end | Default | High end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Means of Production | Private Property Outlawed: 0.15 points, but +2% growth | Mixed Ownership: 0.6 points | Private Ownership: 0.9 points, but -1% growth |
| International Investment | Closed Capital Account: none, and -2% growth | Screened Investment: 0.5 points | Open Investment: 0.8 points, but -0.5% growth |
| Trade Policy | Autarky: none, and -3% growth | Moderate Tariffs: 0.3 points | Free Trade: 0.6 points |
| Defense Industry | Import-Dependent: 0.1 points | Mixed Procurement: 0.5 points | Self-Sufficient Arms Exporter: 0.9 points |
The pattern is deliberate. Options that keep capital renewal below the normal pace often pay out immediate growth, while options that push renewal above it tend to cost some growth today. A planned economy that outlaws private property grows quickly at first but barely renews its capital; an open, private economy renews quickly and gives up a little growth for it.
Research
Several projects in the economics technology trees add Equipment Replacement, typically a few tenths of a point a year each. Over a long campaign, a country that keeps researching industrial technology closes much of the gap its laws leave open.
Aid, organizations and treaties
The largest single boosts come from outside. National modifiers granted through national focuses, Events, international organizations and Treaties can add far more than any law:
- Postwar reconstruction aid, such as the American-funded European recovery programme or Soviet credits to China, adds 2 points a year while it lasts: enough on its own to halt aging.
- National modernization plans, such as France's postwar modernization plan, add a few tenths of a point.
- World Bank membership and lending, and membership of the European economic cooperation organization, add a little more.
- Treaties can add replacement through arms licensing or development loans, and take it away: an arms embargo costs 2 points a year.
Playing the long game
Equipment policy is a twenty-year story rather than a this-year one:
- Running down capital. A country can choose laws that maximize growth now and let its equipment age. For a decade or more this may look like the better choice. Eventually the growth penalty and, above all, the unrest from missed expectations catch up.
- Keeping pace. Matching the 4-point drift holds a province steady. Few countries manage this on laws alone in the early game.
- Modernizing. Pushing replacement above the drift lowers obsolete equipment over time, at some cost to growth now. It is the way out for a country that has fallen far behind.
Because the drift is the same everywhere but replacement is national, a country's provinces age together. Regional differences come from where each province started.
Related articles
- Provincial Economy: how growth, development and unrest fit together.
- Policies: changing laws through reforms.
- Technology Trees: the research that speeds modernization.
- Unrest: how missed growth turns into discontent.