ship repair 0.4.5

[scytale]

Hi people, keep up the good work.

From what I get of ship repair, it happens when the ship is stationary in a system where there is a shipyard and there is no battle going on during the turn.
Well, it's not happening in my game, at Waglen system.

Install I have is 0.4.5 ubuntu package from Markus. Savegame included.

cant repair ship.sav.zip

(196.91 KiB) Downloaded 58 times

Would someone shed light on this? Am I misunderstanding how the concept works or is there a bug going on?

[Vezzra]

Quick answer, without having looked at the savegame: You need an Orbital Drydock (which is a shipyard extension you need to build in addition to the Basic Shipyard) to get your ships repaired. If you only have a Basic Shipyard, there won't happen any repairs.

[scytale]

Thank you very much. You probably nailed it since I don't have the orbital ones yet

[MatGB]

You have one at your homeworld automatically and can build them. Most of the time the damage control techs are as good for most damage received, take a bit to research but are worth grabbing when you can afford them.

Assuming problem solved, I won't run the game, I'm testing something and would need to recompile to run a 0.4.5 save, let us know if you find anything else, if nothing else I keep meaning to reword how the explanations for damage repair in game and write something for the guide.

[defaultuser]

I definitely learned that having worlds with drydocks close to the front lines is very important. It allows you to send damaged ships back in during respites for a quick repair and they really don't cost that much to build.

[MatGB]

they really don't cost that much to build.

At the moment, that'll be changing (but not in the immediate future, the AI'll need some adjustments after I've worked through what's needed, a lot of buildings are currently underpriced.

But yeah, very useful to have. On the other hand, I'm planning some 'repair crew' style ship parts that'll partially negate the need to do it unless badly damaged.

[defaultuser]

I kind of hate to bring it up, as the feature is so useful, but for balance reasons the drydock repair is a big free lunch. You can have 20 ships worn to the nub and get them repaired in one turn with no hit to production. So it's really important to emphasize not losing ships because it takes time and resources to build a replacement.

Of course, the AIs get to use it too, but I don't know if they are programmed to be aware of and use the capability on a tactical basis or not.

[MatGB]

I kind of hate to bring it up, as the feature is so useful, but for balance reasons the drydock repair is a big free lunch. You can have 20 ships worn to the nub and get them repaired in one turn with no hit to production. So it's really important to emphasize not losing ships because it takes time and resources to build a replacement.

Of course, the AIs get to use it too, but I don't know if they are programmed to be aware of and use the capability on a tactical basis or not.

They’re programmed to, sorta, but they're not very good at actually doing it.

But yeah, in the run up to the release of 0.4.4 we changed drydocks to full repair (it was 10 points per turn), that was known then to be too powerful but also we wanted to do more work elsewhere that got delayed, they're getting changed again, relatively soon, not sure on the exact numbers but it's likely to be the best of 10 points or 25% of base structure, but the numbers will be subject to change and testing.

Repairs aren't going to cost production though, partially as I don't think it's needed and partially as it'd be a pain to code, I like that ships that aren't dead can get repaired (I grew up near a major naval base), but it costs time, and they cost upkeep each turn even when retreating then sat there in dock.