Repairs at friendly planets without drydock

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ThinkSome
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Repairs at friendly planets without drydock

#1 Post by ThinkSome »

Since each planet is able to spawn a basic inter-planetary hull, that means that it is able to launch things into space and thus it is also able to supply repair material to vessels in orbit. But, since repairs without an atmosphere of a drydock are much harder, this should be slow. Let's say 0.05 structure per turn? Perhaps 0.2 per turn if a space elevator is also present.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Repairs at friendly planets without drydock

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Make it a policy and post a patch...?

Might reduce the uniqueness of hulls that self-heal, though.

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Oberlus
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Re: Repairs at friendly planets without drydock

#3 Post by Oberlus »

I don't like the proposal:

Really small repair rates are close to useless: if it takes 20 turns to heal a seriously beated ship, you better move it back and forth from a drydock.
In fact, I do think that the first repair tech (the one that gives +1 per turn when still and out of combat) is nearly useless. This proposal would be more useless.

As commented by Geoff, giving it a bigger repair rate can make less competitive current autorepairing hulls, so it would imply rebalancing hull costs.

I don't see any gameplay reason for this. What does it fix or improve? Only reason seems about realism.

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Re: Repairs at friendly planets without drydock

#4 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 10:28 am In fact, I do think that the first repair tech (the one that gives +1 per turn when still and out of combat) is nearly useless. This proposal would be more useless.
How about make the repair tech effect a military policy? That would make the self-healing ships a bit more pronounced.

Maybe make the effect +2 to make it useful?
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Re: Repairs at friendly planets without drydock

#5 Post by wobbly »

Small heal is fine on a big fleet. The fact the tech costs more then a serious weapon or armour upgrade isn't so fine.

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Re: Repairs at friendly planets without drydock

#6 Post by Oberlus »

Ophiuchus wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 10:47 am
Oberlus wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 10:28 am In fact, I do think that the first repair tech (the one that gives +1 per turn when still and out of combat) is nearly useless. This proposal would be more useless.
How about make the repair tech effect a military policy? That would make the self-healing ships a bit more pronounced.

Maybe make the effect +2 to make it useful?
Yes, turning it into a military policy with better effects seems the right thing.
+2 is "great" for tiny ships (not so great considering that tiny ships are also much likely to die before they can benefit from any reparation) and irrelevant for big ships. Maybe +1 +0.05*Target.MaxStructure? That means 15% repair per turn for 10 structure ships, 10% for 20 structure ships, 7% for 50 structure... 5% for huge ships.
That makes it half as useful as Fleet Repair (actually better for tiny ships). This Fleet Repair could be cheaper (50 RP in 8 turns). Could it work as a refinement of the Basic Damage Control (BDC) policy? I guess that's doable: script in the BDC policy extra repair when Fleet Repair tech is researched.
Then Advanced Damage Control (effect like Fleet Repair but out of supply) could be a different policy, one that can be adopted alone or together with BDC, or it could be another refinement of BDC. Or Fleet Repair could be just a tech and ADC be the refinement of BDC...

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Re: Repairs at friendly planets without drydock

#7 Post by wobbly »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 11:17 am Yes, turning it into a military policy with better effects seems the right thing.
+2 is "great" for tiny ships (not so great considering that tiny ships are also much likely to die before they can benefit from any reparation) and irrelevant for big ships. Maybe +1 +0.05*Target.MaxStructure? That means 15% repair per turn for 10 structure ships, 10% for 20 structure ships, 7% for 50 structure... 5% for huge ships.
That makes it half as useful as Fleet Repair (actually better for tiny ships). This Fleet Repair could be cheaper (50 RP in 8 turns). Could it work as a refinement of the Basic Damage Control (BDC) policy? I guess that's doable: script in the BDC policy extra repair when Fleet Repair tech is researched.
Then Advanced Damage Control (effect like Fleet Repair but out of supply) could be a different policy, one that can be adopted alone or together with BDC, or it could be another refinement of BDC. Or Fleet Repair could be just a tech and ADC be the refinement of BDC...
These numbers are way too fast in my opinion. Dry docking a ship is a major strategic decision, you are temporarily taking a ship off your front line for the time it takes to travel to the dry dock and back. There's a secondary strategic decision in how close you build your dry dock to the front line. A dry dock near the front line is strong but within striking range of the enemy.

Being able to regenerate too fast on your front line is killing a strategic element of the game. Sitting and regenerating on your front line is a no brainer.

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Re: Repairs at friendly planets without drydock

#8 Post by Oberlus »

wobbly, I agree 100% with your reasoning, but what numbers are fast or slow?

With current techs we have
BDC 1
FFR +0.1*MaxStructure
ADC +0.1*MaxStructure

Turns to repair from 50% to 100% structure depending on ship's max structure and damage control tech level:
10 HP30 HP100 HP300 HP1000
BDC51550150500
FFR2.53.754.554.844.95
ADC1.662.142.382.462.49
The rows for FFR roughly correspond to repair effect with ADC out of own/allied supply.

OK, I think that is too fast indeed: if the enemy can't (counter)attack in less than 5 turns, you'll have a fully repaired fleet.

Now for
BDC 1+0.01*MaxStructure
FFR +0.04*MaxStructure
ADC +0.05*MaxStructure
10 HP30 HP100 HP300 HP1000
BDC4.5411.532537.545
FFR3.3368.339.379.8
ADC2.53.754.554.844.95
Thoughts?

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Re: Repairs at friendly planets without drydock

#9 Post by wobbly »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 10:28 am In fact, I do think that the first repair tech (the one that gives +1 per turn when still and out of combat) is nearly useless. This proposal would be more useless.
Oberlus wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 11:17 am +2 is "great" for tiny ships (not so great considering that tiny ships are also much likely to die before they can benefit from any reparation) and irrelevant for big ships
So I believe these 2 premises are wrong and I believe if you open up the current multiplayer game and look at my fully repaired fleet sitting outside your colony you'll see in practice this isn't true. Now of course those are organics and robotics. The robotics were healing at +3/turn, but BDC is directly off of military robotic control. It's an improvement to self healing ships, and a minor repair to those that don't.

I also believe getting too caught up in turns to heal is missing a chunk of the picture. If you have a badly damaged ship you put it in for repairs. If you have a 1/2 damaged ship with 100 HPs that's still a 50 HP ship. It's still a heavy chunk of armour. It's arguably battle worthy. If a basic laser does 5 damage and it heals an extra 1/turn in 5 turns it'll take 1 more laser hit. If its a fleet of 5 ships in 5 turns that fleet will take 5 more laser hits.

So looking at your tables I agree with slowing down FFR and ADC.
With regards to BDC I think you are underestimating it. I don't think this tech is meant to fully heal a heavily damaged ship, that's what dry docks are for. My only problem with it is the one I mentioned earlier. It's cheaper to research Zortium. It's cheaper to research lasers. It's cheaper to upgrade to laser 2 and laser 3. There's a whole bunch of cheaper techs that'll ensure you are taking less damage in the 1st place.

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LienRag
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Re: Repairs at friendly planets without drydock

#10 Post by LienRag »

Basic Damage Control is nearly useless in war, you are right about that, but that's not its main use, that would be exploration.
When a ship encounters a space monster (or a competing explorer) once in a while, healing even slowly during the while allows it to survive the next once.

But globally indeed the fleet repair mechanisms are quite broken, in the sense that they too quickly go from "nearly useless" to "so powerful they render drydocks useless" (especially now that drydocks do not heal heavy structures in one turn anymore).

I don't have strong feelings about a Military Policy, I guess it could be a good idea depending on how it's implemented.
Not in replacement of BDC though.
Maybe the Policy could be 0,005*maxStructure, and leave the BDC tech at 1 per turn (so still independant of max structure) ?


We should remember that the three repair techs not only have different reparation rate, they also have different conditions.
Imho one of the problem is that the last tech (Advanced Damage Control, right ?) both double the reparation rate AND makes it work out of supply.

Like Wobbly said, drydocks and the need for them is an important strategic aspect of the game, some fleet repair (mostly so drydocking doesn't become a micro-management hassle) is a good thing, too much will replace strategic thinking by a no-brainer.

About what's slow enough, your calculations provide good enough results I believe for low-structure ships but repairing behemoths quickly should imho be available only at drydocks or with logisitics facilitator ships.
Maybe make ADC 10+0,02 Structure, its main bonus being that it works out of supply ?

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