Making repairing more useful.

[War Dog]

Currently, repair lasers can repair damaged blocks. However, anything that can take down shields on larger ships tends to obliterate blocks once said shield is down; don't even get me started on missles. This kind of makes the repair laser moot since it's easier to just buy a second copy of the ship than to essentially rebuild it.

So I propose a change: When a block is destroyed, it leaves behind a "Wreck" block.

The rules of wreck blocks are simple:

1. Wreck blocks no longer provide what their original block did.

2. They are semi-transparent and do not block laser fire.

3. Wreck blocks become their original block once their HP is full.

Other optional features:

Wreck blocks keep their mass.

Wreck blocks disappear once the ship's core starts overloading.

Wreck blocks take much longer to repair than regular damaged blocks.

This will greatly increase the utility of repair lasers as well as make turrets and drones/fighters more useful as they do not have to be constantly rebuilt/replaced.

 

[Ratking15]

Very nice idea and I also find it annoying that I need to buy the ship again since I can\'t remember which block goes where and such. But maybe make the astro tech computer have driod arreys that repair while in battle-ish sorta like in ftl so that way you don\'t have to carry around an docked ship for repairing.

 

[J03 51M5]

I really like the sound of this idea, well done for coming up with it I have one suggestion, that is entirely optional. What if you could \'load up\' a repair ship with blocks that you lost and it uses them to repair the wreck blocks perhaps at a faster rate and maybe it oesn\'t need an entire block to repair it, I\'m thinking one block will be used to repair 2 or 3 wreck blocks ? But this could be used along side just using a repair laser too, I meant that the blocks in the repair ships inventory could be used just to speed up the process. Hope that makes enough sence.

 

[Sir_William_V]

One issue I think would occur with Wreck Blocks is that sometimes damage is several armor layers deep, right? What if there was a hole through the entire ship? Would the repair computer/beam be able to go through already repaired blocks to reach the Wreck Blocks in the middle of a ship?

One way I can think of to get around this issue is precisely that; to have the beam pierce through already fixed blocks and highlight wreck blocks, and when you release the beam the blocks would repair themselves. Maybe, anyways.

 

[Krazykat]

I say just using a repair module aimed at a ship starts to heal ALL of the ships blocks at once, but at a tiny and slow pace that also decreases as ship surface are increases

 

[honidian]

Yeah, because right now there is no real reason to have repair beams larger since blocks only have so much health anyways. So if you were give them a \"blast\" or AoE based upon grouping size they would be more desireable. Plus, that would solve the deep holes in ship problem that Sir_William_V mentioned. In other words, bigger repair beams would repair deeper faster and bigger.

 

[Krazykat]

I like that too honidian, so factions could have ships dedicated to repair, also make it so we can have ai drones repair us too, like we can deploy them after a fight and they would go and just shoot the ship with goodness until all blocks were healed

 

[LoLzboi]

I do agree with you on ships being beyond repair more often then not. Would damaged AMC and MA systems need to be relogged with their respective computers or would they still be connected, just \"destroyed\"?

 

[darktoes]

I like the idea of perhaps setting up repair turrets in hangars and space stations so you could dock your ship then just wander off and do something else, rather than have to spend hours repairing it, I usually just end up scavenging my ships and buying new ones from the blueprint.

 

[ne3zy]

Very good idea, but I think 50/100 alpha is too much, maybe 25/100.

 

[vernes]

I like this because this way you can repair a ship without having to go hunting for each and every damaged block.

Just don\'t make it work simultaniously, lots of blocks broken should mean lots of time repairing.

 

[Frosth]

This is a great technical way of implementing automated astrotechnobeam turrets repair systems without having cores remember their blueprints.

I support this and hope to see something aimed at similar goels implemented some time.

 

[LunaMoonbringer]

I personally think that the simplest change that would make repairing useful is a buff to hulls. Hulls should be useful as a form of armor against anything stronger than single AM cannons. At the moment, even light fighters can carve right through them in a matter of seconds. Hulls need a buff that makes them ARMOR, not just decoration. Then there will be incentive to repair them during and after battles, since a single laser won\'t destroy them anyways.

 

[Hanspeter Schnitzel]

How about you get a ghost-blocks instead as soon as you enter the Build-Mode of the ship core? Every block that has not been picked off by the person who build/bought the ship either with or without Build-Mode is highlighted, if it is not at the spot it was before.

Example:

You take a block from your ships hull, then go into build-mode = Nothing happens.

If you now get into a fight and some block get destroyed, those blocks are shown as ghost-blocks in the build mode, so you know where you have to put new blocks. Or perhaps you just have to aim the repair beam at the ship then and those blocks get repaired, too.


I think wreck-blocks are sort of annoying because they would block the view of whoever attacks you, they would not be able to see that well into your ship\'s interior, even if they are semi-transparent.

 

[Charlie_]

As it stands right now, repair has no value other than fix \"What\'s left behind\"

It repairs blocks, not the ship, and as such, doesn\'t effectively repair any damage whatsoever.

 

[MikeV37]

I\'d much rather the blocks were wholly transparent, and became translucent in build mode(As states two posts above). Automated repair turrets would still try to fix these blocks (As the AI doesn\'t need to \"see\" them) and if a person sees a deep gauge in the ship, he\'s gonna try to repair it even if there\'s no \"ghost blocks\" for him to see.

 

[Forilos]

The idea is good but i never ran out of shields in battle.I was always wondering why do shields need to block 100% of the damage?Cant they block about 70-90% of the damage?

I also want to say if the ship is big about 20 layers of wrecked blocks are going to look very weird.

 

[rs1485]

Make Astrotechnician (partially)) into a computer/module.

The astrotechnician would be able to be linked to a blueprint and a plexstorage. Once it is activated, it will attempt to build/repair the ship according to the blueprint by using the correct blocks found in the linked plexstorage. Also, to avoid somehow exploiting linking blueprints, the astrotechnician can instead, when placed, remember how the ship looks like. The module/computer will only start repairing it\'s ship when a few minutes after combat have passed.

The Astrotechnician beam should remain, but it should affect the block it is aimed at and the blocks around that block on all 3 axis\'.

 

[War Dog]

I chose semi-transparent blocks for aesthetic effect, you can make them transparent or only visible via build mode/repair laser targeting if you\'d prefer. Alternatively, you can make wreck blocks become invisible if they are not connected to a non-destroyed block.

As for how repair works, Wreck blocks do not block lasers, including the repair laser. BUT, the point the laser touches is given a small AOE; thus you target the blocks closest to an un-destroyed portion of the ship instead of magically fixing blocks floating in mid air.

So if your fighter is totally obliterated by a missile and the core survives, you\'d target the core and work your way around. There might be a problem with ships that have detached parts, but there you go.

 

[lupoCani]

Nah, those \"ghost blocks\" wouldn\'t really work well with the starmade gameplay atmosphere. The mechanic in itself is however desireable, so what if the ghost blocks themselves didn\'t exist, but the game kept all ship\'s templates stored, and the repair beams were remade not to repair single bocks, but rather restore the whole thing to the templated state. (Which does not acknowledge battle damage, only changes made by hand or in build mode)