Mobile repair ship

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    ¡Hi!

    One month ago I was thinking about how I do imagine StarMade battles. In my vision there's no possibility to buy an entire ship instantaneously, and then, it's very important to maintain your fleet as long as you can. In my vision you're able to repair your ships with AstroTechnoBeams, even the missing blocks(1).

    Ok, now that I think you can imagine from where I'm starting (I do know now it's not entirely possible), I want to show you my current project, the Mobile repair ship. This 200m long ship will be at some distance from the battle, near enough to let your fleet go back, but far enough to save hi energy to repair. And now with the jump drives it can be 8 sector away :D.

    I've started with this drawing:



    There are 3 modules, upper, left and right. The top one it's the ship bridge and there you'll find the systems and not so many more. In my starting version the inner part of the left and right modules will house AI AstroTechnoTurrets (but AI does not repair you). But someone at the spanish StarMade site told me about computer orientation and the possibility to make them aim left to right and viceversa.

    Next you can see my first "prototype", only the ship frame. It has a docking area in the middle:



    With the computer orientation would be possible to make my system work with a human pilot, but then I've realised that you need 2 computers (one aiming left to right, the other aiming right to left), needing to repair first the left flank of the damaged ship, and then the right flank.

    Luckily, another user of the spanish site told me about the great Bench logic tutorials and the possiblity to link a clock to the computers. I've run to make a first working prototype to see with my own eyes:



    From this point, I've been crafting all the AstroTechnobeams I'll need (I do not use the shops, I wanted to try the new crafting system) and after a while I've built a first layer with nearly 3800 beams (1900 per side) in a checked distribution to not link any of them. Next you can see how it looks working:



    It drops by FPS from 270 to 30, and to 11 with a ship inside :P but I it works.

    Next I want to add a second layer of beams because one problem with the current distribution it's 50% of the blocks of the ship to be repaired will not be hit by the beams.

    Once all works, I'll start adding more power, thrusters , shields, jump drives etc. and then, I'll start to "close" and decorate it.

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    (1) In the system I envision you can use a blueprint attached to the repair station, or the ship "remembers" the blueprint from where it has been built, and it'll use the blocks in your storages to replace them. If you modify the ship from the blueprint, those changes are "lost" if a changed block was destroyed.
     
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    cool concept, does this work for destroyed blocks? And what about a missile that has carved a hole inside the ship. With destroyed blocks behind full halth blocks? Does it repair through the good blocks?
     
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    Holy tits...

    When they finally figure out how to implement replacing destroyed blocks, this ship is going to be off the chain. Very solid and impressive implementation of a simple idea.
     
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    Thank you for your replies.

    Marcus, no, it does not repair destroyed blocks. Nowadays Astrotechnobeams only repair damaged ones. I can try if they allow effect computer linking, what may allow to link a punch trough effect that will let the beams repair behind the first layer.

    As they now work they are near useless because when shields are down, the line between a damaged hull and a destroyed one is narrow. That's why I've added the note about how I do imagine they have to work. From the start I've known that project is purely eyecandy, not really usable meanwhile it's easier to go to a shop and buy a new frigate and return to the battle.
     
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    it is importand that people test these things. It helps implementing the concept later.