This is a two part suggestion, the second part of which hinges on the first. It involves repairing damaged ships.
My first proposal is that blocks destroyed by incoming weapons fire get treated differently than blocks removed by the player. When a block is fired on, it gets progressively more damaged (just like it does already), and when it reaches zero hit points, it becomes a "ghost" block. It's still there and still attached to the ship, but it can't be seen, touched or interacted with. Destroyed weapon systems remain linked to the weapon computer and vice versa, likewise destroyed docking and turret modules remain linked to their enhancers, though they no longer work.
This allows ships to have a health meter. The undamaged blocks are represented as a green bar, the damaged blocks show up as a yellow bar and the destroyed blocks show up in red. A ship with a thousand blocks, 700 of which are fine, 200 of which are damaged and 100 of which are destroyed would have a health bar that's 70% green, 20% yellow and 10% red. That won't tell you what KIND of blocks you've lost, but it'll give you a general sense of how badly you're hurt.
As an addition to build mode, there would now be a checkbox that says "Repair mode". Checking this box makes ghost blocks visible as a red outline and highlights damaged blocks in yellow (kinda like how the game now highlights linked blocks in purple). Clicking on damaged or destroyed blocks repairs or replaces them, however any blocks you replace have to come from your inventory. Repairing still costs blocks, it just isn't tedious or time consuming, and weapons/docking blocks autoreconnect to their computers/enhancers.
The second part of my proposal is an autrepair module, which has a supporting block called a repair enhancer. Like a docking enhancer, you need repair enhancers linked in order to serve a larger ship.
Repairing would work like the weapon or cloaking systems; you assign a hotkey while in flight mode and hold down left click while the module is selected in order to use it. Autorepair takes time to work and draws power in proportion to the amount of damage healed and number of enhancers attached, meaning a large heavily damaged ship requires extra power compared to a small lightly damaged one. You obviously can't fire weapons while the module is working, as a play balancing feature.
You can link the autorepair module to a plex storage unit and have it draw blocks from storage to replace destroyed ones; a smart player might make sure they have a dedicated "spare parts locker" with all the same blocks they used to build the ship. If no plex storage unit is linked, the autorepair only repairs damaged blocks, it does not replace destroyed ones.
The same trick can be adapted to the astrotechbeam. If you link an astrotech computer to a plex storage unit, the beam can now replace damaged blocks. This upgrade would make the tech beams still useful in a team setting, even though autorepair would completely replace them solo.
My first proposal is that blocks destroyed by incoming weapons fire get treated differently than blocks removed by the player. When a block is fired on, it gets progressively more damaged (just like it does already), and when it reaches zero hit points, it becomes a "ghost" block. It's still there and still attached to the ship, but it can't be seen, touched or interacted with. Destroyed weapon systems remain linked to the weapon computer and vice versa, likewise destroyed docking and turret modules remain linked to their enhancers, though they no longer work.
This allows ships to have a health meter. The undamaged blocks are represented as a green bar, the damaged blocks show up as a yellow bar and the destroyed blocks show up in red. A ship with a thousand blocks, 700 of which are fine, 200 of which are damaged and 100 of which are destroyed would have a health bar that's 70% green, 20% yellow and 10% red. That won't tell you what KIND of blocks you've lost, but it'll give you a general sense of how badly you're hurt.
As an addition to build mode, there would now be a checkbox that says "Repair mode". Checking this box makes ghost blocks visible as a red outline and highlights damaged blocks in yellow (kinda like how the game now highlights linked blocks in purple). Clicking on damaged or destroyed blocks repairs or replaces them, however any blocks you replace have to come from your inventory. Repairing still costs blocks, it just isn't tedious or time consuming, and weapons/docking blocks autoreconnect to their computers/enhancers.
The second part of my proposal is an autrepair module, which has a supporting block called a repair enhancer. Like a docking enhancer, you need repair enhancers linked in order to serve a larger ship.
Repairing would work like the weapon or cloaking systems; you assign a hotkey while in flight mode and hold down left click while the module is selected in order to use it. Autorepair takes time to work and draws power in proportion to the amount of damage healed and number of enhancers attached, meaning a large heavily damaged ship requires extra power compared to a small lightly damaged one. You obviously can't fire weapons while the module is working, as a play balancing feature.
You can link the autorepair module to a plex storage unit and have it draw blocks from storage to replace destroyed ones; a smart player might make sure they have a dedicated "spare parts locker" with all the same blocks they used to build the ship. If no plex storage unit is linked, the autorepair only repairs damaged blocks, it does not replace destroyed ones.
The same trick can be adapted to the astrotechbeam. If you link an astrotech computer to a plex storage unit, the beam can now replace damaged blocks. This upgrade would make the tech beams still useful in a team setting, even though autorepair would completely replace them solo.
