Utility Beams And A Better Repair System

[z1967]

Hello everyone tl;dr at the bottom as usual, but please read the whole thing (typed from mobile)

ok, so I was trying to get a wreck back to my base for salvage, then I thought, why not make a beam to tow ships around? I later was repairing a different ship and I realized how tedious this was, and not at all efficient, so I thought, why not have it so the repair beam repairs all the damaged blocks normally and slowly replaces one that were shot off? Then repair arrays would become useful. Guess what this thread is about, tow beams and better repair functions.

Tow Beam

the difference from a tractor beam is that it automatically grabs an unpiloted/same or no faction end ship, instead of anything, and you can adjust the distance at which you grab it. If the ship has a pilot, a pop up appears that mentions that (pilot) [faction] is trying to tow you, accept it decline? Or something like that, basically, a rigid rope from an emitter to their core. Then it is pulled around by your ship to wherever the hell you want to go. It scales so bigger arrays mean you can tow larger masses. This would be a nice feature but not a priority.

Better Repairs

Basically, the current beam repairs ALL damaged blocks on the ship first just by hitting the ship. Then, it can very slowly replace the shot off blocks with blocks firm your inv. (shot blocks leave a "ghost" to indicate position. Why can't this be used in battle like calibri's monster regen? Because some guy has to sit there and hold left mouse until he is killed. And it repairs slowly so your rate or cut is only slightly impeded. The alternate option is that drones can use repair beams and will fly around your ship trying to repair damaged blocks while a player fills in the rest.

tl;dr

tractor beam substitute, full hull repairs, useful repair drones.

 

[Madzgamer]

Yeah, destroyed blocks could be like open plexdoors, u can shoot through, but it\'s registred as a block. Tehere should be some timer, after what block is permanently destroyed(for performance)

 

[Judge_]

I agree with the Better Repairing System. Possibly have some kind of hangar like a spacestaion that you can fly into and get repaired? But yes I like the idea of the better repairing just point and click instead of looking for the individual blocks. Far too tedious.

 

[Naf5000]

You could build a really big backwards facing docking module if you want to tow something. And as for repair, part of the charm of the game is (re)building ships to your specifications. I find it a little cathartic to repair my ships by hand after they get damaged. Then again, I\'m a massive coward and run away if my shields get to 50%, so it might be different for someone with a more direct battle plan.

 

[MinecraftHaxer52]

Tow beams and a better repair systems is a great idea

 

[Jcewazhere]

If or when shield piercing comes to the came I\'ll very much want ghost block repair, it would a pain to see my pretty ship dented even when my shields were up. With full repair at least I wouldn\'t have to manually replace blocks after every passing pirate knocks one off.

It may be a bit OP for anything other than stations or planetary bases, imagine have a titan sized repair beam healing another titan.

I think it shouldn\'t repair something it is docked to (no repair turrets constantly healing your ship) and it shouldn\'t be fireable on your current ship (no healing thyself). But if it\'s station/planet only this could make defensive actions much stronger. Stick a super repair beam on the top of a station and stay in range during combat.

 

[Koloss_Meshuggah]

I like the shiprepair idea. Maybe everytime you exit build mode the game saves a kind of \"blueprint\" of you ship, then when you use a repair beam, the game reads the blueprint and adds blocks from your inventory. I get really tired of rebuilding my ship everytime I run into pirates, and my ship is still tiny. If I had a ship the size of some of the biggest builds out there I think I would rage quit the first time it got a hole in it. And even if I wanted to sit and repair a huge ship forever there\'s no way I wouln\'t miss something or mess up the design.

 

[z1967]

I was not expecting this to be brought back... lol

It seems that most of you like the repair beam suggestion more than the tow beam suggestion. Yes The repairs would be ghost block repairs becasue its hard to do anything else otherwise. No a blueprint would not be saved, just a ghost block whihc does the same function but is less complex.

@naf5000 I do enjoy fixing up ships (its suprisingly fun when you get to mock the owner for being a bad pilot) but it is extremely time consuming when I could be building something else. It is hard to find every little nook and cranny that a laser shot went in, and missles are an absolute hell with block penetration. Especially when an engine pylon was shot off or your conning tower took a missle for the team.

@Jcewazhere The repair beam, even in a humongous array, would still be quite slow. it would at most protect you from fighter damage if your ship is poorly shielded. The rate, even with a massive system, should cap out at maybe 100 hit points per second. after that, the soft cap should keep the massive arrays down. Multiple barrles would also be affected by the \"soft cap\" keeping multi-barrel exploit systems from being abused.