Mod idea: Repair pods
 

I was trying things in the data files one day and figured out you can give a unit (sat/fighter) the repair ability. At the time I thought it was mildly interesting, but not extrodinarily so. I just realized a neat use for this. Repair Pods!

Give a fighter unit the repair ability at one component per turn. Then you build a bunch and launch them from your planet or a mobile space Yard ship. It just seems to make sense. You have a bunch of these little guys flitting about doing repairs on ships.

Geoschmo

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

Ohhh... maintenance bots for a Babylon 5 mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Probably not unbalanceing if you remove the repair bay ship component.

Or associate the ability with a special hull fighter or sat size that you research under repair.

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

Yes, that's the idea. And actually it removes one of the things that never really made sense to me, the fact that you can repair "on the fly" as you move your fleet around. Of course you could still do this in system with repair pods, but they will have to be retreived to be able to go through a warp point. At least that's a minor inconvenience. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

It's funny you mentioned this, I was thinking of doing the exact same thing in the TNG mod, except my little repair pods could repair two components per turn! Interesting...

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

thats sooo cool. im totally going to put that into GritTech.

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

repair tugs? have those in B5 MOD but are full ship size... special hull size/abilities..

definitely a different idea. probably able to be done...

[ January 03, 2003, 19:32: Message edited by: pathfinder ]

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

Why a fighter unit? Wouldn't a sat slow things down even further, and have the advantage of the launching tech being free from the start?

PHoenix-D

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well yeah, but I like the idea of them being able to move some. And sats can't be given movement in a mod. Good point about the launcher though. You could mod a launcher comp that will launch in strategic but not in combat. And you can make the repair pods slow, so they don't move around too much in system.

Geoschmo

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

i think since it'll end up as a different hull anyway they can be made slow. also some kind of supply components should be introduced for them. And then of course you will have several levels, can you give .5 repair ability? so you need 2 to repair one component a turn?

EDIT: using to test new sig

[ January 03, 2003, 22:12: Message edited by: Skulky ]

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

Nope, repair ability in whole numbers only. That would be nice though.

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

Make them 2x as large, and it simulates that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well yeah, but I like the idea of them being able to move some. And sats can't be given movement in a mod. Good point about the launcher though. You could mod a launcher comp that will launch in strategic but not in combat. And you can make the repair pods slow, so they don't move around too much in system.

Geoschmo</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Maybe use drones? Haven't played much Gold since I started helping with B5 so it may be impractical?

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

the problem with using drones, is that once launched, they stay launched and eventually run out of juice and die. so they would be disposeable repair pods.

come to think of it, the problem with using fighters, is that they might be launched and shot down in combat. perhaps sats with combat movement (does this work? i can never remember) or with no movement wiould be best. i do like the fighter idea, though.

now, what happens if a race has -50 to repair? are components that repair 1 per turn useless? is repair ability and modifiers calculated per component, per ship, per unit, per stack of units, or per sector?? if per sector, that is best. but if per component or ship or unit, someone with a 50% penalty would get the same results from 100 single-component-repair fighters as would someone with a normal repair attribute (assuming rounding up). if it rounds down, someone with a 50% or even 10% (depending on how far it rounds down) repair penalty would get no benefit, and be unable to repair anything, even if he had enough single-component-repair fighters to repair 1000 components.

i guess this needs testing... i can get to it saturday, probably.

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

The repair pods wont get shot in combat if you only put them on a ship with the special no combat launch fighter bays. But if they did get launched in combat they would run for the corners anyway. And if they get pasted in the coners chances are they would get pasted sitting on their launching vehicle, or sitting stationary as sats as well.

Sats cannot be modded with movement unfortunatly.

And repair is calculated per sector. If a race has 50% repair then 10 repair pods could fix 5 components per turn. But that empire race modifier never changes. So that doesn't really help with making them more effective at higher tech levels.

Making them smaller would make them more efficent on a repair per Kt basis, but not on a repair per pod basis unfortunatly. http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon3.gif Although, we might be able to have higher tech level repair pods with more than one repair comp, like mines can have more than one warhead. That should work. Is that what you meant Fyron? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo

[ January 04, 2003, 01:06: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

What a super idea. Now, do I make repair Sats, or Fighters, or .. My brain hurts again.
Thanks again

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

If we're talking fighter hulls or comps with the repair ability, then why not just increase the "efficiency" by decreasing cost? It's more efficient to construct them. The cheaper they are, the more you build in a turn. The more you have, the better you repair.

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

I like this idea so much, I'll put it in the AoW mod.

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

Repair drones would be brilliant for stranded ships. Also, by restricting the repair ability to drones you stop them from being too powerful because of the drone's limited lifespan.

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Good point. Drones would nto work at all. Well, not very well anyway. You could move your pod ferry to the site of the damaged ships and launch the repair drones I suppose.

Geoschmo

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It could be an interesting way to resupply ships.

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Good point. Drones would nto work at all. Well, not very well anyway. You could move your pod ferry to the site of the damaged ships and launch the repair drones I suppose.

Geoschmo</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Wasn't that being fixed in the next patch? To where you can move drones without the attack order? I may be mistaken, in fact I probably am. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes. And no. The next patch will allow drones to "attack" warp points and warp through them. You still can't give a drone "move to" orders.

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

Hmm. Drones only have an attack order. Can you order them to attack your own ships? Or an ally's?

See, if you do that with ships what happens is the ship follows the target. I don't think it works on your own ships, but I don't think I've tested it either.

Phoenix-D

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

Attack ally's, yes. They will tag along whereever the target ship goes, lagging a move behind them each time. Attack your own, no. Unless drones are different then ships. That is the case for ships I know.

Geo

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

Can you send drones to your own ships? I don't think the Attack button works like that, and that could be a problem for repair drones.

[ January 06, 2003, 13:03: Message edited by: Krsqk ]

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

Let's say I want to create Repair Satellites.
Which method is better?
Should I create a small Repair Bay component
That can only be used in a Satellite
or
Create a Satellite with the Repair ability?

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

It all depends on what affect you want to create. Neither is necessarily "better" than the other.

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

Imperator Fyron
What do you mean by “affect”? I just want a Satellite that will repair ships.
A couple of things did occur to me.
If I want the Satellite to have more than one it does need to have a component.
Any idea how much to “charge” for these?

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">He means "effect".

If you put the ability into a component, you can design custom repair sats, while leaving the hull sizes untouched.

If you put the ability into the hull, you can have more rigid control over the properties of the repair sats. You could make the repair sats extremely small without worrying about players exploiting the small repair component size by placing lots on one large sat.

PS:
When in a stack, units act like component on a ship.
If there is a "one effective per ship" ability, the entire stack gets the best ability on any single unit, and the rest are ignored.
Repair ability fully stacks, so there shouldn't be a problem here.

[ February 06, 2003, 15:23: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

Guys, I don't mean to be a downer but isn't there a problem when putting abilities on units? I seem to recall that a stack of units will only use an ability once regardless of how many units have the ability. Hopefully I'm mistaken? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

SJ said:
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Cool. I was worried that a simple game-mechanic was going to ruin what seems like a great idea.

Next issue would be balance. Something like this could make repairing large ships extremely cheap, which is fine if that's the effect you're going for. But in a mod like P&N http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif small armor pieces could be repaired so quickly as to unbalance the game. My suggestion would be to bump up the cost and/or move them up the tech tree.

Hey! How'd I wind up being devil's advocate? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

Thanks Suicide Junkie,
Now I see it.
So I can create a 60Kt component that you could fit only one of in an “stock” small or medium satellite and two in a Large satellite.
In addition I could create a 60Kt Space Yard and Give it very limited resources per turn to use in construction. This would allow your satellites to initiate retro fitting. Of course they better be over a Re - supply Base, Stacked with a well stocked “Re - supply Ship” or the new ships need to have solar panels.
Any ideas on “pricing” I’m thinking along the lines of 300 Mins, 100 Rads for the Repair Component. This makes each one three times the amount of a stock level one repair bay plus the 100 Rads.
I’m thinking of 4000 Mins and 500 Rads for the Space Yard component. This is the full price of a Level 3 SY but it can only repair 3 per turn. The construction ability is limited to 200 per Min., Rad., and Org. per turn.

I’m going to go with the component method.

Using DavidG’s modder program I could do all of the above except give the space yard ability minerals to use which would not be a big deal.

Needless to say the AI will not know how to use these. Sucks to be them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif . I give them enough breaks.

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

I don't think spaceyard abilities will work on sats.
I'm pretty sure you won't be able to build anything with them, at least.

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

Here's a neat strategy for repair sats or repair tugs (fighters):

Build a ship w/ a small sat or fighter bay, deploy repair units when ship is damaged. It's a maintenence bot effect.

Re: Mod idea: Repair pods
 

OOh! Idea!
To make repairs a limited resource, you can put repair abilities into drones, and make the repair bay a drone launcher.

So, you have to build repair drones at your spaceyards, and ship them to the front in transports!

If the repair drones were given a lifetime of 5 turns, say and a fixed repair rate of 1 point each, then your repair ship would have to make a tradeoff between repair speed, and efficiency!

Given a battleship with 5 damaged components, Should we launch 5 drones at once to get the repairs done before the enemy arrives (wasting the 20 repair points that will be left over after the battleship is finished repairs), or should we launch only a fifth of that, spend 5 turns repairing, and have 4 drones left over for later use!

Not to mention that you can send the drones to attack the sector containing your damaged fleet and repair ships via remote! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif