I've finally made the move to Gold and am now trying to familiarize myself with all that I've forgotten about modding.
I find I'm unhappy with the way we've implemented the Repair Tugs and thrown the Maintenance Bots out with the bathwater.
I would like to change one aspect of the "Repair Tug" and incorporate the Maint Bot with it.
Currently the
Maint Bot can only be used on
Bases . This I think is losing one of the best components in the game and a link to the actual B5 series.
Maintenance Bots should be able to fit on Bases and Ships. The larger capital ships of Earth Force had Maint Bots flying abound them, but then they all had fighter bays.
Val wanted to restrict the function of Repair Tugs so that they were essentially non combative vehicles. He did this by building the repair function into the Ship Design and then loading the Life Support and Crew Quarter requirements to stop you using the design for other purposes.
However this was a first run solution to the problem and resulted in the Maint Bots being unrealistically restricted to bases.
It is possible to create the same effect and bring the repair bots back into the game.
Make the Small Repair Tug have an inbuilt ability of repair 1 x component.
Require it to have at least 1 x Maint Bot
Require Maint Bot to only function/ fit on any Ship/Base that has either a Fighter launch bay or Satellite launch bay.
We can now reduce the Life Support and Crew Quarter requirements for the Repair Tugs.
It is important to keep the
inherent ability of the Repair Tug to repair at least one component in it's Design. This allows it to navigate bad worm holes and still be able to repair itself and at the same time maintain it's unique function in the game. i.e.
The only vehicle that has a reasonable chance of rescuing stricken ships in Black Hole systems without destroying its self in the attempt.
This would then allow us to put Maintenance Bots on any of the other Capital Ships that had Launch Bays. After all a Carrier Ship that can launch fighters should be able to launch Maint Bots and you would expect it to be able to repair itself.
It's now up to the player to decide how much space he gives up to repair Capital Ships. M.Bot: 50kT + L.Bay:24kT or Sat. L.Bay:30kT , which means that the basic Maint Bot requires
74kT minimum to fit onto a ship.
If we make it use supplies as well then that would stop them being placed of every vessel.
The
Repair Tug still maintains its usefulness because unlike other large ships if the onboard Maint Bot is damaged the Tug can repair it whereas other capital ships that suffer loss of the Maint Bot have to seek repairs else where.
Well ?
[ May 08, 2004, 18:42: Message edited by: Nomor ]