Mod idea: Repair pods

[Nodachi]

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?

[Suicide Junkie]

What do you mean by “affect”? I just want a Satellite that will repair ships.

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 ]

[Nodachi]

SJ said:

Repair ability fully stacks, so there shouldn't be a problem here.

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 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?

[F Te antKe]

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. . I give them enough breaks.

[Suicide Junkie]

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.

[Urendi Maleldil]

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.

[Suicide Junkie]

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!