Automatic repairs

And also, a new repair ship could also be added that you can use after each fight.

Hmm.. this wouldn't be realistic at all...

Repair stations are useful for front line planets that are constantly under attack and need rapid repairing

I think repairing ships without the presence of a repairstation should drain antimatter.

But there is something I noticed, the freighter and trader don't seem to repair themselves, is that intentional?

This is actually the only true reason to build Repair Station at the moment. They beef up the 'tanking' ability of defense structures and nearby ships so they can be quite difficult to take down. Considering the AI doesn't prioritize (I think) destroying repair stations, it makes it easy for us to have a powerful defensive line on frontier worlds.

As far as ship auto repair works at the moment, I suppose a reduction in auto-repair rates would make both Repair Stations as well as the Repair Drone Ship more important on the battlefield. It's not a big or time intensive change, but a very significant one that should solve the problems outlined here.

Not sure by how much as the percentages in the tech tree are ambiguous. Tone down auto-repair so our ships need to repair or slow down their offensive rampage.

Additional extension to repair functionality: Make ship hardpoints take damage OR randomly choose ship systems to lose effectiveness as the ship takes damage. This would also help the player decide to build repair facilities


Zero

Ships shouldnt have healing repair to their hulls until they have not been fired on for atleast a minute. Underfire their hulls should not be repaired.

like star trek armada when systems go off line when the shields are down and it takes damage

Well, IMO it's more realistic if you can repair your own ships anytime at all. Damage Control Teams get sent to the damaged sections of ships (modern or future ) in the midst of battle.

Perhaps if there was a severe reduction in repair speed during battle it would be better. But at the same time we can argue that the ships use automated repair drones.

But I just think that we need an overall reduction in auto-repair speeds because even if we have reduced repair during battles, it wont actually make repair facilities or ships any more useful because it's the downtime after battle that's important.

But I agree, I have no complaint about long battles, it's just annoying when we have to fight against the regeneration on ships rather than the ships themselves.

Yes and vasari have nano bot so thier ships should repair super fast by them selves and i agree it should slow down in the middle of battle but i would dissagree with getting rid of auto repairs altogether cos you can patch up a ship on the fly and i still use repair stations alot cos its alot faster than normal repair rate

Well yeah, I don't mean to say that they should remove it all together but I do feel that if we don't have some 'downtime' to our fleets, then it's really easy to go on a rampage to destroy a whole empire in one go. Sure we should be able to patch up our ships as we move around through auto-repair but if we give them too strong a regenerative ability then it just removes a danger and tension element that makes us go: "Oh shit not now!" when there's a quick counter attack.

Besides, it would give us extra reason to stop briefly after each battle and again give us more tactical choices on how to engage the enemy. Everyone has more time to think.

Yeah this would draw out the game a little but I think it's a good thing in this regard.

There allready is a repair ship!

havn't you guys noticed that putting robot-carriers in your fleet helps repairing ships?

the robot-carrier has repair drones on board that wil automatically repair damaged ships...i allways have a couple of robot-carriers in my fleet.

Hmm, I find the repair stations balance out the game more. In addition, they become very useful when you have a small defensive fleet and you are taking on a larger invasion fleet.

I've also noticed that some ships will take hull damage but not shield damage (dependant on the type of weaponary used upon it).

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying that the auto-repair function is a too strong, which reduces the need for those repair ships.

Well, consider how large a capital ship really is. Now also consider the amount of damage they take from incoming fire. Realise the huge amount of damaged metal, chunks of whatever material they're built from are blasted off. It would take a nano-bot years to repair that. It just doesn't make sense.

Repair crews inside the ships would be able to repair electronics and other damage, but I'd like to see them get in a space-suit and start to weld new armor onto the ship during combat.

Also, this would require an immense amount of spare armor in a cargo hold. Repair drones has some validity, they can work even in combat, but the limit would be, how much spare armor would the ship carry. Indefinate?

Oh I agree with you, it's always a question of realism, it's the universal companion to games. Nevertheless, there's Auto-repair in the game, so we might as well work with it

Now, it would be nice to expand the auto-repair idea and make it more in-depth. Applying your arguments to counter the fact that auto-repair is feasable, I would suggest that auto-repair works in a very limited fashion during combat (slow regen of hull) while out of combat it would speed up a little bit (not as fast as it is now in Beta 2). For every second auto-repair is functioning out of combat, it takes up "Supply" which the ships take with them, once they are out of Supply, they are unable to repair themselves. The Supply idea can be enlarged to encompass weaponry and maybe even shield effectiveness. To reload Supply, ships simply need to be in orbit of a friendly or owned planet.

I would like to see all ships get absolutely NO regeneration. I mean, where do they get all the extra armor plating/resources to fill in the damage?

So to repair your ships, you would have to use repair stations. Or you could use that ship that has the repair ability (it would actually be useful now)

Also, repair stations should use antimatter to enact repairs (rate of antimatter use should be dependent on number of damaged ships in repair range).

This system would actually encourage repair ships and damaged ships to orbit nearby stars to speed up repairs.

Any system that encourages competition for the gravity wells around stars is a good system.

I'm pretty sure anything that does repair consumes a fair bit of antimatter including the repair bays. If they don't its likely bugged. I'd like to see regen only in friendly culture myself and none during combat. This is a lower micro way to making sure your stuff is somewhat repairing with the rationalization that the locals are helping out in a minor way.

Hi Blair. Not to sound like a fawning acolyte, but that is brilliant.

Regen only in friendly culture combined with no regen during combat is the way to go for sure (with the exception of that one ship's special repair ability, of course). Oh, and keep the repair stations using AM as well.

I'll see what I can do for the patch.

Yeah, repairs only i friendly territory is brilliant! That makes sense. Perhaps we can remove the combat repairs? Who in their right mind would send people to repair while the ship's engaged in fleet battle?

Hi Designer, that is what Blair is saying. He is suggesting that ships can't repair during combat or when they are in hostile/neutral culture areas. Of course, the weak special repair ship that sends the little robots in still makes sense.

Ah yes, I see now. I must have completely read something else hahaha. Excellent.

Yeah I like Blair's idea as well funny how we get bombed with such a simple solution and everything makes sense....

Must be Blair's Jedi Mind Trick... just on the Forums!

From another post:

I strongly disagree with this, I think the current system is very, very good, if not amazingly realistic. If you want to justify it, say that they salvage scrap after a battle (with nanobots maybe, whatever), or have big slabs of material in storage that they then use (again, by decomposing said slabs with magical nanobots) to repair up any bigger damage. The reason why I think this repair system works well is because I think having to manually repair units is unnecessary micromanagement in a game like this, and a pet peeve of mine to have to constantly send units back and weaken my frontline forces and reinforce it with new units. Without auto-repairs, I'd just be sending in fresh units while sending old ones to be repaired, the outcome would be exactly the same, but with a whole hell of a lot more clicking and other annoying management that the game just doesn't need. This way, after a battle I can wait around a bit, attend to other things, and my units repair themselves somewhat and I can move my force on to the next objective. Without auto-repair I'd still have to wait after a battle but I'd be waiting for units to fly halfway across the solar system, having to micromanage building them and sending them back and forth.

To add to this in regards to what people were saying here: I think maybe the auto-repair speed could be toned down. I definitely think they should not auto-repair in the middle of combat. I think it would be fine if repairing drained antimatter (which it sounds like they are already doing, or should be doing), and I think that it would be good if the auto-repair rate was faster in areas with your culture or whatnot. Maybe your planets, or areas with your culture would have the same auto-repair rate as now, or slightly lower, while hostile areas had half the repair rate, and only once the ship is out of combat, maybe for a specified amount of time.

However, I strongly disagree with making them not auto-repair at all in hostile systems once they are out of combat. Having to constantly move my fleet back to repair or send in new units to replace slightly damaged ones (and I for one will waste a lot of time doing this, because it will bother me like crazy to have half my ships in varying states of disrepair) will get old and annoying really fast. I think it will just add unnecessary micromanagement.