Requested Feature: Realistic Repairs
Post ideas and suggestions on new features or improvements here.
posted on August 24th, 2012, 3:53 pm
Hello guys, I like to mod fleet ops considerably. I recently have been going back to other real time strategy games to come up with ideas for Armada. I've been using Command and Conquer (original, before EA destroyed the franchise) as a basis for alot of these ideas. One thing I have disliked about Fleet Ops and Armada in general is the repair aspect. I don't think its realistic that a ship pulls into a yard or has a repair ship pull up, and 2 seconds later she is ready for combat.
To the point: One of the most iconic C&C units is the Mammoth Tank. The engineers on board the Mammoth could repair the tank UP TO 50% on the battlefield. To fully restore the tank it had to pull into the repair yard. I think this would be perfect in FleetOps. After Wrath of Khan, Scotty could patch up the Enterprise and get her working again, but not without help from a shipyard for a full repair. I think it would be great to have the ships in fleet ops have their shields fully restore (the way it is now), but the hull can only repair to 50% without the aid of a repair yard.
I Think this feature would be perfect in the game.
To the point: One of the most iconic C&C units is the Mammoth Tank. The engineers on board the Mammoth could repair the tank UP TO 50% on the battlefield. To fully restore the tank it had to pull into the repair yard. I think this would be perfect in FleetOps. After Wrath of Khan, Scotty could patch up the Enterprise and get her working again, but not without help from a shipyard for a full repair. I think it would be great to have the ships in fleet ops have their shields fully restore (the way it is now), but the hull can only repair to 50% without the aid of a repair yard.
I Think this feature would be perfect in the game.
posted on August 24th, 2012, 8:28 pm
Well, what's "realistic" in terms of an RTS based on science fiction.
So if i understand your idea correct, you want ships repair themself, but only up to 50%. Well, they already repair their own hull (and subsystems), it's just so slow that you don't really notice it - except vessels with regen abilities of course.
Often enough you will find a highly damaged vessel with many subsystems down, and you just wait a while till they regain critical subsystems, like engines or life support, just to move it to the yard of course. Or you tow it with a constructor, etc...
Anyways, can you give an example on what you would precisely change? (like an ingame example)
So if i understand your idea correct, you want ships repair themself, but only up to 50%. Well, they already repair their own hull (and subsystems), it's just so slow that you don't really notice it - except vessels with regen abilities of course.
Often enough you will find a highly damaged vessel with many subsystems down, and you just wait a while till they regain critical subsystems, like engines or life support, just to move it to the yard of course. Or you tow it with a constructor, etc...
Anyways, can you give an example on what you would precisely change? (like an ingame example)
posted on August 26th, 2012, 8:58 pm
OK, lets say a Sovereign Class and a Warbird get into a battle. The D'Deridex is destroyed but the Sovereign has 0% shields and only 10% of its hull health. Now shields are energy, they aren't a material. So with time the shields will come back to 100%, but my concept is that a hole in the hull is a hole in the hull. Sure engineers can patch up the damage but the ship doesn't have all the materials on board to take it back to normal. Just like real life, if a ship gets rammed or has a massive hole, sure you can stop the bleeding, but to fully repair the ship you have to take it back to the docks. Same thing, the ship's hull can only repair to 50% of its full strength. Once it reaches lets say 2500/5000....it can't repair its hull anymore. It has to go back to the shipyard to restore its hull to 5000/5000.
I think this would really add a new dimension to the game, making units not quite as disposable, but something you really have to take care of and protect.
I think this would really add a new dimension to the game, making units not quite as disposable, but something you really have to take care of and protect.
posted on August 26th, 2012, 9:09 pm
USNDiesel wrote:OK, lets say a Sovereign Class and a Warbird get into a battle. The D'Deridex is destroyed but the Sure engineers can patch up the damage but the ship doesn't have all the materials on board to take it back to normal.
Based on later shows like Voyager however, it seemed like the replicator-technologies have made alot of progress. In terms of >general< Star Trek lore, a full repair in outer space might be possible as long as a vessel can operate its replicators to create the needed materials out of energy, based on the chemical blueprints in the library computer.
Edit: By the way, the need for going to a yard already lies in your crews. Especially romulans and klingons suffer severe drop-downs in combat-performance if their crews go to yellow or red status (meaning lower fire-rate, being more vulnerable to boarding attacks or Borg-assimilation while the latter ones especially apply to klingons).
posted on August 26th, 2012, 9:18 pm
You could make it so that a ship that is reduced to a certain health level gets a small reduction to the maximum health until it reaches a Yard, rather than not repairing. Much of the hull strength come from a series of forcefields (the Structural integrity field) that would get weaker from a hull-breach.
Would probably need a special GUI marker added.
Would probably need a special GUI marker added.
posted on August 26th, 2012, 9:22 pm
Now let's see it in another way. A ship suffers direct hull damage due a Shield Breaking Torpedo (K'Vort special) let's say from 100% down to 95% due. It's just a scratch for a huge vessel, so should it be able to repair that damage, or not?
Gameplay wise: if a ship is at 10% hull, you will not leave it in open space, you should definitely repair it in the yard completely, which is way faster in the first place, as do most players. And if shields are down, and the ship is at that amount of hull points, subsystems and crew loss is mostly in place as well, waiting for those vessel to repair themself will end up in losing that ship.
So don't get me wrong, i understand your attempt, but that's a plain workaround for the mammoth tank in CnC, not to become a walking self-repairing leviathan (*cough* Leahval...)
On a side note: don't forget that every faction has a different amount of hitpoints in hull. in a worst case scenario a Borg has 100% vs Feds only having 25% in hull, or Klingons for an example got 50% in hull - twice as much as Federation vessels.
just my 2 cents.
Gameplay wise: if a ship is at 10% hull, you will not leave it in open space, you should definitely repair it in the yard completely, which is way faster in the first place, as do most players. And if shields are down, and the ship is at that amount of hull points, subsystems and crew loss is mostly in place as well, waiting for those vessel to repair themself will end up in losing that ship.
So don't get me wrong, i understand your attempt, but that's a plain workaround for the mammoth tank in CnC, not to become a walking self-repairing leviathan (*cough* Leahval...)
On a side note: don't forget that every faction has a different amount of hitpoints in hull. in a worst case scenario a Borg has 100% vs Feds only having 25% in hull, or Klingons for an example got 50% in hull - twice as much as Federation vessels.
just my 2 cents.
posted on August 26th, 2012, 9:25 pm
Well think of Star Trek Nemesis. After the Enterprise rammed the Scimitar LaForge obviously had forcefields in place, patched up what he could, but replicators were not getting it back on its feet. She had to return to a shipyard for repairs. Its much like someone with a gunshot wound, you can stabilize the bleeding, but you still need medical attention.
Engineers are like triage...they do what they can to stabilize and maintain, but the hospital does the true repairs. Same thing with NX-01 after the whole Xindi battle and any serious damage. Yards are necessary because they have the heavy machinery to fully restore.
Engineers are like triage...they do what they can to stabilize and maintain, but the hospital does the true repairs. Same thing with NX-01 after the whole Xindi battle and any serious damage. Yards are necessary because they have the heavy machinery to fully restore.
posted on August 26th, 2012, 9:29 pm
I'm not really sure this adds anything of interest, to be honest. Ships don't get left on the kind of long-term pickets where this might come into play, and damaged ships should be sent to the shipyard as a matter of course. And a ship damaged that much but unable to retreat immediately will either be destroyed or get their engines up and running and off to the shipyard before 50% is reached.
It may change the game a bit for ships with fast regeneration specials (like Leahval does in 3.2.6), but most of those vessels are going to change considerably in the next version.
It may change the game a bit for ships with fast regeneration specials (like Leahval does in 3.2.6), but most of those vessels are going to change considerably in the next version.
posted on August 27th, 2012, 8:50 am
I think we can all agree that realistically a ship after a battle would not just be able to repair itself to full health, nor limp into a shipyard, and be 100 percent a few seconds later. However for balancing purposes you have to take canon, take the style of the game, and try to get something that meets in the middle. I think perhaps a better damage system could be implemented, but I think it would have to be a overhaul of the current system, and adding some tools to better register and reflect the damage a starship takes, and how it copes with that damage.
In my opinion that means creating a system where subsystems are not just on, disabled, or off. Rather in addition to the current settings, damage is registered and reflected in the defectiveness of the subsystems, i.e. 50% engines means you go half as fast. Either each system has its own relative "power supply" which can be damaged and reduced to a certain percentage, or each system draws from a central power source but you can pick whether that power is spread evenly amongst the systems, or if you were a lovely klingon you might take you shield power and divert it all to weapons, so that even though your overall power is 50% your weapons are at maximum. A third possibility would be to combine these ideas, so you may have 50% power, but your shields are damaged and can only handle 75 % , you divert all ship power to shields, but the shields can only handle so much... Complicated idea, but how the power is handled could be preset in a menu, be race specific, or depend on the new profile feature of each ship.
In addition to these more realistic repairs, battles could be more realistic by including some sort of way to salvage parts of destroyed ships...
This would be tough to implement I think, and possibly tricky to work out, but im just throwing it out there
In my opinion that means creating a system where subsystems are not just on, disabled, or off. Rather in addition to the current settings, damage is registered and reflected in the defectiveness of the subsystems, i.e. 50% engines means you go half as fast. Either each system has its own relative "power supply" which can be damaged and reduced to a certain percentage, or each system draws from a central power source but you can pick whether that power is spread evenly amongst the systems, or if you were a lovely klingon you might take you shield power and divert it all to weapons, so that even though your overall power is 50% your weapons are at maximum. A third possibility would be to combine these ideas, so you may have 50% power, but your shields are damaged and can only handle 75 % , you divert all ship power to shields, but the shields can only handle so much... Complicated idea, but how the power is handled could be preset in a menu, be race specific, or depend on the new profile feature of each ship.
In addition to these more realistic repairs, battles could be more realistic by including some sort of way to salvage parts of destroyed ships...
This would be tough to implement I think, and possibly tricky to work out, but im just throwing it out there
posted on August 27th, 2012, 2:58 pm
MadHatter wrote:I'm not really sure this adds anything of interest, to be honest. Ships don't get left on the kind of long-term pickets where this might come into play, and damaged ships should be sent to the shipyard as a matter of course. And a ship damaged that much but unable to retreat immediately will either be destroyed or get their engines up and running and off to the shipyard before 50% is reached.
It may change the game a bit for ships with fast regeneration specials (like Leahval does in 3.2.6), but most of those vessels are going to change considerably in the next version.
Yeah, I agree with this. I understand the argument that a ship may not be able to repair itself past 50% hull strength. But how often does that actually happen in FO? If a ship is that damaged the owner will try to repair it at a yard. People often send ships to repair with less damage than that, because hull points regenerate so slowly anyway.
posted on August 27th, 2012, 4:48 pm
But we already have this via the crew system! If you left your crew levels go to low your ship start to function poorly so you have to keep checking crew levels and sending those ship to the yard. 
Adding a permanent hull damage is just to much IMO, and beside the hull repairs so slowly by itself, that it's better to use the yard anyway.
If we want to keep it real let's the engine function proportionally to it's damage and not like now, that you need 100% engine for the ship to move! Some ship spend around 10 minutes just adrift until the engine repairs fully! Let them move slowly according to damage sustained.
Adding a permanent hull damage is just to much IMO, and beside the hull repairs so slowly by itself, that it's better to use the yard anyway.
If we want to keep it real let's the engine function proportionally to it's damage and not like now, that you need 100% engine for the ship to move! Some ship spend around 10 minutes just adrift until the engine repairs fully! Let them move slowly according to damage sustained.
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