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Re: Some thoughts about damage and repair

#16
One of my X3 scripts does in-the-field repairs.
It doesn't apply perfectly here but it's a different approach to what was suggested so far.

MARS drones launch automatically and you can watch them repair your ship.
(the only script that actually makes a show of it - all other repair scripts just add hull points =)
They only repair a large part of the damage, though.
The "max repair %" changes as you take damage.
Don't remember the exact % but let's say they repair 90% of the damage taken.

You start with 6000 hull points.
You take a hit for 500 so you're at 5500.
90% of the 500 can be repaired but the remaining 50 points will not. The drones will only repair your ship up to 5950 max.
Take another hit for 1200 and your max repair value drops to 5830. (6000 - 50 - 120)

Oh, your ship is several times as strong in the long run... but you will start feeling the damage add up. Eventually you meet the limits of duct tape.
If you repair your ship in a yard (or manually with your personal repair laser), the script detects the hull points going back up above "it's" max repair value and records that as the new max value so the game can start over.
This system allows me to work with a high repair % so the system as a whole is perceived as Very Useful™.
At the same time it does not give you infinite and perfect repairs.
It's really a pretty lean feature. Only needs to record 1 number per ship (or 1 per tracked system in LT) and the only extra effort is a division and a subtraction on the "take damage" event.
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
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Re: Some thoughts about damage and repair

#17
Gazz wrote:Does the player need to "know" a tech level in order to be able to use it? Need to research it in some general way?
There's been quite a bit of discussion around this kind of thing, but now that you've asked the question directly it's rather interesting to consider. Are factional tech-levels all the same? Does Faction X Tech Level 3 = Faction Y Tech Level 3? There are many different options:
  • A tech-tree could be generated at the start of each game, and the factions then all progress along the tree. This makes techs all generic, and is very much Civilization like. Faction X lasers level 3 = Faction Y lasers level 3.
  • A group of underlying technologies are generated at the start of the game, but then each faction is free to progress to any particular level within each. This is effectively the same as the first option, but the tech-tree is flat and without dependencies. This is a bit like Skyrim, and Faction X lasers level 3 = Faction Y lasers level 3.
  • Each faction has its own techs. Faction X lasers level 3 != Faction Y lasers level 3, if only because one tech would be "Gravitic Lasers" and the other "Wave Duality Lasers" or some other scientific babble. To me this seems potentially very complex... but also extremely interesting. It gives rise to all sorts of things like reverse engineering of faction techs.
Gazz wrote:Do factions require you to have a license to use items above level x in their space?
I think there needs to be some restriction, but it may not be a license. Perhaps it's purely based on rep, and combined with something like the secrecy system I mooted? Reverse engineering would obviously negate this, but puts your rep at risk.
Gazz wrote:Gazz's description of his X3 script.
This sounds excellent. Are the drones used up or are they effectively an infinite resource? Also, I presume that whilst you watch your ship be repaired, there's some sort of defensive penalty - like no shields?
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Re: Some thoughts about damage and repair

#18
mcsven wrote:
Gazz wrote:Gazz's description of his X3 script.
This sounds excellent. Are the drones used up or are they effectively an infinite resource? Also, I presume that whilst you watch your ship be repaired, there's some sort of defensive penalty - like no shields?
The "resource" are generic fighter drones. Only running a smarter and much more versatile script. The real limitation is that a ship has a control capacity and while they are repairing, they can't be used offensively or defensively.
Also, since your drones don't evade while doing so - to the point of standing still when you do - they are relatively easy targets. =)
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
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Re: Some thoughts about damage and repair

#19
Don't have time to reply to all of this great discussion ( :thumbup: :thumbup: ), but just want to jump in and clarify about tech levels:

No such thing as "tech levels" in LT, only "technology." There's a difference: think of it as being a more "concrete" item-like thing in LT. In that sense technology can be bought, sold, stolen, etc. A "high-tech" faction is simply one that has researched or acquired a lot of different pieces of technology and, as such, can design advanced blueprints (and, in turn, build advanced stuff).

The details are still to be hammered but I think you get the basic principle :)
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” ~ Henry Ford
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Re: Some thoughts about damage and repair

#20
JoshParnell wrote:No such thing as "tech levels" in LT, only "technology." There's a difference: think of it as being a more "concrete" item-like thing in LT. In that sense technology can be bought, sold, stolen, etc. A "high-tech" faction is simply one that has researched or acquired a lot of different pieces of technology and, as such, can design advanced blueprints (and, in turn, build advanced stuff).
Ah. I may somehow have misunderstood based on:
JoshParnell wrote:Every piece of equipment has some notion of "size" or "tech level" or...maybe just "level." Whatever you want to call it, some equipment is more advanced than others. This is reflected in a few ways: first, the equipment can only be mounted to a hardpoint of equal or greater "level." Second, one requires the appropriate level of construction machinery to build the equipment.
;)

At any rate, it would seem to be safe now to let that whole "Civilizations and Technology Levels" thread slide gently into the abyss. The somewhat more game-mechanical notion of the "power" of a blueprint seems to be where the action is!
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Re: Some thoughts about damage and repair

#21
From an implementation point of view, I think Josh's clarification poses the question: how do we tell which Level (big L) a tech is, if it doesn't have levels (small l)?

For instance, if faction X invent "Regressive Laser Authoring" and another invents "Wave-Particle Sensing", how do we know that one is significantly more sophisticated/complex? Perhaps Josh has already outlined this; if so apologies.

One way that springs to mind is that the effective "Level" of a tech is simply its purchase cost. The monetary value associated with a tech may be a reflection of a number of aspects:
  • The number of blueprints that utilise the tech;
  • The relative "power" of the items created;
  • The research effort involved;
  • The modernity of the tech in the games' timeline (i.e. was it invented yesterday, or 10 years ago?);
  • The availability of the tech - this one is a tough for me to grasp, unless tech really is an item that has a fixed number of units with the game;
  • A modifier based on your friendliness with the faction that controls the system in which you're trying to make the purchase.
In any event I think it would be good if some of this metadata was revealed when looking at technologies.
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Re: Some thoughts about damage and repair

#22
It does make sense... Repairing some hull plating is probably a bit easier than repairing or reinstalling a neural net.
I'm all for making it easy to repair ships, but I also like the idea of increasing the value of ships by making expensive/complicated items have a higher repair requirement.

Gazz' repair implementation in MARS is something I enjoyed a lot within the logic of the X universe. For LT, I wouldn't mind having to construct a mobile repair hangar. It could be fitted with either an internal hangar for repairs, or repair ship bays. (perhaps some research could unlock combined hangars or minimization)
Somewhere in my mind I'm thinking about Star trek's automated repair station, but in a mobile version.

I don't know if LT will allow us to create matter from energy (like replicators). I'm guessing it won't, or would require a huge amount of energy more than extracting materials. So a mobile repair hangar should be supplied with the resources needed (in a micromanagement friendly way). Newer ships with new technology wouldn't always need an upgraded repair hangar (I'm sure their technicians can read the blueprints). Instead I'd propose to let hangars evolve through research, and have their crew determine how thorough and fast the repairs are.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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Re: Some thoughts about damage and repair

#23
I like the idea behind the visualisation of this Star Trek automated repair station.

It could also be something like a gridwork of girders (even if it's all square) "growing" from the repair module that is attached to the repair ship... and which also acts as a docking port for the to-be-repaired ship.

Ship docks to the repair module, girders grow around it, repairs start.

Sure, code-wise it would be much easier to just add the hull points but if you can show it happening, it's much more real. =)
Flying around the universe and seeing an AI ship in a mobile dry dock... that would be pretty cool.
That's what took considerable effort to do with MARS. Not the repairing. There were 2 or 3 other repair scripts already. But making a show of it...
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
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Re: Some thoughts about damage and repair

#25
Arm animations would be really tricky but maybe...
spawning a few small "welding" turrets along those girders that "shoot" the ship in random locations.
That works in a procedural way because one size fits all.

No need to animate the arms "properly" to avoid clipping with all kinds of weird ship types.
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
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Re: Some thoughts about damage and repair

#27
Not knowing the dimensions of all ships, it might be difficult for Josh to program a procedural generation-friendly visualization using arms or girders.

I'd be fine with a solution like this:
Mobile repair hangar equipped with a docking hangar can repair ships that dock inside it.
Mobile repair hangar equipped with a repairship hangar can repair any ship.
A carrier can be equipped with repair technology. Letting you have the trade-off of having room for less ships, but the convenience of having them repaired while docked.

Of course, equipping a mobile repair hangar with a bunch of smaller ships is much more expensive. Repairing internally has the benefit of being faster, because materials are readily available.
Having a way to upgrade/extend these mobile repair hangars would make them a worthwhile investment.


If damage on ships can be visualized, then I'd love to see these repairships go to each damaged spot, and "fabricator away" the damage.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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Re: Some thoughts about damage and repair

#28
Katorone wrote:Not knowing the dimensions of all ships, it might be difficult for Josh to program a procedural generation-friendly visualization using arms or girders.
Get longest axis(mayor axis) of the ship to repair

Move along that axis searching for the biggest extrusion along the 2 perpendicular axis

Generate octagonal/hexangonal/whatevergonal girder loops along the mayor axis with a diameter larger than the biggest extrusion, maybe deform them that they better match the biggest extrusion (imagine a long, flat, broad ship; flatten the gider ring to an oval to match the large contours)

Should not be too hard for a basic version ^^
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Re: Some thoughts about damage and repair

#29
Just a recap about what I butted heads over with ThymineC yesterday in chat.
(no worries - the involved skulls were too hard to take noticeable damage)
  • The intention is to introduce "combat related" maintenance that has a noticeable impact... without forcing the player to visit a shipyard after every little scuffle.
    Let the player weigh the risks of continuing with a mostly working ship. It's the whole point of having a player in the game. =P
  • Ships receive 2 damage types.
    That only applies to hull / armour / structure / whateveryoucallit.
    Exactly 2 numbers per ship that can be represented with one HP bar.
    • Light (temporary) damage can be repaired with reasonable onboard equipment, including during combat.
    • Severe damage is "permanent" and requires something along the lines of a shipyard. A logistics ship of sorts could be able to repair that very slowly.
      These repairs require the ship to remain stationary so this isn't going to work well in combat.
  • System damage (like Laser #3) is not related to that at all.
    System damage can always be fully repaired with onboard equipment.
    This may go slowly for very complex systems but that's balancing.
    • If a system is heavily damaged, it may not be repairable unless you stop the ship to do so.
      This makes it possible to actually disable a ship's engines and for this to have an effect.
      You don't necessarily have to disable all of it's engines to 100%. Only enough the ship can no longer run or fight effectively... or has to stop to repair the damage. It allows for a lot more decision-making than an all-or-nothing approach.
  • Example:
    If your hull has accumulated 70% permanent damage then your ship is very vulnerable.
    Even if you have repaired all your systems to 100%, every engagement is risky because even "light" damage that gets through the shields will start doing heavy system damage right away.


ThymineC wanted to add more complexity to this by splitting up the damage into different types.
One may require a Teladi engineer to fix it, another may require a romulan class 3 shipyard.
Otherwise the same basic principle.

Me, I think that this adds nothing (but complexity) over the abstract system I outlined above.
The decision that the player makes is whether to jury rig the ship right here and continue the mission... or to abort and head home to fix'er'up.
Having to first figure out which systems are damaged to what degree and require which kind of repair mechanism before you can make an informed decision... that's a chore I could do without.
The abstracted system also scales much better at the wing or fleet level. Glancing over a bunch of 2-part hit point bars gets you an idea of how much "severe" damage your fleet has taken. Then you can decide if or when to do something about it.
There is no need to analyse the specific repair needs of every individual ship.
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
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Re: Some thoughts about damage and repair

#30
Gazz wrote: System damage can always be fully repaired with onboard equipment.
This may go slowly for very complex systems but that's balancing.
  • If a system is heavily damaged, it may not be repairable unless you stop the ship to do so.
    This makes it possible to actually disable a ship's engines and for this to have an effect.
    You don't necessarily have to disable all of it's engines to 100%. Only enough the ship can no longer run or fight effectively... or has to stop to repair the damage. It allows for a lot more decision-making than an all-or-nothing approach.
That part could be further simplified:
If systems need to be at least 50% intact to work at all, you could blast an enemy's engines to 10% and be sure he will need a while (as long as repairing 40% takes) to move again at all.

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