Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Campaign Repairs

cliffski

I’ve been working on the future expansion/extra/dlc thing for GSB which will introduce mini campaigns, and have a slight design dilemma.

One of the main new elements of the campaign is that between battles, you can carry out drydock repairs to your surviving ships. So if a ship loses a beam laser entirely, you can entirely repair it for the next battle. Lost ships are lost, but ships at 1% can be repaired entirely, IF you have the cash/honor to do it.

So far, so good, I’ve been working on the UI for all this. However, it interferes with the way repair modules work. The idea of drydock is that you resupply everything, so repair modules are getting re-filled, and shields go back to maximum strength (assuming the shield modules survive).

The problem is, what happens to modules that were damaged slightly during battle, and the repair modules were fixing? If I let the battle run until the repair module runs out of supplies, any surviving ships will repair all of their vaguely intact modules. I can’t have a penalty for players who don’t want to sit and watch a progress bar rise after they won…

So that means that effectively, having a single repair module on a ship means all partial module damage is undone at the end of the battle, thus making repair modules more valuable than they currently are. This also gives the tribe a slight advantage, as they have frigate repair modules, and better ones anyway.

Possible solutions:

1) Deal with it. Repair modules are now more of a tactical option. Thats cool. The tribe have a bit of an advantage there, but that’s life.

2) Add supply limits to the campaign meaning supply modules aren’t available. This nerfs the tribe a bit.

3) Add some complex system, where in-battle repairs are jury-rigged temps that need to be re-done anyway at the drydock. This actually restores repair modules to be the ‘in-battle’ bonus they already are. However, they will then start doing those repairs of any un-repaired modules at the start of the next battle, which would seem very weird.

4) Add new code that automatically repairs all half-damaged modules anyway, regardless of repair modules. The lasting effect of battles is now just those modules that got totally destroyed, or ships that went bang.

Luckily I have a huge list of stuff to worry about before I need to make my mind up on this one :D

10 thoughts on Campaign Repairs

  1. This seems like a pretty easy one, so I’m probably missing something :-).

    The advantage of repair modules is that they fix things while the fight’s going on. The advantage of “proper” dry-dock repairs is that they’re cheaper.

    So “refilling” a repair module back at dry dock costs more than doing the amount of repair that module can do, before running dry, in a battle. Any things that’re partially repaired at the end of the battle are finished off, more cheaply, in dry-dock, any partially-emptied repair modules are topped off for an appropriate fraction of the total-fill price, et cetera.

  2. /agree w/Daniel. #3 sounds interesting, but probably not worth the complexity. #4 ftw. Just top off any non-destroyed modules. I wouldn’t even make a difference in cost between in-battle and drydock repairs. Those that buy repair modules paid the cost of being able to repair in-battle when they bought the module. End of battle comes, repair modules stop repairing and the drydock system takes over. Ship emerges from drydock with all un-destroyed modules at full and topped off, assuming the honor/money was available to do so.

  3. also agree with Daniel, but but maybe without the penalty for using Repair Modules

    For example:
    At the end of a battle a ship suffers 500 damage.

    There are two options:
    1) wait at the end of the battle for the Cruiser Repair module to completely repair the damage – so when they get to dry-dock the repair module is depleted by 500 points but all other modules are 100%
    Dry Dock costs:
    Refill repair module by 500 points = $500

    2) The player heads straight to dry-dock with a full repair system and 500 points of damage
    Dry Dock costs:
    Repair 500 points of damage = $500

    The same system can be used for carrier modules . .

  4. I really like Daniel’s idea. It sounds like a keeper. Straightforward, fair, and maintains tactical depth.

  7. I’ll second Daniel.

    How difficult will it be to introduce a repair module with finite “ammo” though, in terms of scripting and UI?

  8. repair modules are already limited afaik

    (otherwise the ultra-heavy armoured behemoths can repair themselves forever)

  9. I wonder if part of the issue comes from the binary nature of “repaired” vs “damaged” that you are considering. Perhaps if ships without repair modules would have a portion their damage repaired for free automatically the strategic advantage of repair modules would be reduced.

    Or here’s a crazy idea: add new modules that only have an effect on the strategic level. A maintenance bay might repair the ship fully, and repair X hp on other ships in the fleet. A factory module might automatically replace some of the fleet’s lost fighters or allow ships to change up their weapons at a reduced cost. Training simulators might increase the number of available pilots in later missions.

    Anyway, of the ideas you posted I think that the third idea you had may be best. You can fix the “repairing at the start of battle” issue by starting the ships at full HP and simply deducting the supply cost of the left-over jury-rigged repairs from the repair module’s starting supplies.

  10. My 2 cents would be to allow in-battle repair modules. Any unused repair at the end of battle (according to when the victory screen is displayed) would be applied to the ship in the background, affecting the most damaged module -> least damaged.

    HOWEVER, these repairs, as you said Cliffski, would be jury-rigged attempts. To maintain a degree of balance, any post-victory repairs made by the repair module would cost significantly less to *fully* repair.

    Or

    The repair module does not apply to any lost hull points, only to the modules hull points. That way weapons/support system will be repaired during the battle and after the battle (keeping my suggestion from first paragraph) by the repair module, but hull repairs will still cost an even amount to be fixed. I can think of it being like R2D2 trying to repair the shield generator on the Naboo Cruiser as it flees the planet. The repair system would be specialized to repair intricate module components, not hull integrity; the latter being the huge plates of armour, beams, and &c a drydock would only be equipped to fix.

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