Maintenance/Overhaul Changes

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

While ships are in either overhaul state, do their maint clocks stop?

They stop if a ship is in orbit of a maintenance facility or undergoing a minor overhaul. They rewind during a major overhaul.

And is there a way to get the clock reset faster than at 1/4 time elapsed?

It will be boosted by the logistics bonus of the planetray governor. So a 30% bonus = rewind at 5.2x

IE I have ship with lots of spares. It goes out for 2 years, comes back does a minor overhaul to reload spares, goes out for another two years. Now it needs to spend a year in major overhaul. Seems kinda drastic. But it may be what you are aiming for.

That is correct as things stand now. I might adjust it based on playetesting in v2.3 but that is probably better than reality in terms of how long ships are in port compared to deployed. The big difference I have found over the current system is that you can put ships in for overhauls whenever it is convenient. You no longer have to wait for free shipyards and you don't have to wait until the ship is falling apart because of the old fixed cost approach.

The side effect then is that you basically need to add more ships to your fleet to maintain a given number of them active at any one time. Which in itself is okay, but runs counter to the rest of the Aurora philosophy of minimizing the size of fleets...

In many cases, warships will be in orbit of fleet bases anyway so they won't need to spend time in overhaul because their clocks won't move and their spares won't diminish. A ship will be spending about 25% of its actual deployed time in overhaul under this system, which isn't a lot more than before. You will therefore need say 25% more ships than you think you will require at any given time, although you can pull ships out of overhaul in an emergency.

A typical warship might spend two years sat in orbit with nothing to do and no change to clock or spares. Then it goes out on a one year mission, returns and spends three months on a major overhaul. In this type of scenario, which I expect will be common, the ship is spending three months in overhaul over a period of 39 months. Ships like survey ships or terraformers will probably be the ones spending the highest percentage of their time in overhaul because they are often constantly on deployments. It therefore seems reasonable that they will be the ones most often in yard hands.

Steve

[Erik L]

Should this ship -

Code: [Select]

Ark class Colony Ship    12000 tons     955 Crew     2112 BP      TCS 240  TH 250  EM 0
1041 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/0/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 0
Colonists 50000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 50    Replacement Parts 5    

KDY J240 Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 12000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
MandalMotors NTE Drive (10)    Power 25    Efficiency 0.80    Signature 25    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 449.7 billion km   (5000 days at full power)

This design is classed as a freighter for maintenance purposes

take 3+ years for an overhaul?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Should this ship -

Code: [Select]

Ark class Colony Ship    12000 tons     955 Crew     2112 BP      TCS 240  TH 250  EM 0
1041 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/0/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 0
Colonists 50000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 50    Replacement Parts 5    

KDY J240 Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 12000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
MandalMotors NTE Drive (10)    Power 25    Efficiency 0.80    Signature 25    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 449.7 billion km   (5000 days at full power)

This design is classed as a freighter for maintenance purposes
take 3+ years for an overhaul?

First I should point out that it is a freighter so if you give it a freighter maintenance check order it will be overhauled instantly. Assuming it wasn't a freighter then it would only take 3 years for major overhaul if it had twelve years on the maintenance clock and the planetary governor had no logistics bonus.

Ah! (light bulb goes on). Because it is a freighter the maintenance facilities will ignore it so trying to give this unit a normal major overhaul would take forever.

Steve

[Pete_Keller]

Ah! (light bulb goes on).

Like This?  

Because it is a freighter the maintenance facilities will ignore it so trying to give this unit a normal major overhaul would take forever.

Steve

There should be a way to get a maintenance facility to overhaul a freighter,  if I have a colony several month travel from the homeworld with the maintenance facilities, it would be nice to be able to send it in for maintenance without having to go back to the homeworld.

Pete

[Erik L]

Should this ship -

Code: [Select]

Ark class Colony Ship    12000 tons     955 Crew     2112 BP      TCS 240  TH 250  EM 0
1041 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/0/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 0
Colonists 50000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 50    Replacement Parts 5    

KDY J240 Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 12000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
MandalMotors NTE Drive (10)    Power 25    Efficiency 0.80    Signature 25    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 449.7 billion km   (5000 days at full power)

This design is classed as a freighter for maintenance purposes
take 3+ years for an overhaul?

First I should point out that it is a freighter so if you give it a freighter maintenance check order it will be overhauled instantly. Assuming it wasn't a freighter then it would only take 3 years for major overhaul if it had twelve years on the maintenance clock and the planetary governor had no logistics bonus.

Ah! (light bulb goes on). Because it is a freighter the maintenance facilities will ignore it so trying to give this unit a normal major overhaul would take forever.

Steve

I should have specified, it was a minor overhaul.

[Randy]

Playing around with ver 2.3, I think you need to at least double the basic rate of clock rewinding under a major overhaul - or else put a cap on it.

I have some fuel harvesters that came back after 4 years collecting fuel. Now they need to wait a year to get the clock rewound before sending them out again. This just feels so wrong...

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Playing around with ver 2.3, I think you need to at least double the basic rate of clock rewinding under a major overhaul - or else put a cap on it.

I have some fuel harvesters that came back after 4 years collecting fuel. Now they need to wait a year to get the clock rewound before sending them out again. This just feels so wrong...

I would be interested to hear other opinions on this. I haven't found it a problem to have ships unavailable for 20% of the time (less for planets with a governor with a high logistics bonus). I have found similar situations to the one you describe, such as survey ships coming back after a 4 or 5 year mission and then recovering for a year. The same for terraformers. I think that probably reflects reality in terms of the time ships spend in dock rather than on deployment.

Steve

[sloanjh]

Playing around with ver 2.3, I think you need to at least double the basic rate of clock rewinding under a major overhaul - or else put a cap on it.

I have some fuel harvesters that came back after 4 years collecting fuel. Now they need to wait a year to get the clock rewound before sending them out again. This just feels so wrong...

I would be interested to hear other opinions on this. I haven't found it a problem to have ships unavailable for 20% of the time (less for planets with a governor with a high logistics bonus). I have found similar situations to the one you describe, such as survey ships coming back after a 4 or 5 year mission and then recovering for a year. The same for terraformers. I think that probably reflects reality in terms of the time ships spend in dock rather than on deployment.

Steve

I like the current ratio, at least for warships (those with weapons?).  I keep going back to the deployment ratios for US carriers - 1/3 time deployed, 1/3 in maintenance (clock unwinding) and 1/3 working up (training).  This translates into 1 year in maintenance for every 1-2 deployed, so a 1 to 4 ratio actually seems somewhat low.

You might think about doubling the rate for non-combatants (not a freighter, but no weapons?), however - they should be more like freighters (which I suspect require much less maintainence time).

John

John

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I like the current ratio, at least for warships (those with weapons?).  I keep going back to the deployment ratios for US carriers - 1/3 time deployed, 1/3 in maintenance (clock unwinding) and 1/3 working up (training).  This translates into 1 year in maintenance for every 1-2 deployed, so a 1 to 4 ratio actually seems somewhat low.

You might think about doubling the rate for non-combatants (not a freighter, but no weapons?), however - they should be more like freighters (which I suspect require much less maintainence time).

That's a good idea. I was making the warship overhauls less strenuous to make the non-combatant overhauls more reasonable. I have now split non-freighters into warships and non-combatants. Warships are any ship with weapons, magazines, hangars, reactors, fire control, ECM/ECCM, any individual non-survey sensors greater than 1 HS or parasite hangars. I have also changed the freighter definition so it will also allow any non-survey sensors types, including active, up to 1 HS each.

Warships now rewind at 3x (slightly slower than v2.3) and non-combatants rewind at 8x (twice as fast as v2.3)

On the class summary screen, a qualifying design includes "This design is classed as a non-combatant for maintenance purposes" at the end of the summary.

Steve

[Father Tim]

I would prefer to see magazines removed from that list, as I consider colliers to be 'non-combatants'.  You might want to add Troop Transport Bays though. On the other hand, I expect my 'amphibs' to spend 90% of their time in parking orbit when their not actually invading worlds, so I at least will have ample time to unwind their clocks whatever rate they use.  With all the changes to maintenance I've forgotten if there is still a 'mothballed' status.  If there is, I'd probably use that for my 'amphibs' between planetary assualts.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I would prefer to see magazines removed from that list, as I consider colliers to be 'non-combatants'.  You might want to add Troop Transport Bays though. On the other hand, I expect my 'amphibs' to spend 90% of their time in parking orbit when their not actually invading worlds, so I at least will have ample time to unwind their clocks whatever rate they use.  With all the changes to maintenance I've forgotten if there is still a 'mothballed' status.  If there is, I'd probably use that for my 'amphibs' between planetary assualts.

The point about magazines is reasonable. A collier needs only magazines and a warship would also need missile launchers, which are picked up separately.

With regard to troop transports, I tend to use them to for moving troops around the Empire as well as for assaults. However, for some reason I hadn't included shields on the list of 'warship' systems. That is now corrected so any troop transport designed to land troops under fire will be picked up by that rule as a warship.

Steve