So I'm going to start this here if people would like to argue.
TLDR, my point. Perhaps remain with construction being required if the player wishes to mass MSP for transport or such.
However each maint facility has an innate output of say, 10 MSP per year.
The 30maint facilities needed to overhaul your gravsurvey ship... they'll turn out 300 per year, and thus be able to support 6 survey ships without needing to rely on extra MSP construction.
And perhaps have a tech where oyu can boost that rate much like other construction/production techs.
Extra information below.
From changelog thread
Changes to Maintenance
At the moment, maintenance for ships is based on minerals. When in orbit of maintenance facilities the maintenance clock doesn't move and the annual cost is is equal to 5% of all mineral used to build the ship. So if ship required 200 Duranium, 100 Neutronium, 100 Uridium and 200 Gallicite to build, the annual maintenance cost is 10 Duranium, 5 Neutronium, 5 Uridium and 10 Gallicite. While a ship is being overhauled, the annual cost is equal 20% of build cost, so in this case 40 Duranium, 20 Neutronium, 20 Uridium and 40 Gallicite.
This can require micromanagement to ensure all the correct minerals are in the same place as the ships. It can also be annoying when maintenance fails due to the lack of a single mineral.
Therefore I am revising maintenance for 7.2. Ships in orbit of maintenance facilities or undergoing overhauls will now consume maintenance supply points from the colony (the same type as used on ships for repairs & fixing breakdowns). As maintenance modules are non-military in v7.2 this allows tankers to deliver both fuel and maintenance supplies.
The number of maintenance supplies required will be equal to 25% of the build cost for ships in orbit and 100% for ships undergoing overhaul. This is not as severe as it sounds because 1 MSP requires 0.25 tons of minerals and costs 0.25 wealth, so the actual costs for maintenance are 6.25% and 25% of ship cost respectively (a slight increase on current). There are no longer any direct wealth costs for maintenance as this is covered by the cost of building the maintenance supply points.
If a colony has maintenance facilities but no maintenance supplies, ships in orbit will draw maintenance supplies from any designated supply ship in the same location. Supply ships can be flagged using the existing 'Supply Ship' flag in the Class window. If no supply ships are available, ships will draw on their own maintenance supplies.
These mechanics not only make maintenance cleaner, it will also make is easier for the next stage, which is implementing deep space maintenance facilities.
To reflect their extended use, I am changing the mineral requirements for building supply points to be more varied, as below:
Maintenance Supply Point
Duranium 0.05
Neutronium 0.0125
Tritanium 0.025
Boronide 0.025
Mercassium 0.025
Sorium 0.0125
Uridium 0.025
Corundium 0.025
Gallicite 0.05
Total 0.25
The topic came up however of maintenance facilities, and how MSP are created.
Currently in game, if a ship is around a planet with appropriate maintenance facilities, the ship will use up minerals automatically to prevent its "maintenance clock" from increasing. Also doing an overhaul uses up minerals.
Post change this will be done however with MSP, which you will have to produce from construction factories (or construction battalions).
The idea came up that MSP could be passively produced by maintenance facilities (and maintenance module equipped ships) much in the same way that fuel is produced in refineries. Each maintenance facility would generate a set amount of MSP per increment, which could be toggled on and off as needed much like the current fuel.
This is a rather big change over the "current" mechanic, as instead of building MSP with factories, it could be better to just build more maintenance facilities. Another point is that it means that a maintenance ship wouldn't need to be fed by factories, or construction brigades, but could instead be fed minerals to operate (much in the way it is now) and receive MSP shipments from an industrialized world. 2 options for keeping your ships in operational condition, rather than the current 1.
Problem however is most players don't really spam maint facilities, as once you get enough... you don't really need any more.
Few extra things I'll note here.
A single construction factory with 10BP rate (base) can produce 40MSP per year.
A glance at the "Colonial wars" campaign in 7.00, and a 6000t gravsurvey ship. And unless I'm understanding something wrong, if so please correct me.
That ship costs ~800 assorted minerals to produce. This means in the new system you'll have to turn out 6.25% of that amount in MSP per year for constant maint, which is ~50MSP per year. SO basically each 6000t gravsurvey ship (of this type) costs 1.25 construction factories per year to maintain now, whereas currently it's instead using up an amount of mine output.
Theres my thoughts. Chao.
