Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: January 23, 2019, 04:16:39 PM »I must say that I don't like how commercial designs cost nothing to maintain. I agree that you should not need maintenance supplies and do overhaul on them but you could very well add a wealth cost to them, one you have to pay each 5 day cycle no matter where they are. But this is not the main discussion soo...
Maybe Steve can make commercial ships also cost maintenance. Let me explain.
Every ship of commercial size or specification does have maintenance supplies. Those are drained during flight time, but at a (very) low rate. Every time they do arrive at a port which has maintenance supplies, they auto refill their stockpile. So normally commercial ships shouldn't ever get into trouble of running out of maintenance supplies - other than if you are careless enough having them never show up at a port with supplies. Thinks breaking apart should only be checked by the game if a commercial ship runs out of supplies.
This could serve the point of having commercial ships also cost supplies as well as not increasing micromanagement by much. You generally have to pay attention that you have ports in the queue which have maintenance supplies and have them produce enough. It would even be possible to give those ships a general order "if maintenance < 10%" go refuel at nearest supply depot; if they don't drive on a route which has supply refuel in them.
And for ships without an engine one maybe can create a maintenance supply ship which can deliver to those ships maintenance supplies with an automated commmand. Something like "Check all fleets in system if they have >25% maintenance supplies. Íf not restock them."
It would be no more problematic than making sure they have enough fuel to get where they need to go.