v2.0.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Garfunkel]

That's a pretty good idea too!

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I will probably remove the repair capability from commercial hangars.  Military hangars will remain as they are now so you do have the hangar alternative, but with an added cost for that flexibility.

This was what I was thinking although I couldn't readily justify it, but I suppose sometimes an arbitrary limit is necessary for balance.

A less arbitrary method would be to limit the repair abilities of commercial hangars to commercial components only. That way you can justify that there is a difference in tooling between military and commercial hangars.

Very good idea. For ease of understanding, I think I will make it commercial ships, rather than commercial components, as that is how commercial shipyards work - they can't repair military ships.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

hey steve how much crew does each repair bay add?

50 crew per bay.

[nuclearslurpee]

The listed change is a good way to do it. Military ships can still make functional use of commercial hangars, but that all-important armor repair is something repair bays will provide. Still offers a lot of flexibility in how to design a deep space base or to provide incremental upgrades over time for such bases.

[Platys51]

Can we get ships repairing their own armor when inside the commercial hangar if they have MSP to do so?
Also, some sort of fighter damage control to make fighters able to repair themselves.

My current doctrine is to put fighter wings on my freighter ships for self defense, making them completely incapable of repair in hangars would make making repairs on one of few thousands fighter get old fast.
I don't mind compromising fighter's effectiveness so I can put it on a commercial ship, but having to deal with damaged stuff manually would be major pain especially as damage can happen in deep space and fleet has orders for next 5 years I cant drop for repairs of a fighter...

Or, just an order to "repair all damaged ships in fleet" that would queue all damaged ships to undergo repairs in repair yards of a body.

[TallTroll]

Don't send the fleet home, send the fighter home. A small, fast carrier with limited capacity would do

[Scandinavian]

Or swap out whole fighter wings at a time.

Admittedly it will get tedious when you get into the scores or hundreds of freighters, but it won't involve individual fighters having to be detached and ferried home.

For that matter, a "transfer all parasites to/from fleet" and "reload standard parasite complement from fleet" would be nice orders to have in general. I see a bunch of use cases for them in reducing the micro associated with using FACs for rear area defense.

[kilo]

The changes to the civilian hangar sounds great so far. Will there be changes to military hangars as well now? I was thinking of them as some sort of missile launcher with reusable craft. Missile launchers are purpose build for missiles of a certain size and they improve with tech, which is a thing hangars sadly do not.
What came to my mind was the following:
Players can create hangars for parasites of a certain HS and add refueling tech, MSP transfer tech, ammunition transfer tech and deck armor of their choice. Those military hangars would not carry 1000 tons of parasites like they do now, but they would have bays in them with a certain maximum tonnage capacity. Say 2 500 ton bays as an example. This would allow you to store 2 500 ton craft in it or 2 smaller craft, like 300 ton fighters. You would not be able to bring 3 though.
The total displacement of a flight deck would be something like this:
intended HS * (1.25 + optional refueling + optional rearming + optional maintenance +...) = HS of ONE fighter bay
fighter bays could then be coupled to hangar decks and get efficiency bonuses like shield generators get now. A 1 bay deck would have the full displacement, a 10 bay deck 90% and so on.

The transfer rate of fuel and MSP would have to be scaled with the intended parasite HS to make large parasites viable.

PS: Now you can roast me.

[nuclearslurpee]

PS: Now you can roast me.

I think the important question is - does this really add anything to the game mechanics, in terms of player engagement or interesting decisions? I don't really see any benefit, "all" this accomplishes is making hangar bays harder and less convenient to use. You can argue this is more "realistic" or "immersive" but I would argue that you can easily roleplay the essence of this mechanic if you like, and the mechanic as it stands currently allows more roleplay freedom while these proposed mechanics limit it - see for example Steve's BSG campaign where he has repurposed survey carriers as light battle carriers in a time of pressing need, not so easy to do when you can only put one 300-ton fighter in a 1000-ton bay.

The only change here I think makes sense for hangars is bumping up the size premium to 25% or 50% instead of the current measly 5%, however this would be a significant nerf to carrier capacity so I don't think it is necessary, it is an easy enough DB edit anyways.

[Platys51]

The only change here I think makes sense for hangars is bumping up the size premium to 25% or 50% instead of the current measly 5%, however this would be a significant nerf to carrier capacity so I don't think it is necessary, it is an easy enough DB edit anyways.

25% for universal hangars with specialized bays being just the current 5% extra size?
Middle ground, but still just blanket carrier nerf, dunno if its good to keep nerfing them more than once in one patch.

Don't send the fleet home, send the fighter home. A small, fast carrier with limited capacity would do

Each and every one of my freighters have at least 5 fighters some 30+, sending a fast carrier for each mission isn't really an option, is it... The whole purpose is to add cheap security to long and slow journeys of commercial fleets.

Oh, or could also add another function for fighter tag: Can be repaired in any hangar.
Because shipyards arent really made to do that sort of work anyway...

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Can we get ships repairing their own armor when inside the commercial hangar if they have MSP to do so?

Ships can't repair their own armour anywhere in the game.

Also, some sort of fighter damage control to make fighters able to repair themselves.

Fighters can already repair themselves if they have sufficient MSP

My current doctrine is to put fighter wings on my freighter ships for self defense, making them completely incapable of repair in hangars would make making repairs on one of few thousands fighter get old fast.
I don't mind compromising fighter's effectiveness so I can put it on a commercial ship, but having to deal with damaged stuff manually would be major pain especially as damage can happen in deep space and fleet has orders for next 5 years I cant drop for repairs of a fighter...

Fighters on commercial ships would require long maintenance and deployment times because the commercial hangars don't provide maintenance - that is true in v1.13 too - so if you have already designed fighters with that in mind, they should already have a reasonable self-repair capability.

[Platys51]

Ships can't repair their own armour anywhere in the game.

Yeah, that's why I asked if they could do repair on themselves there, like a drydock.

Fighters can already repair themselves if they have sufficient MSP

Can they? I had a damaged fighter that should have enough MSP to fix itself orbiting a planet for PPV for maybe 30 years before it was visited by angry NPR.
It was still damaged when I was making stock of my forces in the system before battle. It was being fully maintained and had MSP whole time.

Fighters on commercial ships would require long maintenance and deployment times because the commercial hangars don't provide maintenance - that is true in v1.13 too - so if you have already designed fighters with that in mind, they should already have a reasonable self-repair capability.

They usually get 20 years lifespan, but as stated, while damage to fighters isn't that common, they usually just die, I didn't see one repair itself even if it should have enough to do so three times over. If they can and something is weird on my side, its fine.

[Scandinavian]

I believe you have to go to the damage control screen and queue the damaged components (or tell it to auto-queue).

[Droll]

Ships can't repair their own armour anywhere in the game.

Yeah, that's why I asked if they could do repair on themselves there, like a drydock.

Fighters can already repair themselves if they have sufficient MSP

Can they? I had a damaged fighter that should have enough MSP to fix itself orbiting a planet for PPV for maybe 30 years before it was visited by angry NPR.
It was still damaged when I was making stock of my forces in the system before battle. It was being fully maintained and had MSP whole time.

Fighters on commercial ships would require long maintenance and deployment times because the commercial hangars don't provide maintenance - that is true in v1.13 too - so if you have already designed fighters with that in mind, they should already have a reasonable self-repair capability.

They usually get 20 years lifespan, but as stated, while damage to fighters isn't that common, they usually just die, I didn't see one repair itself even if it should have enough to do so three times over. If they can and something is weird on my side, its fine.

I'm going to dogpile a bit to also mention (again) that I have had damaged CAS fighters return to a carrier and only have their armor and not any of their damaged internal components be repaired by the mothership.

In my case the fighters would not be able to do any MSP related repairs by themselves (but the CV had MSP) but I was confused as to why I just had damaged fighters sitting in the bay not being repaired.

Perhaps its something to do with HTK 0 components common in fighters idk. I haven't heard of anyone repairing damaged fighter internals inside a carrier yet but idk if its happened in the 12 colonies playthrough.

[Droll]

I believe you have to go to the damage control screen and queue the damaged components (or tell it to auto-queue).

In my case the components were on the fighters damage-con queue.