Improved ship repair mechanics

"Ships that land on planets should be able to be repaired using the star systems industry...

This would be better then the automatic buying or repairs with dust."

I think this is a good suggestion, in addition to, not replacing, dust-based repairs.

I also like the idea that one must replenish strategic resources on a damaged vessel. (Devs will be adding the destruction of specific modules as a result of space battle, perhaps they are already planning to incorporate a strategic resource requirement.  If not, then it would be a great addition.)

Removing the auto-repair would open the door up, with improved repair modules, for having support ships/fleets designed specifically to repair ships during a campaign.  Without them, ships should have to return to a system and/or use lots of dust to be repaired.  I think this could add a nice logistical aspect to warfare that would make the gameplay more interesting.

My current beef is that there still isn't a way to repair a hero ship outside of updating the ship design - unless I'm missing something.

I agree to some extend, and I think that there should be no auto-repair if ships are not in friendly territory. This is as already mentioned better for the use of support modules. On the other hand I would keep the auto-repair in friendly area (a fleet could gather supplies on planets and repair themselves), but this should be way slower than actually bringing them into a Hangar where they could be repaired professionally. 

I am more in favour partial repairs after battle (up to a % of sustained damage).
Not a fixed value of for example 70% of maximum ship health.

It makes sense that you can do some patchwork after each battle.

But for better repairs you need to be in friendly star system orbit or dock in the hangar.

Being just in friendly zone doesn't exactly change much. We could argue that in that zone there are friendly trade ships and so on but I would still stick to being in a friendly star system for repairs.

Well, I guess if you are in friendly territory you are usually in a friendly system. Except the boarders have expanded over another unsettled system. However, I feel like that is the sense of controlled area is that there is some kind of presence of your empire (Outposts, Stations, Patrols etc.) that keep an eye on the borders and therefore provide opportunity to repair in some way...

What spoils "friendly territory" right now is the overkill influence zones.

Once those get fixed I expect it will be better.

Remember you can be inside your influence zone but on a star system that isn't colonized yet.

And there are plans to be able to travel outside of starlanes by setting your own waypoints (just plans it might not make it to the game).

I don't expect there are stations at any point. Everything is concentrated around populated star systems.

There could be partrols but those won't be able to assist with repairs.

mezmorki wrote:

support ships/fleets designed specifically to repair ships during a campaign.  Without them, ships should have to return to a system and/or use lots of dust to be repaired.  I think this could add a nice logistical aspect to warfare that would make the gameplay more interesting.

I  like this idea a lot and would recommend making it an idea all its own.  Seems to diverge enough from OP that it would be worth separating.

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/ideas/179-dry-dock-station-2fimprovement

I think what you're suggesting here, along with my idea and last post under it could help with making fleet operations (and repair) a little deeper in terms of logistics.