Personally, I think the engineering card is close to exploit-levels as is. I can basically eat enemy fleet after enemy fleet and keep my own at 100%, unless it's made of glass cannons.

It reduces the depth of combat, as the engineering card is the 'sure bet' card which you can play and win even if at a slight disadvantage, by virtue of outlasting the enemy's HP.



I think that hangar docking/undocking for an additional repair rate is detrimental to the game, especially as in late-game it means endless clickety-clicking micromanaging fleets going in and out of hangars for repair.

The Gamer's Scissor (compare to Occam's Razor) is: does it add FUN to the game? IMO it does not. It is just droning a very basic action which you can assume any half-assed fleet admiral will do without being ordered.



I think that an outpost could have a 1-to-1 production-to-hp repair ratio, and a colony twice as much, to boot (game start). That's a TOTAL, to be distributed to all ships in orbit i.e. it is NOT a per-ship healing ratio. Further tech enhancements will add to the hp healing multiplier. A x5 multiplier would take a few techs to achieve, and getting to 1000 production is not quite a trivial task, to get a yummy 5000 hp per level heal rate.

Late-game fleets can have more than 50000 hp combined, so getting the multiplier up to x9 or x10 would be acceptable.



To compensate on the production side, the formula would be reversed: the total HP healed would be divided by the multiplier, and subtracted from the total production points. The remainder, if any, would go to fulfill the actual production queue.



I also agree with the idea of adding produced ships to the production queue to retrofit them.



If you think that no ship should repair to 100% in a single turn you could cap the repair rate to 25% the ship HP, but I don't know if it would fit the game mechanics, given that ships can be built in 1 turn already, you can even build more than 1 per turn on the same system.

treizoz wrote:
Simple Suggestion:



The passive healing rate of ships docked in the hanger should be doubled, or proportionately increased from the current baseline for each ship production improvement in a given system.



As it stands now repairing even a frigate seemingly takes a dozen turns - in which another dozen frigates could often be created brand new. I feel the current system of a constant and very slow regeneration is insufficient and illogical when compared to the production rate for brand new ships in the same system. I also disagree that experienced ships should require any longer than brand new ships to repair from both a game play balance and immersion perspective.

This.



i shouldn't have to start random fights to repair my ships. just let me spend some dust or production to repair them like retrofitting or a selectable "Ind to ship HP" production.

I think both our suggestions are great ideas and really just up to the preference of the devs on how best to implement a repair overhaul. What I take away most from this thread is that no one is really satisfied with the current system as it is in the game now.

I think the simplest solution to the 'production halted' issue presented on my idea would be to cap at 50% the production siphoned towards repair. That way the production queue keeps moving.



A 'production -> repair' redirector on the production queue, much like the production ->tech and production -> dust redirectors could also be present if the player wishes to repair his ships ASAP.





A different approach would be to add a 'repair rate' slider either on the empire screen, or on the system screen. Like the 'tax rate' slider on the empire screen, it would cap how much production would be siphoned towards repair.



That, I believe, would solve the issue with minimal added management, preferably if implemented in a way which can be managed per-system.



Would that remove all issues with my proposal?

I like this idea, but I would also add a "repair hangar ships" button to production queue, so the planet is doing nothing else but to repair the ships, as if building them again, using its industry for it, exactly as if it was building new ships. That way if you have 1 frigate in the dock, it will take the same time it would take to make a new frigate, instead of the time it would take to make 12 brand new ones, which is silly.

An issue I foresee with your idea is that it takes the choice to repair a fleet out of the players hands, which is an intended consequence of minimizing end game clutter and clicking. The point being when a fleet sits in orbit, it automatically leeches all system production until full hp is restored. Moreover your intention to keep repair rates low even on developed systems means that fleets with lots of experience as many players (and hissho) are going to have hugely magnified hp on their ships. This could effectively turn off production on systems with defense fleets in combat. I can imagine players sending suicide missile ships against a system every turn to keep damaging enemy fleets and halting production or scaring them away...they already do similar things like using scout ships to blockade early on. Personally I think any changes that encourage small ship spam over everything else would be damaging.



Judging purely off the current mechanics of hanger repair I would say the dev's do support passive repair not requiring system production to fix a ship. Since you are currently able to disband and create hangers worth of fleets with a single click, I dont think the clicking would ever be a burden really. You dont have to click ship by ship if you dont want to, and you dont have to dock and repair at all as I'm sure many players dont in the current game design.



On a side note I love the idea of retrofitting ships with production from the hanger even though dust flows like water in most mid-late games.

treizoz wrote:
All good points. The only tricky part is finding a rate that would allow ships in orbit (which can engage in combat, move, defend, whatever) to be repaired faster than the current system but slow enough that its not just an unbeatable regen with no downside. Retrofitting or docking to be put in the que is another solid way to change the repair issue but then you are taking away production from new ships/improvs which a hanger or in space passive regen does not. Is it balanced to have in space passive regen tied to production without actually using any production resource per turn?

I have baked in the answer to the last question in my mechanics suggestion:

To compensate on the production side, the formula would be reversed: the total HP healed would be divided by the multiplier, and subtracted from the total production points. The remainder, if any, would go to fulfill the actual production queue.

Let's say a dreadnought with 5000/2000 max/current hp is around a colony (not outpost), with a 3x repair multiplier. The dreadnought has a 10% repair module in the ship. The colony has 500 production.



Ship repair modules happens before repair bay/hangar repair.



Turn 1:

Ship at the beginning of the turn = 5000/2000

System repair cap = 500 production * 3 = 1500 hp.

Ship repair = 500 hp from module + 1500 system repair bays/hangars = 2000 hp repair.

Production = 1500 hp system repair / 3 = 500 production; 500 - 500 = 0 production. The production queue receives 0 production, and doesn't move one iota forward.



Turn 2:

Ship HP at the beginning of the turn = 5000/4000

Ship repair = 500hp from module + 500 system repair bays/hangars = 1000 hp repair.

Production = 500 hp system repair / 3 = 166.67 (round up) = 167 production deduced for repair purposes. Production queue receives (500 - 167 = 333) 333 production points to progress.



Turn 3:

Ship is fully healed.



That is for a single ship. If you have a fleet with several ships, the HP healed would be evenly distributed to the damaged ships. Having a single fleet with 3 dreadnoughts and 1 destroyer suddenly makes a 5000 healing rate not seem so big. If you have several fleets orbiting the system, the repair rate could wear thin even when maxed.

of course all of this is moot if you just spam overpowered suicide missile destroyers...but thats a sep issue entirely

Brazilian_Joe wrote:
Personally, I think the engineering card is close to exploit-levels as is. I can basically eat enemy fleet after enemy fleet and keep my own at 100%, unless it's made of glass cannons.

It reduces the depth of combat, as the engineering card is the 'sure bet' card which you can play and win even if at a slight disadvantage, by virtue of outlasting the enemy's HP.



I think that hangar docking/undocking for an additional repair rate is detrimental to the game, especially as in late-game it means endless clickety-clicking micromanaging fleets going in and out of hangars for repair.

The Gamer's Scissor (compare to Occam's Razor) is: does it add FUN to the game? IMO it does not. It is just droning a very basic action which you can assume any half-assed fleet admiral will do without being ordered.



I think that an outpost could have a 1-to-1 production-to-hp repair ratio, and a colony twice as much, to boot (game start). That's a TOTAL, to be distributed to all ships in orbit i.e. it is NOT a per-ship healing ratio. Further tech enhancements will add to the hp healing multiplier. A x5 multiplier would take a few techs to achieve, and getting to 1000 production is not quite a trivial task, to get a yummy 5000 hp per level heal rate.

Late-game fleets can have more than 50000 hp combined, so getting the multiplier up to x9 or x10 would be acceptable.



To compensate on the production side, the formula would be reversed: the total HP healed would be divided by the multiplier, and subtracted from the total production points. The remainder, if any, would go to fulfill the actual production queue.



I also agree with the idea of adding produced ships to the production queue to retrofit them.



If you think that no ship should repair to 100% in a single turn you could cap the repair rate to 25% the ship HP, but I don't know if it would fit the game mechanics, given that ships can be built in 1 turn already, you can even build more than 1 per turn on the same system.

All good points. The only tricky part is finding a rate that would allow ships in orbit (which can engage in combat, move, defend, whatever) to be repaired faster than the current system but slow enough that its not just an unbeatable regen with no downside. Retrofitting or docking to be put in the que is another solid way to change the repair issue but then you are taking away production from new ships/improvs which a hanger or in space passive regen does not. Is it balanced to have in space passive regen tied to production without actually using any production resource per turn?

Simple Suggestion:



The passive healing rate of ships docked in the hanger should be doubled, or proportionately increased from the current baseline for each ship production improvement in a given system.



As it stands now repairing even a frigate seemingly takes a dozen turns - in which another dozen frigates could often be created brand new. I feel the current system of a constant and very slow regeneration is insufficient and illogical when compared to the production rate for brand new ships in the same system. I also disagree that experienced ships should require any longer than brand new ships to repair from both a game play balance and immersion perspective.

how about when a ship is in the hanger you can add it to the build que and its % missing hp is what the % of its building cost it requires to repair it. this could also make retrofitting not as dust dependent, so instead of just repairing it you could also retrofit it, though the industry cost would get a bit more complicated there.

Even doubling the current rate would lead to lets say 6 turns to repair a frigate fully, which is the smallest ship in the game. I'm guessing the current system generically repairs like 8-10%ish HP to all ships docked, whether its a dread or a frigate.



Mid to late game systems can easily be captured in ~4 turns unopposed.



If you link the repair rate in hanger to both ship hull size and number of hanger improvements in the system, you might end up with a scale before hero skills like:



Frigates - 4 turns to repair / (-5% for each hanger building, or about ~3 turns at the end of the game with 5 relevant system upgrades)

Destroyers - 6 / 4

Cruisers - 8 / 6

Battleships - 8 / 6

Dreads - 10 / 8



Now if you include hero repair rates you could either let them stack in addition, or change to only add fleet regeneration in neutral/hostile space.

Regarding repair modules on the ships themselves, if in hanger the module would only affect the ship its installed on as it has no fleet to buff. Therefore the fleet bonus would primarily be useful in combat or traveling to combat.

Repair bonuses in hanger should come from the improvements regardless of FIDS to encourage system development and provide a much simpler environment to balance this feature.

Again ship exp should have no bearing either way on repair speed.



I think the repair bonus should only apply when docked in the hanger instead of in orbit for a few reasons:



1) it would simplify the repair module fleet bonus issue mentioned above

2) if you are willing to disband your fleet to put them in the drydock you are effectively removing them from play until you decide to launch them again. Wounded fleets spamming repair cards can still perform actions, docked ships cannot.

3) Its intuitive both in game design and immersion. Gameplay - the first time I played an ES game I docked my ships for repairs without giving much thought to it, its how it works in most civ/4x games. Immersion - Meaningful repairs are conducted between battles in properly equipped facilities, emergency repairs are conducted on the go (cards, hero regen)



The biggest wildcard is how this idea would complement or conflict with the engineering card strategy, which to me always seemed like a stop-gap measure in its current iteration anyway. I see the hanger suggestion an augment not a replacement for the engineering card though I would certainly like to see this a vital part of any repair redesign they do down the road, if they do one. As the existing system does provide for hanger repairs, the devs apparently agree that hangers should serve this purpose. My disagreement is with the rate of repair.



I am a longtime competitive gamer and pvp balance is always in the front of my mind when I make suggestions. At the end of the game, with a full tech tree AND system improvements installed it will still take multiple turns to repair the smallest ships. I dont think this would provide any game-breaking issues to exploit although certain additional rules could easily be added in to prevent any chance of that. IE. no repair if hostile ships in orbit, delay of 1 turn before repairs take effect (although that might require tweaking of the rates), etc.



To repair a well balanced fleet of all ship sizes even with max tech would take longer than it would for a sizeable enemy fleet to capture the system doing the repairs.

Repairing a fleet of dessie spam as it sounds is FOTM online right now would still take basically as long.



Bear in mind you never have to repair a ship 100%, you could let it heal halfway and then send it across the galaxy to pick on weak fleets with repair cards - same as it is now.



Additionally: if ships are in the hanger when a system is captured, they are destroyed. Maybe a new hero ability based off the hacker tree would allow capture of any docked ships during a system capture.

Ship repair modules allow ships to repair when they are at a friendly system, and yo can even get one that repairs in neutral territory.



Only heroes can get a perk that allows fleet regeneration in enemy territory.

Rather than hangared which while logical could cause complications; why not simply increase repair on idle ships at systems with no hostile ships. One value for neutral/other faction space (as long as not hostile. or invading).



If ships are idle, they can repair.



Could have the bonus tick up the longer they are idle, with no repairs at all for turn one as they recently took action etc.



It depends on how the direction of repair is taken. If they keep the repair card as is, then imo passive none module based repair also needs increasing. If the card is nerfed or removed, then repairs could be left as they are now. Although I would like to see a repair value in none friendly space appear on repair modules earlier, even if very small, it's frustrating in the early game to have ships away from home that can only heal if they find enemy ships weaker than themselves

If you're fighting a battle whereby the enemy has 19 fleets, and you have 19 fleets, finding the weakest one is a potluck. Done so deliberately I believe.



It should also be noted that by the endgame your fleets are matched to the point whereby spamming repair against a fleet of equal power will probably still just be a free repair. The system is exploitable enough as is, lets not add more.

Waylander1982 wrote:
Too exploitable, particularly late game, you could just attack, disband the fleet, and then the next turn recreate it.



You can increase repair per turn by equipping better repair mods and using heroes, or just fighting a battle and spamming the Repair card.

Yes but this way is also a type of exploit you only need to find a weak enemy fleet to be sure you won't lose an presto "free-repair".

It's only some idea to how to improve the system, and to made less exploitative what if it's costs, not money, but Industrial so when you repairing it would be like construct ( in the sense of you won't made new buildings nor ships) some thing like, for example, in Hearts of Iron which you need to use part of your Industrial output to repair your ships/squadrons and divisions.

Too exploitable, particularly late game, you could just attack, disband the fleet, and then the next turn recreate it.



You can increase repair per turn by equipping better repair mods and using heroes, or just fighting a battle and spamming the Repair card.

Agree, and to add more realism the repair rate should be linked with the system status, so a Rich system with 1000 Industrial points should quickly repair a fleet, whereas the backwater outpost with 7 Industrial should only made a emergency repair ( only a little better then repair rate we have now).

And if experience might count should be a better repair rate as the crews will have more and better practice.