Ship doesn't deploy all repair drones. Pointless to buy them?

[GCU Grey Area]

Imagine you have a fleet of 2,000 destroyers.

I can imagine that, although have never got anywhere remotely close to that number (my games tend to max out at a few dozen destroyers at most). Suspect with 2,000 I simply would not care in the slightest if any of my ships lost their repair drones, or even entire ships for that matter. Individual ships would be utterly unimportant to me when there are literally thousands of them. In which case I'd leave a repair drone toggle turned on permanently, not care if a ship lost it's drones, even if that lack of drones eventually killed the ship. To even get to the stage where I had that many I'd presumably be making them for free at my own shipyard, so conseqences for losses in battle would be completely irrelevant.

I do not however play the game that way. I don't build my own shipyards, make free ships, or own fleets anywhere near that order of magnitude. My ships matter a great deal for me, losing even a single destroyer is significant (thankfully has not happened for years). However that also means that there aren't so many of them that having manual control over their repair drones would be any sort of nightmare. Instead would be an absolute pleasure to be able to activate/deactivate repair drones with just a click on a single UI element (just as I do for defence or cargo drones), rather than having to use a clunky workaround with modded S ships & ware transfers.

So, not a nightmare in either case.

[geldonyetich]

Have it your way, just don't go complaining to me when you realize that manual control of repair drones over any number of ships over a long period of time is really insufferably monotonous.

But then, with your already resorting to modding an S sized ship to keep defense drone spares, I imagine just about anything would be an improvement to that monotonous chore.

If their existence is encouraging you to play in a way that makes you miserable, maybe they should just be removed from the game.

[GCU Grey Area]

But then, with your already resorting to modding an S sized ship to keep defense drone spares, I imagine just about anything would be an improvement to that monotonous chore.

Not necessary for defence drones. They're well behaved & don't launch until I explicitly authorise it. Even have a key set to toggle defence drones for ships I'm flying personally (often fly frigates & find that feature particularly handy). Would just prefer it if repair drones behaved the same way, rather than needing an S ship jail to keep control over them. Never expected that would be such a controversial opinion, or that anyone would prefer the current lack of control.

[gbjbaanb]

I suppose the middle-ground answer to repair drones is to have them remain docked like little cowards until its safe to emerge - undock only when there are no enemies within sensor range (and perhaps also only if the ship is either not moving or moving less than drone speed). Then they can automatically undock to do repairs.

A manual "deploy repairs" would be a nice addition.

But there's a better alternative, and that is to have the drones be less floaty and more surface-locked. Forget a flying welding laser and think of a R2 unit rolling over the hull, inside the ship shields. Then they can still get blown off, but only when the hull starts taking damage. That could even be calculated algorithmically as a percentage chance rather than have the trouble of tracking individual repair drone hitboxes, nobody would notice the difference and FPs would be slightly improved. Also you wouldn't be able to shoot your own drones ever again.

TBH though I'd also like to see a S or M class repair ship that could be deployed to fix up damaged ships, stations and their surface elements faster. Update something like the Manticore to act as miniature rescue/repair vessel. I think defence stations should also work as repair docks too.

(and frankly, I'd like to see repairs consume resources like hull plate, but maybe that's too hard-core micromanagey even if half the damage could be repaired with the laser but the other half of shiop damage had to be done properly at a dock).

[GCU Grey Area]

I suppose the middle-ground answer to repair drones is to have them remain docked like little cowards until its safe to emerge - undock only when there are no enemies within sensor range (and perhaps also only if the ship is either not moving or moving less than drone speed). Then they can automatically undock to do repairs.

In some respects that would be worse than the present situation. Have been in situations where it's been absolutely essential to deploy repair drones despite being right in the middle of a big swarm of hostiles. Indeed the proximity of numerous enemies when, e.g. I've got no functional engines left, just increases the need to use drones to speed up repairs, so I can at least aim my main guns or limp to an aux for a full repair, even if that's all they can manage before they are all destroyed. Cowardly drones would really not help in such circumstances.

[gbjbaanb]

I suppose the middle-ground answer to repair drones is to have them remain docked like little cowards until its safe to emerge - undock only when there are no enemies within sensor range (and perhaps also only if the ship is either not moving or moving less than drone speed). Then they can automatically undock to do repairs.

In some respects that would be worse than the present situation. Have been in situations where it's been absolutely essential to deploy repair drones despite being right in the middle of a big swarm of hostiles. Indeed the proximity of numerous enemies when, e.g. I've got no functional engines left, just increases the need to use drones to speed up repairs, so I can at least aim my main guns or limp to an aux for a full repair, even if that's all they can manage before they are all destroyed. Cowardly drones would really not help in such circumstances.

I wish you'd read more than the 1st paragraph but what you want is impossible, the point of the discussion is that repair drones get destroyed by that same swarm of enemies if deployed. Perhaps my 3rd pararaph would be more to your liking.

[GCU Grey Area]

I wish you'd read more than the 1st paragraph but what you want is impossible, the point of the discussion is that repair drones get destroyed by that same swarm of enemies if deployed. Perhaps my 3rd pararaph would be more to your liking.

I did read the rest. Didn't have much of an issue with the other paragraphs, so only quoted & commented on the part where I saw a potential problem.

Point of the discussion, for me at least, is that there are circumstances in which I consider it essential for repair drones to be used (e.g. blown engines), even if that means likely destruction of the drones, & other circumstances in which the damage is so trivial (e.g. a single turret has taken 1% damage) that I don't want my drones to launch, preferring instead to keep them in reserve for those critical moments when they can make a real difference.

Consequently I find it important to be able to choose for myself whether or not to deploy repair drones, based on an evaluation of the importance of the repairs & risk to the drones. Not convinced an automatic system would ever be able to make that decision for me with perfect accuracy (too many variables), so would very much prefer a manual toggle to the clunky modded S ship drone jail workaround I'm currently using.

Suspect an automatic system to determine if/when repair drones are deployed would also require significantly more dev time than a manual toggle & based on past experience the simpler the suggestion the better the chance of it being implemented.

[geldonyetich]

But then, with your already resorting to modding an S sized ship to keep defense drone spares, I imagine just about anything would be an improvement to that monotonous chore.

Not necessary for defence drones. They're well behaved & don't launch until I explicitly authorise it. Even have a key set to toggle defence drones for ships I'm flying personally (often fly frigates & find that feature particularly handy). Would just prefer it if repair drones behaved the same way, rather than needing an S ship jail to keep control over them. Never expected that would be such a controversial opinion, or that anyone would prefer the current lack of control.

That's what I get for trying to fire off a post two hours past my bedtime: I meant repair drones.

The way I see it, it makes sense for defense drones to have a toggle because they have a myriad of modes and functions. Repair drones have just one function: they greatly accerate the repair rate of surface elements. So it should be that much easier to automate.

But again, if we're so obsessed over a tiny detail like our means for faster surface element repair getting destroyed by enemies, maybe the game would be better with their complete omission. Offload that repair rate to service crew, maybe have it kick into overdrive if the ship has not taken damage in a while.

The whole unit cap per ship thing needs a overhaul anyway. It doesn't make a lot of sense all L-sized ships of all make and models can only hold exactly 10 units, cumulative, of all types.

[GCU Grey Area]

But again, if we're so obsessed over a tiny detail like our means for faster surface element repair getting destroyed by enemies, maybe the game would be better with their complete omission. Offload that repair rate to service crew, maybe have it kick into overdrive if the ship has not taken damage in a while.

Thing is, I don't consider it a tiny detail. Have lost some excruciatingly expensive, very well equipped ships (multiple high tier mods & LOTS of re-rolls to get them just right) simply because repair drones launched to fix something trivial, got destroyed, then a short time later my ship took catastrophic damage to vital subsystems (such as engines) & those drones were no longer around to help. This was before I thought of modding an S ship in order to gain a measure of control over my repair drones.

Since then have frequently found the choice of when precisely to deploy repair drones to be quite an interesting one. Sometimes I risk waiting, fight on with a badly damaged ship & only use repair drones after the battle is over. Other times I launch them in the midst of battle, hoping those drones can at least get the ship mobile again (and/or a few broken turrets operational) before they're all destroyed, usually because something considerably nastier than what I'm currently facing is about to arrive.

Removing the drones would also remove that choice & would make that element of combat a bit less interesting. Just wish I didn't have to use such a clunky workaround in order to have that choice. Hence the desire for a manual toggle.

[geldonyetich]

Well, I am not going to argue with any change that introduced additional depth of choice for a player.

But I will point out it's unlikely you can manage all the repair drones for every ship you own at all times. So some form of automation will be ideal in the big picture.

[user1679]

There is a mod called "Mobile Repair Service" that I played around with, it allows you to assign a regular ship as a repair ship. The author wrote it such that it costs $ to do the repair so you don't get an unlimited health bar. It also won't repair the same ship more than once within X minutes. And you could tell it to repair other factions to earn some $ too.

My main problem with it was the ship didn't follow your patrol across sectors because it has an anchor space. I tried to modify it so the ship would follow an assigned ship, and even dock on it if no repairs were needed but after a while it bugs out and flies off and never comes back. I also toyed with the idea of having it use engine parts or weapon components to make the repair and using a S trader as a repair ship.

[Mookau]

Although I will say earlier in a 7.0 build I had a captured ship that never fully restored its hull points, even with crew and repair drones. I probably should have submitted that with a saved game.

That's likely not a bug. If you look closer at that section in the guide you will see that to fully repair a ship you need a max skill crew.