Old Ship Concept

Hot4Darmat mentioned the Mylene B. from his story "Uncertain Freight" and it started me thinking about how you could represent old worn out ships.

A really simple solution came to me, and I thought I would put the whole concept out here for discussion. (no promises to implement the idea, we will have to see what our schedule looks like).

The basic idea is built around subsystem damage. When your (engine say) takes 50% damage, it stops working and you cannot move. This is part of the standard game. Your autorepair fixes this damage until the engine is back to 100% health.

What we could do is make it so that and old engine can only be fixed to 80% health. The old engine could be much cheaper to purchase, but then it would tend to fail in a fire fight. The engine is just less reliable.

A supporting concept is ship wear. Every few days without repairs the ship engines wear a little bit. This lowers a temporary maximum health. So as you use that old engine, it slowly drops 78%, 77%, 76%. If you go in for service, it jumps back up to 80%. If you don't go in for service, it finally hits 50% and stops working.

The game already charges a fee to maintain your ship. This discussed feature is a replacement for that simple charge. And opens the potential to purchase used equipment and ships at discounted rates.

What do you think of the idea? Good, but you want more guns instead?

My vote is to combine the two, in a way, but without the permanent ceiling on performance...

To clarify, I suggest that wear take place (slowly!) constantly, yes, but also tie that in to actual maintenance cost. In other words, if you don't/won't/can't pay, wear increases faster but if you pay all of maintenance costs, wear is greatly slowed. Maybe even a BONUS of "no-wear" time for paying over the "suggested" amount? Even better, maybe add a small randomizing element so, say, even the laziest no-good slob (or just someone who can't get quality parts right then?) can get away with murder (until just before dock? DOH) and even the most concientious tipper can still have occasional problems.

By removing the permanent ceiling part of your idea, I mean make even that 80% engine restorable to original condition, but at a hefty price. So in other words, an 80% engine + parts & labor to restore to cherry condition might cost a total of 105-120% of list, depending on the station's "remoteness", the part required, and so on.... After all, don't many people take junker cars and restore them to life? This fits in with the basic model of maintaining parts pretty well, I think. It would also add greatly to realism to make the maintenance costs a curve - a 95% capability engine should just be plain easier/cheaper to repair, compared to a 55% model, no? Think of changing spark plugs vs. dropping the engine and rebuilding a car's main bearings . Also, systems failing a little faster as time passes adds even more to the feel IMHO.

What I like about that curve is that pilots who pay attention, "do the preflight", and generally keep their thumb on it will see great rewards. You typical deadbeat SnRV pilot might live a bit closer to the edge, whether by choice or not! [|)] This would add a sort of "pilot quality" to ship hires, too (without trying to dick with AI settings), if they had different maintenance before they saw you... So that hippie-lookin' SnRV pilot may cost a lot less to hire but the maintenance costs automatically are higher, since he just has a more beat-up ship. If you wanna pay to put it in the stellar Jiffy Lube, though, you might be able to scrub off some a' that crud.

I can just see it: "Man look at this cherry Neutron PBC! Only two scratches and an ablation scar... And the dealer knocked off 2000 creds!" *sound of electrical arc* "OW!" *sound of wrench hitting PBC*
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I like the idea. I would suggest capping how much the ship can auto repair any damage, including wear and tear of course. But allow stations (or even better only CERTAIN factions stations)to repair systems to 100%. Having this addition would also require some kind of 'tow truck' or rescue ship that could be called by stranded pilots

Tow trucks are going to be a requirement once we put the Damage Mod into the game. It will be possible for the player to get his engine shot off. Without a tow truck, the player is trapped. I guess we will need a "launch life pod" feature as well.

Cambragol just suggested having some star systems do accelerated wear on ships. Crossing high radiation areas could cause component failure. Just like here on Earth, don't take an old car into the Desert.

I really like this idea. It will add an element of realism, depth, and immersion to the game. A player can choose to forego certain costs and push the ship in order to gain profits on some other front. The idea of a steadily descreasing max (without proper servicing) is excellent. I also like cambragol's suggestion of having only certain types of facilites enable a full repair status restoration...and likely for a hefty price. I also like bozobub's ideas about reward and value somehow being tied to ship status.

Another aspect that might be harder to code is the idea of probability in a system failure. As I understand the suggestions above, a player may choose to ignore the steady degradation of an engine system, she/he may just watch the metre and repair when its gets too close to 50%, and so this only requires a bit of monitoring. But what if the player, by pushing the limits is actually playing an odds game...(seems more like reality to me). If you let something go that you already know needs attention, you're playing the odds that that critical breakdown won't happen this time out. But as the system deteriorates, the chances of a breakdown are increasing dramatically. A vessel that reaches 50% is going to experience a 100% chance of failure. A vessel with a used engine at 60% max capacity will have a greater chance of having a critical failure than one at, say 85%, for any given mission, but that chance is always there for both. Not sure if I'm being clear. Maybe I misunderstood Grandpa's ealier post. Am I just re-stating what was already proposed?

I actually think that a system that is even 51% should NOT necessarily at any given moment in time have all that high a % chance of failure. Even a tiny increase in probability, over time, will mean a great difference...

One way to sort of simulate the probability of a part failing randomly w/o as much coding is to just randomly fluctuate the damage curve's slope - a small bit - up and down over time. This would still bring about a random chance of failure and/or total MTBF but would also maintain overall predictability, generally rewarding regular maintenance... You could still crap out and just keep making bad random rolls.

It would be kind of a neat, easy way to tie in the maintenance "bonus" (for overpayment of maintenance costs) I mentioned earlier if the more you pay, the shallower the general (mean) curve before random variation and/or the smaller the maximum % drop, pretty much as Hot4Darmat says. In other words, greatly overpaying your costs likely results in a relatively long, flat portion of good performance with a shallow start to the maintenance drop, while paying NOTHING results in a relatively steep - not vertical - rise in failure %. Either way, ignoring maintenance will get you in trouble sooner or later, but even with a brand-new ship a part can just go *kablooie* [}]

Some additional thoughts:
- If you can make equipment, this all begs a new, better autorepair system, if you have the (no doubt bountiful) cash!
- It would make a lot of sense to have two types of maintenance failure. One would be a standard equipment malfunction, repairable just like any other combat damge; it's possible with time but only to a point. Would be damned inconvenient if that rusty PPC failed mid-battle! [|)] The second, (MUCH less likely!) type would be a catastrophic failure that's unrepairable inflight.
- Even failures could come in stages. I realize this might be the hardest to code into Torn Stars but how about if something coukd SOMEwhat malfunction but still barely work..? Say, A PBC suddenly doing 1/2, 1/4 or w/e damage, or a level 4 capsule drive suddenly working like a level 1 model, or even worse! Integrating this with the maintenance curve so an engine, perhaps, slooowly gets more sluggish and has an increasing chance of outright full or partial failure, would be MAA-A-AD cool. In fact, just causing a sudden big % drop in the performance curve would work dandy as a partial failure. That's how it really is, no? *revs the fried-out Volkswagen* *
- A truly broken part (at actual 0%) could be considered completely junked and not even repairable in dock. In that case, 50% WOULD be a good marker for complete loss of function. This would also bring up the interesting case of maybe having your gun break with repair costs possibly as much or more than buying a new one, but no source for that weapon within practical range. Do you want to make a speedy, risky try at going for the new component, or do you spend the filthy lucre to fix your half-slagged hunk-o'-junk PBC? The possibility of finding nearly junked but quite powerful weapons also comes to mind.

"So you like neutron PBCs, huh, Captain? Well, I pried this one offa L-point picket PatCom's torn, smoking wreck but, well... It's seen better days. Tell you what, I'll only charge you 500 creds. The techs oughta be able to bring it up to snuff, and I doubt you'll find another within a parsec..."

Hope some- or any! - of this could work!
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