[Request] Ship health decays over time while flying

[Falcrack]

I think it would be interesting to have a mod where ships, as they are being flown, receive a very slow but regular amount of hull damage over time. Maybe some activities (like actively mining) would result in an even greater penalty, since these ships would constantly be bombarded with rocks while doing their jobs. This damage would be countered completely, however, as long as there is a sufficient number of service crew on board to repair the ship.

So for instance, pulling some numbers out of my rear end:
0% of its total crew capacity filled by service crew = 2% of total HP lost every 10 minutes of flying (ship with no service crew would be destroyed after 8.3 hours with no service crew)
25% of its total crew capacity filled by service crew = 1% of total HP lost every 10 minutes of flying
50% of its total crew capacity filled by service crew = no HP lost while flying
75% of its total crew capacity filled by service crew = 1% of total HP regained every 10 minutes of flying
100% of its total crew capacity filled by service crew = 2% of total HP regained every 10 minutes of flying

While docked, the ship won't be accumulating damage, so any amount of service crew will eventually repair the ship. For instance, 50% crew capacity as service crew would now repair 2% of total HP every 10 minutes, instead of simply counteracting the damage gained while flying.

This could be paired with engineering levels as well. If your ship is crewed by all 5 star engineers, then maybe you need only 10% of total crew capacity filled by service crew in order to prevent any HP loss while flying, as a 5 star engineer would be 5 times as effective as a 0 star engineer. This same mechanic should exist not only for M and larger ships, but also S ships. Finally, this mechanic could be disabled for ships the player is personally piloting.

I would use such a mod and pair it with the "getting paid" mod, which would give me a greater sense that there are costs associated with owning and maintaining a large fleet of ships. Currently, you can own an essentially infinite number of ships with no operating costs, and that doesn't make much sense to me.

[Orageon]

Very cool idea I must say. Adds some realism.

I guess one could look into the code for the hazard zones (like in The Void if I recall correctly? or nearby) that do DoT to ships, and add in the offset based on how much crew is present VS total possible crew.
The balance between crew and marines for larger ships would then be worth a little extra attention with this use case in the picture..

[Falcrack]

Very cool idea I must say. Adds some realism.

I guess one could look into the code for the hazard zones (like in The Void if I recall correctly? or nearby) that do DoT to ships, and add in the offset based on how much crew is present VS total possible crew.
The balance between crew and marines for larger ships would then be worth a little extra attention with this use case in the picture..

Speaking of hazard zones, is there any way to make the damage from such zones apply to ships even when OOS? Maybe dense asteroid fields could receive a very slight hazard zone which damages the ship hull over time, to simulate the impact from meteorites against the hull.

[wolfb]

I didn't know how much I needed this mod until I read it. Save us Obi-wan Kenobi, you're our only hope!

[Falcrack]

I didn't know how much I needed this mod until I read it. Save us Obi-wan Kenobi, you're our only hope!

Unfortunately, Obi-wan Kenobi, or Jar-Jar Binks for that matter, likely has far greater programming and modding skills than myself.

[kuertee]

Yup, been thinking about this since you first posted it.

I'll add this to my list.

A question, though: Do you think full destruction in 8hrs too much? Consider that most of Egosoft's game mechanics are "direct" without the "fluff" (except for station scanning). E.g. hacking only requires an inventory item, mining doesn't require a special weapon, etc.

My idea to implement these features are:
1. At the end of the day, any ship that has not docked will incur penalties. I've considered that 1 real-time hour is a "working day" in-game (e.g. the period of time the player needs to eat and sleep).
2. What this means is that ships need only to dock once per day to stave off wear and tear.
3. The penalties are distributed between hull and engines. I'm sure this is possible.
4. I'm still unsure of full destruction. I think the penalties of a broken ship sufficient. Wear and tear may only affect hull (and engines) that are at 25% or greater.

[Falcrack]

Yup, been thinking about this since you first posted it.

I'll add this to my list.

A question, though: Do you think full destruction in 8hrs too much? Consider that most of Egosoft's game mechanics are "direct" without the "fluff" (except for station scanning). E.g. hacking only requires an inventory item, mining doesn't require a special weapon, etc.

My idea to implement these features are:
1. At the end of the day, any ship that has not docked will incur penalties. I've considered that 1 real-time hour is a "working day" in-game (e.g. the period of time the player needs to eat and sleep).
2. What this means is that ships need only to dock once per day to stave off wear and tear.
3. The penalties are distributed between hull and engines. I'm sure this is possible.
4. I'm still unsure of full destruction. I think the penalties of a broken ship sufficient. Wear and tear may only affect hull (and engines) that are at 25% or greater.

How about this? Every 10 minutes, the following calculation is applied to see whether ship gains or loses HP:

HP lost = if ship is flying at time of calculation, and if ship HP is >25% of max HP, 1% of total ship HP is lost. This way, ship won't get damaged if docked, nor will it get totally destroyed through lack of maintenance because it won't go below 25%. If ship is flying and within an asteroid field at time of check, 1.5% of total ship HP is lost.

HP gained = 2% of total ship HP, multiplied by % of ship crew as service crew (value of 1 is 100%, value of 0.5 is 50% etc), multiplied by average engineering skill of ship crew (this is the average engineering skill + 1, so that a crew with an average of 0 stars engineering skill is still providing some benefit)

Total gain or loss of HP at the time of the check is simply HP gained minus HP lost.

With this formula, a flying ship with exactly 50% of it's crew capacity as novice service crew will neither gain nor lose HP every 10 minutes (1% HP gained minus 1% HP lost). If docked it will gain 1% of it's total HP back (1% HP gained minus 0% HP lost). Fully crewed with novice service crew would mean it gains 1% of total ship HP (2% HP gained minus 1% HP lost), or 2% if docked (2% HP gained minus 0% HP lost). If the ship while flying is fully crewed and all of the service crew are 5 star engineers, the ship would gain back 11% total ship HP (12% HP gained minus 1% HP lost)

The Egosoft hull repair effect for service crew on M sized ships and larger might have to be removed and replaced for this to work.

[Max Bain]

I really like this idea and would play with this mod if well done. I also think that ships should not completely be destroyed over time. A hard limit of 25% or 50% should be penalty enough. The damage could also be applied to ship mods like turrets, shields and engines.

[Falcrack]

I really like this idea and would play with this mod if well done. I also think that ships should not completely be destroyed over time. A hard limit of 25% or 50% should be penalty enough. The damage could also be applied to ship mods like turrets, shields and engines.

Anybody with skills is welcome to make it, it will most likely not be myself though since I am woefully lacking in modding skills!

[iforgotmysocks]

I think it would be interesting to have a mod where ships, as they are being flown, receive a very slow but regular amount of hull damage over time.

Hmm, i've played around with the idea for a bit and came to following conclusions:

1. Replacing the vanilla repair system is a bad idea, as it's really sophisticated, utilizes drones and is already well designed
-> the thing i did end up changing is that ships always repair to 100% hull if they can, the limit no longer depends on crew skill
2. Adding deterioration as an increasing damage factor that increases over time and at some point overtakes the repair capabilities (crew repair strength is being handled by vanilla), seems like a more realistic approach. Meaning better crews will notice the deterioration far later and can counter repair it for longer than bad or small crews.
3. S class ships are a bit of a problem. I gave them a basic repair amount based on crewskill and they now automatically repair fully upon undocking. This will still retain their repair behavior and carrier functions of repairing ships, but since the ai wasn't designed to constantly repair ships, filling that bar up upon undocking seems to make sense for s class ships. -> This doesn't change that some fighters will remain at the lowest hull limit tho.

So far those changes work kinda ok. Things i don't know yet is
1. if this has any noticable fps impact,
2. what to do with npc ships that won't have the ability to dock or repair somewhere after long times in space.

More details about stats (all just test values and need adjusting ofc):
- deterioration starts at 0,5% hull damage and is increased by 0.3% and applied every 1,5 to 2 minutes.
- (un)docking resets damage and repairs s sized ships
- 20% hull is the current lowest limit a ship will drop to
- in case the hull drops lower than 50%, shield fluctuations will occure regularly, that may discharge a larger portion of the shield

If that's heading towards the direction you had in mind, lemme know then i'll upload a test version.

[Max Bain]

That sounds pretty cool!

Just some suggestions and questions:

Suggestion: I would increase the lower hull limit to 50% or so. If I understand your mechanic right, a bad crew and a ship that hasnt docked for a long time has already the penalty of a lower repair rate (which becomes lower and lower over time). Shield fluctuation should then start at 50% or 60% hull.

Question 1: What does shield fluctuation mean exactly? And will it occur independently of the new mechanic? I mean if a brand new ship has lost a big amount of hull in combat, will shields fluctuate as well? Sounds like a cool idea but maybe its too bad for a damaged ship? On the other hand it sounds like a new game mchanic that can be used in combat and feels even realistic.

Question 2: How will repair drones of AI ships react to this? Will many AI ships start launching repair drones after some time and maybe lose them if they enter travel mode? This could be a potential bug/problem that needs to be tested.

Question 3: Can you give some numbers when the ship hull starts to drop with an empty crew (just captain), at 50% and 100% if they have about average stars of 1-2?
Its just a feeling but I think that a ship with above 50% hull should compensate the deterioration maybe completely but also remove the repair power if it takes additional damage in combat. A ship with full crew should be able to compensate and even repair in combat situations even after a very long time without docking.

In my opinion the mod should not force the player to micromanage all your ships to manually dock every few hours but more work as a penalty for ships without crew in combination with (your?) gettingpaid mod. So crew is important and cost money.

Edit: but sure you can release your version so I can have a look inside the code and modify it myself if I have the time to test it.

[kuertee]

Ok. I've built it. It's as simple as:

• service crew < 25% capacity: -2% damage per 10 minutes. Damage stops at 25% health.
• service crew < 50% capacity: -1% damage per 10 minutes
• service crew > 50% capacity: +1% repair per 10 minutes.
• service crew > 75% capacity: +2% repair per 10 minutes
• repair % multiplier when docked: x2. Note that ships do not need to be docked for 10 minutes. The mod will consider a quick dock/undock as a 10 minute dock AND will apply repairs (if there's enough service crew).
• all damage and repair % are applied to hull and engines. I think the hullpercentage property (i.e. health) of engines exists only on L and XL ships. Regardless of my changes (positive or negative) to engines on S and M ships return 0. Anyway, for those engines that HAVE health, this mod will work.
• THIS IS IMPORTANT: service crews cannot repair more than the actual wear and tear damage incurred. E.g. During a battle a ship incurs 75% hull damage. Wear and tear damage is applied after that. If the ship acquires more service crew, they cannot repair the ship over 75%.
• THIS IS ALSO IMPORTANT: any changes (positive or negative) to hull and engine health "absorbs" the wear and tear data. E.g. A ship incurs wear and tear damage, then gets battle damaged. That wear and tear damage becomes included into battle damage. Service crew cannot repair it any longer. Any wear and tear damage start at whatever health the ship is at from this time. This means two things:
  1. battle damage is never repaired by service crew
  2. repairs outside of this mod (e.g. repair drones (do these actually work>?), actual repair at wharf/dock, etc.) ALSO repair whatever wear and tear damage was incurred - as it obviously should
• No other changes are made. If ships auto-healing over time will heal wear and tear damage. I've not looked into auto-healing ships, so I've left this out (for now or ever, I don't know - until I play with this mod more).
• all of the above (including whether hull or engines take wear and tear) is configurable when Sr Nukes MOD Support API mod is installed.
• skill levels are not taken into account. I think Egosoft designed the gameplay systems to have very little (or no) "micro". Simply damaging hull and/or engines when crew levels are low is a "macro" view of this system (and is in line with Egosoft's mechanics, for me anyway).

Some more notes:

• You'll be able to shift marines into service crew at any time, and the mod will pick it up.
• Because wear and tear is not incurred if service crew is sufficient AND service crews can only repair the wear and tear that was incurred, the repair mechanic will only be noticeable when you have a ship with wear and tear damage AND THEN add sufficient service crew into it.

Here's a pre-release version: https://sites.google.com/site/kuertee/k ... ects=0&d=1
I'd really appreciate some testers.
Note that turning on the mod's debug mode (in the Extension Options, if Sr Nuke's Mod Support API mod is installed) will set the mod to apply/repair wear and tear every 10 seconds instead of every 10 minutes.

[xuancong]

It is very bad to have every ship fully packed with crews, you cannot transfer/exchange crew members among ships. This is particularly the case where the game does not allow you to temporarily transfer crews to your station.
So I suggest for gaining 2% of hull per 10 min fly, instead of 100% crew occupancy, it should be:
100% for S-ships
100%-1 for M-ships
100%-2 for L-ships
100%-3 for XL-ships
Or something along that line.

[kuertee]

I'm sure I've transfered crew between ships in space before.
It was added in that big update about a month ago.
The wear and tear rate and repair of them are all configurable anyway - but for all ship sizes, not separated into different ship sizes.

[Max Bain]

Ok. I've built it. It's as simple as:

• service crew < 25% capacity: -2% damage per 10 minutes. Damage stops at 25% health.
• service crew < 50% capacity: -1% damage per 10 minutes
• service crew > 50% capacity: +1% repair per 10 minutes.
• service crew > 75% capacity: +2% repair per 10 minutes
• repair % multiplier when docked: x2. Note that ships do not need to be docked for 10 minutes. The mod will consider a quick dock/undock as a 10 minute dock AND will apply repairs (if there's enough service crew).
• all damage and repair % are applied to hull and engines. I think the hullpercentage property (i.e. health) of engines exists only on L and XL ships. Regardless of my changes (positive or negative) to engines on S and M ships return 0. Anyway, for those engines that HAVE health, this mod will work.
• THIS IS IMPORTANT: service crews cannot repair more than the actual wear and tear damage incurred. E.g. During a battle a ship incurs 75% hull damage. Wear and tear damage is applied after that. If the ship acquires more service crew, they cannot repair the ship over 75%.
• THIS IS ALSO IMPORTANT: any changes (positive or negative) to hull and engine health "absorbs" the wear and tear data. E.g. A ship incurs wear and tear damage, then gets battle damaged. That wear and tear damage becomes included into battle damage. Service crew cannot repair it any longer. Any wear and tear damage start at whatever health the ship is at from this time. This means two things:
  1. battle damage is never repaired by service crew
  2. repairs outside of this mod (e.g. repair drones (do these actually work>?), actual repair at wharf/dock, etc.) ALSO repair whatever wear and tear damage was incurred - as it obviously should
• No other changes are made. If ships auto-healing over time will heal wear and tear damage. I've not looked into auto-healing ships, so I've left this out (for now or ever, I don't know - until I play with this mod more).
• all of the above (including whether hull or engines take wear and tear) is configurable when Sr Nukes MOD Support API mod is installed.
• skill levels are not taken into account. I think Egosoft designed the gameplay systems to have very little (or no) "micro". Simply damaging hull and/or engines when crew levels are low is a "macro" view of this system (and is in line with Egosoft's mechanics, for me anyway).

Some more notes:

• You'll be able to shift marines into service crew at any time, and the mod will pick it up.
• Because wear and tear is not incurred if service crew is sufficient AND service crews can only repair the wear and tear that was incurred, the repair mechanic will only be noticeable when you have a ship with wear and tear damage AND THEN add sufficient service crew into it.

Here's a pre-release version: https://sites.google.com/site/kuertee/k ... ects=0&d=1
I'd really appreciate some testers.
Note that turning on the mod's debug mode (in the Extension Options, if Sr Nuke's Mod Support API mod is installed) will set the mod to apply/repair wear and tear every 10 seconds instead of every 10 minutes.

What I dont like in this system is that the skill of the crew does not count for the regeneration, or am I wrong? Also I would like to have XL ships regenerate/deregenerate much slower than an S ship. But just my opinion

Edit: why not just let the ships degenerate with 1% every 10 minutes or so (pick a good value)? Then the normal regeneration of crew and skill would matter but still you need an adequate number of crewmen to compensate the degeneration. Simple and should work .

[kuertee]

I’m sure I stated why I didn’t take into consideration skill levels. Or didn’t I?

Also, this mod is a partial response to Falcrack’s request.

But good point about larger ships losing more health than smaller ships at 1%/2% per 10 minutes. But there is the argument that larger ships require larger maintenance resources and so 1% across different-sized ships is also appropriate.

The system is not to fully simulate wear and tear, it’s only to add another reason, and I think a more direct reason, for having crew. Ships efficiencies dependent on crew size/skill is too subtle, not visible enough for me.

[iforgotmysocks]

I'll shelf my approch then, altho i was aiming for a bit more realism i guess. Didn't realize someone was taking that on already. Pretty glad tho, too much on my plate already.

Maxbe consider the following:
- apply it to npc aswell, otherwise it doesn't make much sense
- maybe rethink the bonus repair given, even if the ship has full crew, wear on the ship shouldn't just negate itself and go away, it should just deteriorate slower.
- 2÷ is way too little, ships can repair from 1 - 100 (or rather their repair max depending on skill) in around 5 to 8 minutes?
- messing with the engines may not be the best idea (more relevant when npcs are involved)

[Falcrack]

Thanks kuertee for putting this together! I'm playing on my unmodded game for now, but I figure I'll eventually go back to a modded save game and be using this!

Does it apply to just player owned ships, or all NPC owned ships?

[kuertee]

Only player ships. I don't know if NPC ships have crew data or not.