Ship lives, Don't do IT!

[Wildcard64]

Ok so ill start off with not sure if this is the right place to put this, it is more of a counter idea to something mentioned on the stream going over .23 release coming up.

 

Toward the end of the video Jc mentioned Ship lives, not sure if it was mentioned else were, i have tried to re-watch it but did not find if he mentioned it elsewhere but this seems like a really bad idea to me, and seems to go against the idea of realism / simulator DU is shooting for.

 

So he mentioned not wanting to fly with a ship that only had 1 life left that most people would want to fly with a ship with 3 or something. This is not even close to real and would be a really poor idea. Hear me out. I look around at real life and let take cars for example. There are some really old cars out there some beaters and some in really good condition, but i guarantee  that even some of those really nice cars have seen a rough life at some point. Some have had new engines put in them but some are pristine all original just really well taken care of. Are there some car out there that burn to the ground and there is nothing to save sure. But i have also seen some car that were in really bad condition fully restored. I guess what i am trying to say is putting a hard limit on how many times a ship can be fixed till it is "dead" seems like a really poor idea.

 

What i would like to offer in it place is a, I feel, much better idea. Not only a better idea but something that could be expanded into a whole other level of game play. Instead of a ship life how about an component life. To begin with you could literally just say an engine or some other component can only be repaired some amount of times before it can not be repaired again. This in it self would drive ships not to die but have to be maintained. if you are constantly running into pirates and they are shooting out an engine, then it will cost you replacement of an engine or multiple depending on your ship obviously.

 

So to bring the whole new game play to the game would be to add a mechanic class of sorts. Let add on to the component life, now when you go to repair an item rather then just fully fixing it now when is it damaged one of the stats take a hit. So sticking with engines, when repaired now it will out put less thrust then it did before. But hold on how does a mechanic play into this well rather then just pulling out your fix everything tool and slapping a patch on it with some scrap, maybe now you have someone fix your ship for you because they have talents into proper repair of said item.and rather then using scrap said mechanic has to use a % of the original items used to craft the engine. This could reduce the loss of your thrust on your engine and or set it back to original level based on the level of skill of the mechanic. So now you have back yard mechanic vs Trained and certified repairs. For this service you could charge a fee, you have just made a new class Mechanic!

 

Now take it a step further you have mobile mechanic, same as above but someone that comes to fix your ship in space. This is a step above you just slapping a bandaid on it to get you home, maybe if you repair it you wont have enough lift from the wings to get you safely back into the atmosphere with out crashing and burning into a glorious ball of death, so you call out the guy or gal that has the skills to get it fixed better!

 

But no one wants to sit there and repair ships all day in this new age of technology right? So what about repair facilities. So you called out the mobile guy to fix the ship or maybe you were able to fix it yourself. But you need better repairs. So now you take it to a repair shop. You drop your ship off at the repair shop, they scan the ship and it is going to take X amount it items to fix everything back to original stat, and a mount of time to complete all the repairs ( this would be a % of the original items used to make the damaged parts and a % of the time also taken to make the item(s) that are needing restoration). you let the customer know and then charge for the repairs. you comeback and get you ship after a set amount of time. and all parts are now as good as new.

 

Also if you drop your ship off with a blue print they could also fix all of your honeycomb to its state that matches the blue print.

 

Now you want to have a little fun, add in the ability for mechanics to upgrade/tweak items for better performance, trying to squeeze out every newton of force or maybe just trying to lighten the load. A mechanic can do that for you!

 

This idea comes from watching the mandalorian. In this new season his ship has been damaged multiple times, he has fixed it, he had a hack of a mechanic fix it and then had a really good mechanic fix it. This idea could add great depth and fun to the game play, ship lives will not. They will ruin it i promise.

 

So in short i think it is a very game braking idea to only be able to fix a ship so many times before you have to completely rebuild it, especially with the addition of the ability to buying a one time use blue print for ships. If i buy a heavy freight hauler i am going to run into pirates and i am going to get shot at, why would i buy someone's build if i am going to loose it after three run ins with pirates. I am not! You are breaking your own game play by doing this.  At least start off with item lives not ship lives. At least this way i only have to replace items not the whole ship. And if you want to give cores lives then figure out a way that i can replace it.

 

I will not PVP if i have to completely rebuild my ship every so many times. What are your thoughts?

[Haunty]

1 hour ago, Wildcard64 said:

Instead of a ship life how about an component life.

I believe that's what he meant, that's how it was explained in the devblog, each element gets 3 lives, except for containers which get 5.

 

And for honeycombs, I didn't hear anything about the repair element, but I hope that will be working after the patch too.

[Wildcard64]

Looks like a misunderstood that part, though i still think the above idea would add depth to the game rather then a hard limit on component lives... not three strikes and your out but a it will cost ya to be to cheap. and an opportunity for a new way to make money.