23,000 LY And A Mistake: Would Fully Functional AFMU's Be Overpowered?

[Jane Turner]

The parameters exist where certain hardware failures result in "Game Over" versus complete destruction say in Combat. Offering an Auto Field-Maintenance Unit which does not repair these items makes the unit relatively worthless and does not balance the game very well. Likewise running out of fuel? Got a Fuel Scoop and use if often? That is balance. Currently the AFMU doesn't have that.

I agree. I've not bought one for that reason. It doesn't repair the things I would buy it to repair. I'd quite like the equivalent of Red Dwarf scutters. Targetable very slow repair bots.

 

[Lodorenos]

Sorry to hear, OP. I am a explorer myself and know how you must be feeling.
Still, i can't support the idea.
What's the primary skill of an explorer ?
Scanning ? Navigating ? Knowledge of profitable astronomical bodies ?
None of these in my opinion.
It's keeping your ship out of trouble, keeping the rate of errors low.
Knowing when to log, pacing yourself, concentration, judging when to call it a day and to start the return trip (a situation you find yourself in now).
I faced the same decision not long ago, at 78% hull and 10.000ly from home....i went home, knowing that more errors where bound to happen.
A FMU as suggested would take the sting out of exploring, for me personally, it might possibly be enough to quit it altogether.

I see your point, but as it stands exploration is one of the most time consuming least rewarding professions in the game. You can make money faster by trading than you can by actually spending the same amount of time selling data. The other professions have less risk, a station is always a few jumps away. We don't have to make it so hard, we're allowed to have fun as well.

 

[Kayweg]

I see your point, but as it stands exploration is one of the most time consuming least rewarding professions in the game. You can make money faster by trading than you can by actually spending the same amount of time selling data. The other professions have less risk, a station is always a few jumps away. We don't have to make it so hard, we're allowed to have fun as well.

Fair enough, i see your point too.
There's nothing wrong with disagreeing.

 

[Zieman]

A fully functional AFMU... no, it'd not be overpowered - but it should take *time* to fix things, not just a click of a button. And when low in "ammo", you should be able to go mining for various metals required, provided you also haul along a refinery and mining laser - possibly a (yet not existing) mini-factory of sorts. That'd make AFMU much less "god-mode" - hunting for things you need for repairs.

Couldn't have said it better. +1

 

[remosito]

knowing you might not be able to get back in one piece is half the thrill of exploring for me. And I prefer my games rather unforgiving. where making a crucial mistake will cost you dearly!

 

[Defacto]

We were going to have ship maintainance limiting ranges... system failures, stuff exploding, etc.
Here, I think it was planned for the AFM to make limited repairs and restore some system functionality so that you can get back to civilized space before it's too late.
Of course, that doesn't happen...

 

[Guyperson]

I have to agree that the field repair module isn't terribly useful as it's currently implemented. As far as combat goes it's cumbersome to use in a hurry, and if you're taking enough hull damage to lose modules you're better off just bugging out to get proper repairs. You're never far from a starport if you're engaging in combat anyway as you need them for ammo/hull repair and for the traffic that allows you to get into a fight in the first place.

The repair module seems like something you'd use in deep space away from a convenient local starport, but it just doesn't work that way at all. Exploration was never in very good state and being offered a useless toolkit in the outfitting menu just adds insult to injury.

A fully functional AFMU... no, it'd not be overpowered - but it should take *time* to fix things, not just a click of a button. And when low in "ammo", you should be able to go mining for various metals required, provided you also haul along a refinery and mining laser - possibly a (yet not existing) mini-factory of sorts. That'd make AFMU much less "god-mode" - hunting for things you need for repairs.

That does sound like a better way to do it. Prevent it from being another shield cell bank while giving explorers a way to keep flying.

 

[Nutter]

Overpowered? Don't understand... If it is meant to repair then let it repair, if you need parts, mine the ore and pass it through a 3D printer module (Make your own hull plates or whatever)
<RANT>
Everything in this game is effected by PvP pew pew. If it's not pew pew it goes to the bottom of the pile!

Repairing the hull would be cheating in pew pew so it's nerfed and useless, taking out thrusters in combat is a 'win' so you are not allowed to repair them, same goes for the other pew pew stuff.

What really annoyed me is when they brought in shield potions, that magic your shields back for pew pew - no use to an explorer what so ever! Then loads of missions for pew pew, then loads of mission fixes for pew pew.

Then a 100ly route planner for the milk runners.

If it's Exploring or Mining you want to do, don't hold your breath for tools to do the job.

As for the AFMU in it's current form, its of NO use whatsoever for an explorer. Wastes of space, energy and it adds to your wear and tear bill! - How ironic! </RANT>

 

[Old Joe]

I'd change the AFMU the following way:
It should be able to repair all internal systems, not hull damage, so you can keep your ship going but still have to fight with hull deg or damage. If an internal sytem is destroyed completely it would be a good compromise if you could restore it to working condition but it should reduce the effectiveness until properly repaired in dock.
So you would not be totally f**'ed up if your thrusters or FSD go down but you would have to deal with the consequences for some time...

 

[Sparkie]

Voted "no" as it should be easy to balance for combat use should that be an issue. Such as with slow repair rates, for example. I don't think hard point retraction would work as well unless use during running away to super cruise was deemed ok.

 

[ollobrains]

allow humanity to expand, with barley functioning outposts starting to pop up for either science or other reasons - a scout outpost as prt of exploration if a group of players can say supply a faction in setting up a research facility 2000 LY away. and haul mission materials that far and eventually it might become a fully outpost, but the time and efort to help humanity expand could be a role of exploration and long range gamplay

 

[virosh]

Blah. I am too sleepy this morning.
Accidentally voted "Yes" instead of "No".

 

[Lodorenos]

Blah. I am too sleepy this morning.
Accidentally voted "Yes" instead of "No".

I did the same, no worries. I think overall the consensus is clear.

 

[Danneh]

I like the idea of mining for ammo, could really bring a sense of relief if you come across that ringed gas giant while exploring after cooking your cargo hatch a little, and it breaks up the monotony a little. It wouldn't be overpowered at all provided the repair is too slow to be useful *during* combat (except maybe in extreme cases, buff to anaconda durability?). Plus, it adds something for those people that lose their drives, you can shut off all systems and wait and pray to drift, unseen, until your assailant leaves. Then repair your drives to a working level and live to fight another day.

As they are right now I can't imagine anyone carries a repair module, it just isn't worth the sacrificed internal slot over anything else.

 

[Chevy66]

I made a mistake last night, I'm now 2000Ly from sol with a cracked screen

I guess it would be a bit unrealistic to repair the screen with AFMU though, I want some duct tape

 

[Hamerstein]

No it wouldn't be overpowered, providing certain conditions applied (other people have written about this).

Why it needs to be done? Because at the moment the unit is almost a waste of a module slot.

As to why it could fix anything? It's a magic box, or at least that's how it's portrayed. It can repair some incredibly complex ship's systems but not produce a plain old hull patch or a cockpit patch...even Autoglass can do that!

I like the idea of combining it's functionality with a refinery and some on-the-fly mining, cool idea.

 

[zdaar]

Has anyone here read the excellent Frederik Pohl's series "Heechee" series ? The first book is called "Gateway", and is about the dangers of space exploration in the early age of human expansion into space. Every explorer worth its salt should read it for perspective

Here is the beginning of the synopsis from the wiki page

"Gateway is a space station built into a hollow asteroid (or perhaps the dead heart of a comet) constructed by the Heechee, a long-vanished alien race. Humans have had limited success understanding Heechee technology found there and elsewhere in the solar system. The Gateway Corporation administers the asteroid on behalf of the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, New People's Asia, the Venusian Confederation, and the United States of Brazil.
Nearly a thousand small, abandoned starships are at Gateway. By extremely dangerous trial and error, humans learn how to operate the ships. The controls for selecting a destination have been identified, but nobody knows where a particular setting will take the ship or how long the trip will last; starvation is a danger. Attempts at reverse engineering to find out how they work have ended only in disaster, as has changing the settings in mid-flight. Most settings lead to useless or lethal places. A few, however, result in the discovery of Heechee artifacts and habitable planets, making the passengers (and the Gateway Corporation) wealthy."

This is how I think exploration should be. Hell even recently Interstellar had a good representation about how disastrous it can be to just go talk a walk in the far off reaches. How fun would that movie have been if there wasnt so much unfathomable space dangers in it ? Granted we have all these FSD drives in year 3k but you can still feel the limitations of the tech. Humans just figured out how to build big ships and make them go far and fast. The tech in ED is not that far fetched imo. Even if it's not based on actual science, there is no suspention of disbelief for me, it just works and i bet it does for you you scifi nerds . What is a bit too much is a module that repairs your entire damaged hull on the fly. Now if you had Repair Drones you had to keep in your cargo hold (R2's of sorts) you could imagine having a full stop and letting them make quick fixes to the hull (one could dream of beeing able to spacewalk out of your ship and witness them do dirty emergency reparations) . But a module ? What is it, a nano swarm of quantum linked microbots repairing ship integrity like nothing ? If they had that tech you could build entire ships in minutes in big spaceyards, it seems too advanced even for year 3K.

Now I understand the rewards of exploration are too few so the risk taken feels too big for the actual reward, but every area of the game is like that right now. It's just not very rewarding and lacks content in several areas. Before the Instant Gratification Police shows up, I dont mean I want to get everything handed to me asap, but as for now you could sink 100+ hours in exploration and have nothing but a couple of screenshots to show for it, and a measly underfitted mid tier ship. Same for mining. Trading has it's problemes, so does Bounty hunting.

But what is actually balanced is how dangerous space exploration is. If anything it should be even more dangerous. If you make it easier now, when and if they deepen the gameplay it would lose alot of the thrill, and frankly I think alot of people would agree that making a game easier is worse in the long term. How cool would it be if you could actually get sucked by black holes and get your systems offline flying too close to a Magnetar, having to reboot them manually in fps mode while you hear your hull tearing in the distance ? In the dev log they were talking about how they wish players would have to actually fix their ship themselves in some situation. I think there is potential for gameplay here.

Space exploration is and should be dangerous so as to be thrilling, the basics are there, let the dev expand upon them but making it easier now because it's not rewarding is just a way to vent of frustration generated by the lack of content.

my 2 cents

 

[Chevy66]

I must admit, when I did crack my canopy last night even though I'm now in danger of losing a weeks progress with one more mistake it did make me laugh. It added some excitement and danger.

I now have to try and get back without it blowing out. If I manage that there will be an added sense of achievement

 

[mono]

Agree with a lot of the OP's comments (and Nutter's thoughts on PvP getting precedence).

 

[WO-One]

I'll add a useful capability.

Those 'Cargo' areas you are not using while exploring, they should be capable of carrying your necessary supplies, like refills for the Repair Module, or do we assume that they are all full up of Food & Water for you as a pilot.

It must take a set of actions and a time delay to reload the Repair Module, not just the flick of a switch.

Reason…

Ammo for your Guns should/could be carried the same way and an instantaneous reload must not be a possibility, it should reflect the time it would take you to walk back to the cargo space, get the items you need, carry them to the ammo receptacle and load them.

Likewise if you reload several slots (Rounds, Heatsinks, Missiles etc) each should be a consecutive action, not one time to restock all.

What we can’t have is the Merc’s, BH’s and Pirates only carrying reloads and instantly reloading everything.