Repair Costs Are Far Too Low

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

In the recent dealings with the new 'content', I've returned my 120,000,000cr FDL to the dock, at 10% hull, and many modules at 0-15%.
Yet my repair bill was just 225,000cr.

Update
After much discussion, ranting, arguing, etc, a kind CMDR has wrecked his Corvette, in the name of science!
From this test, an almost complete repair works out to around just 0.5% of the ships value.
Make of that, what you will. But I believe it's far too low for the current in game economy.
Despite what I said below, I now believe that repairs should be increased, but capped at 2.5%. This seems more meaningful and fair. Although there have been many other excellent suggestions to adjust repair costs based in reputation or ship type.



Your normal programming will resume....

A few weeks ago, my Anaconda, worth 440,000,000cr ran in to some issues at a CNB. (I met a very unhappy Elite pirate or 6!)
Now my Anaconda doesn't have any armour, but I limped home with low hull, and quite heavy module damage...

Spoiler

(I usually take no damage at all (except heat) so I consider this "heavy damage")

And when I docked...

Spoiler

Only 550~k repair bill?!?

IMHO,the repair costs should be increased about 10-20x, but the maximum repair cost should be capped at around 4% of the value of your ship. Just a bit lower than your rebuy.
(Otherwise you'd just blow up a heavily damaged ship instead of repairing it)

Make repairs mean something, other than a random button to push while docking. Lol

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Morbad]

Nearly all your badly damaged modules are cheap ones, with not one of the big/expensive core modules (PP, PD, Thrusters) below 90%.

 

[Watcher]

It seems to be very dependant on what gets damaged and so on.
We've also had much higher costs in the past but a) lots of people complained and b) there were instances of it being cheaper to simply blow up your ship than repair it.
The first of those I suspect FD could ignore but the second essentially put a hard cap on repair costs. I'd be interested to see how close you can get to your rebuy cost these days..
You could say the AFMU adds an interesting element, it can be cheaper to use that now than repairing at a station. Of course you pay in time and convenience so perhaps that is a reasonable trade off.

 

[S3B4ST13N]

Increase repair costs.
Increase insurance costs.
Introduce the ability for modules to break; Broken modules cannot be repaired and must be replaced (if it's engineered, tough cookies, you'll need to re-engineer it).

 

[fademist]

so u want to go back to the start repairs? (sometimes repair cost was above insurance)

 

[masCh]

There's an opportunity here.

Yes I too agree that the repair costs are too low now that I think about it.

It should always be more expensive to fix something than to buy something new.
If we're down to 10% hull, it should have cost us more to fix it rather than to buy it again.

But of course we won't scrap it to buy it new, we're attached to it (especially we're attached to the mods that we've made to it). So we would always opt to repair it rather than buy a new one, whatever the cost could be.

(Besides as often said by the rich CMDRs, money is worthless in this game. This is a chance to make it worthwhile again)

 

[777Driver]

so u want to go back to the start repairs? (sometimes repair cost was above insurance)

The devs never truly fixed the issue. Initially combat payouts was so low that combat pilots struggled to make ends meet, a knee jerk reaction was slashing repair costs (messing up the balance of many ships) A few patches later they adjusted integrity repairs (Nothing to do with normal repairs) in many cases the integrity repair was higher than the insurance payout, end result was integrity costs also getting slashed and becoming meaningless.

As far as I am aware integrity & repair costs have never been looked at again, costs are so low that we don't even need to think about them.

Same deal with fuel, slashed because (Some) Python & Anaconda Cmdrs spent more on fuel and repairs then they gained in combat, this is back when you might get a few hundred credits for a kill.

The whole balance of running a ship is still based on the rubbish payouts we would get more than a year ago.

 

[CorvenDallas]

so u want to go back to the start repairs? (sometimes repair cost was above insurance)

...and that's not so rare, some car accidents end up with the car as junk, because repairing would cost more than buy a new one.

This could be a way of making Elite more "Dangerous" than actually is.

 

[Redomus]

I find it disturbing that you are requesting this without the thought of the rest of the community. If its cheap for you, great you are space rich. Not everyone is.. there are wider implications to just jacking up the price.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Like I said, repairs should be more expensive, but capped below the rebuy for the sake of enjoyment.

Although, to be honest, if I fluffed up combat that badly, that my Anaconda cost 50,000,000cr to repair, so be it. Lol
Although, I can still earn 50,000,000cr without taking any damage (except heat. Damn Packhounds!).

My images in my OP was the first time in ages I've needed to repair combat damage. My Anacondas shields almost never drop. And I could have avoided most of that damage by high waking, but I wanted to finish my mission.

Having high repair costs can be fun, you can get that Hans Solo feeling of not being able to fully repair your ship until a big payday.

Of course, the min/maxers will be up in arms of the profittsssss but they always are anyway. Lol

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Redomus]

I hope I can earn 50mil creds while taking no damage one day lol. I'd be happy to earn 1-3 mil with no damage.

 

[ShadowWolf Kell]

The devs never truly fixed the issue. Initially combat payouts was so low that combat pilots struggled to make ends meet, a knee jerk reaction was slashing repair costs (messing up the balance of many ships) A few patches later they adjusted integrity repairs (Nothing to do with normal repairs) in many cases the integrity repair was higher than the insurance payout, end result was integrity costs also getting slashed and becoming meaningless.

As far as I am aware integrity & repair costs have never been looked at again, costs are so low that we don't even need to think about them.

Same deal with fuel, slashed because (Some) Python & Anaconda Cmdrs spent more on fuel and repairs then they gained in combat, this is back when you might get a few hundred credits for a kill.

The whole balance of running a ship is still based on the rubbish payouts we would get more than a year ago.

You gotta admit, you miss the days of paying 50k-100k for fuel on your Type 9 for one trade leg.

As I recall, repair and Wear and Tear were increased to compensate, but were reduced at some point. Horizons or Engineers maybe. I'd be perfectly fine for the Big 3 and other ships to go back to paying high repairs based on their hull mass and value, scaling with the overall worth of the ship. Additionally, Wear and Tear should reduce the ship's maximum down to 30% rather than the 70% it is now.

 

[Morbad]

Like I said, repairs should be more expensive, but capped below the rebuy for the sake of enjoyment.

That really doesn't leave much wiggle room, especially for those with reduced insurance costs.

I'm fairly confident I can do about half the rebuy cost in damage to my ships.

 

[StiTch]

If we're down to 10% hull, it should have cost us more to fix it rather than to buy it again.

But of course we won't scrap it to buy it new, we're attached to it (especially we're attached to the mods that we've made to it). So we would always opt to repair it rather than buy a new one, whatever the cost could be.

Oh do be serious.

The devs never truly fixed the issue. Initially combat payouts was so low that combat pilots struggled to make ends meet, a knee jerk reaction was slashing repair costs (messing up the balance of many ships) A few patches later they adjusted integrity repairs (Nothing to do with normal repairs) in many cases the integrity repair was higher than the insurance payout, end result was integrity costs also getting slashed and becoming meaningless.

As far as I am aware integrity & repair costs have never been looked at again, costs are so low that we don't even need to think about them.

Same deal with fuel, slashed because (Some) Python & Anaconda Cmdrs spent more on fuel and repairs then they gained in combat, this is back when you might get a few hundred credits for a kill.

The whole balance of running a ship is still based on the rubbish payouts we would get more than a year ago.

Quite. In various leaps the game moved from an immersive and challenging financial system, which required CMDRs to work quite hard/play frugally, to arcade style "throw money at them and have inconsequential expenditures, but don't get rid of them so we can pretend they still exist".

 

[DNA-Decay]

Which one if you said "It should always be more expensive to fix it than to buy something new."?

I'll fight you anywhere. Right now.

We have the the right to wiring diagrams and error codes.
We have the right to devices that can be opened.

If you cant fix it - You don't own it.

 

[Hasaf]

I can still earn 50,000,000cr without taking any damage

So can I, the issue is that it will take me about a month to do it. Like most of these "raise the cost" ideas, it pays no regard to the players who are not ingame wealthy.

 

[StiTch]

Which one if you said "It should always be more expensive to fix it than to buy something new."?

I'll fight you anywhere. Right now.
https://lifeasahuman.com/files/2010/11/ifixit_manifesto_900x13901.jpg

That gave me a good chuckle. "We have the right: to remove 'do not remove' stickers". Legendary.

Though the picture does heavily resemble some form of Soviet propaganda...

So can I, the issue is that it will take me about a month to do it. Like most of these "raise the cost" ideas, it pays no regard to the players who are not ingame wealthy.

It should be an active part of ship balancing. If you want to utilise a warship that's among the biggest 3 of them in the game, then sorry not sorry it shouldn't be a "free to run" affair. Repairs for it should be expensive. You should have to mitigate as much damage to the vessel as possible.

And if you cannot fly a ship into combat without getting it mashed, then find out why and change it, or fight with friends - or use a ship that isn't expensive to run.

Like most "lower the cost" ideas, it pays no regard to players that want ED to be engaging instead of a pew-pew arcade game.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

They definitely can be increased a bit. Maybe not by huge margin though, because sometimes it can bite quite a lot.

 

[phong]

Totally disagree.Cripple the traders and you throttle piracy.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I hope I can earn 50mil creds while taking no damage one day lol. I'd be happy to earn 1-3 mil with no damage.

Anaconda + grade 5 thermal resistance Class 7 Prismatic Shields + 5 shield boosters (3 G5 heavy duty, 2 G5 resistance augmented) = 2100mj of shields and 50~% all round resistances.
Which equals almost never taking anything but heat damage. Lol

Prior to the images shown, I'd made hundreds of millions of credits from missions, CGs, and bounty hunting, without ever losing shields.
Not sure what I did to tick off those few NPC's that wrecked my ship, but they are incredibly rare anyway.

A bit of maths here:
Let's assume (because I don't keep track), I make around 100,000,000cr a month.
I've had my Anaconda ("Pancake") for over a year and a half. Let's say 20 months.
So that's 2,000,000,000cr. Roughly.
My Anaconda cost around 440,000,000cr to buy.

So I have 1,560,000,000cr left.
My rebuy is 22,000,000cr. I'm on Pancake IV. So I've lost 3 in 20 months (all due to landing/docking 'accidents', involving flattening NPC's and skimmers - hence name "Pancake").
Now my rebuy wasn't 22,000,000cr for all 3 Anacondas, but let's assume it was.
66,000,000cr from my "profits" of 1,560,000,000cr is 1,494,000,000cr.

And I've had 1 "large" repair bill of 558,000cr....

I still made around 1,493,442,000cr, minus ammo, fuel, and integrity repairs, which I don't track.

Therefore, repair costs are too low.

Or I'm too good. Lol

Even if I had a 500,000cr repair bill, a week, I'd still have made 1,453,442,000cr. Lol

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

Disclaimer: My monthly earnings are not 100% accurate, as I don't even have 1.4bn in total assets. Some months I earn nothing, or lose money by just mess about, others I take part in every CG, others I run missions for rank. My average is probably much closer to 50,000,000cr a month.