Newcomer / Intro Ship integrity Repair Options

[Jumpin' Jack Flash]

Hi

I'm not exactly a newcomer to Elite Dangerous, but I thought I'd post a query here as it's one mechanic I've never been able to fully understand.
Here's a recent example of what I'm confused about....In the ship integrity menu my Orca is listed as this...."Ship Integrity (100% 9204 cr)".
The option to pay the 9204 credits is 'greyed out', in other words if I click on the option to pay the credit sum nothing happens.
Now I know from experience that at some time this option becomes highlighted, and then I 'can' pay off the integrity repair cost (which will be considerably more than 9204 cr). I presume that once the ships integrity falls below 100% then the option to pay becomes available?
Comparing this to the mechanic of fuel 'top up' even if the fuel tank is only slightly below 100% filled, say 99% full for example, I can still top it up to 100%. So why is my ship integrity at 100% but I can't pay off this 9204 cr deficit?....or put it another way, what does that 9204 cr number signify at this present moment in time?
.
I also own a few other ships, my Asp for example will have an average lower 'integrity' cost to my Orca, this I can understand...smaller ship, lower potential integrity cost, but the same question is relevant here.
I would have thought that if a credit sum is displayed (in this case 9204 cr) then the integrity percentage should represent this with a percentage figure slightly lower than 100%?...*shrugs*... confusing!
.
Jack

 

[Dommarraa]

It may be 99.6%, but you cant fix it till it goes to 99.4%. That value does look pretty high for such a small amount of damage on a ship of that value, may just be another thing that fixes itself by exiting and restarting.
The cost is based on the total value of your ship when you load the game (or switch ships), unless they have fixed that little anomaly. When the Integrity costs were a lot higher. People sometimes sold their expensive components, exit and reload, fix the ship, buy the components back. Its not a lot of money nowadays so rarely worth the bother.