Please tell me campaign damage is not repaired instantly!

[raydude]

However, I dont' believe having to manually repair units is "penalizing" the player. It seems that we would have to repair our ships after a major battle, as it is an essential part of a galactic commander's strategy. It forces them to carefully consider how they spend their credits, as they ask themselves, "Should I repair my fleet before attacking my next target, or should I save the resources to build new ships, using my damaged ships as the 'clean-up' fleet?"

 

Let's say the winner chooses to repair his ships. This would give the loser a fighting chance. While the winner repairs his fleet, it would buy time for the loser to rebuild his ships, as his fleet would undoubtedly be in shambles at the end of the battle. However, if the repairs are instant, then the winner would immediately set out to conquer the next planet, while the loser won't have any time to rebuild his fleets. As the war between the two progresses, it would become increasingly one-sided, as the initial winner's armies become more and more powerful, while the initial loser becomes weaker and weaker.

 

Also, hit and run tactics is the main form of warfare for the Rebellion. Any rebel player has to jump in unexpectedly, strike hard and fast, and then hit the retreat button before the Imperials can retaliate. The goal of these guerrilla tactics is not to destroy the enemy, but to hurt the enemy. It forces the Imperials to waste valuable time and money to repair ships (once again, the Imperial player must decide if he should repair the fleet or not). But if the Imperials get free and instant repairs, it defeats the whole purpose of hit-and-runs.

 

It's true that manually rebuilding the fleets would take longer, but it would help balance the power between the two sides. Also, if you use the Rebellion system of having ships at a space station repair much faster, it could speed up the game.

 

I hope you would take my thoughts into account and maybe revisit the repair system. And thanks again for all your efforts into creating this game. 

 

Agreed. I think we should take it a step further and make repairs dependent upon building the "spare parts" transports at a friendly system and then sending them to the fleet location. After all, logistics is 75-80% of what real commanders have to worry about, why not make game players have to worry about it as well? Actually, if you want to be really realistic, you could force ships to have to go back to "drydock" structures before they can be repaired. That's what ships have had to do in WW2. Any ships damaged in the Pacific had to limp all the way back to Peal Harbor to be repaired. Same thing with the USS Cole when she got damaged from a terrorist bomb in the Persian Gulf. She had to sail all the way back to the US for them to do repair work on her.

 

Then you'd see the real difference in play dynamic between the Empire and Rebellion. The Rebellion conducts hit and fade attacks, damaging ships that have to be sent back to base for repairs. Obviously the Empire is not going to waste manpower guarding those damaged ships so the Rebels can pounce on them while they are limping back for repairs.

 

My post above is mostly in jest. However, something appears odd to me. People are complaining about instant repair as if the winner is the only one who's ships are repaired. If I read the "instant repair" design right the loser's ships get instantly repaired as well. So, lets lay out the two scenarios:

 

(with instant repair on)

1. Fleet A vs Fleet B. Fleet A takes 50% destroyed, 25% damaged. Fleet B takes 75% destroyed, 25% damaged.

After battle is resolved they both go back to the galactic map and Fleet A is at 50% of original strength. Fleet B is at 25% of original strength.

 

(with instant repair off, both sides have to pay credits to repair)

2. Fleet A vs. Fleet B. Fleet A takes 50% destroyed, 25% damaged. Fleet B takes 75% destroyed, 25% damaged

Lets say the amount of credits to repair 1% of damage is X. Thus, Fleet A spends 25X to repair its fleet. Fleet B spends 25X to repair its fleet.

How is this any different from case 1, other than that both sides have had to spend 25X?

[rogueace127]

First of all, its true that the losing side also gets instant repairs under the current system. And its also true that if both sides repair their ships to the max, it would be just as if they had instant repairs. But one of my points in my previous post is that no one is forcing the players to repair their ships. They could decide not to repair them and just use them as a diversion or a "clean-up" fleet in the next battle, or they can repair them to full health and use them as their main force. Either way, it's up to their own preference and strategy.

 

Secondly, as I said in my post, the Rebellion relies on quick raids to damage the enemy. How could they do that if the enemy is repaired after every single raid?

 

And third, why did you agree with me and then change your mind, and saying you were joking? From what I could tell, you seemed to genuinely agree with my post.

[Darthscharnhorst2]

I seriously do not understand why the need to repair ships was not included.  If it has to do with simplicity, simply allow the ships to repair themselves over time while in orbit, double this speed when at a star base. This would require no extra clicking but add a ton of realism and *real* strategy.  If a player "gets bored waiting for their ships to repair" they can simply build new ones or risk sending them in understrength. 

 

Better yet, allow realism settings to be turned on and off an make EVERYONE happy.  As it sounds, ship repair was not instant in an older build of the game, why not allow those of us who prefer it to turn it back on?

[raydude]

First of all, its true that the losing side also gets instant repairs under the current system. And its also true that if both sides repair their ships to the max, it would be just as if they had instant repairs. But one of my points in my previous post is that no one is forcing the players to repair their ships. They could decide not to repair them and just use them as a diversion or a "clean-up" fleet in the next battle, or they can repair them to full health and use them as their main force. Either way, it's up to their own preference and strategy.

 

Secondly, as I said in my post, the Rebellion relies on quick raids to damage the enemy. How could they do that if the enemy is repaired after every single raid?

 

And third, why did you agree with me and then change your mind, and saying you were joking? From what I could tell, you seemed to genuinely agree with my post.

 

My apologies. What I really wanted to say was that I am of the opinion to wait and see how the campaign plays out in the full retail game than rely on the demo. But, if I were to ask for realism to be implemented for repairs, I would prefer it not be a half-assed implementation but a full blown process. Thus, repairs should not be a simple matter of clicking on the "repair" icon. Do it the way the big boys do it in the real world - send the damaged ships back to base for repairs. On thinking about it, I can see the possibilities for how this plays out:

 

Case 1, Imperial invasion of a Rebel planet. Imperials bring overwhelming force but the Rebels manage to damage all the hangers in the Imperial fleet before retreating. Now the Imperials can't use Tie Bombers in the ground offensive because all the hangers are broken. They have to send those ships back for repairs and decide whether or not to continue the ground offensive without them.

 

Case 2, Rebel raiding force manages to damage a small Imperial fleet. However, the turbolaser batteries on the frigates are destroyed. Does the Rebel force continue raiding without that firepower? Do they risk sending the frigates back by themselves?

 

So yeah, I can see how the full blown method of repairs adds more strategy and tactical decision making to the player. I do not see how just pushing a repair icon and deducting credits adds the same thing.

[Zarkov]

Hi first post,

 

I agree fleet repairs would be nice, but it’s going to be harder to implement than people might think. The ability to repair a ship by either method (credits or time) isn’t that difficult to code but making sure the AI makes good decisions on when to send or when not to send ships is.

 

The AI probably doesn’t have an overall battle plan. (I.E. it’s not going to know which ships it will need at what point during it’s campaign.) It’s just going to expand until it meets a barrier (most likely the player) and then start building troops to overcome that barrier. Add some research abilities and  a strength analysis so the AI will perceive threats and weak points and you have a pretty robust AI. 

 

But it’s not going to plan it’s battles in advance so it won’t know which ships should be repaired first. Which kind of debunks the repairs for credits idea.

 

The idea of having ships repair gradually over time could be coded in provided you set some general guidelines such as ships should not be sent if hull is <50% or engines, shields 50% of turbo lasers are destroyed. But this does require te AI to adjust it’s threat analysis to damaged units is doable but would require a lot of extra coding. An ISD with its right turbo laser and ion battery destroyed is how much of a threat? And remember the AI is going to have to do these calculations  hundreds of time per second (or however often the AI re-evaluates it’s situation)  on the galactic map during an advanced game. This could be a problem for people with slow computers.

 

I think it’s far easier to change the depth of the game buy adjusting other parameters such as build time, build costs, hyperspace speed for ships/stations and land units and hyperspace detection ranges. From what I’ve seen from the modded demo the ai can be aggressive enough to warrant the player to at least leave some units on most of it’s planets.

 

The increased cost of ships (in both time and money) in combination with the slower response time caused by a slower hyperspace speed setting and need to protect your planets should result in every single ship to become much more valuable and at the same time prevent massive uber fleets from being created.

 

Thus making a successful hit and run attack far more devastating, if you or the AI destroys a ship it hurts. If the AI is foolish enough to leave a single ship in orbit somewhere than you should be able to destroy it with a hit and run attack. Think 3 x-wings and 3 y-wings for a small ship and a couple of Nebulon B’s with fighter support for an ISD. If you can’t destroy an ISD in the middle of a fleet of support ships then ‘tough luck’ an ISD or mon-cal is a massive warship and shouldn’t be al that easily destroyed by a bunch of rebels old pieces of junk or arrogant imperials in shoddy sub-contracted equipment..

 

Now what was I trying to say?

 

Oh yeah, instant repair is in, well Méh!. It’s not what I would have wanted In the game, but it’s nothing to get upset about.

The demo has proven flexible enough that more depth can be added trough modding of the game parameters.

 

Well that’s my long winded drivel I mean 2 cents on the subject. Back to the demo and my heavily modded SWR

 

Greets,

Zarkov

[Tenel]

It is in my strong opinion, that it is indeed an important thing to have repairs in the game.  There are times in games like Rebellion, when I send a fleet thats not quite big enough to a battle, but am able to severely damage the majority of their fleet.  I always keep two or three of these fleets in each system, and if that happens, then it wouldn't be too difficult to send a second of those fleets in to take out the severely crippled fleet.  This makes things much more exciting, and can turn the tide of the game from one side to the other.

 

With instant repairs, there is no point in even trying to do anything when you are doomed to lose.  You may as well just alt-tab and let the battle auto-resolve.  On the other hand, if there were repairs, you could aim to take out the shield Generator at least on each ship.. Pop the hangers to make your next fleet have an easier time of it.  It opens up the game to a whole new level of strategy.  Do you destroy one ship or pick apart 5-6 of them?

[Teradyn_pff]

The trouble is that with that, there is alot more to keep track of.  You would have to keep track of each subsystem on each damaged ship or fighter group rather than just keeping a tally of what ships are in each system.  In addition to that, you need rules, interfaces, etc to allow the player to repair his ships.  All of this would have to be added and in their defense, that is alot of work for something most likely to annoy.

 

I will point out one thing, there needs to be some kind of overview interface to help us track where our stuff is on a galactic scale.  I would like to see how many of what units are on each planet I control.  Possibly a good addition to that is information for enemy planets with an extra column for how many days old the information is.

[Frost1977]

Everyone seemed to think the instant repair feature was a bad idea, so im guessing that he dodged the question because repairs ARE instant.  There goes the strategy element of the game.  Not pre-ordering as originally planned now until I see if this is moddable into the final game.

 

 

Ehh, now I could see if the game was simply push a button and watch battles, but ehh? the system works really well in the final game, and I stand by the creative director and lead on this one. Honestly, it's not that bad.

 

???

 

it does seem to hinder the hit and run tactics that might be use by the rebels.  and some other sitiuations i could think of.  how about a simple clicky in the options menu to turn it off and on  ;D

[Teradyn_pff]

it does seem to hinder the hit and run tactics that might be use by the rebels.  and some other sitiuations i could think of.   how about a simple clicky in the options menu to turn it off and on  ;D

 

Not really.  The rebels just need to take out a ship completely and then run.  That is what they would have done anyway.  You don't send in a fleet to take out the hangar of an ISD and then leave.  That would allow the enemy to pull that ISD out and replace it while the one is getting repaired... I think that the current design is the best for the way the interface in EAW is handled.

 

And remember, your fleets will not be moving as fast in the retail version.